By now I was beginning to feel hungry and more than a little thirsty. Great Britain isn’t known for its deaths by dehydration, so, not wanting to start a trend, I tried to recall the paths that had led me in.
There was no pattern to the maze, no every-third-gap-on-the-left-continues-the-path sort of thing. I just had to do my best in following memory and my little markers of heaped up dirt. Between them I wound up in more dead ends than there are in any two cemeteries. But I persevered, and what with finding dirty marks that I hoped were my earlier footprints, I eventually worked my way out.
There was a small truck in the drive by the steps of the East Front. There was an oil stain and a piece of mirror among the plant cuttings and soil in its tray. Keenen the gardener, I presumed, had returned from taking the Norton to the garage.
I slunk in through the great marble columns, half expecting to be turfed out by some snotty-nosed butler. I was coming down bad with doses of class consciousness and culture shock, an easy frame of mind to fall into with these imposing surroundings. So, gathering all my nerve, I pushed open the door and strode in as if I owned the place. Truth to tell, I felt less like “Lord Ernie” than “Ernie Pine, lower class interloper,” and I couldn’t help looking around to make sure no one saw me.
There was no one in sight, but muffled voices, raised as if in argument, were coming from behind the grand staircase.
A gray-haired man wearing a bib-and-brace stood in the doorway of what I supposed was the housekeeper’s under-the-stairs office. He was almost back to me, and as I approached I recognized Mrs. Winton’s voice coming from within.
“But he’s a gift.”
“But he ain’t black,” said the man. “And any road, if His Lordship—”
“Who ain’t black?” I asked.
The man turned sharply, and for several seconds just stared at me as though I’d committed some unforgivable social blunder. Mrs. Winton leaned out through the door and smiled.
“Mr. Pine, we were beginning to wonder if you’d lost yourself in the maze. You wouldn’t be the first.”
“Aye, not the first,” echoed the old man, looking away.
I muttered something about it being formidable, though there were other adjectives that came to mind more readily—weird, for instance. I was introduced to the grayhaired man, the Manor’s head gardener, Keenen (“Keenen, sir, just Keenen”).
“About the bike,” I said.
“Took your machine into town first thing, I did,” said Keenen, “and Scudamore’s workshop they be onto it promptly.”
“Meanwhile, Mr. Pine is welcome to stay here,” said Mrs. Winton.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Mrs. Winton fluttered her hands. “Think no more of it. It’s only right that we should put you up while you’re off the road. Isn’t that so, Keenen?” But before he could answer, she continued, “And you won’t be the only stranger at the Manor soon as there’ll be outside contractors coming in tomorrow to see to the grounds. Now, sir, what did you think of our maze?”
“A quiet place, isn’t it,” I said, trying to think of something nice to say about it. “Why is the center closed off? What’s in there?”
Keenen and Mrs. Winton glanced at each other like parents desperately trying to put off explaining the facts of life to their pregnant daughter.
“Well… it was built like that,” said Keenen lamely, at last.
“The inner gate was locked and probably had been for a long time.”
“It shouldn’t have been,” said Mrs. Winton, and I caught her funny look at the gardener. “You were some time in the maze, Mr. Pine. Nothing happened, did it? That is, did you lose your way?”
“Only a couple of thousand times.”
“No singing?” said Keenen, looking down.
“Pardon?”
“I think there’s a diagram of the maze in the library,” said Mrs. Winton. “Perhaps you’d like to have another go tomorrow?”
“Isn’t there rain forecast for tomorrow?”
“Not until the evening. Well, I think it’s about lunch time. You must be starved, Mr. Pine. Afterward we’ll see if we can find the diagram of the maze.”
While Mrs. Winton cut bread in the kitchen, I asked, “By the way, what does this mean,” and I read slowly from the back of the parking ticket: “‘Retine quod aqua coercetur’?”
“It means ‘Keep that which is bound by water,’ ” she replied without a moment’s hesitation, as if the phrase had been in her thoughts all along.
The library, like everything else in and about Woodthorpe Manor, daunted me. It wasn’t that it was large (in fact it was much smaller than the average public library), it was that all of these volumes—five thousand, Mrs. Winton told me, and some of them incredibly old and rare—were a private collection.
And there was that word again: Private. And here was I. It didn’t add up.
Mrs. Winton made straight for one of the glass cabinets lining the walls, unlocked it and after a moment’s search took from between two books a leather wallet. In this was the plan of the maze with its convoluted paths, its statuary, brooks, and miniature gardens all plotted out. The middle, however, was blank.
“What’s in there?” I remembered asking this before without getting an answer.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Mrs. Winton said. “It’s been closed for many a year.”
I thought it odd that in all her time at the Manor she’d never once been curious enough to find out what was behind the wall and trees in the center of the maze. Perhaps she had no interest in things outside her own sphere. Perhaps she had asked once and had been rebuffed. Perhaps she was lying.
“If you wish to make a copy, there are pens, pencils and a sheaf of quarto in that drawer.” She indicated a nearby writing desk. “Unfortunately the photocopying machine is in the town being repaired.”
“Duncan ran it over, too, did he?”
“Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Pine, I’d best be about my duties.”
I was glad I didn’t have to “dress” for dinner, being as it was in the servants’ hall. Wearing a tie is against my religion as a confirmed slouch.
There were just Mrs. Winton, Keenen, and myself at table. The only other people on the estate at this time were those who lived in the lodge, the gatekeeper and his wife, and their two sons who served as groundsmen during the night.
The talk got around (rather quickly, I thought) to the maze: Yes, I copied out the diagram… Perhaps I’ll have another go at the maze tomorrow if it doesn’t rain… Well, yes, I think it will rain tomorrow, Mrs. Winton. I can smell it…
Keenen kept pretty quiet during the meal, just picking at his food, though drinking steadily, making casualties of two bottles of rough red. “Drinking with a purpose” was a phrase that came to mind. I got the impression he was sulking, probably after an argument with Mrs. Winton which probably had me in it somewhere. This line of thought seemed to be confirmed when, during a lapse in the housekeeper’s conversation about the various notables who had dined and slept at the Manor over the centuries, Keenen muttered, “And you’re only the second Australian we’ve—”
He jolted as though kicked. He glared at Mrs. Winton in a half focused way. She continued her dinner as if nothing had happened. I would hate to have played poker with her.
I excused myself not long after that and wandered upstairs to the library. I paused halfway up, listening for the explosion I thought must erupt in the servants’ hall. But all remained quiet. They probably were at each other again, but in a restrained way, which befitted this stately home.