“Okay,” I said. “What did Quentin’s neighbors think of his abbey?”
“I wasn’t alive at the time,” Arthur said, with a wry, sidelong glance, “but my grandfather intimated to me that the abbey wasn’t a big hit with the locals. I imagine they preferred your father-in-law’s house.”
“Fairworth is a little less, um, whimsical than Hillfont,” I allowed.
“Fairworth is older than Hillfont,” said Arthur, “but it’s no less whimsical. Georgian architects looked to ancient Rome for inspiration. Building a Roman house in the English countryside is about as whimsical as it gets.”
“Roman kitsch instead of medieval kitsch?” I said, smiling at the thought of what Willis, Sr., would say if I told him that his gracious home was kitschy.
“Exactly,” said Arthur. “But people got used to seeing Corinthian columns and Palladian pediments in England. Hillfont was loathed because it was new, not because it was ridiculous.”
“Do you really think your home is ridiculous?” I asked.
“I think it’s bonkers,” said Arthur, “which is why I love it so dearly.” He grinned. “Who wouldn’t want to live in a mad abbey? It’s such fun! Here we are,” he went on. “Stay within shouting distance, won’t you? If you wander off, we’ll have to mount a search party for you. You’ll understand what I mean in a minute. It’s a bit of a maze.”
We’d reached an arched opening in the wall surrounding the welter of courtyards and gardens I’d seen from afar. I tried to look everywhere at once as I followed Arthur through a small apple orchard, a berry garden, an herb garden, a burgeoning vegetable garden, and three or four minor courtyards.
What I saw saddened me.
It seemed to me that a man who could afford to purchase fine works of art—such as the da Vinci sketch Grant Tavistock coveted—should have been rich enough to keep his property in good order, but I saw little evidence of it. Though the gardens were moderately tidy, the courtyards were littered with broken statuary and loose stones that had fallen from dilapidated walls. Two possibilities crossed my mind as I steered the pram around the detritus: Either Arthur had suffered a financial setback or he wasn’t as wealthy as Grant and Charles believed him to be.
We saw no one apart from each other and Bess until we entered a sunny, rectangular courtyard paved with large flagstones. It was bordered on three sides by a colonnaded arcade and on the fourth by the abbey’s west wing.
“The fountain court,” said Arthur, coming to a halt. “We tend to congregate here.”
The fountain court wasn’t quite as decrepit as the courtyards I’d already seen, but it, too, showed signs of neglect. The stumpy remains of a curved wall served as its centerpiece, piles of twisted metal lay rusting beneath the arcade, and several flagstones were missing entirely. It seemed like an odd place to congregate, but three children called “Hi, Grandad!” to Arthur when we entered it. They couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old.
Two rosy-cheeked boys sat at opposite ends of a long wooden table in the arcade’s shadowy recesses. I couldn’t see what they were doing, but a small girl in a wide-brimmed straw hat knelt on the patch of bare dirt where the flagstones had been, digging industriously with a trowel.
“Is she starting her own little garden?” I asked, smiling at the girl.
“Emily isn’t planting seeds,” said Arthur. “She’s exhuming a corpse.”
Fifteen
I was sure—almost sure—that Arthur was joking, but I couldn’t detect a trace of humor in his face. To judge by his expression, exhumations were a normal playtime activity for preschool-age Hargreaveses.
“A corpse?” I said faintly. “Whose corpse?”
“I’m not certain,” said Arthur. “I’m afraid I didn’t ask her name before we ate her.”
“You ate her?” I said, horrified.
“It’s a reasonable thing to do with a chicken,” said Arthur, “unless you’re a vegetarian. Harriet is a vegetarian, but Emily isn’t. Not yet, at any rate. Most of the children go through a vegetarian phase, but—”
“Stop,” I interrupted, raising a hand to silence him. “Are you telling me that Emily is digging up a chicken carcass?”
“I am,” said Arthur. “She buried it yesterday, after dinner. I expect she wants to find out what it looks like now.” His blue eyes began to twinkle as he explained in gentle tones, “Emily’s mother and father are archaeologists.”
“Of course they are,” I said, feeling gullible as well as relieved. “You were having a little fun with me.”
“A very little,” he admitted. “Hillfont’s atmosphere creates certain expectations. One wouldn’t expect to find a grave robber at Fairworth House, but here”—he made a sweeping gesture—“anything’s possible!”