Free Christmas at Candleshoe by Michael Innes

thing.’
    Mr Armigel is shocked, and Grant sees that the situation is a little awkward. Because the tree has been neatly felled he is prepared to be on the side of the young woodcutters. So Mr Armigel, who probably has not been down to the end of this drive for months, must be headed off. Grant has an inspiration. ‘See here, Mr Armigel, don’t you come any further. You have that pie to think of, and that’s a whole heap more important than stopping along with me. I’ll just get the car a bit up this avenue, and follow you back to the house.’
    Mr Armigel discernibly hesitates. It is clear that part of his mind is indeed with his rabbit-pie. At this moment a twig snaps in the undergrowth nearby, and with the suddenness of an apparition the boy is before them. Mr Armigel is delighted. ‘But here is Jay – and at a thoroughly apposite juncture, as is his wont. Jay, be so kind as to take Miss Candleshoe’s guest to the lodge, and help him to dispose suitably of his conveyance. You will excuse me, my dear sir? It has occurred to me that baked apples, albeit an unassuming dish, may make an agreeable addition to our repast.’
    Mr Armigel toddles away. Grant and the boy are left eyeing each other.
    Jay is slim, straight, pale, dark-haired, and with dark eyes deeply set. He ought to have more chance of being handsome than attractive, and he clearly does not intend that his present demeanour should be held engaging. He confronts Grant grimly for a moment. Then he turns and precedes him silently down the drive. His bow has vanished, and he has changed out of his archer’s clothes into very old grey flannel trousers and a dark blue shirt. Jay is long-limbed and will remain so. His arms as well as his legs move with precision as he walks. Grant finds it indicative of his own social inexperience that he would certainly have supposed this to be the young squire, happily bundled into his shabbiest attire for the holidays.
    Grant overtakes Jay, but doesn’t speak. He has decided that here is a nice kid, and he is anxious not to say a wrong thing. There has been sufficient evidence that Jay has no use for casual visitors to Candleshoe, and he wants not to get further in the boy’s black books. They reach the felled tree. Grant stops. ‘I’ve done a good deal of this in my time.’ He steps to the tree’s base and passes a hand appraisingly over the axed surface. He gives a curt approving nod and walks on.
    Jay is looking at him sideways. The boy, he realizes, is not sullen or surly. He is wary – very wary – and now he is puzzled. He has put Grant in some category, and Grant’s taking note of the soundness of the tree-felling job has thrown him out. But still he doesn’t speak. Grant remembers that this kitchen-boy knows Meredith’s ‘Woods of Westermain’, and this makes him steal his own sidelong glance. Their eyes meet for a moment and each looks away. Now comes the part of the beech wood, Grant recalls, that is curiously silent.
    But this time he does hear something. It is the low murmur of a gently flowing stream. To the right is a small glade, and he can just discern a gleam of water. Something – to Grant no more than a shadow – flickers. But the boy has stopped in his track – and now he speaks.
    ‘The kingfisher!’
    ‘Could you tell, son, in this light?’
    ‘It was the kingfisher.’ For some reason the boy is darkly triumphant. ‘That’s always important, isn’t it?’
    ‘You mean lucky?’ Grant is amused.
    Perhaps he sounds so – for Jay flings round at him. ‘Do you defy augury?’
    So Jay knows Hamlet too. It occurs to Grant that Mr Armigel has been permitted but a partial view of this child. ‘No,’ he says soberly, ‘I don’t defy augury, son. And if there’s good luck around, I hope it’s coming to you. But what am I to do about my car?’
    They have come to the ruined lodge. The dusk is soon going to give place to darkness, and there is something sinister about the mean, gapped