Cavalier Case (23 page)

She was on the side of the ghosts. Zena was right. It was all very well taking refuge in cliches like "marching with the times," but it was outrageous to rob Lackland Court of its proper history...

Jemima was interrupted in these romantic reflections by the sight of Zena herself. In the costume in which Jemima had once seen her at the top of the stairs, she looked magnificent. And handsome. And poetic. In short she looked exactly like the Decimus portrait. To complete the resemblance, she wore a black gauntlet, and had hidden her other hand, in keeping with the known mutilation of Decimus's fingers. (Although Zena, being left-handed, had actually hidden the right hand, in order to manoeuvre her horse more easily: so even the historically minded Zena was subject to some practical considerations.) There was no actual horse on the tennis court but Zena did have an enormous dog at her side, hired from some expert in "show business pets." The animal, called Kylie (it was presumably female), looked amiable enough at the present time, if prolonged slobbering was a sign of amiability. All the same, Jemima, remembering her dream, decided to give it a wide berth.

Zena's expression was the only flaw in her appearance: outraged was the best way of describing it. But that was understandable in view of the presence not only of Gawain, as director (she had after all known that in advance and decided to go with it), and Dave Smith as author of the narration (of whom the same could be said), but also of he who was actually to pronounce the narration. Although a less disturbing surprise than that snatch of overheard dialogue in 'Crecy Court', the identity of the narrator still took Jemima momentarily aback.

Oddly enough neither Jeremy Irons nor Bob Hoskins had in the end proved available for this important dramatic role. Since ticket holders had been promised "a star," Dan had then turned off his own bat to television (about which he knew a great deal more than about the theatre, since he regularly watched the former and never if he could help it attended the latter). Once again, however, there had been a surprising degree of unavailability, such diverse and diverting characters as Melvyn Bragg, Magnus Magnusson and Sir Roy Strong proving to be otherwise engaged. But Dan had finally secured that linchpin of the new madly popular series put out by Titan Television—BUNK OR HISTORY?—none other than Dr. Rupert Durham.

Jemima had indeed recognised the curly head and exaggeratedly attenuated figure of her Cambridge contemporary, briefly her lover, now her friend—and the owner of her Decimus portrait.

"Women love him," Alix Carstairs explained. "Well I do, and so do the coaches at the Club, everyone talks about him, it's that terrific mop of hair, I just want to run my fingers through it." Jemima resisted the temptation to retort: "You will, Oscar, you will." She joined instead the group where Rupert Durham was engaged in crossing out large chunks of Dave Smith's narration and writing his own words over it, very fast, without paying any attention at all to Dave's increasingly indignant remonstrances. Rupert Durham's expression behind his unfashionable horn-rimmed spectacles (which he was rapidly making fashionable again) remained as mild and distracted as ever, and he nodded several times as if in agreement. Nevertheless, he continued to slash and write.

Jemima, despite the fact that she had not yet caught an episode of the series (known as HISTORY IS BONK to Rupert's old friends), not even the one about Stonehenge everyone was talking about, had no doubt that she was looking at a star. So did Gawain; unlike Dave, he was gazing at Rupert with open admiration.

Jemima's impression was only confirmed when she found out what Rupert was up to. It was several minutes before he recognised her, several minutes more before he found her correct Christian name, although the kiss he then bestowed upon her was charmingly enthusiastic.

Jemima naively imagined that Rupert—the erstwhile scornful dismisser of Lady Isabella's pretensions to a proper relationship with Decimus—must now be busily eliminating her own role, Zena's "red-haired trollop," from Dave's melodramatic narrative. And she had been rather looking forward to her simulated night ride at the head of her daring men to do a spot of body-snatching! Just as she rather fancied herself in her corn-yellow silk dress, a lighter shade of her own hair colour, with its green taffeta cloak and the large globular false pearls at her neck and ears which reminded her of the sort of thing that Lady Manfred wore to play tennis.

