FOXES Read online

  That put a new perspective on everything. As we rose to follow the butler from the room I thought the following:

  Rollo de Warlencourt was a hereditary earl of the realm.

  As earl, Rollo de Warlencourt had the right to sit in the House of Lords.

  Rollo de Warlencourt would be back late, because he was running the country.

  4

  As we followed Bates up the grand staircase to the first floor, I thought about this some more.

  Rollo de Warlencourt, the master whom we’d not yet met. This was his vase, that was his portrait of one of the King Charleses – I or II, they both had long hair – on a horse. And that was his beautiful circular ceiling high above, where his fat cherubs blew his clouds across his heavenly sky.

  Cumberland Place was so different to Longcross. There were no cracked windows or worn carpets; everything was pristine. The walls were painted in delicate shades of duck-egg blue or turquoise, and there was gilding everywhere – on mirrors, picture frames and the rims of priceless Chinese vases. Not footballer gold, but pale, delicate, expensive gold, just like in the drawing room. Here on the stair there was Christmas greenery too – great swags of holly and ivy above the pictures and mirrors. The carpets were deep and silent, the wallpaper hand-painted, the chandeliers dripping diamond brilliants. If Longcross Hall was dark wood, Cumberland Place was bright glass. If Longcross was medieval, Cumberland Place was Georgian. And it all brought home to me that throughout history, before, since and in between, the de Warlencourts had been at the top of the tree. At every step we’d passed maids and footmen and under-butlers who were scuttling about discreetly to do the family’s bidding. Rollo had so much, and into the bargain he was running the whole show. He was the ruling class, and after him – could it be true? – his son would rule too.

  If it bothered me, it bothered Shafeen a lot more.

  Once Bates had shown us to three opulent rooms and then buggered off to have our cases collected from the car, we collected in the elegant chamber I’d been allocated and Shafeen went into full-on rant mode.

  ‘It’s shameful. Rollo de Warlencourt is an unelected representative, and he’s making the laws of the land. All because he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.’

  Nel said, ’I thought members of the Houses of Parliament were elected.’

  ‘The House of Commons, yes,’ countered Shafeen. ‘But the Lords are there either because they’ve been born with the privilege or they’ve been given a peerage by their cronies. No one’s elected them. So it’s full of the cream of society, as they are known.’

  ‘Because cream rises to the top, right?’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘Samuel Beckett said it was because posh people are rich and thick. But you’re right, of course.’ He ran a hand over the silken curtains of the bed. ‘Cream rises to the top. And you know what else rises?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Scum. They are the scum of the earth, the Medievals, and the worst one is Rollo de Warlencourt, that arsehole who hunted my father at Longcross.’

  I sat on the bed, which was nice and squashy. ‘Oh give it a rest, Shaf. We’ve got bigger problems.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Are you kidding? Like the small matter of Henry being alive.’

  He didn’t look at me or Nel, just shot back, ‘That’s highly unlikely.’

  ‘Whaddya mean?’ I replied. ‘She just said it. His own mother saw him at Longcross and he told her to expect us.’

  ‘And that’s impossible,’ he declared.

  ‘Then how did she know we were coming? And who told her about the three of us?’

  ‘The twins? I don’t know.’

  Nel said reasonably, ‘I suppose, like she said, she had just seen them at Louis’s – and Cass’s – party.’

  ‘Where she said she also saw him.’

  There was one ace I wanted to keep up my sleeve – the unassailable argument that I had seen him. But I did have one other card I could play. ‘Henry was not in the family tomb. How do you explain that?’

  ‘Greer …’

  ‘There was no one in the tomb,’ I repeated stubbornly. ‘You saw. You both saw.’

  ‘But the priest –’

  ‘Works for the family.’

  ‘And the police report –’

  ‘There were police reports both ways. One for alive, one for dead, remember. Each twin got one. And riddle me this: if Henry’s dead, how did he know we’d come here?’

  ‘If he’s alive, how did he know we’d come here?’ countered Shafeen. ‘We didn’t even know we were going to come here.’

