Pax Britannia: Human Nature (19 page)

"I sprained my ankle," Jennifer admitted.

"Where's the dog?" the old man suddenly asked, his over-wrought mind flitting from one thought to the next. "Where's Ambrose?"

At the merest mention of its name, the terrier darted between Ulysses' legs, past the old man and into the warmth of the house.

Ulysses cleared his throat loudly; they needed to get Jennifer inside so that they might examine her ankle more closely. And besides, he felt like he could do with a sit down and a glass of cognac. "Excuse me, sir," he began, "but might we -"

"What are you doing just standing there?" the old man suddenly snapped. "Bring her inside. We need to take a look at that ankle."

With an exasperated
harrumph
, Ulysses helped Jennifer over the doorstep and into the antler-festooned hallway beyond. He noticed that Nimrod wiped his feet on the stiff brush doormat before entering; ever mindful of his place within the social hierarchy.

"Bring her through to the drawing room," the old man instructed, leading them inside the house, one hand on the wall to steady himself. "Make her comfortable. Get her foot up. I'll get some ice from the pantry."

"Your stick, sir," Nimrod said, proffering the handle towards the old man. He took it, barely giving Nimrod a second look.

"Now come on. Chop chop!" he ordered, stopping at the entrance to a corridor.

"Welcome to Hunter's Lodge, gentlemen," Jennifer offered somewhat belatedly, as they entered the warm embrace of the house.

Ulysses followed the old man's pointed directions, passing a dining room to his left, then on through the hall, with the staircase leading to the first floor on the right and a door marked 'LIBRARY' to the left, and finally, through the last door on the left. This lead into the drawing room itself, while the old man disappeared along a corridor opposite the dining room his stick
tap-tap-
tapping on the tiles as he went on his way.

On entering the drawing room, Ulysses helped Jennifer onto a sofa facing a roaring fire - a number of logs blazing away within the grate, filling the room with heat and flickering orange light - and made her comfortable. He plumped up a pair of cushions for her to lie against whilst he used another to help him prop up her swollen ankle.

There were two other chairs in the room. The one closest to the fire had a table next to it on which lay a pile of dusty-looking books. The tome on the top of the pile looked to be about botany. Discarded on the rug in front of the chair was a tartan-patterned woollen blanket.

"Your father feels the cold," Ulysses said, as he helped Jennifer remove her walking boots.

"Yes. He's not a well man, hasn't been for a long time."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

He unrolled the long, knee-length sock - revealing the supple, well-toned calf beneath - and Jennifer winced as he pulled it over the bruised and swollen joint. "Yup, it's definitely sprained," he said. "Sorry. Plenty of rest - that's what you need. So, what's the matter with him? Your father, I mean."

"It's not what's the matter," Jennifer tried to explain, "so much as what happened to him."

"Oh?"

Jennifer looked like she was about to say something more but at that moment the old man returned, a bucket of ice and a tea towel in his free hand.

"Here, get that on there. Wrap it up nice and tight too, mind," the girl's father instructed, pointing at his daughter's ankle with his stick.

"Yes, sir," Ulysses replied, unable to negate the sarcastic sneer that entered his voice. He never had responded well to authority, especially when it resulted in someone treating him like an idiot.

Ulysses took the bucket and immediately grimaced in pain as his damaged fingers took the weight. He let go again quickly, the tin bucket dropping to the floor with a clang.

"Can you see to Miss Haniver's leg?" he winced, addressing his manservant. "It's just that I appear to be somewhat incapacitated."

"Of course, sir. You should take a seat yourself. You look like you could do with a rest."

Ulysses regarded his manservant with unashamed admiration. He had been through just as much as the rest of them as they had fled from the predations of the Ghestdale beast and yet here he was, taking the strain and helping out, carrying on as he would with his usual duties, as if nothing were amiss.

Nimrod was, Ulysses decided, really something else. And he had always been the same, such as when Hercules Quicksilver, Ulysses' father, had been alive.

