“Then why—,” he began, but she interrupted him in her gently ruthless way.
“Why ask you to the castle? It’s a question I can’t answer. You’re someone in yourself—though you’re only a boy, yet. I don’t know who you are. You’re not very American. You’re someone quite apart. I shan’t bother about you, you know. You’ll be free to come and go. And I’ll be free, too. You’ll understand that. I’ve a curious feeling that you understand everything. There’s something about you… I don’t know… something old and wise… and quiet—very strange! I suppose you’re what the people of India would call ‘an old soul.’ We went to India once, my husband and I. Actually, it was on our honeymoon. We wanted to see the Taj Mahal by moonlight together—banal, wasn’t it? But I’m glad we did. I’ll never forget. And then we got really interested in India. There’s no other country, I’m sure, where one feels the people are born old and wise and—knowing. You have that same knowing.”
He laughed. “And yet I don’t even know what you mean by that word!”
“You’re young, too,” she retorted. “And you weren’t born in India. You were born in a very new, brash young country—which was a great mistake, I fear!”
She laughed, and then they were silent again and for a very long time, but quite at ease, in spite of silence. That was what puzzled him. He was at ease with her, as though he had known her always. And yet she was a stranger, living a life entirely unlike his own. He felt excitement, more than the excitement of being in a new country.
IT WAS DUSK WHEN THEY DROVE through a small village and he saw, a few miles beyond, in the open countryside, softly rolling hills, the outline of a crenellated wall, and above it the turreted roofs of the castle.
“William the Conqueror built it,” she explained, “and for five hundred years it was a royal seat. Then it was given to an ancestor of my husband as a reward for some feat of honor in war. And Seatons have been there ever since, until now, and I suppose it’s only by the generosity of the nephew—no, my husband insisted I was to have the right to live here for my life, if I wished. I daresay someday I shall want to live somewhere else—perhaps even with someone though not married—or alone, if I still like being alone.”
They were drawing near now, and suddenly all the lights of the castle flashed on, and it stood brightly outlined against the darkening sky.
“It is beautiful,” she murmured, half to herself. “I always forget how beautiful it is until I’ve been away and then come back to it. I’ve always come back alone until now. It’s rather nice having someone with me—which surprises me, somehow, since I’ve always wanted to come back alone after Moresby died—Morey, I called him.”
“It’s great luck for me,” he said. “Much better than wandering about London by myself—though I’m used to being alone too, being an only child at home and always too young for my schoolmates.”
“What did they do with you in school?” she asked curiously. “You must have been a brilliant little pigmy among big, stupid giants!”
He thought a moment, remembering. “I think they didn’t like me,” he said at last.
She laughed. “How could they? They hated you! Ordinary people always hate the rare few who have brains! Did you mind?”
“I didn’t have time to think of it,” he said. “I was always too busy—making something, reading about something—talking with my father—”
“Your father meant everything to you, didn’t he—”
“Yes.”
“Then he died.”
“Yes.”
“And there’s been no one else?”
He hesitated, then replied. “Yes… a professor—a very brilliant man—but—”
“You’re not friends anymore?”
She had a soft, persistent way with her. He wanted to tell her about Donald Sharpe and did not. He had resolutely tried to forget, and now to put that experience into words would make it all real again. That friendship, that affection—call it what he might—had gone very deep. There had been so much, so very much, about Donald Sharpe to like, even to love. There had been understanding such as he had not found since. It must not be recalled.
“No, we are not friends anymore,” he said abruptly.
And before she could ask why, they were crossing the bridge over the moat, gates were thrown open, and they were at the castle itself.
“Welcome to my home,” Lady Mary said.
THEY WERE IN THE GARDEN in the morning of this his first day in England. The previous night, after an early dinner, she had bade him good night almost coldly, and he had been shown to his room by a manservant, who drew his bath, turned down the bed covers, and laid out his pajamas. His suitcases had already been unpacked and his three suits hung in the closet of a dressing room. This he discovered when the man had left him after asking when he would like to be waked.
“What time is breakfast?” he had asked.
“Her Ladyship takes breakfast in her own rooms, sir,” the man had replied.
He was a short young man of perhaps twenty, round-faced and pug-nosed, his hair blond and stubbly. There was something humorous about his solemnity, and Rann had smiled.
“What would you advise?” he asked. “Remember, I’m only an American.”
The young man hid his own smile behind his hand and coughed slightly.
“As to that, sir, breakfast will be ready anytime after half past eight, sir, in the breakfast room just off the east terrace.”
“I’ll be there,” he had replied, “at half past eight.”
He had slept without waking until eight o’clock, and then was attacked by a monstrous hunger for food and, looking out the window, saw the morning sunny and warm in spite of the season. And after a breakfast vast enough, what with bacon and eggs and broiled kidneys, and much toast and marmalade and cups of coffee with thick cream, he saw Lady Mary in the garden, her slim figure very smart in a blue pantsuit, and her hair bright in the morning sun.
He left the table immediately and joined her, and without preliminaries she said, “Look at this exquisite piece of workmanship!”
She carried a thin bamboo walking stick with a carved ivory handle, and with it she pointed now at a spider’s web, the largest he had ever seen. The spider had caught branches of a holly tree in its spinning, and dew hung in silver drops upon the delicate threads.
“Beautiful,” he said, “and see how the drops of dew change their size—large on the periphery and infinitesimally small toward the center.”
The spider was in the exact center and at rest, a small black spider, motionless and watchful.
“But how,” she asked, “how does that bit of a creature know how to spin its web in mathematical perfection, the widening circles, the exact angles—”
“It’s all built into his nervous system,” he replied, “a sort of living computer.”
She laughed, and looking down into those laughing dark eyes, he saw admiration.
“Now, how do you know that?” she demanded.
“Koestler,” he replied simply. “Page thirty-eight, as I remember. Act of Creation—marvelous book.”
“Is there anything you haven’t read, you young monster?”
“I hope so—I’m longing now to get into the castle library.”
“Oh, those old books—nobody’s read them for generations! Morey’s books are all upstairs in his rooms. Go on about the spider. He looks wicked indeed, in my opinion, sitting there pretending he’s asleep while he waits for some poor harmless fly!”