Stained Glass by William F. Buckley Page B

assistants—I look forward to meeting them to check every particular. The chapel must be authentic.”
    He paused, reflecting. “The supreme challenge is the stained glass. The colors were magnificent! Tomorrow I shall take you through my father’s library, which has a complete collection of photographs of the church: every square inch, with careful colorwork and coding. My understanding is that you have made preliminary arrangements with carpenters, stonecutters, masons, and glassmakers.”
    â€œThat is correct.”
    â€œSplendid. Let me ask, How many men will be working on the project at the outset?”
    Blackford said probably a half dozen, with an additional two or three coming in, as skilled craftsmen were located.
    â€œIt is a vulgar question. But do you have any idea how long it will take?”
    â€œWe’ve talked about it—Overstreet, Conditti, and I. Not less than a year. Say a year, if all goes well. Knock wood.” This mundane appeal to superstition had the effect of prying his host loose from his preoccupation.
    â€œA glass of wine? Or do you prefer beer? Whiskey?” Wintergrin rang the bell at his side, without waiting for an answer.
    â€œThank you, a glass of white wine.”
    â€œI understand you flew during the war. Do you still fly?”
    â€œNot regularly,” Blackford said. “I did fly the new American Saber at an exhibition in London recently. My father is the European salesman for Saber. You perhaps read about it: the British flier in the Hunter was killed.”
    Axel looked sharply at Blackford, and his voice went up a half tone.
    â€œ Of course. It was you! I was related to Viscount Kirk. And we were at school together. Greyburn.” Wintergrin did not advertise that—like Kirk—he too was related to the Queen.
    â€œI spent a few weeks in Greyburn myself.” Oakes stepped forward. He had decided, in his dealings with Axel, that he would hide only what he had to hide.
    â€œIndeed? When were you there?”
    â€œFrom September, 1941, until December. I would tell you that I left on account of Pearl Harbor, and it’s true that I’d have had to leave on account of Pearl Harbor, but in fact a couple of days before Pearl Harbor I ran away.” Blackford was tempted to add that he did so because the headmaster declined to discharge Mile. Lachaise.
    Axel looked as if he would ask why Blackford had run away, thought better of it, and instead tilted the conversation to a slightly different course.
    â€œWe did not overlap, in that event. I was graduated in 1938. Kirk was a couple of years younger. A fine horseman, even then. An impressive war record.”
    Blackford sipped his wine. “Yes. And a fine flier. The whole thing was tragic and … inexplicable.”
    â€œDid they ever discover the cause of the accident?”
    â€œNo,” said Blackford—and thought, God help me if ever they do.
    Axel asked whether he had known this person, and that person. Whether he had had experience with this teacher, or that teacher. What was his opinion of the headmaster, Dr. Chase, who was still there? Blackford said he thought Chase a cold fish and a bully, but had never studied under him. Wintergrin said he had had fair treatment from Chase up until the Austrian Anschluss. “After that, he thought of me first as a young Nazi, only then as a student at his school.”
    â€œWere you”—Blackford’s risk was calculated—“at that point a nationalist, er, a defender of German policies?”
    â€œYou are asking if I was identified with the Nazis?”
    â€œI simply wondered, knowing Chase.”
    Axel trilled his fingers on his glass of wine which, Blackford noticed, he had not touched. “I decided when I went first to Greyburn at age fourteen that I would answer no questions and involve myself in no discussions having to do with the policies of my government.”
    â€œI wish I