Not needing to be told twice to take the weight off his feet, Ulysses gratefully collapsed into a chair by the fire. His deerstalker and cape were gone, lost to the moors and the Barghest, but at least that was all that had been taken. Things could have been so much worse..

"So, Jennifer tells me you're a naturalist," Ulysses said, by way of making light conversation.

Hannibal Haniver, his face a wizened mask, but one that still spoke of former glory, looked myopically at Ulysses and then, without saying anything, turned his face to the fire, losing himself in the hypnotic, inconstant flames.

"I've heard your name mentioned before, certainly," Ulysses went on, in an effort to break the uncomfortable silence. He sensed Jennifer tense where she lay on the sofa, now with a cup of hot, sweet tea in her hands, the drink being intended to take away the chill of the moors and the shock that both the accident and the beast had wrought.

Ulysses swirled the cognac in the glass in his hands - a very fine Courvoisier - and then downed the last of it, enjoying the sinus clearing blast of alcoholic vapour as its essence filled his mouth.

"I might have been someone," Haniver replied eventually, with a weary sigh, "once."

"And you still are someone," Jennifer chided him, speaking up in his defence. Ulysses was reminded, however, of the fact that it had not been so long ago that Jennifer had said precisely the same thing of her father. "It's just that my father doesn't enjoy as good health as he once did," she went on.

"She is such a comfort to me, you have no idea," Haniver said. "She is not only my eyes and ears in the world beyond this house. She is so kind and gentle - just like her mother. So beautiful." The old man's eyes hazed over, as if he was looking at something that only he could see, gazing back across the years to a time when he was a younger, stronger man and his wife was still alive.

"Is that her?" Ulysses asked, pointing at a portrait hung above the fireplace.

"That's her," the old man replied wistfully. "So beautiful. I never knew what she saw in an old man like me."

Ulysses studied the painting thoughtfully for a moment. The likeness that Jennifer and her mother shared was clear.

"Yes, I know what you're thinking, and you are right," Haniver suddenly blurted out irascibly. "What is a fool like him doing with a beautiful, young daughter? Well, the truth is, I met Jenny's mother when I was already well on in years, but she made me feel young again. And she gave me some of the happiest years of my life, even though it wasn't to last."

"She died in childbirth," Jennifer said matter-of-factly, gazing into her tea.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Ulysses faltered, feeling that he should say something in acknowledgement of such a personal revelation.

"It's all right, I don't mind talking about it," Jennifer stated. "There are no feelings of guilt there. I do not have any issues to deal with in that regard. You see, I never knew her."

"But you are so like her," her father repeated and Jennifer smiled weakly. The old man turned from the flickering flames in the grate and his memories to Ulysses. "Jennifer is all I have now. I have no career or reputation to speak of, after all. No, she really is all I've got."

"There you go again," Jennifer muttered wearily. "If you would just let me explain..."

"Hush now, Jenny. Quicksilver and his man don't need to learn of all the ins and outs of my shame."

"Your shame? Oh, you're too proud!" Jennifer scolded. "I think they do, Father, because it shouldn't be your shame. We have proof now. You can go back to the Royal Society, as one utterly vindicated!"

"What?" The old man's eyes were suddenly alive with something other than the dancing firelight as he turned to look at his daughter.

"We found it, father!" Jennifer said excitedly, her former fear now replaced by an excited euphoria.

"You found it? The beast itself, not just a sign?" The old man sounded just as excited as his daughter now, and clapped his hands together in delight, his heavily-lined face lighting up with unadulterated glee.

"It was more like it found us," Ulysses added coolly.

"Yes, Daddy, we found it!"

"Oh, my poor Jenny," the old man extolled, looking like he was about to well up. "My poor child. It must have been terrifying for you. You could have been killed! I should never have let you go out on the moor alone."

"I wasn't alone; Ambrose was with me. And besides, I'm not a
child
, Daddy."

