âGet back in here now! Now!â
The rich and exotic beauty of the English countryside
I walked on ahead, feeling calm.
âSefton!â she called. âDid you hear me, man? Get back in here, now.â
Then, realising that I had no intention of obeying her orders and that she had indeed lost control of the situation, she promptly started up the still smoking engine, stamped her foot on the accelerator, and sped past, hooting the horn as she went.
âSee. You. Later. Sluggard!â she called, snatching triumph with one last toss of her head. The look in her eyes remained with me for some time.
It was a trek to the Morley house. My head was throbbing. My foot was sore. I stopped off at a cottage on the road to a place called Blakeney, asking for directions, and the old cottager came out â a fine country figure, rigged out in greasy waistcoat and side whiskers of the variety people used to call âweepersâ â and pointed back the way Iâd come. âBut Iâm terrible blind,â he warned, as I departed. I wasnât sure if he meant literally, or if it was some amusement of his. Whichever, he sent me the wrong way, and it was long past supper time when I eventually arrived, sans suitcase, sans pills, sans everything.
A thin new moon was set high in the sky.
I felt wretched. Outcast. Like an apparition. Or a newborn child.
CHAPTER FIVE
T HE FAMOUS M ORLEY HOUSE , St Georgeâs â described by Burchfield as âa true Englishmanâs castleâ and by Bolton as âhis legacy in bricks and mortarâ â was at that time only twenty years old, Morley himself having overseen its construction. Some, I know, have written off the house as a work of Edwardian folly, others have celebrated it as a testament to a great Englishmanâs passions. But it was far too dark for me to make a judgement that first evening. Country dark is a darkness far beyond what city-dwellers imagine and at St Georgeâs, at night, one could almost swim in the thick black swirling around one. I passed up the driveway, between imposing entrance gates â atop which, in glinting moonlight, sat St George on the one hand, dragon dutifully slain, and the
Golden Hind
on the other â and up past what I assumed to be a small lake, and walked, exhausted, between an avenue of old trees and finally up stone steps to the house, with statues of Britannia and lions rampant guarding the entrance. The door, an anachronistic mass of carved oak â like something by Ghiberti for a cathedral â stood open.
A true Englishmanâs castle
âGood evening!â I called, peering into the houseâs gloom. âMr Morley? Itâs Sefton, sir. Iâm sorry Iââ
For half a moment there came no reply and then suddenly in the entrance hall there was cacophony, the whole house, it seemed, screaming out in agony in response to my call. The noise was that of cold-blooded murder. Startled, I drew back, almost tripping down the steps, my heart racing. I shut my eyes and actually thought I might be sick â the maddening Miriam, no food, no pills, only a little tobacco. I had slipped back into a dream of Spain. But then, after several minutes, when the incredible noise continued and no one came, and with no intention of retracing my weary footsteps back down the driveway and all the way back to misery and London, I peered cautiously into the hall.
There were, thank God, no demons. It was no dream. The grand entrance hall to St Georgeâs â as readers of Burchfield will recall â had been set up as a kind of a zoo and a natural history museum. The walls all around were hung with glass cases and shelves holding displays of skulls and bones, and turtle shells, and sets of teeth and taxidermised beasts: one case seemed to comprise a collection merely of
snouts
. And then below these displays of their ancestors and relatives were the living animals themselves, a
The rich and exotic beauty of the English countryside
I walked on ahead, feeling calm.
âSefton!â she called. âDid you hear me, man? Get back in here, now.â
Then, realising that I had no intention of obeying her orders and that she had indeed lost control of the situation, she promptly started up the still smoking engine, stamped her foot on the accelerator, and sped past, hooting the horn as she went.
âSee. You. Later. Sluggard!â she called, snatching triumph with one last toss of her head. The look in her eyes remained with me for some time.
It was a trek to the Morley house. My head was throbbing. My foot was sore. I stopped off at a cottage on the road to a place called Blakeney, asking for directions, and the old cottager came out â a fine country figure, rigged out in greasy waistcoat and side whiskers of the variety people used to call âweepersâ â and pointed back the way Iâd come. âBut Iâm terrible blind,â he warned, as I departed. I wasnât sure if he meant literally, or if it was some amusement of his. Whichever, he sent me the wrong way, and it was long past supper time when I eventually arrived, sans suitcase, sans pills, sans everything.
A thin new moon was set high in the sky.
I felt wretched. Outcast. Like an apparition. Or a newborn child.
CHAPTER FIVE
T HE FAMOUS M ORLEY HOUSE , St Georgeâs â described by Burchfield as âa true Englishmanâs castleâ and by Bolton as âhis legacy in bricks and mortarâ â was at that time only twenty years old, Morley himself having overseen its construction. Some, I know, have written off the house as a work of Edwardian folly, others have celebrated it as a testament to a great Englishmanâs passions. But it was far too dark for me to make a judgement that first evening. Country dark is a darkness far beyond what city-dwellers imagine and at St Georgeâs, at night, one could almost swim in the thick black swirling around one. I passed up the driveway, between imposing entrance gates â atop which, in glinting moonlight, sat St George on the one hand, dragon dutifully slain, and the
Golden Hind
on the other â and up past what I assumed to be a small lake, and walked, exhausted, between an avenue of old trees and finally up stone steps to the house, with statues of Britannia and lions rampant guarding the entrance. The door, an anachronistic mass of carved oak â like something by Ghiberti for a cathedral â stood open.
A true Englishmanâs castle
âGood evening!â I called, peering into the houseâs gloom. âMr Morley? Itâs Sefton, sir. Iâm sorry Iââ
For half a moment there came no reply and then suddenly in the entrance hall there was cacophony, the whole house, it seemed, screaming out in agony in response to my call. The noise was that of cold-blooded murder. Startled, I drew back, almost tripping down the steps, my heart racing. I shut my eyes and actually thought I might be sick â the maddening Miriam, no food, no pills, only a little tobacco. I had slipped back into a dream of Spain. But then, after several minutes, when the incredible noise continued and no one came, and with no intention of retracing my weary footsteps back down the driveway and all the way back to misery and London, I peered cautiously into the hall.
There were, thank God, no demons. It was no dream. The grand entrance hall to St Georgeâs â as readers of Burchfield will recall â had been set up as a kind of a zoo and a natural history museum. The walls all around were hung with glass cases and shelves holding displays of skulls and bones, and turtle shells, and sets of teeth and taxidermised beasts: one case seemed to comprise a collection merely of
snouts
. And then below these displays of their ancestors and relatives were the living animals themselves, a
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