The Windsor Knot (6 page)

“Good luck,” said Elizabeth. “I suppose things are going well with you if that garden gnome is your biggest worry at the moment.”

“Well, it makes for a change anyway,” said Cameron.

   In the Chandler Grove Shrine to the U.S. Navy (also known as his study), Captain Grandfather was
taking his afternoon nap, his swivel chair tilted back at a precarious angle and his feet propped up on the pine coffee table. Any lurching of the chair caused by the restless sleeper was translated by his dreams into the pitch of a ship at sea.

Soundlessly the study door opened, and the old man’s grandson Charles crept in, moving in the exaggerated slow motion of one who is afraid of disturbing a sleeper. He was holding his breath as well. For a few seconds he looked about the room, exhaling slowly, and then breathing again, normally but quietly. His gaze slid past the ship models, the black-framed photographs, and the pile of unanswered letters, and finally lit upon the object of his quest: the current issue of
The Georgian Highlander
, an upscale local magazine, full of restaurant ads and notices of cultural events, neither of which interested Charles in the least. Nevertheless, it was vital that he get hold of the magazine, which was at present lying on the coffee table under Captain Grandfather’s left foot.

After a few moments of deliberation, during which he tried to think of an excuse for wanting the magazine should he be caught filching it, Charles gently lifted the old man’s foot just enough to slide the
Highlander
out. That accomplished, he replaced the foot on the coffee table and crept out of the room.

He stopped by the kitchen for a glass of fruit juice to fortify him as he worked, and then he hurried upstairs to his room with the purloined magazine. Charles was inept at acting nonchalant and he was sure he would look guiltier reading the innocuous
Highlander
than a bishop would with a copy of
Hustler
.

Once safely barricaded behind the door of his bedroom, Charles sat down at his desk and opened
the magazine. Flipping past the film reviews, the symphony schedule, and the restaurant ads, he turned to a part of the magazine that he had heretofore only glanced at: the personals column. The editors called this feature DSS, which apparently stood for Desperately Seeking Someone, and it was placed well toward the back of each issue. It had once been a source of amusement to Charles that people could be so desperate for companionship that they would advertise for a blind date, but now he felt the need to consult the listings for reasons of his own. Of course, he would have to check with the family attorney before doing anything rash, but surely he could commit himself to the extent of composing a letter.

Charles skimmed the list of ads and discovered that his first task would be to decipher the code in which they were written. A closer examination proved that this was not difficult. It was just a local singles column, after all, not the Nobel Prize Winners’ Sperm Bank. The initials SWF meant
single, white female
. He would begin with that category, and if he found nothing helpful there, he could go on to DWF, WWF, and whatever else the alphabet had to offer. He turned to the first entry.

SWF
, the ad began,
Bible college grad, 32, seeks
—Charles stopped there. He didn’t care
what
she sought; he wasn’t about to contemplate a relationship with somebody who insisted that the world was created on a Tuesday in October in 2846
B.C
.

What else was there?

WWF, 62, full-figured—
Next!

… Professional, stable, enjoys movies, outdoor activities, quiet times
… That sounded promising. Charles read the entry again. Oh. SWM. He might have known.

SWF, 22, out for a good time. Seeks laughs, travel, good dancer. Not ready to settle down—

Charles sighed in disgust. Where were all the eligible women in the world when he needed one? Here he was a veritable prize: he could cook; he could arrange flowers; he could show an intelligent interest in their careers. And did anyone care? No. All girls seemed to want these days were cheap, casual relationships with no responsibilities.

Charles read on.
DWF, likes movies …
Why did they all start by saying they liked movies? Surely no one was so pitiful as to need a companion just to sit in the dark and stare at a screen. Wasn’t there anybody whose company would be preferable to a movie?

He stopped and took a gulp of fruit juice. It was, appropriately enough, passion punch. Maybe he was being too choosy with the personal ads. How much can one reveal about oneself in a one-inch box, after all? Besides, it wasn’t as if he had much time to complete his plan. He stared up at the poster on the wall above his desk: a photograph of Albert Einstein against a background of the Horseshoe nebula. The caption, a quote from the great scientist, read:
God Does Not Play Dice with the Universe
. Charles wondered if that applied to biology as well as quantum physics. On an individual level, he doubted it. With a renewed sense of desperation, he returned to the DSS column.

This one looked promising.
Blonde SWF, 26, 5’7,” 118 lbs. Good career in scientific field. Pretty, but no time to meet men. No married creeps. No serial killers. Someday my prince will come, but he’ll have to find me. DSS-5-270690. The Georgia Highlander
.

That was more like it, thought Charles with a nod of satisfaction. He certainly seemed to fit most
of her requirements—i.e., he hadn’t been married and he had never murdered anyone. He wasn’t so sure about the rest of her specifications, but nevertheless he allowed himself to fantasize about this perfect woman and found himself, as usual, picturing Sally Ride. Unfortunately, Dr. Ride (wherever she was these days) had better things to do than to be courted by a floundering physicist with not a single journal article to his credit. Perhaps this younger, obviously lonely young woman would recognize his potential and encourage him. Perhaps she would even be a physicist and could share his dreams!

Perhaps
she would be Jane Goodall and think he was a perfect chimpanzee when she read his letter.

Charles tried not to give in to his natural pessimism. There was nothing to do but write a letter in response to her ad. He must try to sound intelligent, charming, sophisticated. (Is that what glamorous blondes were after these days?) Unfortunately, Charles had very little practice in two-thirds of those attributes. Intelligent he could be. He had been reading
Popular Electronics
since second grade, and his grades (except in literature) were effortlessly good. He didn’t see why everybody made such a fuss about things like calculus; mathematics seemed perfectly straightforward to him. But perhaps his intellectual good qualities would not be endearing to this modern Athena. Charming and sophisticated he had never tried to be. That was Geoffrey’s department. For a fleeting moment, Charles considered enlisting Geoffrey’s help in composing the letter reply, but he dismissed the thought almost at once. If he told Geoffrey
why
he was doing it, it would spoil the whole plan, and if he pretended to be in search of a lady love, Geoffrey
would laugh like a drain. The potential humiliation wasn’t worth it.

