The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton (12 page)

Laurence shook his head.

‘Julian would mind,’ Patrick said. He inhaled deeply.

They dined early because they needed to make a very early start to Wembley the next morning. The discovery of the floor seemed to have excited everyone.

Lydia said, ‘Do you think we should tell the bishop?’

Eleanor said, ‘They’d probably dig up the maze and take it to Salisbury.’

A secret Easton maze,’ Julian said rather earnestly. ‘And to think it was under our feet all the time.’

Patrick looked at him and seemed about to speak but he paused as Frances spoke to William.

‘I’m not like Lydia. When she came here she thought it was quaint, but I find the name Easton Deadall a bit sinister. When I was little in London and I first heard Lydia was coming to live at a place called Deadall, I was scared.’ She opened her eyes wide in mock fear. ‘The more so when I knew I’d be coming too. I thought the names of English villages went back to the medieval Church and were things like Barking Abbots or Priests Worthy, or were in Latin: Parva, Regis or Nowhere-cum-Nowhere. All those impossibly rural names dripping mud and madness, like Cold Withers or Sheepscurvy.’

‘There’s nowhere called Sheepscurvy, Frances,’ Eleanor said with an assumed sternness. ‘You made that up.’

‘There is a jolly-sounding place called Cold Slad,’ Laurence said.

For once, he thought, the small ghost of Kitty Easton was not hanging around the conversation and people could be normal, light-hearted, themselves. He had been here only a few weeks but sometimes he felt exasperated by their frozen memories: not by Lydia, in whom it could only be expected, but with the others.

‘Well, Sheepscombe then,’ Frances said. ‘There is a Sheepscombe. But Deadall—’

‘It’s unlikely to have anything to do with death,’ Julian said. ‘It will be a version of something perfectly innocuous because English place names are very old.’

He had reverted to the sort of pompous defensiveness that Patrick’s presence seemed to bring out in him.

‘It’s probably from the word “deed”—land deeds or something.’

‘Actually,’ Patrick said, sitting forward, ‘I was thinking about that as I drew the maze in the church. Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt, Evans’s work on Knossos on Crete: what do they have in common?’

He looked around, more to see that he had got everybody’s attention than expecting an answer, Laurence thought.

‘Each has a labyrinth, a maze. And what is a maze? An architectural mystery? A place of arcane ritual, a hiding place? Even, if complicated enough, a fortification?’

Patrick looked directly at Julian.

‘I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, regarding Easton. But I think Deadall is a variant on Daedalus.’ He ended on a slight note of triumph.

‘The father of Icarus?’ Eleanor said.

Patrick nodded more vigorously.

‘Daedalus the craftsman,’ Frances said, slowly. ‘But I don’t see how that links with—’

‘In ancient myth, Daedalus created the Labyrinth,’ Laurence said, seeing Patrick’s pleased expression. William was nodding.

‘He made it to keep the monster—the Minotaur—in,’ Laurence said. ‘In Crete.’

‘Fortunately here at Easton we have captured only Aphrodite,’ William said with a small smile.

Patrick said, ‘There have always been rumours that there’s been a maze at Easton. Maybe it was never a hedge maze. Or maybe, if there was a hedge maze, the idea was taken from the church. Possibly one of our papist ancestors had seen one in a French cathedral and copied the idea. It’s more than likely.’

Even Julian looked interested, his sceptical expression fading, and Eleanor was leaning forward, resting her chin on her hands.

‘And the ones in France could have been inspired by ancient settlements,’ William said. ‘They have standing stones there as well as at Avebury and Stonehenge.’

Maggie, who had slipped in almost unnoticed, removed some dishes and handed Julian a new bottle of wine, but he simply set it on the table. He was frowning slightly, in perplexity, Laurence thought, not displeasure.

‘Once it was probably Easton Daedalus. Or something Daedalus. As Julian says, back in the mists of time, villages took the names of landowners or were named after any distinguishing feature.’ Patrick looked at Frances. ‘Hence Sheepscombe. Simply Sheep Valley. It’s the same principle with Bridgwater, or Blackpool. With us it’s the family who owned land around here, Easton, plus Daedalus, after the maze.’

Julian looked puzzled. ‘Are you saying they named it after a maze or the maze was designed because of the name?’

Laurence thought it a good question. William had referred to one example of a church copying a hedge maze in eastern England, but Patrick shrugged.

