“Why in the world would anyone build a castle out here?” asked Mary.
Beatrice drew her mind back to the present. It was a relief to be on an adventure, to think of action and not emotion for a while. The problem of her own heart could wait. The immediate problem must take priority now.
“I’m certain they will tell us in the castle itself! Come.” Beatrice held out her hand again. This time Mary took it, and she felt once more a pleasure she had not felt often in her life before joining the Athena Club—of being wanted and trusted.
They walked cautiously along the wet causeway, between water on either side, out to the island. Although the tide was low, there were still small waves on the water, crashing in white foam on the rocks. There was a storm coming—she could feel it.
The walk up the wooded hill to the castle, on a series of stone steps, was steep, and by the time they reached the front entrance, they were both breathing heavily. The castle itself was not as elegant as the French and German castles Beatrice had seen in her travels, which looked as though they had come out of fairy tales. But it was what a castle should be, when it was perched on an island in the Atlantic—gray and squat, as though hunkering down from wind and weather. It had peaked, small-paned windows high up on the stone walls, innumerable chimneys, and a turreted central tower that seemed to stand guard, looking out over the vast gray water. She rather liked its roughness, its gothic simplicity. Mr. Ruskin, who had written The Stones of Venice, would surely have admired it.
“Are you here for the tour?” A woman standing in the doorway was speaking to them in somewhat formidable tones. She was dressed in violet watered silk with a white collar and cuffs. A chatelaine hung at her waist. Was she the mistress of the castle? Mrs. Davies had told them it was owned by the St. Aubyn family. The head of the family had been made Lord St. Levan by the Queen herself.
“Yes, we are,” said Mary. “Does it start soon? We are so looking forward to seeing the house, Mrs.—” Mary waited a moment.
“Russell,” said the woman graciously. “In half an hour, miss. If you would like to tour the gardens yourself, I would be happy to provide you with a labeled map.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Russell,” said Mary. “We would like that very much.”
When they were walking away from the front entrance, toward what looked like a series of terraces going down to the sea, Beatrice whispered to Mary, “How did you know she was a housekeeper? I thought she might be Lady St. Levan.”
“I don’t know, she just looked like a housekeeper,” said Mary. “Lady St. Levan would never dress like that.”
Dress like what? In what looked to Beatrice like a perfectly sensible, even fashionable, gown? It was so difficult, sometimes, to understand these English distinctions. Were they, after all, necessary? What mattered was the beauty and functionality of a gown, not what it announced about one’s social position. Surely human beings were the same, underneath.
CATHERINE: You’re such a socialist! Any day now, you’re going to tell us that you’ve joined the Fabian Society.
BEATRICE: If you mean that I support food and shelter and medical care for everyone, then perhaps I should. And the Fabian Society does a great deal of good work in the East End.
MRS. POOLE: Godless radicals, that’s what they are. Although, I have to admit, they do distribute food to the poor. “Whatever you do for one of the least of these,” as the Bible says. Still, they’re practically heathens!
The housekeeper had given them a map of the gardens. Beatrice was happy to wander around for half an hour, although she found the map sadly inadequate. It did not even include the Latin names of the plant species! It was fascinating to see such plants—quite tropical, some of them—growing in an English garden. There were stately palms, aloes whose sap could be used to soothe burns, agaves that could be applied topically for inflammation, and all manner of flowering plants that she would not have expected to see in this climate.
At one point she stopped and said, with suprise, “There is Erythrina growing here.”
“So?” said Mary.
Beatrice looked at her, shocked. How could people know so little about plants? They stood upon grass, ate tomatoes and peppers and aubergines, purchased lilies for their tables, walked under beeches or oaks—and yet they knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about the plants with which they shared this magnificent Earth! Even Clarence had said to her, “Sweetheart, I don’t know a radish from a rose,” which was surely an exaggeration.
“It is more commonly grown in India and China,” she explained. “It is a potent medicine, and also a poison if the seeds are ingested. One must handle it carefully, but I imagine the gardener knows what he is doing. My father experimented with it in his garden—”
“Really? That’s interesting,” said Mary, looking down at her wristwatch. “I think it’s time for the tour. Come on.”
Had Mary been listening to her at all? Sometimes Mary did not listen. She was a good friend, and had so far been a conscientious President of the Athena Club. But she did not always pay attention to the feelings of those around her. It was a sort of obliviousness, or perhaps obtuseness. Beatrice was not certain which word most clearly expressed her meaning in English. Of course, she could never say this to Mary.…
MARY: Well, now you have, in a sense. Am I really obtuse?
BEATRICE: Mary, I assure you that I was not thinking of any such thing as we walked through the gardens of St. Michael’s Mount.
CATHERINE: Well, you were thinking of it last week when Mary would not listen to you about the foxgloves growing in the Vicar’s garden, and it took us two extra days to solve who had poisoned those choir boys. I know you’re trying to be like Holmes, Mary, but it’s not necessary to emulate him to the point of ignoring everyone else.
MARY: Sherlock listens! Well, sometimes.
Beatrice looked around her one last time, admiring the tropical lushness. Mary was already walking back toward the front entrance of the castle. When Beatrice joined her a few minutes later, the housekeeper said, “I think it will be just you two young ladies this morning. I suppose the weather is keeping less energetic visitors away! The tour of the castle lasts half an hour, leaving time for you to explore the chapel on your own later, so you can make your way back across the causeway in plenty of time. If you will follow me…”
In a cultured voice that seemed to speak to a larger crowd than two—clearly, she was used to giving tours—Mrs. Russell led them through the entrance hall, which had weapons on the stone walls, as well as the St. Aubyn coat of arms over the mantel. Mary and Beatrice followed her up a set of steep steps, through the library with its impressive collection of volumes, then into a large dining hall that must have been a refectory when the castle was still a monastery inhabited by the monks of St. Michael. From the dining room, they passed out onto the terrace, from which Beatrice could see the harbor below and the causeway stretching back toward Marazion.
“If you’ll follow me to the south terrace,” said Mrs. Russell, leading them around the stone walls of the castle. “From there you can see the chapel, which as I said you may explore yourselves. But first I will show you the blue drawing room, used by the family for entertaining.” She led them through a vestibule into a pleasant room painted the blue of a Wedgwood vase, furnished in a very pretty gothic style. It was not as artistic as Mr. William Morris’s designs—there were no arching vines or medieval furnishings here—but Beatrice imagined that Mr. Ruskin would approve of it.