Cool Repentance (3 page)

On this note, Gregory Rowan walked rapidly away. But not, to Cherry's surprise, in the direction of his long black hearse car. He simply walked a little further along the pebbly beach to where a ridge of large stones indicated the highwater mark.

And there, under the stunned gaze of the two ladies from Megalith Television, he proceeded to take off first his thick dark-blue fisherman's jersey and then his battered corduroy trousers. He did not appear to have been wearing anything under these clothes at all; or if he had, he had removed all his garments at the same time. Clad then merely in a pair of old white gym shoes, Gregory Rowan strode back purposefully in the direction of the sea.

Jemima and Cherry could not tear their mesmerized gaze away, and comparing notes afterwards, agreed that they had still expected him to stop on reaching the sea's edge. But Gregory did not check his progress. At first the sea was shallow and merely splashed round his ankles. Then there must have been some shelf and a drop, for he suddenly struck out strongly, swimming along the line of the shore.

The two women watched him silently for a moment, still mesmerized, and then by unspoken agreement turned back in the direction of their own car.

'We-e-ell!* Cherry could hold no silence for very long. To Jemima's irritation her tone was definitely admiring. 'Nothing to hide indeed. What about that? And he didn't even have a towel. Did you notice?'

'I noticed what I was intended to notice,' replied Jemima crossly.

'It must have been freezing,' pursued Cherry. 'And he didn't even pause as he went in. I must say he's quite—'

'I dare say we were supposed to notice that too. Come on, Cherry, stop thinking about old Triton, and find me the route back to Lark Manor. I've got something extremely important to ask you.'

'Triton?'

'Shelley at Lerici, then.'

'But Shelley
drowned
at Lerici!
¹
cried Cherry eagerly; as Jemima was well aware, Cherry had once worked on that notorious series
The Magnificent Shelleys
and could be relied on to get the reference. Unfortunately the literary reference did not have the desired effect of distracting her from the subject of Gregory Rowan. Instead Cherry stopped and began to look back anxiously. He was still swimming strongly and quite fast along the line of the shore; soon he would reach the cliff and the line of jagged black rocks which closed the end of the small bay.

'Jem, you're such a strong swimmer, do you think you should—' 'He won't drown. Of that I can assur
e you! Come on, Cherry, now the
thing I want to ask you is this—'

But it was not until they were both
back in the Mercedes, sitting,
untangling the hair (Jemima), spraying on new forces of
Charlie
(Cherry),
that Jemima could thoroughly distract he
r friend from the black head in
the sea.

'Something that man said. Something that puzzled me. He made this very firm reference to Christabel. Christabel and the Festival. Cherry, who is Christabel? Who or what is she? And what connection has Christabel, any Christabel, with the Larminster Festival?'

'Christabel,' repeated Cherry. 'I can't think of any Christabel connected with it at all. Hang on, I've got the actresses' names here. Anna Maria Packe, Filumena Lennox
...
And most of the other Larminster Festival names. The Committee.' She scuffled in her large ethnically-inclined tote bag. 'No wait, my God, what am I saying?
Christabel.
Christabel Herrick.
The
Christabel Herrick. The actress. She used to be married to Julian Cartwright, Julian Cartwright, he of Lark Manor, with the lovely deep voice on the telephone, the man we're going to see. Don't you remember? Then she ran off. Oh years ago. There was all that frightful scandal.'

'Scandal? What scandal?'

'Oh, Jem, you're so
ungossip-mindedl'
On Cherry's lips this was definitely a reproach. 'But this you
have
to remember. The newspapers wrote screeds about it. It was all so frightfully juicy. And then tragic. But of course that's years ago. I mean, I shouldn't think Christabel Herrick has shown her face down here for years. She wouldn't dare. Certainly not at the Larminster Festival, I mean that would be a
real
scandal.'

'I'm sure you're right, Cherry,' said Jemima slowly.

