Malice in Miniature (3 page)

The rain had stopped, but threatened to begin again at any moment. I was beginning to understand that the only predictable factor in English weather is its unpredictability, but these past few days we did seem to have settled into a stormy pattern. I poked my head out the door and squinted at the sky. Maybe there was time before the next downpour to carry out the next step in my plan. I shrugged into a sweater and trotted across my back garden to Jane's kitchen door.

Jane Langland is my best friend and chief source of information in Sherebury. It would be unkind to call her a gossip. The word implies a certain mean-spiritedness, a delight in the retailing of others' failings and misfortunes, and Jane doesn't have a mean bone in her body. She has, however, a keen interest in her fellow humans, and an encyclopedic knowledge about Sherebury and its inhabitants. She's a warm, sensible sort of person, so people confide in her. And although she respects those confidences, when I, as a newcomer, need to know about someone, she passes along tidbits, benignly filtered through her compassion and deep understanding of human foibles.

She opened the door before I got there. “Dorothy. Been expecting you. Cup of coffee? Just made some.”

I never ask Jane how she knows things almost before they happen, but this time, grinning at the look on my face, she volunteered the information.

“Saw Margaret this morning at Matins.”

Which explained everything. Margaret Allenby is the wife of the Dean of Sherebury Cathedral. Ada Finch cleans her house for her twice a week, and since Ada talks every minute, she would have told Margaret all about Bob's problems, including my promise to look into them. Margaret often attends the weekday services in the cathedral, and so does Jane—so do I, for that matter. The place is next door, after all, and the choir is well worth hearing even if there were no other reason to go.

“So you want to know about Brocklesby,” said Jane, setting coffee down in front of me.

“Among other things,” I admitted. “How's Bob?”

“Hungover,” said Jane succinctly.

“Oh, dear. I suppose he went on a real bender when the police sent him home. Only to be expected, really.” I picked up my cup and took a sip. “My word, you make good coffee, Jane. My American friends think the English only know about tea.”

“Used to be so. Coffee like dishwater. One thing we learned from the French. Credit where credit is due,” she added with determined fairness. “All right, Mordred Brocklesby.” She shook her head. “Odd sort of duck. Whole family is odd.”

“Are there a lot of them, then? I had the impression they were a bit—scattered.”

“Are—or were. Old Mordred is the last of the lot. No children, no brothers, no cousins—or no male ones, anyway. He was an only son of an only son, and his great-grandfather had just the one other boy.”

“Who would have been,” I said, frantically doing genealogical tables in my head, “Mordred's great-uncle—right?”

“Right. He was the one who owned the Hall before Mordred. Died at age ninety-seven. Talk was, he didn't want to leave the Hall to anyone. Had plans to turn it into a home for cats, but died before he could get through the bureaucratic maze.”

“A cats' home? He liked cats?”

“Hated 'em. Hated his neighbor worse. Woman had asthma, terrified of cats.”

“But that's awful! He could have killed the poor woman if he brought a bunch of cats into the neighborhood!”

“Mmm. Wanted to buy her property, enlarge his own. She wouldn't sell. Her estate might have.”

“And he had the energy to engage in all this plotting and scheming and—and sheer malice—in his nineties? Amazing!”

“Family's always been long-lived. Flourish like the green bay tree.”

“I can't imagine why he thought a feud was worth it, though, at his age. Oh, well. So Mordred inherited. Ada thought he changed his name when he came into the estate, but she also thought he was a more distant relation than he was, so I suppose she's wrong.”

“Not exactly. He'd given up the name, but he had to take it back when he inherited. Been calling himself Pendragon.”

“Surely not!”

Jane nodded, jowls quivering. Jane bears a distinct resemblance, in both appearance and manner, to the late Sir Winston Churchill, or else to the bulldogs she loves—if there's a difference. “Mordred part is real.” She made a face. “The mother had a fixation on the Arthur legend, passed it on to her son.”

“What an inheritance! But why such a nasty sort of name? I'm not thoroughly checked out in Arthuriana, but surely Mordred was the one who betrayed Arthur and spoiled everything in Camelot, wasn't he?”

