Lessons in Power (20 page)
wall or in the summer house. Thrashing his lover at chess had become about the closest they got to
intimacy these last few weeks—he’d have been closer tackling Jonty out on the St. Bride’s pitches.
A strange moaning noise broke their quiet pleasure, a sound which grew louder and closer, revealing
itself as coming from a cat whose coat could only be described as near to blue as grey could ever
legitimately reach. A lean, handsome creature with a leonine gait and gaze.
Matthew knelt down on his haunches, rubbing the animal’s chin and back, cooing to it gently.
“You like cats, Matthew?” Rex looked down fondly too, although Orlando couldn’t tell if the
affectionate gaze was directed at the well-groomed animal or the well-groomed man who was making such a fuss of him. Matthew certainly looked twice the man he’d appeared ever since they met him. If only some of that happiness would rub off on Jonty.
“I’m fond of felines of any type, from the smallest kitten to the lions in the zoological gardens. This little chap reminds me much more of the latter than the former.”
“I always said you had a lot of sense. This isn’t just any moggy, you know.”
The men made their way to the summer house, a building perfectly placed to enjoy the sunshine at
this time of year and its corresponding point in the autumn. Their new friend decided to follow, making his low growl as he went, weaving in and out of four sets of footsteps with alacrity, avoiding being trodden on and slinking his tail along legs and calves. He was happily tolerated.
As they sat on the pleasant wooden bench, sharing some of Rex’s cigarettes from his elegant golden
case, and setting out the chess pieces, the cat stretched himself along their feet and waited to be adored. In due course he inevitably was, Jonty caressing the backs of his ears until the creature showed signs of dozing.
“Do you keep a cat, Matthew?” Rex let the smoke drift lazily from his nostrils.
“No one really
keeps
a cat, do they? Quite the opposite.”
“That’s certainly true in this case.” Jonty seemed as if he was going to enlighten them, but Orlando
wanted the game to start. It became apparent that their feline friend wasn’t able to enjoy his sleep. Ears and paws twitched, till at last his head rose to eye a forsythia bush from which a raucous twittering was emerging.
“Something’s annoying this little guy.” Rex smiled and smoothed the soft fur of the cat’s back.
“Don’t get so het up, puss. It’s only a bird, not worth your worrying about.”
Matthew smiled too, his face a picture of delight. “It’s some ignorant robin in the depths of that bush.
It doesn’t realise that he’s keeping the king of the jungle from his rightful slumbers.”
The king soon decided that he would put up with very little more. Rising and stretching, he fixed the shrubbery with a cool green eye and set off in search of prey, leaving his worshippers to listen for the robin’s demise.
“You should come and see my home, Matthew. The fall would be the best time.”
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“Fall, Rex? I don’t follow you.”
“I’m sorry—the autumn you’d call it. The colours are certainly spectacular then. You would see us at
our very best.” He smiled, thoughts far away. “I was thinking of my family home. There are groves of trees my ancestors planted purposely to set off each other’s finery when the leaves take on their loveliest hues.
Trees they didn’t necessarily see to maturity, but which they’ve left as a living legacy, as this garden’s been left to be enjoyed by later generations.”
“I’m afraid that the autumn is our busiest time. Summer’s when I take my holidays.”
“That’s when we met,” Orlando piped up, immediately regretting it. They didn’t want to be touching
on murder here, not now there was the hint of a genuinely happy smile on Jonty’s face.
Rex barely acknowledged that he’d spoken. “Come in the summer then, Matthew. We have a private
beach and moorings—you could swim to your heart’s content, with no one to bother you. And we could
sail out to the islands, watch the whales. I bet you’ve never seen one of those.” Rex’s face lit up. “Blue seas and skies that seem to melt into one at the horizon, I miss it so much, even in this paradise.”
“It would be my great delight.” Matthew’s words sounded as if they’d caught in his throat. “I fear,
however, that what with the voyage there and back I couldn’t afford the time away from work.”
“Nonsense! Your business is in excellent shape. It’s been improving year on year from what I’ve
heard, and you’ve got excellent men working for you. They could easily let you take a well-deserved rest.
