The Murders of Richard III - Elizabeth Peters [22]
“Liz…”
The girl shook her head again. The cloud cleared from her face, which regained its habitual expression of sulky boredom.
“Thomas, you are too much,” she said lightly. “One can’t resist teasing you, you’re so trusting.”
Without giving Thomas time to reply, she raised her voice in a shout.
“Mother! Isn’t it time for the ladies to retire? We’ll never start the meeting at this rate.”
Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones glared. She was not quick at repartee. It was Weldon who replied amiably,
“What conventional circles you move in, Liz. I thought your generation lingered over the port along with the men.”
“Port is not what we linger over,” said Liz. “You’re close, though.”
“None of us is going to linger tonight,” Weldon said, as Philip laughed and Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones pondered Liz’s comment. “We’ll have coffee later, at the meeting, if that is agreeable. In the Great Hall at eight, then. Frank, you’re giving the first paper.”
“Right, sir. I’d better go up and get my notes together.”
Weldon gave the younger man a friendly pat on the back.
“Not nervous, are you?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Nothing to be nervous about. We’re all friends.”
Frank glanced from Philip’s wide white grin to Kent’s anticipatory smile. His affable face took on a look of deep gloom.
V
The reverberations of a gong summoned the members to the meeting. Thomas had been refreshing his memory with Kendall’s Richard III; when he reached the Hall, most of the others were already present. He stopped in the entrance to enjoy a moment of sentimentality; the reconstruction of Richard’s former home delighted him. Jacqueline, also late, came up behind him, and Thomas moved aside so she could see.
It was a vast room, its floor of unpolished Purbeck marble stretching away like a skating rink. The fireplace was a simple rounded arch of carved stone, without mantel or hood. At the far end a minstrel’s gallery, balustraded in dark oak, was reached by a winding stair. Windows filled the upper half of the Hall; each light rose to a pointed arch framed in stone trefoils. Panes of stained glass replaced some of the diamond-shaped panes, and Weldon had made sure Richard’s coat of arms was included along with those of other characters in the Ricardian drama. The lower half of the walls was covered with priceless old tapestries from Weldon’s collection.
The real glory of the room was its ceiling. Sculptured, painted beams intersected in complex patterns, with bosses and hanging ornaments at the points of intersection. Enough of the natural wood had been left to provide a mellow brown background for the designs in crimson and green and shining gold. Thomas had never asked, but he felt quite sure that the gilt was genuine gold leaf.
On the dais at the far end Weldon had placed a table, as long as a fallen oak, surrounded by chairs that were copies of fifteenth-century furniture, with high, carved backs and seats of crimson velvet. Weldon was already seated at the head of the table. His mammoth chair dwarfed his slight body, and Thomas’s mouth pursed in a silent whistle as he observed the chair. It was new since his last visit, and from the crown on the back to the shape of the arms it rather suggested a throne.
Perhaps it was the throne that had cast a hush over the assembled group. The silence continued as Thomas escorted Jacqueline down the length of the room. He felt like the victim of some formal ceremony, marriage or investiture or coronation, and he wondered if the floor was as slippery as it looked. Jacqueline paced solemnly at his side, looking neither to right nor to left. Thomas knew she was enjoying herself immensely.
Liz winked at him as he took his seat. Philip was sitting next to the girl; he nudged her and said something in a whisper, so close to