“Really,” Julia interrupted for the first time. “Don’t you think you’re getting a bit tedious on the subject?” She cast Grenville a sharp glance and then immediately resumed her aura of lascivious charm, her eyes flashing at David and then at Brad.
“Sorry,” Grenville said emotionlessly. He once again took his seat.
Julia turned toward Melanie. “So what do you do?” she asked.
“I’m just a housewife,” Melanie replied somewhat shamefacedly. “But I’m going to return to college just as soon as the opportunity affords. I have all of the credits necessary for a degree in art history. I’ve just got to finish my dissertation.”
This came as news to David, and he looked at his wife with surprise.
“I hadn’t mentioned it yet to you because I’ve only just made the decision myself,” she said, seeing the incredulity in his glance.
He didn’t know why, but the notion of Melanie returning to graduate school disturbed him slightly. The thought quickly flitted out of his mind when he realized that Julia was gazing at him rather penetratingly, and as he looked back it occurred to him that when Grenville had introduced her he had offered no clue as to what their relationship was. Was she his mistress? A relative? A friend?
The butler appeared at the doorway and nodded to Grenville. The Marquis turned again toward his guests. “It appears that dinner is ready. Shall we go in?”
They all stood and followed Grenville and Julia through yet another hallway and into a dining room that was every bit as sumptuous as the drawing room. Large Sheraton-style sideboards stood on either side of the exquisite chamber, and another massive and crackling fireplace filled one entire wall. Lighting was provided by the literally hundreds of candles that filled the room, some in several large chandeliers that hung over the table, and others in the countless dozens of candlesticks and candelabra that cluttered the furniture, mantelpiece, and various ledges in the room. Equally striking were the chairs around the dining room table, which were high-backed and of elaborately carved and polished bog oak, and the liveried footmen that stood behind each one of them, waiting dutifully to seat the guests.
But what again drew David’s attention were the portraits on the walls, half a dozen or so of them done in various styles and from various centuries, all men, and again, each with the countenance of its subject completely concealed by a small curtain of muslin.
He noticed that Melanie and Brad were also riveted by the sight as they took their seats around the table.
Grenville sat down and sighed. “I suppose I should explain this little family mystery.”
David looked at the Marquis with interest.
“You see, my venerable ancestor, one Gervase of Shrewsbury, and the first Marquis de L’Isle, had a deformity of the face that he sought, at all costs, to conceal from everyone. Even his portrait he had veiled, and from that point on decreed that all portraits of the de L’Isle lineage should be veiled in a similar manner. In deference to my ancestor it has become our family custom.”
David nodded as he mulled the explanation over. Grenville picked up a little bell and jingled it. “And now, that over, I have a very special treat for you.”
They all looked at him expectantly.
“As you may be aware, the Celts who lived in this valley around the time that the bodies you have discovered were buried in the bog did not have the pleasure of drinking distilled liquor as we have just done in the drawing room. However, analysis of sediments in bronze vessels from that time show that they were not completely without alcoholic drink. They occasionally imbibed a type of wine made from the bog myrtle. The only recorded reference to that notorious beverage was made by the Roman historian Tacitus in his work
Germania
.”
“Right!” Brad interrupted. “Bog-myrtle wine.” Grenville smiled tolerantly. “Precisely, and as it so happens I have in my possession the recipe for that ancient beverage, handed down for centuries through the de L’Isle family. In fact, in my cellar I have quite a stock of the heavenly liquid, homemade of course, but I would now like to share a bit of that rare elixir with you, my honored guests.” He snapped his fingers, and the footman who had appeared at the sound of the bell stepped forward with a decanter of a deep-purplish liquid and started to fill their glasses. When he reached David’s, Julia leaned across the table and said loudly, “Be careful. Bog-myrtle wine is purported to be a powerful aphrodisiac.”
David laughed and noticed that Melanie was beginning to grow uneasy over Julia’s flirtatious attentions. He looked back at their host and to his surprise saw that Grenville was also cognizant of Melanie’s reaction. Furthermore, he was aware that David had noticed that he had noticed. David was beginning to realize that Grenville was an unusually observant man.