"You are!" the old man countered, his rheumy eyes wet with tears. "You're
my
child."

He took out a handkerchief, blew his nose into it, and then looked to his daughter expectantly again, the smile returning to his face.

"But how wonderful for you as well! What was it like?"

"As big as a Shetland pony, covered in a thick, black hide. Half-Rottweiler, half-wolf, half-lion, all nightmare," she gushed excitedly as she described the beast that had tried to kill them all.

"Breath like an unwashed abattoir, claws like kitchen knives," Ulysses put in, remembering the injuries he himself had suffered, "all the wit and charm of a Scotsman."

"So it's
not
just another feral dog, beaten and abused and now living wild on the moors?" Hannibal asked, although, from his tone, it sounded as though he didn't really need to be convinced that Jennifer was telling the truth.

"Oh no, not at all. It's definitely our killer."

"I don't know about you, but I feel like I could eat a horse," Ulysses suddenly threw in, interrupting the conversation. "I've not eaten anything since... since breakfast, in fact!"

Hannibal Haniver broke off from his discussion with his daughter and gave Ulysses a look that revealed exactly how he felt about the dandy and his rude interruptions, regardless of whether he had saved his precious child's life or not.

"I wouldn't mind something to eat myself," Jennifer chipped in, looking at the grandmother clock in the corner of the room. "It's past six o'clock, and I forgot to have that sandwich I made for myself I was so absorbed in my search for the beast."

"Very well, then. But I want to continue this discussion over supper."

"It's only cold cuts, I'm afraid," Hannibal Haniver said as they all took their places at the table in the lodge's dining room. Ulysses helped Jennifer to a place at the table, Nimrod pulling out Haniver's chair for him.

As master of the house, Hannibal Haniver had taken his place at the head of the table while Jennifer sat to his right, where she was able to put her injured leg up on the chair next to her. Ulysses sat opposite. Nimrod had not set a place for himself; Ulysses assumed he would eat by himself in the kitchen after they had finished their meal.

There were another six potential seats at the table, the place opposite Haniver at the foot of the table close to the heavy maroon drapes hiding a set of French windows, firmly shut and locked now against the wind and weather until the spring returned.

The chamber was decorated much like the rest of the house, all oak panelling and dark heavy drapes to keep out the coming winter chill, over-filled with heavy pieces of furniture, making the room appear even darker and more cramped than it really was.

"I would have asked Jennifer to prepare something for us," good manners dictating that the host apologise for any failings in his ability to cater for his dinner guest, "but, under the circumstances... Anyway, it looks like your batman has managed to rustle something up," he went on, surveying the epicurean feast that awaited them.

There were slices of ham, tongue and corned beef, all laid out immaculately on china platters, a bowl of picked onions, a cheese still in its rind and a radish salad.

"Only cold cuts eh, Haniver? Then I'd like to see what Christmas dinner's like at Hunter's Lodge."

"Your man," Hannibal said under his breath, towards Ulysses, "is he, quite, well, you know."

"Oh, absolutely," Ulysses said with a smile at the disparaging expression the older man offered him in response.

Nimrod, wearing a frilly pink pinny over his waistcoat, having dispensed with his coat and butler's tails, placed a jar of piccalilli on a mat in front of Haniver.

"Suits you, old man," Ulysses said, nodding at his valet. "Pink."

Nimrod didn't bat an eyelid. "Thank you, sir. I like to think that it brings out the blue of my eyes," he said, as poker-faced as ever.

"So, Haniver, who usually keeps house for you?"

"A woman from Stainsacre, a village on the edge of the moor, a Mrs Pritchard. I would have got her to concoct us something - cook us one of her venison pies or prepare a pan of her legendary Scotch broth - but her son came to collect her in that infernal jalopy of his," he said as an aside to Jennifer, "before dusk. You know what people are like since the killings began and the Press started their scare-mongering. No-one wants to find themselves caught out on the moors after dark."