Dark Angel (21 page)

Acland begins to smile. He turns away, though, and Freddie has the feeling that Acland is concealing something from him.

“Of course,” Acland says in his most flippant voice. “Of course, Freddie. How clever of you. I’m sure you’re right. The suits, absolutely. And the hats …” He pauses. “Now push off, Freddie. I’m going for a walk.
On my own.
”

Freddie knows when his brother is mocking him; he gives Acland a grumpy look, a suspicious look, then sets off back toward the house.

Once he is out of sight, Acland throws down his book, glances to his right and left, turns toward the birch grove, and begins—after a few yards—to run.

Jenna is there before him. As soon as she sees him, she knows there is something wrong. Acland’s face does not disguise emotion well; the effort to conceal his feelings from Freddie has left his face white with anger, his green eyes glittering.

Jenna knows that expression. She also knows who provokes it. This they have discussed, many times.

“Oh, Acland, Acland.” She puts her arms around him. “Don’t. Let it be. Don’t think of him—”

“Don’t think?” Acland jerks away. “How can I? He’s here. I have to look at him. Sit at the same table with him. Pretend he’s just a guest like all the other guests. Pretend I don’t see the little smiles, the touches when they think no one’s looking. It makes me want to—”

“Acland—”

“Have you noticed his hands? He has horrible small white hands—soft hands. He’s vain of them. I think he puts something on them, some lotion—they stink of carnation. I look at his hands—they’re never still, always gesturing, gesturing—and I think, she must like them. My mother must like those hands. How can she be so blind? How can they all be so blind? Shawcross. The family friend. The
writer.
I read his books—she made me read his books. Little thin cheap snide things—they made me want to vomit—”

“Acland don’t, not now—”

“I could kill him, do you know that? I could actually kill him. Put him down, like a sick dog.”

“You don’t mean that—”

“Don’t I? You’re wrong. It would be easy enough. One shot. Or maybe my father will do it for me—I’m not sure he didn’t try, last autumn. Except he missed. Unfortunately.”

“That was an accident, Acland—”

“Was it? Or was it a warning? In which case he’s been warned—six months ago—and he’s still here. Insulting us. Smirking. Reeking of cheap scent. Rolling his tongue around titles. Using us and despising us. He despises my mother too. He doesn’t love her—he doesn’t even like her. He’s always talking down to her. This painter, that writer—‘Oh, but my dear Lady Callendar, haven’t you read …?’ I’d like to get hold of his throat and shake and shake, so I never had to hear it again—that horrible mincing affected voice. How can she bear to listen to it—”

Jenna steps back. Acland is trembling with anger. The imitation of Shawcross (Acland is a good mimic) was exact.

“You shouldn’t talk like that.” She hesitates. “I don’t know you, not when you talk that way.”

Acland does not answer her. He stands still, in the center of the circle of birch, their shadows blueing his face. It is as if he does not see her at all.

“Shall I go?” Jenna says. “Maybe I’d better go….” She starts to turn. This, at last, seems to reach Acland.

“No, don’t. Jenna—” He catches hold of her, pulls her toward him roughly, looks at her face, touches her face, then angrily buries his head against her hair.

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. Don’t go. Let me touch you. Hold me, Jenna. Jenna—make it go away. Make it all go away.”

“My goodness me. Where has everyone gone?”

Ancient Mrs. Fitch-Tench has roused herself from her slumbers. She has straightened her bent back as far as she can, mopped at her rheumy eyes with a handkerchief abstracted from the leathery object she still calls a reticule, and is now scanning the gardens. Mrs. Fitch-Tench may be deaf but she has excellent eyesight, particularly for distance. The gardens are empty.

“I don’t know, Mrs. Fitch-Tench,” Freddie says grumpily.

“What was that, my dear boy?”

“I said I don’t know, Mrs. Fitch-Tench,” Freddie shouts. “I expect people have gone to change. It will be time for tea presently.”

“Tea? Tea? Surely not. We have only just had luncheon.”

“It’s almost four o’clock, Mrs. Fitch-Tench,” Freddie yells. “Tea is at four-thirty. Luncheon was over hours ago. You’ve been asleep.”

Mrs. Fitch-Tench looks offended.

“Nonsense, my dear Freddie. I never sleep. I was merely resting. I was quite alert—quite alert. Oh, dear me, yes … However, if we are to have tea soon, I shall perhaps go inside, as you say….”