Jane nodded. “Apparently Mum liked the villains best. Or else didn't like her children. There was a sister, too, named Morgana, but she died or something.”

I shuddered at the idea of naming a daughter after a witch. “What did he get knighted for? Mordred, I mean. Ada said he was a ‘Sir.'”

“Distinguished Service to the Arts,” said Jane without so much as the ghost of a smile. Deadpan is the essence of British humor; it took me several months of living in Sherebury to be sure when someone was being funny.

“Yes, of course, but really . . .”

“His father made a packet in buttons or crisps or something—can't recall—and Mordred's devoted his life to spending it on dolls' houses. Donated so many of them to the V and A they had to do something for him.”

“The Victoria and Albert? I didn't know they went in for that sort of thing.” When Frank was still alive we used to enjoy going to the big London museum on our visits to England, but I didn't remember seeing any toys there.

“Not the V and A proper. Museum of Childhood, run by the V and A. Toys, dolls, largest collection of dolls' houses in the world—now.”

“Oh. Okay, so Mordred became Sir Mordred because he gave them a lot of stuff. He must be a collector on a really huge scale—Ada says there are hundreds of houses at the Hall.”

“Exaggeration. Few dozen houses, barns, whatever, I'm told. Lot of what they call room settings—boxes with a glass front, tiny furniture inside.”

“And Brocklesby really spends all his time collecting this stuff?”

“And looking after it, and repairing it, and making it. Good craftsman, they tell me.”

“Well, I can believe what everyone says about his being odd. I can't wait to see him in person. What's he like?”

Jane shrugged. “Don't really know him. A Londoner, only lived in the Hall three or four years. Don't care for the Hall myself. Never go out there.”

“Why not? It looked interesting in Ada's pictures, if somewhat grotesque, architecturally speaking.”

“Grotesque is the word. Just don't like the place, is all.”

She shut her mouth firmly, and I looked at her in astonishment. Jane, as solid and sensible a person as I know, is not given to unexplained antipathies. “Oh, come on. You can't stop there. Is it haunted, or what?”

She shrugged and looked embarrassed. “There's an—atmosphere. If you believe in that sort of thing. Probably because everyone who's owned it has been unpleasant. Still contention and—mischief.”

There was something in the way she said the word that resounded of the Litany.
From all evil and mischief; from the crafts and assaults of the devil
. . .

“What
do
you mean?”

She shrugged again. “Probably nothing. Seeing bogeymen in my old age.”

“Jane, if you see bogeymen, the rest of us need to be put in an asylum for not seeing them.” I looked at her hard, but she would say no more. Eventually I gave up. “Well, I'm going out there this afternoon, unseen terrors or not. I'll report back.”

“Yes. Be careful.”

It had not been a reassuring conversation.

I
t was pouring pitchforks and hammer handles, as my Hoosier father used to say, when Alan came home for lunch. “Shall we defer the Brocklesby Hall expedition?” he asked over his bowl of chili. Alan has developed a taste for American food, thank goodness, since it's what I know how to cook.

“Certainly not!” I replied indignantly. “You know perfectly well I want to go, never mind the weather.”

“I had a suspicion, though it's not the best sort of day for a place like—however. You'd best put on wellies. If I remember correctly, the car park isn't paved.”

To be on the safe side I donned not only Wellington boots but the full set of rain gear: yellow slicker, or oilskins as the English say, and the accompanying floppy yellow plastic hat. I looked like a large, elderly version of Paddington Bear. The hat certainly wasn't my usual style, but I wasn't about to risk one of my more frivolous creations in this weather.

It was a wise decision. Alan dropped me off as close to the door as he could, but I still had to slog through a good deal of mud, and the rain was pelting down. I rang the bell and waited.

The wait was long enough for me to conjure up a fine case of the horrors. From what little I could see of the house through the driving rain, it would have made a wonderful setting for a Gothic novel. The door itself, heavily carved, should, just about now, swing open on creaky hinges, and a Mrs. Danvers type should say, “Yes?,” with a rising inflection, a lifted eyebrow, and a tone of infinite menace. I actually tried the handle, and was foolishly relieved when the door was properly locked. Telling myself not to be silly, I rang again.

