Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I have been invited to tea by Lady Clotilda,” I said.
“I would like to avoid sensitive issues lest I offend my hostess, whom my mother considers a friend. I understand that your household and her ladyship’s have not always been cordial.
Might your lordship provide some guidance regarding particulars before I unwittingly bring up the wrong subject? ”
Dunsford had remained at his desk when I’d been given leave to enter his estate office.
The room was toasty, thanks to the blaze in a large fieldstone hearth.
The hearthstones even at shoulder height were almost hot to the touch and would radiate that warmth through the night, even if the fire itself burned down to coals.
Over the mantel, where I might have expected some dignified ancestor to enjoy pride of place, Dunsford had hung a painting of a turreted and crenellated castle of golden sandstone set amid stately oaks.
The contour of the land suggested I beheld an artist’s rendering of what the original Dunsford Keep might have resembled—majestic, sprawling, and very, very expensive to maintain.
“Lady Clotilda enjoys sensitivity regarding many issues.” Dunsford held up a white quill feather over the inkpot while black ink gathered into a droplet at the tip.
“Algernon or Peter could explain to you better how to humor our neighbor. I have long since ceased to try. Was there something else you wanted, Caldicott?”
Caldicott. Not my lord, young man, or even sir. Very well, we’d skirmish for a bit, test each other’s mettle, and waste time doing it.
I took the cushioned, claw-footed seat across from the massive desk. “Her ladyship apparently numbers Algernon among her dislikes, and I believe Peter was joining his cousins for a game of billiards. I am cast upon your charity.”
The droplet fell back into the inkpot. “Ask your mother.”
“I would rather avoid applying to the distaff for aid.”
Dunsford scrawled a few words onto the paper while the fire roared softly and the mantel clock ticked. If the baron thought mere rudeness would deter my inquiry, he was in for a disappointment.
“Do you ride to hounds?” his lordship asked eventually.
“As a younger man, I could give a good account of myself in the first flight. I no longer find blood sport appealing.” I was also disinclined to go galloping across snow and ice in bitter weather for anything less than a life-and-death necessity.
“You’d prefer a breakfast without eggs? No fowl to enjoy with your supper? Let Reynard have the run of the property?”
“I prefer to leave fox hunting to those who enjoy it. Insult me for that all you please, my lord, but you haven’t distracted me from my original query: What is the basis of the feud between you and Lady Clotilda?”
He aimed his quill at the inkpot again, let it hover for a moment undipped, then laid the feather in the pen tray.
“What possible business could Carstairs family ancient history be of yours, and don’t try that nonsense about making polite conversation again. You aren’t stupid. You can discuss the weather as well as any other lordling.”
“Such flattery, my lord, will surely put me to the blush. You will be astonished to learn that in addition to possessing a modicum of intelligence, I also claim a modest share of honor. Something or somebody is preventing your son Bryson from coming home to stay, and that troubles me. Either your disagreeableness or some other ongoing conflict keeps him tramping the wilds of Surrey. He longs to tend his own acres and set up his nursery. Laudable objectives, but some difference among his friends and family, some ill will, prevents him.”
Dunsford sat back and folded his arms, very much the displeased lord justice. “Bryson has told you this?”
“He implied as much, in confidence, when sufficient homage had been done to the decanters.” Fabrication on my part. Bad of me. Needs must. “As a fellow soldier who was welcomed home without question, despite dwelling under a cloud of scandal, I am offended at Bryson’s situation.”
“You are meddling.” Three words carrying a coal bucket full of scorn.
“Somebody had best intervene, or you and the darling Delaplanes won’t see much of your second son.”
That riposte earned me a thunderous scowl, and I was abruptly out of patience with the baron.
“Bryson occupies the post of gamekeeper,” I began.
“He was a sharpshooter, a Rifle, one of the best, and he would give much to no longer make his living slaughtering game with his gun. He knows husbandry of the land as I do not, drainage, turbary, agistment, and the like. He writes poetry, dammit, and he deserves to come home, but some petty squabble or past offense consigns him to banishment in Surrey.”
I’d said a bit more than I’d intended, though I hadn’t raised my voice. Yet.
“What has peat-cutting or…” Dunsford glanced at the bookshelf along the inside wall. “Grazing? Agistment refers to grazing rights, I believe—what have they to do with Bryson taking his proper place here at the Keep?”