“To your marriage,” the Marquis said urbanely, his brown eyes glinting knowingly at David as he raised his glass aloft in another toast.
They all drank and David washed the first cold swallow over his tongue, tasting carefully. A pungent burst of flavor exploded throughout his senses, and at first it was so overwhelming that he almost winced. But then the piquant, strangely musty flavor unfolded into a pleasant cacophony of tastes, and he found himself craving a second swallow. He noticed that both Melanie and Brad seemed to be experiencing the same reaction, first uncertainty, and then a craving for more. Grenville and Julia watched carefully.
“Well?” Grenville asked.
“Quite delicious. In fact, amazing,” David commended and Melanie and Brad soon joined in the accolades.
“I’m pleased you like it,” said Grenville. “There will be an unending supply of it during dinner.” He snapped his fingers again and the liveried footmen began to serve the meal.
“And as Lord Markham, that great seventeenth-century arbiter of social decorum, once observed, the first course in any proper English banquet must be primarily for show,” Grenville added, and on that cue one of the footmen brought forth an immense silver serving tray on which there was a cooked pheasant with a small bejeweled crown of gold on its intact head and its tail feathers streaming out behind it.
David noticed that Brad, being a vegetarian, looked slightly less than enchanted, and once again Grenville instantly detected that something was afoot. “What is it, Mr. Hollister?” he said, glancing briefly at David.
Brad shifted uneasily. “I’m afraid I don’t eat pheasant. I’m a vegetarian.”
David thought that Grenville and Julia were going to choke. They both gaped disbelievingly at the younger man for several seconds, Julia seeming especially disturbed. Finally Grenville composed himself. “Well, no matter,” he said amiably. “But I’m afraid you’re not going to enjoy the meal very much.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Brad added quickly. “I’ll make do. I’m used to this sort of thing.”
As the meal proceeded David understood more fully Grenville’s warning that Brad was in for a less than perfect evening, for as the courses came one by one, it quickly became apparent that the menu was tipped heavily in favor of meats. There was a thick Yorkshire pudding, quail, venison steaks, and a large and succulent brisket of beef. On the stranger side, there was a salmi of owl, tiny roast songbirds, and a dish that Grenville asserted was prepared from the tongues of flamingoes. There was also an assortment of other odd dainties, quinces in syrup, cinnamon water, gingerbread, and little cakes called jumbles, paste of Genoa, Banbury tarts, marzipan, and fruits preserved in sugar that Grenville referred to as suckets. In all, it was more like a feast that one might have imagined encountering in Epicurean Rome rather than in an old English manor house.
Those dishes that David was courageous enough to sample he discovered were indescribably delicious. Others, like the flamingo tongues, he found too disconcerting to brave. And all was washed down with the ever more dizzyingly wonderful bog-myrtle wine.
With each glass of wine Melanie seemed to loosen up more, and she started to engage in an increasingly animated discussion with Brad, Grenville, and Julia. David noticed that she even sampled the salmi of owl, which so far was the stunner of the evening. And several other things piqued his curiosity. First, he noticed that although Grenville was quaffing down glass after glass of bog-myrtle wine, as were they all, it seemed to have little or no effect on him, and he continued to watch their every move with the unsettling acumen of a falcon watching its prey. Grenville also continued to notice David noticing him, and indeed, a strange sort of silent dialogue had developed between the two of them, Grenville sometimes behaving as if he were entertained by David’s own formidable powers of observation, but other times slipping and appearing to display a mote of annoyance over them.
The second thing that struck David as out of the ordinary was Julia’s appetite. To say that she was ravenous was putting it mildly. She ate more than any of them, partaking of each and every dish and having seconds and thirds when she did. Once she even emitted a short sort of animal-like snarl when Grenville appropriated a slice of brisket that she apparently wanted. On another occasion, when Brad asked Grenville why he owned so many exotic pets and Grenville replied that it was because Julia liked them, David looked up to see Julia smiling, with the wing of a roast songbird protruding from her mouth, and he actually felt an odd chill.