Behind their backs, the dark head and arms of Gregory Rowan could now be seen heading for the shore, as a shark might be seen cutting through water.

4

Watching Christabel

The person who thought Christabel was getting away with altogether too much these days was really quite disgusted by the scene at Lark Manor that Easter Sunday: with Christabel presiding so airily over the large lunch table.

'Or rather her husband's lunch table,' the person threw in as an afterthought. But the person knew better than to put this kind of sentiment, however justifiable, into words: it was better to hug these feelings to oneself - until absolutely the right moment presented itself. Events this morning had rather proved that, hadn't they? So the person continued to mask both anger and repulsion under an impassive front.

All the same, the person knew that Christabel was really rather frightened by now. Under all that make-up Christabel wished after all she hadn't come back to Lark Manor.

Maybe it would have been better to have stayed in London and been poor and sick and sad and lonely. In spite of having no rewarding work. No marvellous lover. And getting older and uglier and not having beauty creams and hair dyes and perfumes (the smell of her lily-of-the-valley scent filled the house all over again now she was back) and people to wait on her and her lovely dresses such as that soft hyacinth-blue just the colour of her eyes, and
jew
els.
How many kinds of blue jewel Christabel was wearing today! A long string of turquoise mixed with
the
pearls with the sapphire clasp, the Cartwright pearls, she'd got them out of the bank pretty quickly, hadn't she? The aquamarine ring, on the other hand, the one she always wore, she'd taken with her when she went. At lunch, of course, she was wearing it on her left hand. Her white hand, creamy and be-creamed, caressing and now once more caressed.

In spite of all this Christabel was going to die and the warm soft round body under the yielding cashmere would grow cold and be put in the 
dank rich mouldy earth of Larminster Churchyard. So all the creams and lotions and perfumes were not going to save her, and the blue jewels, all of them, all of them save the aquamarine and perhaps that would be buried with her. would go back into the bank.

Christabel had this knowledge now: Christabel was frightened under that sweet sorrowing manner of hers.

'Please don't torture me,' she had said.

Admiring the arrangement of spring flowers in the centre of the dining-room table - scillas and narcissi, blue and white like the china -the person decided not to be in such a hurry to end the game after all. Christabel's torture should not be ended too quickly. The prospect would make up for the fact that there might not after all be spring flowers on her grave, not even tulips, but something full blown like roses; the first big fat creamy roses, the Gloire de Dijon, which grew on the sheltered wall in the courtyard garden of Lark Manor in May. Roses, full-blown roses, were finally much more appropriate to Christabel, the person decided regretfully, than spring flowers. You had to admit that, Christabel's spring was long past.

The person revelled in Christabel's discomfiture and Christabel's secret fear grew.

Jemima Shore, on the other hand, thought that her hostess's aplomb was really quite remarkable. Under the circumstances. The circumstances which Cherry had hastily but vividly outlined to her on the road from Larmouth to the manor. Had the prodigal son been quite so urbane at the feast given in his honour by his father? Certainly this prodigal wife ra
diated confidence, and even blith
eness in her return.

'Of course she is an actress -
was
an actress.' But Jemima, numbering a good many actors and actresses among her friends, knew that emotional control in private life was not necessarily allied to talent on the stage -even with a woman who had once been as celebrated as Christabel Herrick.

Lunch was being handed round by a manservant, an elderly and distinguished-looking man in a very clean white jacket; he was assisted by a woman with tightly set auburn hair, wearing a neat dark dress, who alternately stood at the sideboard and darted out to marshal in fresh supplies of food. From time to time Julian Cartwright issued orders to the manservant in quite a loud voice - he had called him Blagge but the woman Mrs Blagge - as a result of which both Blagges stopped doing whatever they were engaged in and still more wine was poured into the array of bevelled glasses. Christabel Cartwright's precise words could on the other hand hardly be distinguished, but it was noticeable that things moved much faster whenever she did speak; dishes, a delicate egg mousse for example in a blue and white souffle dish, were whisked round the table again and again; plates were removed, fresh plates were substituted;
it all happened so fast and so deftly whenever Christabel murmured that she might have been whispering some magic password which made the table itself start spinning.