Freddie stands. He assists Mrs. Fitch-Tench to her feet, assists her with her reticule, parasol, crochet-bag, lorgnette case, slim volume of poems, and shawl. When Mrs. Fitch-Tench is safely stowed inside, Freddie returns to the terrace.

He feels grumpier than ever. He is guiltily aware, despite earlier resolutions, that he is hungry again. He is also bored, which does not improve his mood. He feels left out of things. There is no sign of his mother, or any of her guests. Boy is nowhere to be seen. Acland, Freddie has just glimpsed returning to the house via the side entrance, as if hoping no one will see him.

His father has also returned. Freddie glimpsed him pounding out of the woods like a bull elephant, puce in the face again, waving his arms and shouting at poor old Cattermole. Then he stumped across the terrace, his bitch Daisy at his heels, and disappeared into the house. He passed within inches of Freddie without appearing to notice his son’s presence at all.

Lunatic! Freddie scowls at the harmonious view before him, checks his watch—ten minutes past four; tea in twenty minutes—and decides to return to his room to wash his hands. He will use extra tooth powder on his teeth—yes, better remove all scent of tobacco from his breath before he next encounters his mother.

Activity and the proximity of tea restore his good temper. Freddie goes into the house whistling. He pats the head of the stag shot on Denton’s Scottish estates by Denton ten years ago. His humor improving by the minute, he bounds up the main stairs two at a time, turns down the corridor to the West Wing.

Segregation of the sexes is the practice at his mother’s house parties. The West Wing is where the bachelor guest rooms are located, although (as Freddie well knows) no one seriously expects the bachelors to remain in them. Their ability to find the room of whichever women they seek is facilitated by Gwen’s practice of placing name cards in slots on the outside of bedroom doors. In this way the proprieties are simultaneously observed and circumvented.

Passing doors, Freddie notes names. He glances toward the end of the corridor where, separated from the rest of the house by a small lobby, the King’s bedroom is located. The best room in the house, with its own stairs down to the service quarters below. Freddie grins; tonight Edward Shawcross should be in clover.

Freddie’s own room is on the second floor, almost directly above the King’s bedroom. These are his and his elder brothers’ quarters. Still whistling, he bangs on Acland’s door, throws it open, and finds the room empty. He bangs on Boy’s door, receives no response, and gives it an amiable kick.

It swings back to reveal Boy sitting on his bed. His head is clasped in his hands; he appears to be staring at the floor. On the bed next to him are his camera and his tripod.

“Tea!” Freddie shouts. “Come on, Boy, tea in fifteen minutes. Shake a leg! I say—” Freddie stops, stares at his brother. “Is something wrong? You look awfully greenish.”

“I don’t feel like tea.” Boy looks up at Freddie. His face is pale. It has a greasy, streaked look to it, so that for a moment Freddie has the appalling suspicion that his eldest brother has been crying.

“Gosh, Boy. You do look queer. Are you all right?”

“Perfectly all right.” Boy stands. He turns so that his back is toward his brother. He begins to fiddle, in a fussy way, with his tripod. “It’s just hot up here. Airless. Damn this bloody thing.”

This astonishes Freddie, for Boy never swears. He looks to see what could have caused the outburst.

“There’s a nut missing,” Freddie says in a helpful manner. “One of the wing nuts, from the legs. It won’t stand up properly, not without that—”

“I know that, Freddie.”

“I expect you’ve dropped it somewhere. Do you want me to look?”

“No. I don’t. For God’s sake, push off, will you, Freddie?”

To Freddie’s astonishment, Boy rounds on him quite savagely.

“I can find it on my own. I don’t need help. And I don’t need you to explain the workings of a tripod—”

“All right, all right—only trying to help. There’s no need to bite my head off. What’s the matter with you anyway?”

“I told you. It’s hot. I have a headache. Look, just leave me alone, will you?”

Making a face at Boy’s back, Freddie does so.

Once in his own room, whistling again—first Acland in a bad mood, then Boy; well, the hell with both of them and their moods—Freddie advances on his washstand. He is just about to embark on the teeth brushing when he pauses, turns. Did he see this as he came into the room? Yes, he did. There, on his bed, laid out for him by Arthur, are his evening clothes. Trousers, tail coat, white boiled shirt, and … Freddie stares. There, in the middle of the snowy shirt, there is … a sweet: one of the marzipan
petite fours
his mother serves with coffee. It lies inside a frilled paper case and so, fortunately, has not marked the shirt, despite the fact that it is melting.

Freddie is not amused. Is this Arthur’s idea of a joke?