He read the article again for clues as to the lady’s preferences, but found nothing useful. He wished he had more to go on. It was difficult to make yourself attractive to someone you knew nothing about. Creative writing wasn’t his forte anyhow.

With a sigh of resignation, Charles extracted a sheet of writing paper from the desk drawer and stared down at it, hoping for inspiration. None was forthcoming. The sheet lay there smugly, daring him to jot down an equation or two to break up the expanse of emptiness.

What should he call her?
Dear SWF
seemed accurate, but crass.
Dear Fellow Scientist
sounded like a fund-raising letter from the greenhouse effect people. He glanced at the ad.
Someday my prince will come…
. That was a line from a fairy tale wasn’t it? Disney movie? Dredging up memories of longforgotten kiddie matinees, Charles finally placed the reference.
Dear Snow White
, he wrote carefully.
I hope to become your prince
.

He nodded approvingly to himself. Not bad for an inarticulate physicist, he thought. Not even to himself did Charles ever say the word
nerd
.

   That evening in Edinburgh Margaret Dawson was having tea with the ladies’ circle from the church. (The primary item on the agenda was the forthcoming bazaar.)

Margaret’s sons, left to fend for themselves, had managed to brew a pot of tea around five o’clock and were making do with leftover pastries from yesterday, rather than attempting any actual cooking themselves. They were counting on a substantial meal later that evening to compensate for this temporary deprivation. A roast on the top shelf of
the refrigerator seemed to substantiate their hopes in this matter. (Unfortunately, neither of these college-educated louts had noticed the note tacked to the door of the refrigerator, which read:
Please put roast in oven on setting of gas mark 6 at 4:30. Love Mother.)

Blissfully unaware of the coming famine, Ian Dawson had finished off a plate of shortbread and was sitting at the kitchen table watching the now recovered Traveller tuck into his evening meal of whitebait when Cameron came in from the hall and poured himself a cup of tea, ignoring Ian completely. He carefully poured milk into the mug and stirred it, humming tunelessly. He started to put the milk jug into the refrigerator and then set it back down on the counter. “I keep forgetting that in this country, you don’t have to refrigerate milk,” he murmured. “When I first got to America, I tried leaving the milk out after breakfast. It didn’t last a bloody day.” He set his mug on the table, picked up the evening paper, and sat down to read it.

“Well?” said Ian impatiently. “What did they say about the gnome theft?”

“Who?” said Cameron, turning a page.

“The police, twit. Are they coming ‘round?”

Cameron sighed and set aside the paper. “If you’re so interested, Ian, you should have rung them up yourself.”

Ian grinned. “A bet’s a bet. Don’t be such a bad sport.
Are
they coming to investigate?”

“No. They took the information over the telephone. After all, there really isn’t anything for them to see. They just cautioned us to keep the house locked and to be especially careful for the next few days, in case the intruder comes back.”

“I suppose that makes sense. I wonder who would
take a garden gnome. Did they have any theories? Did they laugh?”

Cameron shook his head. “They have no sense of humor. And no theories, either. The officer I talked to was probably younger than you are. It was all one to him. You might check with a few of your rowdier friends, though, to see if this qualifies as a collegiate prank.”

“I’ll ask. But it doesn’t seem likely.”

“The whole thing seems unlikely.”

“Well,” said Ian, “this will be quite a blow to Mother. Losing a son
and
a garden gnome all in the same week.”

O
F ALL THE
royal palaces used by the monarchs of Scotland, only the palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh is still used for royal hospitality and ceremonies. The Queen devotes most of her time in Scotland to her personal residence in the Highlands, Balmoral Castle, where she stays on holiday for ten weeks from early August until mid-October; but the Queen’s annual
official
visit to Scotland takes place in early July, at which time she occupies the nine-hundred-year-old palace of Holyroodhouse. It is a turreted, sandstone building, made gloomy by its deep-set windows and thick walls, and perhaps echoing the sorrows of its principal resident, Mary, Queen of Scots.

The original structure was an abbey, erected in the twelfth century by King David of Scotland upon the command of heaven. According to legend, King David insisted upon going hunting on the day of the Holy Rood (September 14), instead of spending the day in prayer and contemplation of the Cross (or Rood). During the hunt in the fields below Edinburgh Castle, the king became separated from his huntsmen, and he was thrown from his horse at the feet of an angry stag, its head lowered to gore him. Suddenly a mist enveloped the king, and when he put out his hand to ward off the attacking animal, he found himself grasping a cross between the antlers
of the deer. The animal ran away—and King David resolved to build an Augustinian monastery, the Abbey of Holyrood, on the site of the miracle. In later years, Robert the Bruce held parliaments there.

In 1502, King James IV converted some of the structures into a royal residence in honor of his marriage to Margaret Tudor, sister of England’s King Henry VIII. This union of the thistle and the rose was celebrated at Holyrood, and the palace was further enlarged during the reign of their son James V. The abbey, destroyed in the “rough wooing” of the English in 1544, fell into ruins and was never rebuilt; only the foundations and the ruined nave of the church remain. The palace itself was rebuilt after the English invasion, and the daughter of James V—Mary, Queen of Scots—took up residence there in 1561. The nineteen-year-old Queen, already the widow of the King of France, married Lord Darnley in the Chapel Royal, and it was in Holyrood that the Queen’s secretary, David Rizzio, was murdered by Darnley and his men.