Ashenden (29 page)

“Ah, here we are,” said Frances, opening another door. “The nursery.”

He stood for a moment, feeling the weight of the past. The room was empty and desolate. Part of the ceiling had fallen down, exposing
the bare laths, and a litter of distemper lay on the floor. “How can you tell?”

“Bars at the windows. We had them in ours, didn’t you?”

Sure enough, when he looked more closely he could see, as well as the bars, the curling remnants of a faded wallpaper that put rhymes into his head. “We’re not going to find anything here. There isn’t anything here.”

“O ye of little faith.” Frances was tugging at a cupboard built into an alcove beside the chimneybreast. It opened with a creak of protest and she began foraging inside. Before long she was surrounded by a disorderly heap of spinning tops, lead soldiers, and aged dolls with painted porcelain faces. “Ha,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “This looks promising.” She drew out a battered wooden box with a pitched lid set on a thick tapered base and spilled the contents on the floor. “The animals went in two by two.” She held up the lion and the lioness, both with broken tails, the coloring half worn off.

He laughed.

“Good, aren’t I? I thought perhaps a picture book, but a Noah’s Ark is somehow much more satisfactory.” She handed him the lions, stood up, and wiped the dust off her dress.

“Both of them?”

“In case anyone else has the same idea.”

*  *  *

Lanterns had been lit. The hall was a crush. As they came down the stairs, Hugo saw a group of people screaming at each other. One of them was Edward Furneval, whom he’d hated at school.

“It’s got to be a lion,” said Furneval.

“It could be Henry the Eighth,” said a girl with a feather in her hair.

“It’s a lion,” said Furneval.

Frances said, “I thought that clue was too easy.”

Hugo thought that if anyone was going to win, it shouldn’t be Edward Furneval.

“See here, what we really should do is solve the clues first. Otherwise we’ll waste time running about from pillar to post.”

“Good idea,” said Frances, consulting the card. “
Eros arranged to give you a flower.
Four letters.”

“Rose.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought. This one’s harder. “
Drink is initially the easy answer.
Three letters.”

“Tea.”

“Why?”

“First letters of ‘the easy answer.’ ”

“
Record points on page.
Nine letters.”

He considered for a moment. “Points are usually points of the compass.”

“North, east, south, west?”

“Or north, east, west, south. Ah, newspaper.”

“My goodness.” Frances pushed her spectacles up her nose. “
To find it take a little money.
Five letters. I can’t see this at all.”

“Let me look at it,” said Hugo. “Lemon. It’s hidden in ‘little money.’ ”

“Last one,” she said. “
This is time to pour.
Is it four, as in teatime? No, it can’t be. It’s five letters.”

“You’re thinking too literally,” said Hugo. “T for ‘time’ and rain for ‘pour.’ Train.”

*  *  *

Connor had worked it out. The game was publicity. Ferrars was not after Dido, nor was he some counter jumper looking to rub shoulders with a better class of person. He was trying to flog the house. It was obvious from the way he was showing them round, pointing out all its fine features.

“The doors are Spanish mahogany,” said Ferrars.

And I’m a Dutchman, thought Connor.

Leading them from room to room, Ferrars was a little worried. His original idea was that Dido should pretend to search for the treasure-hunt items, with more than a little assistance from him, as he knew where he had hidden those he intended her to “find.”
Yet, somewhat ironically, he had not entirely reckoned with the way fame worked. They had only to enter a room and it would immediately fill up with people craning their necks to see her. Every move they made was under the scrutiny of dozens of pairs of eyes. Meanwhile, there was the unsettling presence of Connor.

“Well, I have to say I admire your optimism,” Connor was saying as they stood in the dining room.

“What do you mean?” said Ferrars.

“It won’t be easy to shift a pile like this, whatever you paid for it.”

“What exactly do you do?” asked Ferrars.

“This and that.”

“I’m desperately thirsty, Connor,” said Dido in her baby voice. “Perishing.”

“What do you want, my angel?”

Dido gave it some thought. “A sidecar,” she said.

“The bar’s downstairs,” said Ferrars.

“There,” said Dido. “Isn’t that clever of me! Didn’t you say lemon was on your little list, Mr. Ferrars?”