Meat was carved. Spring lamb appeared, presto, on the latest wave of blue and white plates. Mrs Blagge proffered mint sauce and gravy in matching dishes, first to Jemima Shore.

'Madam—'

The hand with which she extended the sauce-boat was quite blotched and claw-like, the hand of an old woman; the striking auburn hair must be dyed.

If only Jemima could be quite sure that Cherry wasn't drinking too much (such efficient service of wine, she felt, plus the presence of such an indubitably glamorous older man as Julian Cartwright presented an irresistible combination of temptations to Flowering Cherry) she, Jemima, could have concentrated totally on Christabel Herrick's, no, Christabel
Cartwright's,
dazzling performance.

Even the white bandage which Christabel wore on her right hand had an air of elegance: a white kid glove or mitten perhaps. Although at one point Christabet did wince at some inadvertent gesture: had one of her daughters, the sulky little fat one in the unsuitable sun-dress, touched the hand by mistake?

Immediately on hearing the slight cry, Julian Cartwright broke off his conversation with Cherry, perhaps to the ultimate advantage of the latter; since Cherry was leaning forward dangerously in her tight white pearl-buttoned blouse, while her large eyes bore an expression which Jemima for one found it all too easy to interpret.

'All right, darling?' Julian Cartwright called out down the table. The sound of his voice, so redolent of authority that it made a question sound like a command, drew other conversations to a close. 'Christabel, poor sweet,
did herself some fearful injury
on a pair of garden scissors this morning,' he explained. 'Stabbed herself in one hand in some quite remarkable way, while cutting flowers after breakfast. Darling, do you know, you've never had time to tell me properly how it happened?'

Jemima, professionally trained interviewer, became suddenly and acutely aware that some special tension had been brought into the room by Julian's question. She could not say exactly where this tension was located. After all, everyone in the room gave the polite appearance of listening for Christabel's explanation. Nor could she say further what had stirred her instinct; she only knew that curiosity, Jemima Shore's dominant emotion, had been aroused - curiosity and a strange feeling of apprehension.

Jemima looked down the table and inspected the guests. The dexterity with which the two servants were handling the meal was made the more remarkable by the fact that it was a large lunch party.

Jemima as presenter and Cherry as production assistant were the only two official guests from Megalith since the director, Jemima's old friend and former assistant Guthrie Carlyle, was still in Greece - shooting the Parthenon for what he assured Jemima was a wholly uncontroversial programme on the Elgin Marbles sub-titled
Ours or Theirs?

Then there were the two Cartwright girls, who sat together at their mother's end of the table, on either side of a woman whom Jemima assumed to be some kind of governess (although they were surely rather too old for that kind of thing?}. This lady was familiarly addressed by the Cartwrights as Ketty, but introduced to Jemima as Miss Katherine Kettering - 'the two names have somehow got combined over the years', She was certainly much at her ease; the girls chattered to her, rather than to their other neighbours, throughout the meal. Fat little Blanche's sulky face lit up talking to Ketty in a way that it never did, Jemima noticed, when Blanche addressed her mother.

'But, Ketty, you remember: the Easter Sunday we all went to the beach and Daddy did press-ups and got sand all over his cricketing trousers—'

The pretty dark-haired daughter Regina, who chose at one point to recite a good deal of Christina Rossetti in the over-loud voice she had inherited from her father, addressed those words also to Ketty. 'When I am dead, my dearest, sing no sad songs for me
...'
and so on and so on. Ketty listened intently and then said: 'Well done, Rina,' as if she had been hearing a lesson.