  I got up and walked to the window and looked out at the snowy park. Everything was blunted with snow, like the furniture I’d seen waiting under the dustsheets at Longcross. But it was all still there, all underneath. ‘When I went to Louis’s room in Honorius he was playing chess,’ I said. ‘He said there’s a human chessboard at Longcross and they all used to play on it when they were little: him, Cass and … Henry. And Henry had chessboard stockings, d’you remember, as part of his Medievals uniform at STAGS?’ I turned to face them both. ‘I think Henry’s playing chess with us now. We are all sliding around the board and he’s always one move ahead.’

  ‘So you do honestly think he’s alive?’ asked Nel.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, just as Shafeen at the exact same moment said, ‘No.’

  ‘Then how do you explain what Lady de Warlen- court – Caro – said?’

  He shrugged. ‘There’s something a little off.’

  ‘About this place?’

  ‘About her. About the Countess of Longcross.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s so … twitchy and abstracted. She’s like … Lady Macbeth in Act Five. All hollow and nervy and sort of not all there.’

  I’d endured, rather than enjoyed, a movie of Macbeth recently. I remembered Marion Cotillard acting just like that as things started to unravel. Exactly as ‘Caro’ was behaving just before she realised we were in the room. Lady Macbeth, Lady de Warlencourt.

  ‘And did you see how Bates shut her up at tea?’ pressed Shafeen.

  ‘I think we all saw that,’ I said. ‘It was pretty unsubtle.’

  ‘I think he was trying to stop her saying something.’

  ‘Exactly. That Henry was alive.’

  It was all getting a bit fraught, Shafeen and I facing each other like a warring couple with Nel in the middle like the kid in Kramer vs. Kramer. I had to break the tension. I gave a little laugh. ‘It’s Mulder and Scully 101.’

  ‘Not that again,’ sighed Shafeen, sounding tired. ‘Don’t tell me – Mulder believed in aliens, Scully didn’t.’

  ‘Well …’ said Nel slowly. She’d been fiddling with some monogrammed silver hairbrushes on the bedside table, trying to stay out of it. Now she spoke for the first time. ‘It’s not Mulder and Scully. But it is Louis and Cass. Cass wanted Henry to be alive. Louis didn’t. You two are the same.’

  This was awkward. I couldn’t deny that I wanted Henry to be alive, but I didn’t like to be so transparent.

  Nel broke the silence she’d created. ‘So are we actually going to stay here?’

  ‘Where else can we go?’

  ‘The Durrant Hotel. Like I said.’

  ‘We can’t exactly walk out now,’ said Shafeen. ‘Besides, we are here to do a job.’

  ‘What job?’ asked Nel.

  ‘To find out what’s going on,’ he replied. ‘To get to the bottom of all this conspiracy. I vote we stay.’

  This, at least, we agreed on. ‘Me too. If Ty’s at Longcross, alone, we can cope here, the three of us. At least for one night. Dinner is always pretty illuminating at these places, don’t you think?’

  ‘And we get to meet the King of the World when he’s back from a hard day of ruling,’ said Shafeen scornfully.

  I eyed him closely. I think whatever he said, he was dying to square up to the guy who had kicked sand in his father’s face all those years ago. There were bound to be fireworks.

  ‘Fine.’ Nel headed for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  She turned with a smile. ‘To … what did she call it? Freshen up.’

  Once the door had closed Shafeen drew me to him. ‘I’m sorry, Greer,’ he said. ‘I lost my temper. There’s no excuse, but there is an explanation.’ He wound a strand of my gross hair between his fingers. ‘Just when I think I can relax, someone else says that bastard is alive.’

