Pearl Buck - Gods Men

An immense curiosity sprang up in his somewhat light and inquisitive mind, and he imagined himself talking William over with his sister, Emory.

“He’s not a proper American at all. With just a little changing, he could make a fair stab at being an Englishman, if he wanted to. And the odd thing is that he would and he wouldn’t want to—”

To bring his mind back from such words, he began to describe to William the recent hunting he had shared with his uncle in Scotland. Then a bell rang suddenly from the house and broke across Michael’s endeavors to amuse.

“That’s tea, I’m afraid,” he said cheerfully, and thankful to be relieved of the conversation, he was liberal enough to wonder if William felt a like relief and daresayed to himself that he did.

Hulme Castle, William discovered, was one of the relics of the time of William the Conqueror and since it was near Hulme Forest, it had often been the hunting box of kings. In the fifteenth century it fell into disrepair, its last use being to shelter a mistress of the then ruling king. In the early sixteenth century it was given to a newly created earl, who rebuilt the castle but not the keep, rebuilt also the Great Hall, and discovered among old ruins a chest left by King Edward III. In the seventeenth century King James visited the castle while hunting and in the eighteenth century the then existing earl finished the rebuilding of the whole castle, remodeling the kitchens entirely and adding a handsome picture gallery. No building had been done since. The present occupants were the Earl, his wife, his son Michael, and his daughter Emory. On the third Sunday of every month the castle was open to the public except for the rooms occupied by the family.

So much William discovered from a small book he found in the British Museum. He had taken time to find out all he could about Hulme Castle. It was a small estate but an ancient one.

From the main highway through the Downs William, seated in the heavy motorcar he had bought for his stay in England, saw Hulme Castle on a low and pleasant hill. Twin towers of Norman architecture guarded the entrance through which, on a soft gray English day, he approached his destination. The chauffeur pulled a huge knocker and the door was opened by a man in some sort of informal livery.

“Hulme Castle?” the chauffeur inquired, knowing well enough that it was.

“Hulme Castle,” the manservant replied.

William got out, properly dignified, and mounted the shallow stone steps.

The manservant took his things. “Mr. Lane?”

“Yes.”

“Come in, please, sir. We were expecting you. I will show you your room, sir. This way, please, sir.”

A huge table stood in the middle of the entrance hall and behind it double stairs wound upward to right and left. Upstairs William went down a long and wide hall into a large room, quite modern in its decoration. A small coal fire burned in a polished grate under a carved mantelpiece, upon which the only ornament was a silver bowl of ash-pink roses.

“Tea is being served in the Panel Room, sir, to the left at the bottom of the stair,” the man said and disappeared.

William went to the wide leaded window. The sill was deep in the thick stone wall and he looked down over the tops of oaks still green. The hill declined sharply beneath this western wall and on the horizon the sun was setting, pink among the gray clouds. The castle was filled with silence and with peace, and he saw no human being. A feeling of rest and remoteness stole upon him and he sighed.

He stepped into the same stillness a few moments later when, having washed his hands and face, he went downstairs. The door of the Panel Room was open and he heard someone playing the piano. Of music he knew nothing and he had not missed it, but he was intelligent enough to know that the person now playing was a musician. He crossed the hall, entered the door, and saw something that he might have imagined. A long, beautifully shaped room, paneled in oak, spread before him. At the far end was a large fireplace, and above it the coat of arms of Hulme. Before the fire a tea table was set and an old man, the Earl himself doubtless, sat in an easy chair of faded red leather. Across the fireplace sat Lady Hulme, unmistakable, tall, thin, weathered, and wearing an old tweed suit. She was knitting something brown. Michael leaned against the mantle, his hands in his pockets, gazing at the fire, and at the piano sat a woman in a long crimson dress.

She lifted her head and smiled, a gesture of invitation, while she went on playing softly and firmly the closing chords. The Earl saw him and then Michael, and with the same smile and gesture they waited, Michael halfway across the room, the Earl standing. Lady Hulme lifted her large pale blue eyes, dropped them again, and continued her knitting.

At the piano the last chord sounded deeply. Michael leaped forward and wrenched William’s hand.

“How awfully good of you to come! This is my father — and my mother.”

William touched the Earl’s dry old hand and received a nod from Lady Hulme.

“Very good of you,” the Earl murmured. “It’s a long way from London, I’m afraid. We’re very quiet.”

“I like quiet,” William said.

He turned, still delaying, still dreading.

“This is my sister Emory,” Michael said simply.

William took a long cool hand into his own. “I’m afraid I interrupted the music.”

“We were only waiting for you,” she replied.

“Emory, pour tea,” Lady Hulme commanded. “I’ve dropped a stitch.”

She moved to obey, and for one instant William looked down into eyes dark and clear, set in a pale and beautiful face. He saw her mouth, the lips tender and delicate, quiver and smile half unwillingly, or so he imagined. She was tall and so thin that she might have been ill except for the look of clear health in her eyes and her pale skin.

“Do sit down,” she said in her sweet English voice, and seated herself by the tea table. “I’m filled with curiosity about you. I’ve never met an American.”

“I am not typical, I am afraid,” William replied, and tried not to stare at her hands as they moved above the cups. They were exquisite hands, and there was something about them so familiar that he frowned unconsciously to remember. Then memory came back to him. He had seen hands like these long ago, when as a little boy with his mother, he had looked at the hands of the Old Empress in Peking, the same thin smooth hands!

“Come along, Emory,” Lady Hulme said in her husky voice, still knitting briskly. She paused, however, to pull a bell rope with vigor as William sat down, and the manservant came in with a plate of hot scones on a silver tray.

“Hello, Simpkins,” Michael said. “How is it you’re passing the tea today?”

“Matthews has mumps,” Lady Hulme said. “It’s absurd, really, but he caught them from the new housemaid, I believe.”

“He did, my lady,” Simpkins said very gently.

Lady Hulme turned to William. “I hear you have pots of money. Here’s your tea.”

“Don’t heed my mother,” Michael said rather quickly. “She likes to think she’s daring. Why do you say such a thing, Mother?”

“Why not?” Lady Hulme retorted. Her face remained expressionless, whatever she said, the large eyes like pale lamps in her face that was reddened by sun and wind. “I can’t think of anything nicer than having pots of money. One needn’t be ashamed of it. I wish your father had it.”

William took his tea and helped himself to thin bread and butter and a hot scone. Some pleasant-looking cake waited upon a small, three-tiered table, but he knew, from school memory, that it would not be passed to him until he had eaten his bread and butter and scone. Sweets came last or not at all.