Iclear my throat.“Your house is beautiful.”I don’t share what I realized on the tour, mostly because there’s a chance I’m wrong.There are so many country houses in the United Kingdom; maybe I just missed this one.And maybe what we’re doing, putting him closer to the monarchy, will make a difference.I’ll get zooped back home and I’ll wake up knowing all about the historic, famous, wonderful Alston Hall.
I’ll probably get back home and realize it was so important I wrote an article—no, I’ll have written an entire book about it and about the half-Indian marquess who turned around a family’s fortune—Leopold Clifford-Alston.And he did it ethically!Well, I guess that depends on how one feels about beer and marrying for money.
The universe will push all sorts of unwelcome knowledge about his family into my head.Like all the kids he had with his beer heiress.And how he got so rich he was finally able to afford a mistress after all.
But I don’t need to tell him any of that.
“Your face went through quite a lot of emotions in a short period of time.Some of them not as happy as others.”
“No.Only happy thoughts,” I lie, which I’ve gotten so good at in the past week.“It’s a stunning house.”There, I even ended with something a hundred percent honest.
“I am glad you like it.You appreciate it more than I ever have.”He looks around, maybe trying to see it like I do.Not as a family home, but as an expression of hundreds of years of history, with all of the social and political pressures and changes, culminating in the phenomenon of the English country house.
“I have a different perspective.I could never look at a place like this and see a home,” I say.
Leo quirks an eyebrow.“Why not?It might be missing some of the most recent domestic innovations until I obtain the money to renovate, but it is a good pile of bricks.”
“It’s perfect.But in my time, most of these houses are museums or hotels or event spaces.A much smaller number are family homes, and even fewer have the original families living in them.”
“We already get some visitors; letting in more of thehoi polloisounds terrifying.”
“But you can charge them!Solving your money problems as well.”It maybe isn’t fair to suggest it, since the houses don’t become full, organized museums until 1960 at Longleat.
Tigers will be involved.Because apparently, if you can’t get people to visit you for the history or art, why not open a zoo in the middle of the English countryside?
But I don’t care as much about timeline continuity, not when I could potentially help Leo.Plus, Hampton Court had been open to the public since 1838 for a shilling.And this is the time when country house tourism is rapidly increasing with the invention of railways and cars, changing from rich people seeing other rich people’s homes to everyone traveling and seeing history.Some of the houses are open in an informal way for anyone who wants to visit, with the housekeeper giving tours, and some even have other infrastructure like buses and inns to facilitate travel to the house.
So I’m not giving anything away, even if the practice of visiting these houses doesn’t become a large, formal business model until later.
“I do not think it would make a difference at this juncture.”
Looks like the timeline is safe.“I’m just telling you what happens in my time.”
“Have you visited my house in your future?What happens to Alston Hall?”
Why is he so much more perceptive than I originally thought?He’s supposed to be a rake, damn it.“I haven’t seen every house in England, and not Alston Hall.So I can’t tell you its fate.”
“But you study us…if anyone would know, it would be you.”
“Thank you for thinking I’m good at my job, but there’s plenty I don’t know yet.That’s the point of studying and learning.And some things are hidden to the future, especially by the people I want to study themselves.I didn’t know that your mom was an Indian woman living in England, and she is my specialty.”Maybe I can write about her when I get back.Do deeper research now that I know what I’m looking for.Maybe some of the family documents survived, but no one has bothered to read them.Plus everything I’ve learned about her from Leo.
“Hmm.”He doesn’t believe me, but he lets it go.
We fall into silence.“Really beautiful house.”If I keep repeating it, maybe I won’t have to move on to any other uncomfortable topics.
“So I’ve heard.I will get you a guidebook from the village before we leave.Someone wrote it for the occasional tourists we get, and I am sure you will enjoy it.”
“Thank you, that sounds really interesting.”More silence.“I especially liked your library.”
“I’ve noticed you like libraries.”
I lick my lips nervously at the reminder of what we did in the last library we visited.It doesn’t help that Leo remembers too, his eyes locked on my lips.
“Have you read all the books in there?”I ask as an attempt to distract him from thoughts of our kiss.
“I have opened some of them.”
“What a waste.”But at least he’s looking at my eyes again.
