I once had a shameful passion for the novels of Denis Wheatley - I read them avidly, delighting in their elaborate, lurid, plots - the covers of my Arrow paperbacks depicted saturnine caddish heroes, despatching Nazis - bathyspheres were circled by sharks - haunted abbeys were illuminated by feverish moonlight - helpless virgins were offered to the Devil -
I was about twelve or thirteen when I first discovered Gregory Sallust, the Duke de Richleau and the rest of the louche, dangerous, gang -
The Duke drove a Hispano-Suiza - in my dreams, I, too, hurtled through the night in this glamorous beast - the glaring beams of my headlights disrupted abject covens -
Later, after my Wheatley Years, I still retained a secret love of sleek land ships - I had begged a lift in a Morgan, but it was not enough to assuage that hidden desire -
I was overjoyed, therefore, to see a Lagonda, parked in front of Creech Grange - there was a Country Day bring held in the grounds of the house - alpacas were being shorn - amiable donkeys carried small children to the artificial lake - there was a statue of an anguished young man in the conservatory -
But, there, on the driveway, was a Lagonda - it had red leather seats, a steering wheel large enough for the helm of a racing yacht - the bonnet was thrown back, revealing the potent engine - it was like looking at a sleeping powerful animal -
The black mud guards glittered in the sunlight - the white coachwork was flawless - there was an Oxford Book of Narrative Verse resting upon the back seat -
Perhaps, I thought, a brave scholar, out of a lost Denis Wheatley novel, was going to jump into this beautiful vehicle - he would be wearing a blue jacket, with a Moleskine tucked into one pocket - he would turn to wave goodbye to a slender woman standing at an opened window -
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