'Regina,' she informed Jemima across the table, 'has been making a study of Christina Rossetti. She knows most of her work by heart.' 'How delightful,' murmured Jemima, hoping that no one had any plans for recitations of the works of Christina Rossetti by Miss Regina Cartwright aged seventeen in the course of her television programme. As usual, it was Cherry who saved the situation:

'Oh, I adore Christina Rossetti,' she cried happily. 'And Dante - Dante Gabriel, I mean, not the other Dante.' Cherry proceeded to quote at length, by virtue of her past involvement in
Christina and Company - a Rose among the Rossettis.
The series might have been one of Megalith's most noted failures, reflected Jemima, but at least Cherry's education had benefited; and Ketty and Regina were temporarily routed.

Like Mrs Blagge, Miss Kettering had very dark red hair, of a hue which was so bizarre as to be surely dyed; in Ketty's case the hair was strained back into a large thick bun, revealing a pair of dangling green
earrings set in big powerfully l
obed ears. It was while pondering on the coincidence of two women with the same strange taste in hair dye being in the same room that Jemima realized how much Ketty and Mrs Blagge also resembled each other in other ways. They had the same long thin finely chiselled noses and small firm mouths. Ketty however wore a violent scarlet lipstick; Mrs Blagge none.

Sisters? If so, one sat at the table and drank, Jemima observed, at least her due share of wine. The other served.

On Christabel's right sat Gregory Rowan. He had arrived rather late, with a scant air of apology, into the charming sun-filled conservatory adorned with orange trees in large dark green wooden tubs where the Cartwrights had doled out pre-lunch drinks. His hair was still conspicuously damp, its thickness temporarily restrained, and Jemima had seen Christabel give him a slightly sardonic look on arrival.

'Did you go for a quick one, darling? Quick cooling off?' she enquired. She handed him a silver goblet.

'Had to wash off the taste of chocolate,' replied Gregory. 'Next year
you
can organize the Easter egg hunt. If you're still with us, that is. To the return and the stay of the prodigal.' He lifted the goblet on whose silver surface the chilly contents - champagne and orange juice - had already left white clouds.

It was the only conceivable reference, Jemima noted, throughout the meal and its prelude, to Christabel's past. Christabel merely gave one of her low musical laughs.

Jemima, who was on Julian Cartwright's right, had the Director of the Larminster Festival on her other side. This seemed rather a grand title for the pleasant-faced boy, scarcely older than the Cartwright girls, who introduced himself to her as Nat Fitzwilliam, told her that he was Bridset born, and confided that he had been running the theatre since he left Oxford 'because no one else much wanted to do it.'

The Boy Director was deputed to escort Jemima and Cherry over to the Watchtower after lunch. Jemima observed that whenever he was not coping rather frenziedly with the knives, forks and glasses by his side, as well as the persistent attentions of the Blagges - he hardly touched his wine - Nat Fitzwilliam gazed almost literally open-mouthed at Christab
el Cartwright. Jemima could well
imagine the effect of the return of such a dazzling creature on a stage-struck youth. How old had he been when she left?

At this point, Jemima discovered with a slight jolt to her interviewer's complacency that Nat Fitzwilliam was not quite the naive amateur of her imagination. It was not so much the list of his credits at Oxford which impressed her - indeed she had a nasty feeling that she might have caught his Chinese (Sung Dynasty)
Hamlet
while at Edinburgh and found it wanting. No, it was the discovery that Nat Fitzwilliam had already directed a play for television, an opera in Holland, and part of a series for the BBC on English poets and their private lives, which Jemima had much admired. All this, while also residing in Bridset and as Nat engagingly put it, 'trying to keep the Watchtower upstanding'. It all went to show that Nat was not only older but also more energetic than he looked.

Next to Cherry sat Julian's uncle, introduced as Major Edgar Cartwright. At first Jemima assumed that the old boy had merely been wheeled into action in order to even up the sexes a little. But Major Cartwright also revealed himself as the Chairman of the Larminster Festival Committee. Jemima expected this information to be followed up by some hard discussion of the subject. Major Cartwright, however, merely leant forward and asked Jemima one question in a very fierce voice: