‘How did they get them to the top?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘They had a French architect, and a French landscape designer, so they brought in teams of those Percheron mares, sir. Amazing what they could do.’
Even when you knew what was coming, the vista as you rounded the last corner was astonishing. There was a large area of Italian garden with gravel paths criss-crossing it. The cab, Powerscourt noticed, had slowed almost to walking pace so that visitors could be impressed. And there it was, the Bath stone gleaming in the sunlight, a building that could not have come from anywhere other than France with its mansard roofs, its turrets and pinnacles, its dormers and chimneys and ornamental bits of fantasy dotted all around it. Close your eyes, Powerscourt thought, and you could hear, faint but unmistakable in the clear Chiltern air, the sound of the Marseillaise.
Powerscourt asked the cabbie to wait. A sepulchral butler led him into the East Gallery, lined with Italian paintings and a chimney-piece from a post office in Paris. They went past a sumptuous dining room, virually choking on the richest collection of Sevres tableware Powerscourt had ever seen, and on into a great drawing room looking out over the valley.
Powerscourt’s first impression of Jeremiah Puncknowle was that he was a collection of billiard balls. His head, totally bald, with a very small nose and small eyes and hardly any chin, was the white ball. His centre, again perfectly round with a gold watch chain hanging off a round stomach surrounded by a scarlet waistcoat, was the red ball. He was quite short and even his feet seemed to be trying to become round though that might have been the shoes.
‘Mr Puncknowle,’ said Powerscourt, shaking his host by the hand, ‘thank you so much for agreeing to see me at such short notice, and let me say that I have rarely been so impressed by a house as I am by your magnificent mansion here.’ He bowed stiffly.
‘Thank you, Lord Powerscourt, thank you. How very kind of you. Might I inquire as to which part of my house impressed you the most?’
The man likes flattery, Powerscourt thought, and he proceeded to offer it by the bucketful. ‘First of all there is the conception, Mr Puncknowle, the astounding idea of bringing a French chateau to England. So obvious when you think of it, but how daring and original in execution. I have most of my knowledge from a friend but I understand you have here one of the finest collections of French art, tapestry, sculpture, paintings and so on anywhere in the world. How blessed we are, sir, to have such glory in our midst!’ I pray to God, Powerscourt said to himself, that nobody I know hears me spouting this frightful tripe.
Jeremiah Puncknowle had still not had enough flattery. He wanted a sweet course, probably followed by cheese.
‘Did you see my cricket pitch, Lord Powerscourt? What did you think of that?’
‘My dear Mr Puncknowle,’ Powerscourt was rubbing his hands together now, ‘I thought that was genius, pure genius! The idea of reproducing the Lord’s pavilion here, what a wonderful idea! And I fancy your ground is slightly larger than the one at St John’s Wood, would I be correct?’
‘You would indeed be correct, sir. When I can find the time, we’re going to build seating all the way round. There’ll be more room for spectators here than there is down there in London. Then we can arrange some big matches. W.G. Grace has looked at the wicket and pronounced it excellent.’
Powerscourt wondered how much the Doctor had charged for that. ‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘what excellent news. I look forward to returning here for some great match, Mr Puncknowle.’
Something seemed to have upset the little round man’s equilibrium. He left his armchair and began walking – waddling might have been a more appropriate term, Powerscourt thought – along a narrow strip of carpet close to his windows and the spectacular views.
‘You see before you a man sadly misused by his time, Lord Powerscourt, sadly misused.’ Puncknowle had just passed Powerscourt’s position at the edge of the sofa. ‘I am sure you are aware of the misfortunes that have been heaped upon my poor head, heaped high indeed.’ The little man stretched his arms out as wide as they would go, as if he was about to be raised up on the Cross. ‘My enemies have no idea of business. They are merely consumed with their obsession to bring me down.’ Puncknowle had turned round now and was coming back down the room towards Powerscourt. He was about to pass under a magnificent full-length portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds of Colonel St Leger, friend and equerry to George the Third. The Colonel was leaning insouciantly on his horse, looking out into the distance, perhaps, Powerscourt thought, to the race that bore his name. ‘Any man of commerce would tell you, Lord Powerscourt, that the affairs of great businesses do not proceed in regular patterns. Trade does not beat regularly like a person’s heart. It is irregular. There are good years. There are bad years. Some years the sun shines upon the figures that mark your fortunes in this unhappy world, other years the figures are plunged into shadow.’
Puncknowle stopped now directly opposite Powerscourt’s position on the sofa. Outside, two peacocks, confident in their residence in one of the most unusual houses in England, were strutting arrogantly towards the garden.
‘But my enemies are wrong, Lord Powerscourt, to say that in the years of the shadow, theft and larceny were taking place, that I, Jeremiah Puncknowle, was robbing the honest citizens who had entrusted their savings to my care. That was not so! That was the trade cycle! Had my enemies not pulled the wool over the eyes of the police, my positions would have been restored, more than restored, when the sun came out again. Which it did, of course,’ Jeremiah Puncknowle had gone quieter now, almost speaking to himself, ‘only I was not here to profit from it, forced to flee the land of my fathers, and barred from trading on the Exchange.’
Powerscourt wondered if he was going to break down. But anger returned to fire his spirits.
‘The police! God help us all, Lord Powerscourt, the police! I am sure,’ he cast a crafty look at Powerscourt as he said this, ‘that you have had a lot to do with them over the years and they may be perfectly satisfactory in your line of business. But in mine? Hopeless, completely hopeless!’ Puncknowle began walking again, his hands now clasped firmly behind his back as he headed off towards a gorgeous Gainsborough of a society beauty. ‘One inspector did not know what the word dividend meant. He thought it had something to do with the Football Pools. One man, more senior yet, thought that if a firm made a loss in any given year, somebody, probably me, must have been stealing the amount of the deficit. And yet another, a Chief Inspector would you believe, a Chief Inspector, thought that double entry bookkeeping meant that you wrote up the notes from those little books they’re so fond of once, and then you wrote them up again! That’s why it was called double entry. Really, Lord Powerscourt, I ask you, what is to be done? I look forward to seeing them in the witness box, I tell you, I really do.’
The little man returned from his forced march and sat down opposite Powerscourt. ‘I’ve got Sir Isaac Redhead as my lead counsel, you know,’ he went on, ‘and I’ve got that young silk Charles Augustus Pugh. They say he’s a fearsome cross-examiner.’
Puncknowle referred to the pair as if they were leading stars in his favourite football team.
‘I know Charles Augustus Pugh, Mr Puncknowle. A tiger in the courtroom!’ Powerscourt had long since ceased being surprised at what he thought of as the moral neutrality of the Bar. Even with the little he knew he did not think he could go into court and defend Jeremiah Puncknowle. The man was too obviously a fraudster. Yet here were two highly respectable barristers, happy to take his shilling. Maybe it was more than a shilling. The lawyers, he had decided, were like the rows of cabs you could see outside the great railway termini, they were just waiting for the next fare to come along. Now seemed as good a time as any to raise his own business in Paradise.