“Yes,” said Ferrars.

“A sidecar’s got lemon in it.”

*  *  *

Downstairs, the party had reached the stage where it was taking matters into its own hands, and a number of paper lanterns had been removed from where they had been strung across the walls. People were swinging them, carrying them like glowing orbs or suns, holding them up to each other’s faces. You could see the appeal of it, how the hunger for pleasure led you to make mischief. And it was beautiful, so beautiful. The pale moth-like dresses, the flickering orange light, and the guilt of their unearned youth.

“Now, what next?” said Frances, fishing a slice of lemon out of her lemonade and putting it in her bag.

“Newspaper, perhaps,” said Hugo. “That can’t be hard to find.”

“Darling?” Sylvia stood in front of them, the kohl outlining her eyes smudged a little. She slipped her arm into Hugo’s and her
bracelets jangled. “I wondered if you could give us a teensy-weensy bit of help with these clues. They’re awfully hard.”

Hugo was distracted by the sight of Furneval and his friends dragging a stone urn across the floor, a snarling lion carved on the front.

“Just a little help,” said Sylvia.

“Which clue are you having trouble with?” said Hugo.

“All of them.”

He bent and whispered in her ear and she gave him a kiss and tottered off.

Frances glared at him. He shrugged.

“She’s tight. Two minutes from now she won’t remember what I told her.”

“Does she always get so drunk?”

“Quite often.”

“About the newspaper,” said Frances, somewhat mollified. “I’ve been thinking. Our cook always lined her drawers with it. It’s hygienic, something to do with the ink. No, don’t snigger, not those kinds of drawers.”

*  *  *

In the kitchen, which they eventually located in one of the side wings, they found half an inch of stale tea and a rose-patterned eggcup, along with a number of implements and utensils that the passage of time had silently severed from their functions. No newspaper, however.

“What do you suppose this is for?” said Hugo.

“It’s a jar opener,” said Frances. There was the sound of voices outside. “We’d better make ourselves scarce.”

They hid in a little low-ceilinged room nearby, peering out of the window, a small deal table between them, scratches and ink-blots in the grain.

“It doesn’t have to be tea,” said the girl with the feather in her hair, her voice carrying across the courtyard. “There are lots of other drinks that have three letters. Gin has three letters. So does rum.”

“So does ale,” said Furneval.

“Good job you emptied the caddy,” said Frances.

“I’m learning,” said Hugo.

A few minutes later Furneval and his friends reappeared. “What did I tell you?” said the girl with the feather in her hair. “It can’t be tea because there isn’t any.”

Hugo said, “There’s a name for that form of reasoning, but I can’t remember what it is.”

Frances, who was busy opening the drawers in the table, elbowed him in the ribs.

Words asked you to read them, whether you wanted to or not. They leapt into life, into sense, as soon as you looked at them. “No,” he said, staring at the newspaper. “We can’t use this.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a casualty list. It’s not on, can’t you see that?”

“It’s lining a drawer.”

“Even so, it’s bad form.”

“Don’t lecture me.” Frances spoke to his back. “We’re all casualties, one way or another. Do you know, we don’t go to see Daddy anymore. There’s no point. They say he hardly speaks and it’s too upsetting for Mummy. She’s met someone else now. I don’t like him very much, to be honest, but he says he’ll pay for me to go to secretarial college. A girl like me can’t rely on marriage these days. Far too much competition.”

He turned. “I’m sorry.”

She flushed and handed him the brittle, yellowing sheet. “Put it in your pocket. I’ve folded it the other way round. Now where do we find a train?”

“In a railway station.”

“Not a bad idea.”

*  *  *

“You could do worse than sell these doors,” Connor said, running his fleshy hands up and down the panels.

They were back in the library, Ferrars having given up his original plan in favor of simply handing Dido the treasure-hunt items
to wave in front of the photographers. With difficulty, these he had retrieved from their various hiding places. His concern now was that as time went by, there was the increased chance that someone would genuinely win. He knew enough about the way things worked to understand that no newspaper was going to run a picture of Tom, Dick, or Mabel on their front page, bracelet or no bracelet.

“A little more marching powder?” Connor said to Dido.