“Rights in common land are irrelevant to the present discussion, but a soldier’s right to return home after the war ought to be sacrosanct.”
Dunsford wrinkled his nose. “You are fanciful, my lord. Bryson is welcome at the Keep, whether he seeks to reside here or favor us with a few days of his company. If anything happens to Algernon, the whole Keep could pass into Bryson’s hands.
If he’s happier in Surrey, I haven’t any right to demand he quit that post. Let there be no doubt Bryson is welcome under this roof. ”
A fine speech. “He is not happier in Surrey. What ill will lies between you and Lady Clotilda?”
My question provoked a quirk of the baron’s lips. A smile, perhaps, or his version of a humorous expression.
“I knew your father, my lord. Most tenacious, hardheaded, insufferable young fool ever to place a wager. He was brave, though—he married the fair Dorothea, after all—and in many particulars, you are his son.”
“If you are attempting flattery to atone for your insults, thank you, but I’d rather have a straightforward answer.”
“Attempting flattery.” The baron honked dismissively. “The last person I flattered was… I can’t recall. No use for flattery whatsoever. Lady Clo blames me for her brother’s death. The fool was deep in his cups, driving a green horse in bad footing, and somehow, I am responsible for his death.”
Well, well, well. “You were racing?”
“I was winning. Dolyn’s vehicle came to grief on a sharp turn.
Took a knock on the head. Did not die immediately.
We got him to the nearest posting inn, and all he wanted was more brandy.
Took him three days to expire, and I vow it was the drink—he swilled oceans of it, even while abed—and not the fall that did him in. ”
A man could drink himself to death. Many a soldier had tried and succeeded. “How long ago was this?”
“Centuries. We were supposed to be at university. Back in the day, that was simply a place to stash boys who weren’t ready for the real wickedness of London and weren’t wealthy enough to tour the Continent.
Then too, the French were losing their minds right about then.
Minds they have yet to find, if you ask me. I was the heir. No grand tour for me.”
So Dunsford had pursued a curriculum of wine, women, and wagering. “Does Lady Clotilda bear a grudge sufficient to deny you the company of your younger son?”
“I’m sure she does, but she lacks the means to tell anybody what to do, much less one of my boys.
She’s very much given to ordering people about, of course, but she doesn’t yet occupy the throne.
You should remind her of that when you’re taking tea in her fancy parlor.
After you’ve discussed the weather, of course. ”
For all his rudeness and evasiveness, I believed the baron when he said Bryson was welcome at the Keep. Welcome by Dunsford, in any case.
“Was Michael’s death also a matter of university boys being foolish?” I asked.
“University boys are foolish by definition, and this discussion is at an end. You will excuse me. I have correspondence to tend to.”
I’d had enough of mine host’s charming company, though I also had more questions for him. “Think about old grudges, my lord, and who might wish to keep Bryson from coming home. I’ll leave you to your letters.”
He took up his pen and dipped it once again into the inkpot.
“I bid you good day, Dunsford, and thank you for your time.”
He continued scratching away with his pen, or pretending to. “Regards to your mother and to Lady Clo. Never let it be said a Carstairs was deficient in his manners.”
He might just possibly have been joking at his own expense.
I stopped before reaching the door and took a moment to peruse the volumes on the bookshelf. Plenty of agricultural pamphlets and also travelogues. The Far East, the Highlands, darkest Bulgaria, and the mysterious Nile.
Tucked in among those far-flung destinations I spotted two volumes of poetry by B. Carstairs. The spines were thoroughly creased on both.
I walked the distance from Dunsford Keep to Lady Clotilda’s door. Since serving in Spain, I’d developed a need to acquaint myself firsthand with whatever terrain I found myself in. I also wanted the time to think.
Dunsford’s acres, at least those nearest the Keep, had the settled, almost-worn quality of an ancient estate.
The bridle paths were nearly as wide as cart lanes, some of them also a bit sunken.
The wooden stiles were weathered to silver, the fallow fields few and small.
Larger patches had clearly been kept in cultivation, though the stone walls between them were disintegrating, perhaps through neglect, more likely from intentional repurposing of the stones.
Though as to that, I hadn’t seen any new construction in the vicinity of the Keep. Perhaps the stones had found a use in the estate village.