He jangles the service bell, then marches to the head of the back stairs.

“Arthur!” he bellows. “What the hell is the meaning of this?”

There is no answer, no sound of running feet. Freddie is about to slam back into his room when he hears—quite distinctly—a scream.

He stands still, considerably startled, thinking for a moment that he must have been mistaken.

But no, he hears it again, a second time. A woman’s scream, or possibly a child’s. Freddie listens, head on one side. The second scream is followed by complete silence. Whoever it was (Steenie, Constance, playing games?) and whatever happened, no one screams again.

“Get ready,” Shawcross says as Gwen comes into his bedroom, the King’s bedroom. He locks the door that leads out onto the West Wing corridor and gives the instruction over his shoulder, not looking at Gwen at all.

Gwen hesitates and, as Shawcross turns, reaches out her hand, as if to delay him or caress him. Shawcross brushes her hand aside; Gwen, whose lack of control Shawcross despises, gives a small moan. “And hurry up,” Shawcross adds, for good measure. He has one reason for haste, one only, and a simple one: They have just over an hour at their disposal, and Shawcross wishes to make full use of it. Gwen, however, will waste half the time if he lets her. Without the assistance of her maid she is slow at undressing, just as she is slow at everything else: slow in her movements, slow in her responses, slow—come to that—in her thinking. Big, stately, clumsy, stupid Gwen. Shawcross wonders sometimes whether Gwen realizes that it is her stupidity, above all, that attracts her to him. Now, predictably, she has been hurt by his tone.

“Oh, Eddie,” she says, and Shawcross, anxious not to waste further time on idiotic questions and reassurances, turns back to her with reluctance. He knows the quickest way to ensure Gwen’s cooperation. He has used it before, and she has yet to see through it. Without preliminaries, staring down into her eyes, he rubs the palm of his hand against her breast.

Gwen changes her clothes at least four times a day, and so the oyster faille of the morning has been replaced by a luncheon gown of pale-blue crepe de Chine. The material is thin; through its pleats and pin-tucks he feels the largeness of her breasts, the predictable hardening of her nipples. Gwen sighs, moves closer to him. Her eyes widen; the pupils dilate; her lips part.

When she looks thus, both loving and aroused, Shawcross despises her most. That expression on her face, which makes her look both beautiful and soulful, infuriates him. It makes him want to punish her.

Now, bending his head, he pushes his tongue between her lips. Gwen shudders, reaches for him, and Shawcross at once draws back.

“You wanted me, during luncheon. You were thinking about it. You were sitting opposite your husband, and you wanted it. Did you think I didn’t know? What does that make you, Gwen?”

Gwen does not answer. To Shawcross’s irritation she hangs her head, even though she knows what the answer should be; they have rehearsed it often enough.

Shawcross grips her chin in his hand; his fingers close on her mouth, distort its shape, squeeze it painfully.

“Come on. Answer me. What does that make you, Gwen?”

He relaxes his grip on her mouth; Gwen lifts her eyes to his.

“Wanton, Eddie,” she says in a low voice. “It makes me wanton, wicked, like … like a whore.”

Shawcross gives her a small tight smile by way of reward. It took three months of coaching to get this word past Gwen’s lips; she still has relapses of infuriating modesty, when for several weeks the word will be withdrawn from the repertoire. Now it is back; that is something.

“And what effect did that have on me, Gwen?” He bends closer to her. “Come on. You know. Say it.”

“It … it made you want me, Eddie.”

“Precisely. It made me impatient. So. Hurry up. Get ready.”

To his relief Gwen reaches for the small pearl buttons at the throat of her dress and begins to undo them one by one. Shawcross at once turns away. He knows full well that only two tactics can persuade Gwen to be hasty in her preparations for sex: One is impassioned declarations on his part; the other is insistence on the urgency of his male need. Of the two, insistence on the urgency of his own desire is preferable. It is quicker, less boring, and marginally more truthful, although truth is of little concern to Shawcross with Gwen, or any other woman.

Now, however, he has won. Gwen is actually undressing. With a sense of relief Shawcross pushes aside the curtains at the alcove, passes through the dressing room and into the bathroom. There, he takes out the black silk ribbons shown to Gwen that morning and runs them between his fingers. They are wide petersham ribbons, of the kind used to trim hats, and they are strong. Shawcross considers them, then replaces them in his pocket. He decides he will remain fully dressed, a variation employed once or twice before (though not, so far, with Gwen).