“Oh yes, please.”

The girl had the constitution of an ox, thought Ferrars.

“Care for some?” Connor said to Ferrars.

“No.” Ferrars looked at his watch. “I think we should get this over with. The press won’t wait much longer. You can tell them how you found the lemon in your cocktail,” he said to Dido.

“Doors, chimneypieces, even the plasterwork at a pinch,” said Connor, chopping up the white powder. “All worth a bob or two, if you know where to flog them.”

Ferrars had had a bellyful of Connor. The tawdriness of the man: it was contaminating. Who did he think he was? More to the point, how dare he imply that he was the sort of philistine who would strip the house bare for the sake of cash in hand? (Not that cash in hand wouldn’t be welcome right now.)

As Dido sniffed up the line, Ferrars fetched a brochure from the card table and almost threw it at Connor. “If you must know, this is what I’m planning.” He folded his arms. Some people had no vision at all.

Connor read the brochure and handed it back. Then he burst out laughing.

*  *  *

The car’s headlamps whitened the rushing hedgerows on the steep ascending bends. The air was sweet with new growth, new green. When Hugo and Frances arrived back at the house, great brass-framed lanterns lighting up the frontage, another car drove up behind them and half a dozen people, including Furneval, spilled out, dragging an inn sign behind them.

“The Rose and Crown,” said Frances, clutching the poster of a locomotive
she had removed from the station platform. “Clever. Never mind. We find Ferrars and we’ve as good as won.” She was triumphant. “We’d better split up. It will be quicker to find him that way.”

But Ferrars was nowhere. No one had seen him. Those Hugo asked were either treasure hunters and wouldn’t tell him, or were drunk, or were drunk treasure hunters. He searched from room to room, pushing and elbowing his way through the crowd, and what had seemed so beautiful earlier was now fractured and nightmarish: scarlet lipstick smeared on the rim of a glass, lanterns trampled on the stone floor, the smell of sweat and hair oil and the shrill braying of utter rot and nonsense. Four girls were doing calisthenics, shrieking, on the upstairs landing. In a bedroom off the corridor, he surprised a couple, the girl with her dress hiked up, the man crouching, pumping between her white thighs. He could only have been standing there a matter of seconds, but it felt like an hour. Then he backed out and shut the door on the disgust he felt at his own arousal.

“Frances,” he said, colliding with her on the staircase coming up from the lower hall. His heart was thudding. “Have you found him?”

All the while people were tramping up and down the staircase in a restless, purposeless parade. He leaned against the wall, his sides heaving. Someone trod on his foot. Someone else trod on his foot.

“I have,” said Frances. Her face was closed, shut in on itself.

“Well, where is he?” Someone trod on his foot. “Stop stepping on me!” he said. “These people are mad!”

“He’s on the portico. Having his photograph taken.”

“Why didn’t—”

“No point. He’s already presented the bracelet to Dido.”

“Dido?”

“Apparently she’s
won,
” said Frances, with a look of disgust. “By the way, Vivian’s been trying to find you. Sylvia’s passed out.”

*  *  *

It seemed to take forever to get Sylvia through the hall, out onto the portico, and down the stairs. Hugo had his arms wrapped under her humid armpits and across her chest; the others had hold of her feet.

With every step her bracelets rang and her dead weight threatened to send them all tumbling. He felt the strain in his shoulders and thighs; a little below, Frances’s face was white and taut.

“Is she breathing?” said Vivian.

“For God’s sake,” he said. “Set her down a moment.”

Vivian said, “I can’t tell whether she’s breathing or not.” Her voice went up an octave.
“Is she breathing?”

“Shut up, Vivian,” said Frances.

He recovered himself, tightened his grip, and somehow they struggled to the bottom. Outside they laid her on the gravel while he opened the car; then they eased her onto the backseat. “You best get in the front,” he said to Vivian. “Frances, make sure she stays on her side. If she starts choking, tell me and I’ll pull over.”

He stood a moment to catch his breath.

“You know, it was bad enough that they fixed it,” said Frances. “What really gets my goat is that she didn’t even pretend to take part.”

On the way back, Sylvia was sick all over the seats and into the footwell.