From what you and your friends have said, you hardly had a restful vacation last year. Make it a better one this.” Rex’s blue eyes glowed with merriment.
“How did you get to know so much about my business and the competency of my staff?”
Orlando wondered about that, too. He could see little beads of sweat breaking out above Matthew’s
collar, and the sun wasn’t warm enough to cause them.
“Ah, I’ve been doing a little investigating.” Rex grinned. “There’s great potential in the printing
business, Matthew, you know that as well as I do. It’s a market that’s going to grow—if we can pool our resources and those of our authors, we could make huge inroads both sides of the Atlantic. I’ve been
looking for an English business to link mine with and yours would be ideal.”
“You’re suggesting some sort of joint venture?”
“I have some very definite proposals to put to you.” Rex laid a hand on Matthew’s arm. “I refuse to
discuss it here, not just in deference to our eminent hostess who seems to have banned all talk of business, but because of my own fancy. Come to America and I’ll talk to you then, about any proposal you have.”
A quality in Rex’s tone made Orlando glance up at Jonty. The man was trying hard to hide an impish
grin—their eyes caught and a spark of something leapt between them. Not lust, not yet, but some quality within Jonty had changed and Orlando was jiggered if he knew why. They both looked across at the other two men, who seemed totally oblivious.
“Any proposal?”
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“Absolutely any suggestions you have to make I’ll consider most favourably…” Rex began to lean in,
closing the transatlantic gap, but a third pair of lovebirds had appeared, in the form of Jonty’s parents, with the butler behind them, bearing tea.
“That’s a handsome cat you have here, Mrs. Stewart.” Matthew accepted his tea, the delicate china
cup looking like it might disintegrate in his rather clumsy hand.
“That tabby which the kitchen keeps? Only good for mousing, I’ve always thought.”
“No, this was a smoky grey one, he was here a minute ago.”
Mr. Stewart’s ears pricked up, like a greyhound coursing a hare. “Lovely coat, had he? Made a
strange growling noise as he walked along?”
“That’s the very one,” Rex averred. “What do you call him?”
“He doesn’t have a name.” Their host had a faraway look in his eye which was rather unnerving.
Richard Stewart always seemed so very down to earth, this expression wasn’t like him at all. “Never had one as far as I know, not even when I was a boy.”
“I think I’m being rather dense here, Mr. Stewart.” Matthew shook his head. “I mustn’t have made it
plain that I was referring to a cat which we saw here today, not the one that’s in the portrait of your father.”
If he thought he was addressing someone losing their rational faculties he was too polite to show it.
“Ah. Yes. He wangled his way into that one, too. My father was very fond of him.”
Mrs. Stewart couldn’t ignore the puzzled looks on her guests’ faces. “I believe an explanation is
called for. Richard has a rather peculiar theory about that cat. I don’t believe it for a moment.”
The man in question smiled beatifically. “It is my profound belief that same cat has been in
occupation of this castle ever since it was built.”
The hush which fell on the company was so profound they couldn’t just hear a pin drop, they would
have heard its progress through the air. A bee buzzing through sounded like an underground train.
“You must explain exactly why we’ve come to that conclusion, Papa.” Jonty bore his dreamy,
contented look again.
“There is a grey cat—a peculiar smoky grey—which features in a story dating from the founding of
this building. He appeared one day as the foundations were being laid and soon became a favourite of the masons, who spoiled him rotten, even when he walked through the mortar or got his little wet nose into things he shouldn’t have.” Mr. Stewart grinned in the same way as he did when he played with his
grandchildren. A noble, upright, fiercely intelligent man, he was surprisingly childlike and sentimental when the occasion required.
His wife rolled her eyes. “I’m sure there was, dear, but as I’ve said on innumerable occasions, he was probably the founder of a great dynasty of moggies who’ve lived around here ever since, haunting the
outbuildings and living on shrews.”
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“If that were so then we’d see the rest of the brood, mother cat and all the wretched little kittens.