  This was so breathtakingly honest I couldn’t help but react to it … In that moment I completely understood him. It was time to tell him what I’d decided in the hospital, that, whether Henry was alive or dead, it was Shafeen all the way, that I was ready to seal the deal. I hugged him tight, so tight. I kissed his lips tenderly and he kissed me back, not tenderly at all. My legs buckled and we ended up on the bed. Mostly my eyes were closed, but I opened them briefly and saw a flash of silver. What I saw made me shove Shafeen away from me and sit up.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not here. This is Henry’s room.’ I reached out and picked up the silver-backed hairbrush from the bedside table. The one Nel had been fiddling with. I turned the back to Shafeen so he could clearly see the curlicued monogram engraved in the silver.

  H de W

  He sat up too. ‘Jesus. They’ve put you in Henry’s room?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, sitting up. ‘Look.’ There was a hand mirror and a comb there too, all with the same monogram.

  Shafeen jumped up, as if he couldn’t bear to touch the covers that Henry had slept in.

  ‘It’s a double bed,’ he said slowly.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Presumably they think their golden boy is going to come back from Longcross and share the bed with you. That’s what all that “b
eautiful” stuff was about. Droit de seigneur. Jesus Christ!’

  ‘I thought you said he was dead.’

  ‘Oh, but it doesn’t matter what I think, does it?’ he said irrationally. ‘It matters what they think.’

  ‘Of course it matters what you think!’

  I put my head in my hands, fingers raking through my greasy hair. ‘Look. Can we not do this now? I need to –’

  ‘Freshen up?’ His voice had a dangerous edge.

  I got up too. ‘Well, wash my hair at least.’

  ‘Why?’ He’d gone suddenly still. ‘Why, Greer? Why do you need to wash your hair? Who are you washing it for?’ He looked me right in the eyes.

  I couldn’t reply, because the answer was loop-the-loop, round-the-twist, batshit crazy.

  I hesitated a second too long.

  ‘Got it,’ he said.

  And he left the room.

  5

  Defiantly, I did wash my hair, and I felt a whole lot better for it.

  I tonged it straight and shiny, then turned my attention to what I was going to wear. Nel, bless her, had packed me a nice case but of course hadn’t known she needed to pack for a full-on dinner, so I only had enough stuff for a week at hers. But I needn’t have worried. Perhaps guessing that I wouldn’t have the right gear for dinner, someone had obligingly put a blood-red midi-dress on the bed. It was made of that kind of material that has tons of tiny little knife-edge pleats. It was gorgeous but something about the colour gave me a funny qualm in my stomach. Red gowns would always mean my trial by the D.O.G.S. – but that dread memory did not quite chime with my feeling here. There was something else – something red – something I needed to remember …

  I put it on regardless. It fitted me perfectly – as if it had been made for me. It had a full skirt and sleeves and a high neck to cover my rope burn. And it did make me look a better colour than the washed-out girl I’d seen in the hospital mirror that morning. I added a red lip and sat on the bed. I wasn’t even sure what to do next – usually Shafeen or Nel would come for me, but Shafeen had seemed pretty mad and Nel might be tactfully staying away, as when she’d left us we’d been together.

  Well. If my other Musketeers were busy, I’d check on my D’Artagnan. My Logan Lerman, if you will.

  I checked my Instagram, which felt vaguely wrong in this house. I was sure they frowned on tech here as much as they did at STAGS and Longcross. I found mrs_de_warlencourt’s profile and messaged Ty.

  We’re here

  She replied almost at once and I felt a flood of relief. She was online.

  Where’s here?

  I typed:

  Cumberland Place

  She came back:

  Yay

  Then:

  That’s my girl

  Are you OK? I asked.

  Yeah fine

  You’re safe?

  Yeah. All the guests gone for now. Just chillin’

  There was a pause.

  See if you can find out about Foxes

  I had to read that last word twice.

  Foxes?? How do you mean?

  Dunno. Just something I overheard

  Then:

  Gotta go

  It wasn’t until I’d put down the phone and was just idly looking around, like you do when you’re waiting for something, that I saw him.

  There was a fox on the wall.