Jemima—and Dave—had reckoned without the true mettle of the trained historian turned television star. No, Jemima's role was not in danger. It was more that of Charlotte as Olivia which was imperilled, being altered and cut before their very eyes. At least Charlotte accepted it all without a mew of protest: she had the proper cast-down eyes to play Olivia, even if her lack of height meant that she did not quite manage to achieve the dignity, for all her heavy velvet costume and her own ropes of false pearls. It was in fact Zena who strode across the court to the rescue, between ranks of seventeenth-century extras. (Who were they all—neighbours? tennis players? For Jemima had suddenly recognised one of the Planty coaches, looking very fetching in breeches and doublet, with her hair in a ponytail. ) It was Zena who tackled Rupert Durham.

The big dog, Kylie, followed obediently behind and put its huge wet muzzle into the nearest available hand—which happened to be Jemima's. Although she managed not to scream, the feel of it gave her an uncomfortable reminder of touching Dan's face on the roof. Today she had exchanged no words with him at all, beyond the most conventional polite greeting, and a kiss no warmer than that he planted on the cheek of every lady or girl present. That, however, was the way she wanted it to be—and this time she meant it.

Zena began a speech invoking the memory of "my ancestress Olivia": but its development was completely swallowed up in a huge wave of unexpected enthusiasm from Rupert himself.

"Zena Meredith! Don't you look terrific? You've got to come on my programme looking just like that. The trans-sexual thing is so important in the seventeenth century—how on earth can we understand Shakespeare by just going on about rent boys ..." Rupert rattled on. At one point he even touched one of Zena's long legs in their high black boots to illustrate a point.

Jemima waited for Zena to return to her theme in full spate of excoriation. She waited in vain. Instead, before her amused eyes, she saw Zena melting just a little, succumbing just a little more to the famous (since Cambridge) keep-on-talking-and-talk-them-into-it technique of Rupert Durham. Really, D. J. Smith had tackled Zena quite wrongly from the start.

Only Marcus Meredith, standing close to Jemima, breathing heavily in his stuffy Puritan's costume—rather like the dog now snuffling at their feet—joined Dave in indignation, if for a different reason.

"I don't know what Dan wants with the woolly-haired fellow," he muttered crossly. "That television programme is a disgrace. Did you hear his language about the Druids? It may be history, it's still utter filth. " But Jemima suspected that it was in fact the groping hand of the dedicated historian on Zena's thigh which had enraged Marcus.

For all Marcus' annoyance, for all the interested spectators, for all the need for the rehearsal to get under way, there was no certainty that Zena would have called the situation to a halt. But there was now a ripple of talk and an excited buzz and finally a sight which caused even Rupert to suspend in mid-flow, even Zena to turn her eyes away from him. It had been arranged for little Louisa Meredith to play the part of the boy Antony Decimus, since Nell was obviously
hors de combat
. The role called for some horsemanship, but Louisa, in spite of her youth, was a good rider; probably a rather better rider than her stepsister, if the truth were told, since more care had been taken to teach her.

But now, standing at the big open glass doors to the Royal Court, looking infinitely pathetic and at the same time gallant, the large bandage she wore round her head only partially obscured by an ill-fitting black wig and red velvet hat, stood Nell herself. Her mother was standing just behind her. But all eyes were on Nell as she said in the silence: "I've come to play my part. This is the dress rehearsal, isn't it?"

Her characteristic high slightly whiny voice was carrying enough. All the same, for one ghastly moment, Jemima thought Nell had said: death rehearsal. Then all other feelings were swept away in a pang of mingled pity and admiration for the stumpy determined little figure: surely Dan's daughter in this expression of her will to win—or at least to survive—if nothing else.

Thunder As Forecast

An obsession with history ran through the whole thing. Jemima knew it. Then questions came. Whose history? The Merediths' history, that was clear enough. But whose version of Meredith history?

She was lying awake—as she so often did nowadays, a maddening new development in her life—on the eve of the Cavalier Celebration itself. The eyes of the Decimus portrait seemed to mock her inability to solve the puzzle; the hidden left hand stood for her ignorance of things about the Meredith family which still remained hidden. A re-run in her mind of the events of the dress rehearsal brought no real enlightenment beyond that one brief exchange with Little Nell which had come about purely by chance. And even that was more puzzling than helpful.

Jemima had found Nell sitting alone in the third of the four courts—'Crecy'—since it was thought to be quieter than the bustle of 'Agincourt' where the rest of the cast were now assembled waiting for their cues. Nell was huddled on a white plastic spectator's chair, a cloak round her costume; her hat with its plume gave her the look of a bedraggled bird with its feathers puffed up in self-protection. The swish of Jemima's heavy skirts made her look up. Nell looked for a moment frightened, then relaxed.