We’d be overrun by the things, yet we’re not. All we see is a beautiful fully grown Tom who never changes from one generation to the next. He’s in at least two of the portraits and it’s patently obvious that it’s the same creature.”
“Now I’m the one who’s confused.” Rex’s handsome face bore more than one wrinkle of
contemplation. “I thought you said that your family only bought this place a few generations back?”
“We did, but we bought some of the paintings with it. One of them dates from just before we took this place over and shows the then-owner standing with my feline friend among the ruins. It really was a mess here, Mr. Prefontaine—why he should have wanted to preserve himself for posterity among the shambles
he’d let the place fall into, I do not know. My father decided to emulate the picture by portraying himself alongside a building now restored to its original glory, or what would have been its glory had the founder not found himself headless and hopeless.” Stewart senior grinned.
“Could it be that the family of cats live elsewhere? In the village or on one of the neighbouring
farms?” Orlando sought for a prosaic explanation.
“Ah now, that’s something which I feel is very difficult to account for.” Jonty’s eyes shone brightly.
“I’ve known that cat since I was a lad. I’ve heard him, when he’s in residence, wandering around the court at the best part of midnight. Then he’s back at seven o’clock the next morning and this goes on for days on end. No owner would be likely to settle for that arrangement. And he’s far too nicely groomed to be a feral moggy. His fur’s as well kept as the most highfaluting pedigree and he doesn’t ever look as if he’s gone short of food.”
“You never see him outside the walls, either.” Mr. Stewart, eyes alive with enthusiasm, warmed to the subject of his little feline pal. “There’s fine evenings I’ve been out looking at the bats or the stars, and you can hear him growling away inside the garden, but he never strays outside. I’ll warrant he’d disappear once he passed outside the old boundaries.”
“You think he’s a spectre of some sort?” Orlando had been racking his brains. “I’ve been here on
three occasions and in the Tudor garden each time, yet I’ve never seen him before.”
Jonty sniggered. “You’d be far beneath his notice, Orlando. He has no time for mathematicians, being
a cat with artistic tendencies. They say that Shakespeare’s players put on a performance of
The Merchant of
Venice
here and the Bard wrote the bit about
‘a harmless necessary cat’ at the last minute in honour of the little grey ball of fur. They also say that our feline friend calmly walked across the stage in the middle of Portia’s big speech. Ow!” Jonty began to rub his leg, having forgotten what an iron hand his mother
possessed.
“You will excuse my youngest son. He has a penchant for tall tales—I have no idea where he gets it
from.” Mrs. Stewart looked daggers at two of her three most beloved males. “The Bard was never here and if he was, that stupid cat would have felt the toe of his boot.”
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“The truth is that cat has no rhyme or reason to it. He’s said to be the presager of good fortune and bring happiness to the people he deigns to associate with. Isn’t that right, Papa?”
“So the story goes. I was always pleased to see him, especially thirty-odd years ago.” Mr. Stewart
turned to his wife. “I saw him here, in this summerhouse, the afternoon before you accepted my offer of marriage.”
Mrs. Stewart produced her handkerchief, wiping her eyes. “Silly beggar. I suspect that was this
moggy’s great-grandfather, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
Rex rose, to make an elaborate bow. “I’d like to offer my thanks for being such a wonderful hostess.
You’ve made me welcome in a way none of the other society couples have done, except for the ones who
had eligible daughters. They’ve been positively overwhelming and thus to be avoided at all costs. Too many people try to pussyfoot around me because of this.” He tapped his leg. “So I take it as a compliment that you treat me as one of the family.”
“You’d do better than most of us, Rex.” Jonty pointed to his own leg. “You’d have the advantage of
not feeling the smacks.”
At supper, the weather was still on the warm side, the wine was cold and the salmon perfection. The
conversation in the drawing room was pleasant and the only gloomy note was when Mrs. Stewart left to
have a word with the rector’s sister, who’d called ostensibly about some charitable matter but probably to get another look at the houseful of young men. The departure of the chatelaine always left an empty feeling which was almost tangible. Not only her benign presence, but her cheer and handsome looks were always missed.