Hamilton often worked out of uniform, so he knew the great estates. They were where royalty risked a social life outside of their palaces, still requiring careful eyes beside them. They were where those individuals who had lost so much of their souls in the great game that they had actually changed sides were hauled. Houses like this were where such wretched people would be allowed to unburden themselves, their words helping to reset the balance that their actions had set swinging. Houses like this were also where officers like himself were interviewed following injury or failure. And finally, always finally, they were places from where such as he sometimes did not return. They were the index that ran alongside the London and abroad half of an out-of-uniform man’s life, the margin in which damning notes were made. Such buildings were the physical manifestation of how these things had always been done, the plans of them a noble motto across the English countryside. Those words could be read even if your face was in the mud. Especially then. In the circumstances in which Hamilton now found himself, that thought reassured him. But still, he could not make himself ready to die.
He’d found the invitation on his breakfast table: the name of the estate and a date which was that same day. The handwriting was in the new style, which meant that no hand had been near it, that it had been spoken onto the card as if by God. He could not decide anything based upon it. Except that the confidence of this gesture indicated that, despite everything, those who had power over him still did not doubt who they were and what they could do.
He had picked it up with none of the anticipation he might once have felt, just a dull, resigned dread. This was the answer to a question he hadn’t put into words. He had started to feel a deeper anger, nameless, useless, than any he had felt before. He knew what he was owed but had become increasingly sure he wouldn’t receive it. The fact of his being owed it would be seen now as an impertinent gesture on his part, a burden on those who had invested elsewhere. He had one request now, he’d decided, looking at the card in his numb fingers: he would ask to be sent to contribute to some hopeless cause. But perhaps those were only to be found in the blockade now, and if they didn’t want him, they especially wouldn’t want him there. Still, he’d held on to that thought through dressing appropriately and packing for the country. But then even that hope had started to feel like treachery and cowardice. The condemned man must not have anything to ask of the executioner. That was the beginning of pleading.
And yet hope stayed with him. It played on him. His own balance ate at him as he prepared. A fool, he told himself, would assume he was on his way to Cliveden to be given what he was owed. To at least be thanked for all these years and given a fond farewell. He made sure he was not hoping for that.
Now he watched from the carriage as it swung down towards the avenue that led to Cliveden. He saw nobody in the grounds, not a single worker on the fields. That was extraordinary. Normally, they would be out there in numbers, waving to any carriage from their enormous harvesters and beaters and propulsion horses. Hamilton had no idea how many servants it took to maintain an estate like Cliveden, but it must be numbered in the hundreds. There would traditionally be too many, in fact, “a job for every man and several of those jobs are lounging about just in case” as some wag had put it. On the two occasions when he’d seen an officer die in such places, it had been done (in one case like an accident, in another, and that was a scene he’d take to his grave, like a suicide) in the grounds, away from the eyes of the help. You didn’t need to clear them all out. But no, he stopped himself: surely this was just the larger version of what he’d seen at Keble? He was making new horrors for himself with no new evidence.
The carriage settled onto the end of the drive, and Hamilton stepped down onto the gravel. His knee spasmed and he nearly fell. Getting old. He wondered if they were watching this, and killed a thought that he didn’t care. He did. He must. It had been an affectation to take a carriage, he realized, when, in moments, these days, he could have walked down a tunnel from his rooms in London. And he’d brought a valise, as if he were unwilling, should he need to dress for dinner, to return there in the same way to do so. He was silently making statements with these actions. Stubborn statements. Like he’d made, as if with the intention of ending his service, that night at Keble. This new realization angered him more than anything else had. Only fools and criminals didn’t know why they did things. It seemed that he was no longer strong enough to hold that fate at bay. To arrive here as someone who bowed to the command of those other voices within one, to pain or desire or selfishness, to have allowed those threats to the balance to have grown within oneself, and to only realize it on this threshold … it was an invitation to the powers in this house to strike him down. And they would be right to do so.
He allowed himself to smile at the relief of that thought. They would be right to do so. If he could accept that, all would be well. He had brought the valise. He would not balk and desperately fly to return it, like a panicked undergraduate. If he suddenly did or said or hinted at anything not of his own volition, but that had come out of the other half of him that should be under his control, then the balance could still be restored at the cost of his life. He didn’t have to worry about that.
But the thought still came to him: those with his life in their hands didn’t seem to value the balance so much these days, did they?
That thought was like a far greater death that lay in wait.
If the world was tempting him into plucking at his own house of cards, it was because that was all everyone seemed to be doing now. He was hesitating on this drive, actually hesitating. He had seen his life as a house of cards.
Perhaps the world was dying too.
Perhaps everyone his age felt that.
But surely nobody had ever felt it in circumstances like these?
The carriage finally moved off. He made himself step forward, looking down at the valise now inescapably in his hand.
He found he had orders in his eyes. He wasn’t to go into the house but into the forest.
He made his way down a winding path to the edge of the woods. It was overcast, but the shadows from inside the forest were slanting at impossible angles, as if somewhere in there someone was lighting a stage.
He walked into the forest.
The path took him past fallen trees, not long ago cut down, by a logger who was now absent. He stopped to listen. The sounds of nature. But no sawing, no distant echo of metal on wood, no great machines. Strange that the effect could be so complete.
He came to the edge of a clearing. Here was where the strange light was coming from. It seemed to be summer here because the light was from overhead. The air was warmer. Hamilton kept his expression steady. He walked slowly into the center, and saw the trees that shouldn’t be here. He wanted to follow etiquette, but that was difficult when those one was addressing had abandoned propriety. It was as if they had grabbed the ribbon of his duty and then leapt down a well. He felt like bellowing at them. He felt awful that he felt like bellowing at them.