"I shouldn't really be alone but Mum's just getting me some orange juice," she said rather vaguely. Then she added without further ado, answering the question which had not in fact been put to her, "I really don't know what happened to me. Everybody has got to believe me." The sing-song note in her voice was very apparent.

"I do believe you," Jemima had assured her.

"And did you believe her?" asked Cherry. They were sitting comfortably on the balcony of Jemima's flat, sharing a bottle of Jemima's favourite white wine; Cherry had brought strawberries. It was hot and slightly sultry. The weather forecast on TV for the next day- had been "very warm and dry but with occasional outbreaks of thundery rain"—the kind of indecisive forecast to drive you mad, said Jemima, if you were about to parade about in fancy dress at some outdoor event the next night.

"I believed her because she told me about the one thing she
did
remember. Nell decided to trust me, I think, on the basis of our conversation in the cloisters. She knew I kept my word and didn't tell the police. All Nell did remember was that there had been something bothering her about a costume ... A costume and some boots . . . She had an idea she had been looking for a costume, 'a special costume' were the words she used, which had somehow worried her."

"Her own costume?"

"Not the one she was supposed to wear. But she thinks she must have tried it on. Or at least noticed some odd feature about it."

Unlike Jemima, Cherry definitely did not see the Cavalier Celebration as reflecting an obsession with history. She told Jemima confidently that she looked at it all from the psychological point of view. At the dress rehearsal, Cherry, armed with a clipboard, had introduced some vital order into the burning issue of who wore what when (the extras—in particular the numerous young members of the Smith family—certainly needed a touch of Cherry's whip). Now she had some pertinent observations to make on the suitability of role to character.

"That M.P., Marcus, he really is one of your dirty old Puritans, isn't he? Seething with it all under his codpiece. And I can't stand the stuff he puts on his hair—he ought to be made to leave it off for the sake of history."

"He didn't wear a codpiece, that was his breastplate."

"Whatever it was, I reckoned he'd lose his wig peering down my neckline, hunched over me like that. And I'm sure he was longing to make a grab at that little blond girl in seventeenth-century hot pants. He was hunched over her too. Luckily she had her pitchfork to hand." That must have been Cathy Smith or her younger sister Penny.

The person who did win Cherry's approval, oddly enough, was Jane Manfred: "What style! I'm going to be just like that when I'm old." Since Cherry's observations on old age were not overheard but she
was
the one who located Lady Manfred's missing roulade, languishing for some extraordinary reason in the gentlemen's sauna, a warm friendship was struck up which boded well for Cherry's future.

"I must talk to our darling Cy about you," Lady Manfred murmured approvingly. "No one else understood how important it was ... a
real
roulade ..."

But Jemima  remembered that Dan Lackland himself had disappointed Cherry. A curiously distanced figure throughout the rehearsal—in which he had, after all, no official role—he only came to life to hug his daughter Nell from time to time.

Jemima got out of bed, switched on the main light which illuminated the whole portrait—she wanted no nightmares tonight—and began methodically to run through her mind everything she had learned about the Cavalier Case, as though it were television film which needed editing.

Oddly enough, at exactly the same moment, the person who had been the ghost and expected never to be the ghost again, because there would be no need, was thinking about Jemima Shore. Perhaps Jemima's own concentrated thoughts had awakened the person; perhaps there was something in psychic energy after all since the person had no reason whatsoever to believe in ghosts. And in any case the person no longer felt in danger from Jemima as the person had once done.

Jemima, who also did not believe in ghosts, continued to run the mental film. It was after she had been doing this, patiently and relentlessly, for so long that the dawn of the day which would end in the night of the Cavalier Celebration was beginning to break, that she began to see the pattern. Certain remarks, remarks by all sorts of people including innocent bystanders such as Cherry—that ridiculous conversation they had had, with Cherry's wilder and wilder theories—remarks by Babs, remarks by Nell Meredith, began to weave themselves into these patterns. And then there was love, the power of love—the obsessive love which had led Lady Isabella to abduct the skeleton of Decimus.