The person who eventually answered did not in the least resemble the baleful housekeeper of
Rebecca.
She was young, pretty, and out of breath. “I'm so sorry! I was in another part of the house. We didn't really expect any visitors on such a frightful day.”

“This is the Miniature Museum, isn't it?”

A fussy little man had bustled into the anteroom where I stood dripping, and now he winced visibly.

“Please!” he said in a high, pained voice. “Museum of Miniatures! We do have a miniature museum, indeed, rather a splendid one, with as fine a collection of original artwork as you will ever—but do come in! Your coat and hat will do nicely on the rack, thank you, and the boots—er—I'm afraid I have no slippers to offer you—”

“It's all right, I brought shoes. If there's a chair—”

“My dear lady! Of course, of course! Do forgive me!” He nodded imperiously to the young woman, who scurried away and came back with a folding chair.

I studied my host covertly while I accomplished the awkward business of changing out of very muddy boots. That he was my host I had no doubt. There is an indefinable look of calcified enthusiasm, a slightly demented glitter in the eye, that characterizes the truly fanatic collector, and this tubby little man, with his rather long, flyaway white hair and his pudgy but delicate hands, had all the stigmata. I wasn't sure whether he looked more like the first assistant elf in Santa's workshop, minus the beard, or one of those little cartoon demons with horns, tail, and red tights. The elf, I decided, but something of a thorn in Santa's side, perhaps. He would be good at working on tiny objects, but not fond of taking orders.

I stood, properly shod, and extended my hand. “You must be Mr.—er—Sir Mordred Brocklesby, and my name is Dorothy Martin.” Alan and I had agreed that it was more practical for me to keep my old name when we married; when an American marries an Englishman there are enough legal complications without a name change thrown in. And I'd been Dorothy Martin for over forty years; I wasn't sure I could adjust to Nesbitt “I live in Sherebury,” I went on, “but I've never managed to get out here to the Hall before. I certainly could have chosen a better day, couldn't I?”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the elf. “I shall be pleased to devote myself entirely to you. I am indeed Mordred Brocklesby, and I am delighted to meet you.” There was something so condescendingly regal about his manner I was half-surprised he didn't refer to himself as “One.” I would have liked to meet the young woman, too, but Sir Mordred plainly considered her a part of the furniture. So I smiled at her and paid my admission fee while Sir Mordred studied the ceiling, apparently finding the exchange of money in his house to be indelicate.

He wasn't shy, however, about turning the house into a museum. Chattering away in a fluting alto, he led me through a doorway into the great hall of the house. “As you will see, I have devoted my house, and indeed my life, to the preservation of the art of the miniature. I refer, of course, not to small paintings, as the term is often used, but to dolls' houses and their appurtenances. You are interested in miniatures?”

“I confess, I know very little about them. I am interested in architecture, though, and I've heard a great deal about this house.”

I raised my head as I spoke, to examine the carved and painted ceiling with its huge crystal chandelier, and ran smack into Sir Mordred, who had stopped dead in his tracks. I started to apologize, but he waved his hands in agitated fashion.

“No, no, it was my fault, but, my dear lady! I do
beg
of you not to mention this house in the same breath as the word ‘architecture.' This is not architecture! This is a nightmare, an unharmonious horror, a travesty! Just
look
at it!” he wailed, pointing dramatically.

I obediently looked. He was pointing to the staircase, and it was worth looking at. I had never seen anything like the plaster work that adorned that staircase and its ceiling. Draperies, tasseled ropes, garlands, cherubs, satyrs, nymphs, the odd lion here and there, all in white and gold, and all jostling for space amidst the carved wood and marble beams, balusters, railings, and stair treads, not to mention an occasional mirror or trompe l'oeil window.

There was something oddly unpleasant about the effect. Were the proportions wrong? I didn't know enough about such things to be sure. Perhaps it was the leering expressions on the statuary, or the unexpected angles, or the streaky, rather warped mirrors. Or, more likely, I was still in my Gothic fantasy and was imagining the whole thing.