It was toward the end of the meal, between a serving of oxtail soup and seviche of flounder, that David suddenly and inexplicably felt the same strange neuralgia of the jaw that he had first experienced in the thicket. True to form, Grenville also immediately detected his discomfort, but instead of making his normal inquiry about what was wrong he looked quickly at Julia. For a moment she did not notice and was engaged in a boisterous swig of bog-myrtle wine. But then she became aware that she was being stared at. She looked at Grenville and seemed to perceive some message in his eyes. Then she looked at David, and as quickly as the pain had begun, it ended.
For several seconds he sat staring at them, wondering if the exchange that he had thought he had seen had actually transpired, when suddenly he heard another strange rustling sound scraping along the floor behind him. He turned quickly, assuming that it had to be one of the footmen, but saw that they were all standing motionless and at attention. He looked around the room, still searching for some sign of the mysterious draft, but saw nothing. Not even the candle flames flickered.
“Is something the matter?” Grenville asked.
“I thought I heard something.”
“What did it sound like?”
“A rustling, like a leaf being blown across the floor.” Grenville smiled. “This old house has been here for many years. When a structure gets as old as it is, it takes on a life of its own. It becomes filled with many strange sounds.”
“There are a lot of strange things in this valley,” David commented nervously.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, for example, an experience we had the other night at the pub, the Swan with Two Necks.” Melanie and Brad both looked up with interest as David explained the reaction of the villagers to the appearance of the moth. “How do you explain that?” he asked when he had finished.
“I don’t,” Grenville returned simply.
“You don’t have any idea why they behaved so strangely?”
“None at all. Why don’t you ask them?”
“I did. They won’t tell me.”
This seemed to please Grenville. He shifted languidly in his chair. “You must understand, I really don’t have much contact with the villagers. We live a rather solitary life out here, Julia and I. However, I can tell you, if you have not already figured it out for yourself, that the people of Fenchurch St. Jude have always had a disarming way about them. They keep to themselves. They behave peculiarly at times. No one knows why. Perhaps they see more in the moth than you see.”
“What could they possibly see that we don’t?” David said skeptically.
Grenville took a slow sip of his wine. “Who knows? But what was it Hamlet said? ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
“Bah!” David said, reacting emotionally. “It’s a nice turn of phrase, but I’ve never really bought that line.” Grenville looked at him, his eyes flashing, almost as if he took the remark as a challenge. “Oh, really,” he said, munching on a piece of candied fruit.
At the same moment David noticed that the flame of one of the candles in a candelabrum sitting on the mantelpiece began to sputter and elongate, sending a ribbon of black smoke upward toward the ceiling. As it did so, a rivulet formed on its side sending a stream of hot wax downward onto the mantel.
“You know, there’s a Norse version of that saying,” Brad interrupted.
“The quote from
Hamlet
?” Melanie asked.
Brad nodded. “I don’t recall the name of the epic poem it comes from, but I do remember that it’s tenth century. Translated loosely it goes something like, There are more things beneath the tree of life than any stupid ape would suppose.’”
“The name of the epic poem is the
Grimnismal
and it dates from a.d. 950,” Grenville informed them.
David looked at the Marquis, impressed that he should be in possession of such an obscure fact. Because of the unpleasantness of their first meeting and his generally unfavorable opinion of the inhabitants of Fenchurch St. Jude, it had not really occurred to him that the Marquis might be of more than ordinary intelligence and character. But as he looked into the older man’s eyes he realized that something unusual did indeed dance in their depths. More than that, now as he reassessed the striking figure before him, he realized that there was even a special air about Grenville, a sense of power and presence.
“So Shakespeare took the line from the
Grimnismal?
” Melanie asked.
“There’s no way that we can know that for sure,” Brad returned. “But we do know Shakespeare was a great borrower. Many of his plots he lifted from older and lesser-known classics.”
The conversation continued until finally Julia shifted restlessly. “Shall we retire to the drawing room for our void?” she asked.