The River of No Return

war memorabilia. Caroline began talking with exaggerated animation about the role the house had played as a nerve center of intelligence during the hostilities, and when she opened the tall doors that led to the formal rooms, Nick relaxed. The walls and moldings were all painted a sickly mint, in the thick, industrial paint common to the 1940s, and the rooms were laid out with a series of exhibits about spy activity, local involvement in the war effort, and the like.
    Arkady and Nick listened politely as Caroline told of Churchill’s visit in 1942, of the time a German parachutist landed nearby and tried to burn the house but was caught and kept prisoner in the cellars, and of the annual reunions of the men and women who had worked there across those years, sadly dwindling in number now. Arkady asked a question or two about the neighboring Castle Dar: Had it been torn down before the war, or had the government used it, too? Nick couldn’t have cared less about the answers, and soon their voices were washing over him like so much meaningless chatter.
    It was the rooms themselves that Nick was listening to now. They were whispering to him. Their proportions, the quality of the light, the intricately carved moldings, still beautiful beneath their layers of nasty paint, all begged him to recognize that he was home. While Caroline talked about how Castle Dar was pulled down for its stone and fittings in 1955, he looked over at the marble mantelpiece. One corner was still ever so slightly chipped from that time he played with his catapult indoors. He closed his eyes and felt the blood rushing to his head. Then a sharp pain as Arkady slowly and deliberately stepped on his foot. His eyes flew open. Caroline was talking about the techniques the government used to recruit spies. Nick stood on one foot and listened intently.
    Caroline told them that, in the upstairs rooms, the National Trust had honored the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history of the house, and even had a few objects that had been in the Falcott family at that time. “I don’t know if I can do this,” Nick whispered as they began to mount the stairs.
    “You can.” Arkady put his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “You must accustom yourself.”
    Nick let his hand trail along the banister as they mounted the stairs. At the top, beneath the dome painted with glowing clouds and pouting cherubim, was a glorious Palladian window, the centerpiece of the house’s whole design. Nick knew it showcased a view of Blackdown’s famous gardens sweeping down to the banks of the river Culm. Except that when he looked out, there were no gardens. The intricate series of interconnected beds had been cleared, and now there was a broad lawn that stretched unbroken right down to the river. In the exact middle of the lawn, his father’s Grecian folly, once overgrown with roses, stood out like a lonely tooth. But it had always stood off to the right. Whoever heard of sticking a folly in the dead center of a view?
    Caroline came up behind him. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
    “Were . . .” Nick cleared his throat. “Were there gardens?”
    “Oh, yes. Glorious gardens. But after the death of the last marchioness they went to wrack and ruin. When the house was requisitioned during the war, they plowed them under. Too easy a target for bombers, you see. And they painted camouflage on the roof. It’s still a little hard to find the house from the air,” she said proudly.
    “I . . . see. Was the folly always there? I mean, was it always in that spot?”
    “You are a garden buff! No, you are quite right. Drawings of the garden show that the folly stood somewhere over there.” She pointed to the right. “But they disassembled it during the war, because of the bombs. When the National Trust took over care of the property in the 1970s they found the stones over by the edge of the wood and put it back together again. I don’t know why they put it there. Perhaps to keep up the Palladian symmetry?”
    “Mm.”
    Arkady put his hand on Nick’s shoulder again. “Stop bothering Caroline with your hobby,” he said. “Let’s see the rest of the house.”
    Caroline was affronted. “I am happy to answer all questions,” she assured Nick, turning her shoulder to Arkady. “If you are interested, there are drawings of the gardens in the pamphlet about the house. The last marquess’s young sister made watercolors of them sometime in the eighteen hundreds, and they are really