‘Not a clue, Jules, old chap. It’s only a notion. We’ll never know, although,’ he paused, ‘my guess is it may be some kind of folk memory of the prehistoric remains roundabout. For all the strange structures and the digging and the wild guessing over the last two centuries, we haven’t a clue what else was involved, or what else they built that wasn’t as durable as the Welsh granite they brought to Stonehenge. They may have made wood henges; they might have used hedges for mazes. We really have no idea.’

It seemed to Laurence that Julian and Patrick were actually not so unalike. Julian’s interest in agricultural innovation and Patrick’s passion for the distant past were not dissimilar; he’d even glimpsed physical similarities between the brothers as Patrick had spoken. For once, Patrick was not lecturing in a manner that suggested he was cleverer than everybody else but, rather, wanting to share an idea.

‘It does make me think that the story of mazes associated with Easton has real substance to it,’ Patrick said, and then added, almost an eager schoolboy, ‘don’t you think?’ His eyes moved from one face to another.

Frances said, looking at her sister, ‘It makes what Lydia’s doing seem inspired, putting a maze at the heart of Easton again.’

‘But it is only a theory,’ Julian said firmly, although he seemed intrigued almost in spite of himself. ‘As you say, we’ll never know.’

‘It’s a good theory, though,’ Eleanor said. ‘It feels right. Labyrinths, mazes, whatever you call them—stone patterns or ancient hedges, they’re part of the whole history of the area.’

Julian flushed. Did he think Eleanor was contradicting him, Laurence wondered. Did he not see Eleanor might want to emphasise the importance of William’s work?

‘I like the idea,’ Lydia said. ‘Kitty loved the story of the Minotaur. She thought he was only bad because he was lonely. She wanted to rescue him and feed him clover.’

The room was suddenly a place of clanging knives and forks, gulps of wine and clicks of forks against teeth. A momentary shifting of logs in the fire. The creak of a chair. Nobody spoke. Then, as if they’d all been suspended in time for a few seconds, William asked Julian if he could revisit the generator shed and whether in time it would have the capacity to drive electricity for the cottages.

Patrick turned to Laurence. He spoke quietly.

‘You should consider coming out to Knossos one day. I shan’t be there for much longer but I think you’d find it interesting, if a little startling in its current incarnation. Spring or autumn’s best. Summers are abominable. Searing heat and the Meltemi, a wind that drives men mad and covers the site in grit, blows incessantly ... But in spring, with the snow still on the White Mountains, and olive blossom blowing like fine, pale-green snow, and the sea still cold...’

Laurence felt instant excitement, his customary caution set aside. Perhaps Patrick Easton was just making conversation but to see these great palaces and this faraway island with its heat and strangeness, whose ancient people, Evans had revealed, were entirely peaceable, would be the journey of a lifetime.

‘I’d like that very much.’

‘The thing is, what you feel there is that these people were alive. They weren’t setting out to be mysterious. They were just living their lives: whether nasty, nice, ugly, beautiful, successful or unlucky. Their world was coherent to them, just as ours is to us.’ He paused. ‘Or to most of us, away from Easton.’

‘When I was on honeymoon,’ Lydia said, and Laurence felt a sudden sadness for her as the room tensed again, ‘we saw a labyrinth in a church.’ Embarrassed by the sudden attention her words had caused, she faltered. ‘I think it was in Italy, near Milan. Maybe. Or Florence—my memory is not too good these days.’ She pressed her fingertips to her temples. ‘It wasn’t at all religious, though, and despite being in a church it had a Minotaur—one like Patrick’s—in the middle. It said so in Latin. Digby read it to me.’

Patrick looked triumphant. ‘Exactly, Lydia. Exactly.’

Lydia gave him a brilliant smile.

‘I wish Digby could have been here to share all this,’ she said.

Chapter Seven

The day began full of promise. Even first thing it was already warm and bright. While David drove Eleanor, Nicholas and Maggie to London, Laurence had agreed to travel by train with Patrick, Frances and Julian. When he went down to breakfast, Eleanor and William were nowhere to be seen, but hearing a giggle from the butler’s pantry he put his head round the door. Nicholas was kneeling on a chair in the kitchen, watching Maggie putting crockery in one of the picnic baskets.

‘Isn’t it exciting?’ she said.

He noticed she had put a ribbon in her hair. Animated and with her eyes shining, she looked more childlike than usual. He thought that although everybody was perfectly kind to her, she could never have had much fun in her life. Her best hope was being useful.