  Not a whole fox, you understand – just a head, à la Jeffrey the stag. I was well used, by now, to the upper-class habit of nailing deceased creatures to the walls, like in that creepy room in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

  I got up and went closer to the fox. He looked pretty moth-eaten – he had a ragged, torn ear and his faded pelt was more marmalade orange than russet red. Jeffrey had been a peaceful soul, with his big, chocolatey eyes; this fellow had gone down fighting; his yellowing teeth were bared in death. The head was mounted on a mahogany shield, and there was a little brass plaque screwed into the wood below the snarling muzzle. I was just standing on tiptoes to read the wording engraved there when there was a knock on the door. I whirled around to find Shafeen.

  He leaned on the doorpost and regarded me.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘your hair looks lovely.’

  As apologies went, it was pretty classy. I smiled.

  ‘And the rest of you looks terrific too. I’ve never seen that dress before.’

  ‘Neither have I.’

  ‘Oh. Did the countess put it out for you?’

  ‘Someone did. You look terrific too, by the way.’ It was true. He had not gone full tux, but he was in a pewter-grey three-piece suit with a waistcoat, and he looked gorgeous. Shafeen was obviously better prepared than I had been, probably because he was due to go home to Rajasthan and I imagined he’d have some pretty formal dinners with his family, them being minor royalty and all. It occurred to me then that Shafeen’s family were part of an unelected, hereditary ruling class too, but I didn’t want to poke the bear when we were in the middle of making up. ‘Oops, you missed a button though.’ I came towards him and started to do up the bottom button he’d left undone on the waistcoat.

  He laid has hands over mine, stopping me. ‘It’s meant to be like that.’

  ‘What?’ I laughed. ‘Undone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Now I was properly confused. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s a tradition supposedly started by Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales. He put on a bit of weight and couldn’t do up the bottom button on his waistcoat any more, so everyone at court had to do the same.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Eighteen-something, I think.’

  ‘So people still do this because some prince, years ago, was a bit chubby?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Shafeen half laughed himself as he confirmed it, as if it was ridiculous. And it was. But it was serious too.

  ‘And everyone just knows this?’

  ‘Well … some people.’

  ‘The right people, huh?’

  One of his hands took one of mine. ‘Let’s go get Nel.’

  As I followed him I realised that, for the first time in our Twilight love triangle, now Shafeen and Henry were on one side and I was on the other. That gulf of generations of bred-in class felt like a divide I could never cross.

  6

  We went down the stairs all together like we were the stars of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

  Our own blonde – Nel – looked the part in a baby-blue bodycon dress.

  ‘Drawing room first, I think,’ said Shafeen. ‘There’ll be a drinks tray.’

  We went through the doors and a dude in white-tie was making up the fire. He sprung to attention when we came in and then melted away, leaving us alone with the drinks tray. Shafeen mixed us all gin and tonics and we sort of stood about by the fire, admiring the resplendent Christmas tree and classy swags of greenery hung about the mantel.

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We’ll be shown to the dining room,’ Shafeen replied calmly. ‘You can relax – someone will come get us.’ He seemed quite at ease in this world, and sipped his G&T with his back to the fire. Now the three of us were alone, I could tell my news. I filled them both in about Ty’s Instagrams. They were relieved that she was OK, and both, predictably, picked up on the last message.

  ‘Foxes?’ queried Nel. ‘That’s all she said?’

  ‘Yeah. See if you can find out about Foxes. Then she went offline.’

  Shafeen looked thoughtful. ‘Do you have any idea what she meant?’

  ‘Well, funnily enough, there’s one in my room.’

  ‘What? How d’you mean?’ Nel asked.

  ‘You know in Longcross they have animals’ heads on the wall. Jeff— I mean, the stag in Lowther, for example? Well, in my room here – Henry’s room – there is a fox.’

  ‘I’ve got one too,’ said Shafeen. ‘It’s above the fireplace. How about you, Nel?’

  ‘Not that I noticed,’ she said. ‘And I think I would have noticed. But then again,’ she said bitterly, ‘I’ve probably got the servant’s room.’ Then her eyes got all big and round. ‘D’you think there’s something behind them?’

  ‘Like what?’ queried Shafeen.