I had already seen the ground-floor rooms, and there was a padlock on the door to the tower. I assumed it had been closed permanently, but that wasn’t the reason why it was locked.
“Sir Edward’s brother, Jeremy, has lived there from the time he was a young man, and he rents it from the Catons,” Jack said. “When he comes home, he stays in the tower, the bachelor’s HQ, he calls it. No one is allowed in there unless Jeremy is with them; even Freddie respects his wishes. You might have a chance to meet him since he’s giving a lecture in London in September.”
“Mr. Lacey’s brother is still alive?” With the exception of one passing reference from Michael, no one had said anything about him.
“He was alive as of the date of the letter he wrote to Beth telling her he was coming to England.” Jack was laughing because he didn’t understand how I could be so interested in people who were no relation to me.
We went downstairs where Freddie had promised to frisk me. He was bent over with his ear to the radio listening to a broadcast from Russia. “Jack, come here.” Pointing to the radio, he said, “That’s Moscow I’m listening to. Don’t have a bleeding clue what they’re saying although I keep hearing the word Berlin.” Because of the crackling, Freddie turned the radio off. “I reckon British Intelligence are listening, too, so it’s safe for me to take the day off.” Looking at me, he said, “I was too young for the first fight and too old for the second, so they made me an air raid warden in the last war. If I saw any Nazi bombers headed our way, I was the one who was supposed to warn the sheep.” He jumped off his stool and said, “Would you like a cuppa, dear? I’m just about to have my tea.”
Jack told him we had to get back to Crofton, as Beth was expecting us. But Freddie told me to come back and said, “Next time, leave the bodyguard at home, and we’ll have some fun.”
When we got back to Crofton Wood, Beth was in the kitchen preparing the tea. She asked my opinion of Montclair, and I told her the best view in the whole house was from her bedroom. “Yes, I do miss that,” Beth agreed. “There were always sheep in the pastures, and I’d watch the border collies move them from pasture to pasture through the narrow gates in the stone walls.” Excusing herself, she told us she would be right back. She returned with a large folder, the kind artists use to carry their drawings. Sitting down on the sofa, she untied the string that was yellow with age, and inside were a dozen sketches drawn by Reed. She pulled out a drawing of the exact view she had just described to me, right down to the collies running through a flock of sheep.
The first sketch had been drawn in the spring, when the sheep had dropped their lambs. There was a man holding a staff moving the sheep from one enclosure to another. You could see enough detail in the hand to know the man was old, but, as Jack had said, Reed chose not to draw his face.
“Here’s the same view, painted with watercolors in the spring, but just the pastures.” Pulling out a third drawing, Beth said, “and here is a pen and ink drawing of the pastures in winter. Which one do you like best?”
I liked them all. But I was drawn to the winter scene, which showed a stark, snow-covered landscape with broken stone walls and denuded trees. I pointed to the black-and-white drawing, and Beth handed it to me. She explained that she wanted the drawings to go to people she cared about and who appreciated her brother’s talents.
After I went to bed that night, the drawing stayed with me. While visiting Venice, I had seen Giorgione’s La Tempesta, and I had heard an elderly gentleman say that a man’s art was a window into his soul. If that was the case, then Reed Lacey’s art showed someone who was at ease with nature but who was so distrustful of people that he chose not to draw their faces.
On Sunday morning, I was sitting in the pew of St. Michael’s Church with Beth and Jack. As a Catholic, I wasn’t supposed to participate in a Protestant service in any way, including standing up when everyone else did. But because of my relationship with Rob, I had violated so many of the Church’s teachings that I had decided “in for a penny, in for a pound.”
Unlike Catholic churches, which have mandatory Sunday attendance and crowded services, St. Michael’s was barely halfway full, so it was a good thing Beth’s grandmother had bequeathed an annuity to the church to pay the pastor’s salary in perpetuity. Rev. Keller’s sermon wasn’t exactly riveting, and I found myself thinking about the time Michael Crowell and I had toured the Peak District in Beth’s Aston Martin. It had been an enjoyable afternoon, followed by dinner with his parents at the Grist Mill, a favorite restaurant of the Crowells.
Between the wars, the owners of the mill had converted it to a restaurant. Cars had made this once-remote spot accessible, and it had become popular with tourists on their way to the Peak District. It was made of solid stone and had massive beams going across the ceiling. Jack explained it was rare to see beams of that length because the Royal Navy took most of them for the masts of their ships “when Britannia ruled the waves.”
When we arrived, we were told the restaurant would not open for another three-quarters of an hour. We made a reservation and walked down to the river where picnic benches were scattered under the trees. Sitting at one of the picnic tables, Michael asked what I thought of Montclair.
“It’s nice to have a place in the country,” I answered. “But it’s not Chatsworth.”
I started to laugh when I saw his confused expression. “Sorry. I’m kidding.” I kept laughing, and so I explained. “In Elizabeth Garrison’s diary, she was always commenting on Will Lacey’s quizzical expression. He probably looked a lot like you do now. But then he was your ancestor.” After he realized I was joking, I answered his question. “Montclair is a jewel, and the grounds are gorgeous. But what I liked best was the mural painted by your Uncle Reed. I felt as if he wanted me to walk out onto the terrace with him.”
“The puppy in the mural was Blossom, Reed’s beagle,” Beth explained. “Blossom’s hind legs had nerve damage and were nearly useless, so Tom and Reed made a little cart for her. After that, she got along quite well.”
“I’ll say she did,” Jack said, laughing. “Blossom had free rein in that house, and she banged that cart into every piece of furniture the Laceys owned. I remember Macy, the parlor maid, carried a brown crayon in her pocket to color in the dents on the furniture.”
The meal was excellent, but it was the company I enjoyed most. It was obvious how much the Crowells loved being with their son, and with good reason. Michael was gracious, intelligent, and witty. I didn’t understand why he was still running around loose.
When Michael mentioned that he was in a relationship with a woman from his station, I lied and said that I was in one, too. After he returned to Malta, I put him out of my mind, and the only direct contact I had with him was an exchange of postcards. But with Rob unwilling to even discuss our future, I could feel the fabric of our relationship beginning to fray. As a result, I was once again thinking about Michael Crowell, and he was helping me along because he had stopped sending postcards and had started writing letters.
The first two were general in nature. He wrote about the long days of serving in a peacetime RAF and about the rebuilding of Malta. The island had been pummeled day after day by the Luftwaffe during the war, and because of their heroism, George VI, in April 1942, had awarded the George Cross on a collective basis to everyone on the island. The second was a visit he and a group of his mates had made to Morocco and its Kasbah. It was in the third letter where he revealed that his relationship with Audrey had ended.