‘Mrs Hill says they’ve got Chinamen with pigtails and Wild West cowboys and the King and Queen might be there and Miss Frances says there’s a great big tent full of chocolate. And a sugar mountain.’

Nicholas’s eyes had widened. ‘And Not Stop. Mummy says there’s a Not Stop.’

‘Not Stop?’ Laurence said.

‘It’s Never Stop,’ Maggie said, like a big sister. ‘Never Stop, Nicky. Give me that plate.’

She looked at Laurence as if he were half-witted. Lifting up the side plate, she turned it to the light and rubbed it with the sleeve of her cardigan.

‘It’s been in the papers, Nicky’s mother showed us. It’s a bit like a train but it doesn’t have a driver or anything and it just goes slowly and doesn’t stop and people get on and off.’

Laurence nodded. ‘Right. Right. Well, I hope I can have a go on it.’

‘Nicky will have to be very careful getting on,’ Maggie said firmly.

‘And Red Indians and an elephant,’ Nicholas said.

‘It’s just its head,’ Maggie said. ‘But there’s an ostrich and a whole statue of Prince Edward with his horse in butter. How do you think he doesn’t melt? Will they eat it after? How do you think you do a statue in butter?’

‘I’ve really no idea,’ Laurence said. ‘We’ll have to try it. We’ll need a lot of butter, though.’

Maggie’s face fell a little. ‘Not of the prince, though, as Nicky’s mother says he’s weak and ind—indolent ... even if he’s quite handsome.’

Laurence set his face in what he hoped was a serious expression. ‘Well, I’m sure she’s right. Nicholas’s mother is something of an expert on the royal family.’

Nicholas beamed. For a second he looked extraordinarily like his father. Laurence watched him pick up a teacup and hand it to Maggie.

‘Good boy,’ she said approvingly, then turned to a rack of biscuits and started to load them into a tin. Nicholas touched one with a finger.

‘All right,’ Maggie said. ‘You can have one. Just one, mind, and don’t finger them all.’ Then she looked at Laurence. ‘I made these, Susan taught me. Susan is the best biscuit and cake maker in Easton.’ She giggled, and Laurence thought he had never heard her laugh before. ‘Susan says biscuits were the way to David’s heart. Do you want one?’

He was about to say no when he caught sight of her eager expression.

Absolutely. Just one. And I won’t finger the others.’

He bit into it. They were ginger biscuits, soft and fragrant.

‘Well, Susan’s certainly taught you well,’ he said. ‘He’ll be a lucky man who marries you.’

She blushed a deep red almost immediately and he hoped he hadn’t offended her but then she looked up and smiled shyly.

‘I was actually looking for Mrs Bolitho,’ he said. ‘Nicky, do you know where your mother is?’

‘She’s gone to the maze with Daddy,’ Nicholas answered. ‘She’ll be back in ten minutes. Then we’re going in the car.’

Laurence walked down the passage, past the laundry room with its boiler and two big Belfast sinks. Sheets were hanging from an overhead rack. A disintegrating hamper was pushed to one side under the half-open door of a laundry chute, and three irons stood ready for heating on the range next to a packet of Reckitt’s Blue.

Although it was not washday and the fire was out, the lingering smell of washing soda and starch took him back to childhood. His more modest home had had a separate washhouse and a woman who came in to do the family laundry. She was so fat that when she waddled down the garden in her pinafore, her arms full of washing, it was hard to tell where sheets ended and woman began. He would stand in the doorway, watching her huge arms force the dirty clothes down into the suds and wring the sheets out with thick red hands. She chatted all the time but with such a strong Irish accent that he scarcely understood anything she said to him. His mother had put a stop to it all when she’d arrived home in a new hat one day and he’d looked at the waving feathers and said, ‘Jaysus, but you’re a sight for sore eyes.’

He passed through the baize door, which thudded softly behind him. The house was completely silent. He peered into the drawing room; its careful formality appeared unchanged from the previous century except for a solitary copy of
Country Life
left on a side table, its pages curling, and a plaited brown strand of wiring running to a lamp. He tried the latch on the right-hand french window. It opened easily. He stepped on to the terrace. The sky was virtually cloudless, the blues, pinks and lilacs of June flower beds fresh in the early-morning air. Unseen birds were singing and he could even smell the old roses that clung to the wall.