“We must provide an incentive,” he was saying. “What, for example, could we do here after the castle is gone? How could the land be used most profitably?”
“You’re providing incentive in the cash sum you’re offering, aren’t you?”
The voice belonged to David Holt, the tall gray-haired man in a neat business suit. He sat at a long table beside John and they were studying figures from a big black book.
“I want a project,” John went on. “Cash is no good these days. Something to keep people at work and earning would be the thing.”
One of the young men stopped by. “Know what, Mr. Blayne? Under three feet of topsoil this whole hill is clay! Cement works is the answer. Rebuild all these old huts. Look at the way they did Park Avenue at home! Steel and glass and cement! Handsome.”
John laughed. “Another New York? Isn’t one enough?”
“You could make a park, Mr. Blayne,” another young man sang from the opposite side of the hall. “Disneyland, England! They need something to make ’em laugh, in my opinion. Public recreation.”
“Jot down the ideas, Holt,” John said to the lawyer. “I’ve been thinking myself of a model farm. That wouldn’t spoil the landscape. Milk parlors, silos, everything. It’s developed country you know, but jungles and castles can be equally unproductive.”
“Are you serious?”
“But certainly! I don’t want to leave a desert behind me. Let’s really go into it for the heck of it. Have the fellows make some drawings just in case — estimate the costs — the most up-to-date machinery, and Guernsey herds brought from U.S.A. There’s something romantic about that! Guernseys came from the Isle of Guernsey but like the rest of us they’ve been improved by their sojourn in America. So we return them in their modern shape. Meantime I’m not discarding any ideas. We have a week to—”
Kate on her way back to the kitchen caught the word. A week! Was he staying a week longer? She put her hands to her lips in an involuntary gesture. How could she bear it? Let him go now while she still had her heart in control! She went quickly down the passage to Lady Mary and Sir Richard in their private sitting room. It must be almost time for luncheon and she had been away wickedly long. They’d been calling her, doubtless. But no, they were sitting placidly by the window, he smoking his pipe and she at her crocheting again, as mild as though there had been no morning commotion. Philip Webster was pacing the floor, his hands in his pockets and his gray hair a tangle, as if he had thrust his hands through it too often.
Lady Mary signed to Kate that she was not needed, and Kate turned and went to her duties in pantry and kitchen.
“You could sell parts of the estate, you know, Richard.”
“I’ll not sell,” Sir Richard said. “I’ll fight to the end. … My dear”—he turned to Lady Mary—“you shall keep your realm whole. It is your realm, you know, this little kingdom — after all, there are such small realms — Monaco, Liechtenstein and now Starborough — it’s not unreasonable. You can depend upon me. I shan’t let the tenants get the upper hand. I’ve been too soft with them. What was it John Gomer said? ‘Three things, all of the same sort, are merciless when they get the upper hand: a waterflood, a wasting fire, and the common multitude of small folk.’ The year was 1385, but what he said is as true today.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Richard,” Lady Mary said absently. She was counting stitches. “Oh bother, I’ve done it wrong.” She began to unravel.
“If I should sell off bits and patches,” Sir Richard said, “people would move in. They’d build houses. The castle would be standing alone in the midst of a village.”
“I suppose they would,” Lady Mary observed, crocheting again.
“We’d be besieged,” Sir Richard went on, “but it wouldn’t be the first time, you know, Webster, and the castle can be defended. The moat is dry, of course, but that’s because it was drained against the mosquitoes. It would be easy to debouch the brook again as it was and the moat would fill up quickly. Essential, too, for people would swarm over the battlements otherwise! I planned it all, long ago.”
Webster sat down suddenly and stared at him. “You’re talking rot, Richard.”
“Indeed I am not,” Sir Richard retorted. His ruddy face was alight and his eyes glittered under his heavy brows. “It certainly is not rot for an Englishman to defend his castle. It’s his duty, he’s the king. It wouldn’t be the first time a king has stood on the tower balcony of Starborough Castle and commanded his men until they forced a retreat!” Lady Mary looked up from the pink wool. “Who would retreat, Richard?” Her voice was quiet and suddenly her face was sad.
He stared at her blankly, “People, you know — their houses—”
“What houses?”
“The houses people would build.”
“Houses won’t walk away,” she said in the same sad and quiet voice. “And they aren’t the enemy.”
“They are,” he cried. “They stifle me! They stifle greatness! That’s why kings always build their castles far away in lonely places. The Commons! That’s the enemy. The common people — the fools — the serfs — the — the — I tell you, I’ll defend this castle as long as I live! I’ll never leave it—”
She interrupted. “Do you know what they’ll do then? They’ll pull down the castle. It can’t stand here alone. In the end they’ll tear it down — or make it into something useful for themselves. It’s been here too long. I am beginning to know that.”
“Perhaps you are right, Lady Mary,” Webster said. Sir Richard was on his feet again. His brain was suddenly a burning torture inside his skull. “You two,” he muttered, “you two — against me! Where’s Wells?” He stamped out of the room.
In the silence Lady Mary continued to crochet and Webster was silent.
“It was he,” Lady Mary said at last, “it was Richard who brought the Americans here, Philip — wasn’t it?”
“Certainly it was he who wanted me to advertise,” Webster said.
“Now he doesn’t want to leave. A moment ago he said he was doing it for me. I don’t really care anymore … It’s only for him … But there’s something else, it seems. … Perhaps we’re coming to the bottom of things at last.”
Webster breathed hard, as though he were choking. “I don’t understand, Lady Mary.”
“I don’t understand either, Philip, not even Richard, it seems, with whom I have lived all these years. We’ve been happy, or I thought we had. I’m not sure about that, either, now. And I’ve always believed — foolishly, I daresay — that somehow … somebody … would help us. Perhaps they can’t. Perhaps it’s too hard for them, too. I don’t think they’ve really gone anywhere, you know, in spite of being dead. Philip, they’re just in another state of consciousness. But that’s the same as being in another country, I suppose — it really is. I’m very sorry for them, consequently. But we can’t depend on them. We must look after ourselves.”
Webster stared at her with round and wondering eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about now, Lady Mary.”
“No, I suppose you don’t.” Lady Mary sighed and put her work away into a small wicker basket.