Page 181 of Feathers in the Wind
‘Time to get going. You take the front seat,’ I said to Nathaniel.
He folded himself into the front passenger seat and I showed him how to fasten the seat belt.
‘Fascinating,’ he said, running his hand across the dashboard. ‘I have read the writings of Leonardo Da Vinci and he talked of there one day being machines that could propel themselves. He even talked of flying machines. Are there such things?’
‘Yes. There are flying machines,’ I said in a tone heavy with infinite patience.
As I started the ignition, Nathaniel tensed, bracing his hands against the dashboard as the machine came into life beneath him.
As I turned out of the drive into the lane, he yelled, ‘Stop!’
I slammed on the brakes, my heart beating wildly beneath my ribs as I wondered what I had hit.
‘What?’
Nathaniel pointed to old Mrs. Blackett pottering into the village on her bicycle.
‘That is one of Da Vinci’s machines,’ he exclaimed
I ignored the chortle from Alan in the back seat and looked at my passenger.
‘Listen, Nathaniel, you’re going to see many strange things in the short drive to Heatherhill Hall. I’m not going to stop for every single one of them.’
He looked at me and that smile curled the corners of his lips. Damn the man. He may have been three hundred years old, but when he smiled I could forgive him anything.
‘I promise to behave, Mistress Shepherd.’
‘It’s just dangerous, having people yelling in my ear while I’m trying to drive,’ I muttered.
Once we hit the open road and I accelerated to forty miles per hour, he flattened himself against the front seat.
‘This is very fast,’ he murmured.
From the back seat, Alan said, ‘You know, Nathaniel, the motor in this vehicle is equivalent to ninety-four horses.’
‘Ninety-four horses,’ Nathaniel repeated.
I shot him a sideways glance. Men were men of whatever age and, although the knuckles of his hand clutching the seat belt were white, his eyes glittered at the speed and power of my Fiat Punto.
* * *
Heatherhill Hall stood,as it had for over six hundred years, nestled in a sprawl of ancient gardens, orchards and woodland, unspoiled by the threat of urbanization creeping from the town which now crowded the park walls.
I turned the car in through the fine eighteenth-century gates and past a neat gatehouse.
‘That was not there...’ Nathaniel murmured more to himself than to me. He turned to look at me. ‘You said yesterday the house is now owned by National Trust. What or who is that?’
‘After the war, these sorts of homes became too hard for private families to maintain,’ Alan said from the back seat. ‘Your descendant, I suppose, sold it to the nation. It has a fine Inigo Jones dining chamber and Grinling Gibbons carvings on the hall staircase.’
Nathaniel frowned. ‘What war...’ he began but stopped. ‘No, that can wait. My father commissioned Jones. I remember him well, but who is this Gibbons person?’
‘After your time,’ Alan said.
There were hardly any cars in the visitors’ car park. I stopped the car and as Nathaniel unfolded himself from the front seat, he looked around.
‘It’s quite different. The dog kennels were here and over yonder— the barn has gone.’
I frowned and said, ‘Good try, but it proves nothing. I’m sure you could find those details in any history of the place.’
