"Sam, you can't be serious!" Andrew exclaimed. His father could tell this was not the first time she'd brought the topic up, from the healthy measure of exasperation in his son's voice, but there'd been no change to the deep, underlying fondness that colored Andrew's tone whenever he spoke to or of Sam, so Foyle only sat and waited. It wouldn't be long.
"Your Oxford degree is in English literature, Andrew. That doesn't make you the authority on every document written in English, you know," Sam said stoutly, her knitting needles clacking along without any alteration in pace. Foyle wasn't sure what she was making save that it could not be intended as a gift for either Andrew nor himself as they were frequent witnesses to the transfiguration of the dark, heathered yarn into some yet-to-be-determined garment.
"Is that what you're calling it? A document? It's a letter from your Uncle Vincent about a magical castle in Scotland. He was clearly in his cups when he wrote it," Andrew retorted.
"A castle?" Foyle repeated mildly, less pointedly than he would have been with Milner, more interested than he would have allowed himself to be with Brookie.
"My uncle Vincent, he's a vicar you know, but his parish isn't very big and he spends quite a bit of time walking, collecting things, sort of an amateur naturalist," Sam explained. Foyle nodded. Sam did seem to have an endless number of uncles who occupied vicarages through the British Isles, all with foibles which made them perfectly suited to one of Mrs. Christie's mysteries, except that upon meeting them, there was always something about them that suggested Waugh or Maugham. Her Aunt Jocasta, met only the once at the small wedding, had no comparison, in literature or anywhere else, and Foyle had enjoyed telling Barbara about her over a nightcap and the warm look in Barbara's pale blue eyes as she had listened.
"Sam, he's a crock," Andrew interjected, drawing his wife's gentle wrath.
"Hush! As I was saying, Uncle Vincent likes to go on rambles and he likes to talk with whoever he meets in whatever pub he fetches up in, and he met a man who told him there is a castle in Scotland, a magic castle that you can only see once or twice a year," Sam said.
"Go on, then," Andrew said, jostling Sam with his shoulder. Foyle would have worried about his son's amatory finesse but for the look in Andrew's eyes and the memory of the embrace he had found them in when they tarried in the tiny kitchen, ostensibly searching for a tin of pilchards.
"It's a magic castle that's a school for young magicians. Wizards he wrote, a school of wizardry and then man told him they do ride on brooms and there are all sorts of magical beasts and potions," Sam went on, trying but failing to suppress her excitement at even the prospect of such a thing.
"There are potions involved, that's certain," Andrew muttered.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Andrew, and that's your precious Bard," Sam snapped, not angrily, but with a charming fierceness.
"A mystery, then," Foyle said, smiling because to do otherwise was impossible.
"Dad!"
"Well, Sam deserves a holiday and seems you could do a little rambling of your own, talk to a few locals, have a pint. Doesn't do to overwork yourself," Foyle said. He thought of the grey at Andrew's temples and shadows beneath his eyes, Sam's studied brightness and her pale cheeks. Would there be a warlock with a long white beard casting spells and eating lemon humbugs? Would they discover witches cavorting around a cauldron, wands raised and a unicorn called forth from a forest? The Scottish play suggested it was possible and if not, the break would be good for them, the fresh air and lumpy beds to be laughed over, heather and gorse to be made into a wreath for Sam's sunny hair, Sam's appetites indulged and Andrew's encouraged and uxoriously satisfied.
"You miss detective work too much," Andrew said. Barbara had said the same and he'd admitted it before saying she might propose an alternate topic to occupy him. He'd been struck with a hand-worked pillow for that remark but Andrew would never believe it.
"P'rhaps," Foyle replied. "Or maybe I'm angling for a spot of fishing in a Scots loch," he added, winking at Sam as Andrew groaned at the pun, the invocation of the fishing that his father and wife delighted in, his father once again having the last word.