The Dark Shore

by Susan Howatch

  “Yes,” he said. “She is.” He sounded tranquil and happy, and they sat for a while in silence as the sun began to sink into the sea.

  “Jon.”

  “Yes?”

  “Where—” She hesitated and then plunged on, reassured by his complete change of mood. “Where did Sophia—”

  “Not here,” he said at once. “It was farther along the cliff going south to Sennen. The cliff is shallow and sandy in parts and during the last war they cut steps to link the path with the flat rocks below for some reason. I won’t take you out there, don’t worry.”

  The sun disappeared beyond the rim of the world and the twilight began to gather beneath the red afterglow of the sky. They lingered for a while, both reluctant to leave the restless fascination of the sea, but in the end Jon led the way up the path back to the house. As they entered the driveway Marijohn came out to meet them, and Sarah wondered if she had been watching them from some vantage point upstairs as they walked up from the beach.

  “Max phoned, Jon. He said you’d mentioned something about inviting him to Clougy for a day or two.”

  “God, so I did! When I dined with him in London he said he would have to go down to Cornwall to visit a maiden aunt at Bude or Newquay or one of those huge tourist towns up the coast, and I told him there was a remote possibility that I might be revisiting Clougy at about this time ... What a bloody nuisance! I don’t want Max breezing up in his latest sports car with some goddamned woman on the seat beside him. Did he leave his phone number?”

  “Yes, he was speaking from Bude.”

  “Hell ... I’d better invite him to dinner or something. No, that’s not really very sociable—I suppose he’ll have to stay the night ... No, damn it, why should he turn up here and use Clougy as a base for fornication? I had enough of that in the past.”

  “He may be alone.”

  “What, Max? Alone? Don’t be ridiculous! Max wouldn’t know what to do with himself unless he had some woman with him all the time!”

  “He didn’t mention a woman.”

  Jon stared. “Do you want him here?”

  “You made the gesture of having dinner with him in London and renewing the friendship. He’s obviously content to forget. If you made a semi-invitation to him to visit Clougy, then I don’t see how you can turn round now and tell him to go to hell.”

  “I can do what I damn well like,” said Jon. He turned to Sarah. “I’ve told you about Max, haven’t I? Would you be cross if he came to dinner tomorrow and spent the night?”

  “No, darling, of course not. I’d like to meet him.”

  “All right, then. So be it.” He turned aside and then glanced at her. “You go up to bed if you’re tired. I won’t be long. I’d better phone Max now while I still feel in a hospitable mood.”

  “All right,” she said, glad of the excuse to go to bed, for she was by now feeling sleepy after the long journey followed by the long hours of sea air. “I’ll go on up. Goodnight, Marijohn.”

  “Goodnight.” The mouth smiled faintly. When Sarah paused at the top of the stairs to glance back into the hall, she saw that the woman was still watching her, but even as she stopped abruptly on the landing, Marijohn merely smiled again and moved into the livingroom to join Jon.

  The door closed softly behind her.

  Sarah still stood motionless at the top of the stairs. Two minutes elapsed, then a third. Suddenly, without knowing the reason but moving through instinct, she padded softly back downstairs and tiptoed across the hall until she was standing outside the door of the drawing-room.

  Jon wasn’t on the phone.

  “There’s only one thing that puzzles me,” she heard him say, and her cheeks were hot with shame as she stood eavesdropping on their conversation. “And that’s the anonymous phone call I had on my arrival in London, the call saying I’d killed Sophia. I still don’t understand who it could have been. It must have been either Michael or Max or Eve, but why didn’t they follow it up with something definite such as blackmail? It doesn’t make sense.”

  There was a long pause. And then Jon said sharply: “What do you mean?”

  “I tried to tell you before dinner when we were all having drinks.” Another silence. Then: “No,” said Jon. “I don’t believe it. It couldn’t have been. You don’t mean—”

  “Yes,” said Marijohn quietly from far away. “It was Justin.”

  2

  The sound of the piano drifted from the house and floated up the cliff path which led north to Cape Cornwall and Zennor Head. Justin’s knowledge of classical music was adequate but not exceptional; he could not name the title of the Mozart composition.

  He was just gathering his painting gear together and stowing it neatly in his canvas bag when below him he heard the music stop and then far away the distant click of a latch as the French windows into the garden opened. He paused, straining his eyes , and saw a figure leave the shadow of the rhododendrons and stop to scan the hillside. Automatically, without hesitation, Justin stepped behind a rock. Footsteps sounded faintly, growing louder with every second. Justin scowled at his painting gear, shoved it behind a boulder and sat down waiting, his eyes watching the night darken the sea. He didn’t have to wait very long.

  “Ah, there you are,” said Jon easily, stepping out of the darkness. “I thought you might be up here. Have you been painting?”

  “No, I went for a walk.” He stared out to sea, as his father sat down beside him on the long rock and took out a cigarette case.

  “Justin, if I ask you an honest question will you try and give me an honest answer?”

  The sea was a dark motionless pool, the surf distant flecks of gray. “Of course,” said Justin politely, and felt the sweat begin to moisten his palms.

  “Does this place remind you too much of your mother?”

  “My mother?” His voice was untroubled, vaguely surprised, but his eyes didn’t see the view before him any more, only the bowl of cherries long ago and the woman’s voice saying indulgently, “But you’ll get so fat, Justin!” He cleared his throat. “Yes, it does remind me of her from time to time. But not enough to matter. I’m glad I came back because it was like coming home after a long time abroad.”

  “You were very fond of your mother, weren’t you?”

  Justin said nothing.

  “I didn’t realize,” said Jon, “that you blamed me for her death.” Horror ebbed through Justin in dark suffocating waves. Putting his hands palm downwards on either side of his thighs, he clasped the ridge of rock and stared blindly down at the dusty path beneath his feet.

  “What happened, Justin?” said his father’s voice gently. “Why did you think I’d murdered her? Did you overhear something? Did you see us quarrel once when we didn’t know you were there?”

  He managed to shake his head.

  “Then why?”

  “I—” He shrugged his shoulders, glad of the darkness which hid his tears. “I—I don’t know.”

  “But there must be some reason. You wouldn’t have made the phone call unless there was some reason.”

  “I hated you because I thought you hadn’t written and because I thought you were going to pass through London without bothering to contact me. It—it doesn’t matter now.” He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sea air. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, the apology little more than a sigh. “I didn’t mean it.”

  The man was silent, thinking.

  “How did you know about the call?” said Justin suddenly. “How did you know it was me?”

  “Marijohn guessed.”

  “But how did she know?”

  “She says you are very like me and so she finds it easy to understand you.”

  “I don’t see how she can possibly understand.” He clasped the ridge of rock a little tighter. “And I’m not like you at all.”

  There was silence.

  “When I was ten,” said Jon, “my father paid one of his rare visits to London. The news of his arrival was in the ev
ening paper because the expedition had received a certain amount of publicity, and my mother spent the entire evening saying she was quite sure he wouldn’t bother to come and see me. So, just out of interest, I sent a telegram to his hotel saying I was dead, and sat back to watch the results. I expect you can imagine what happened—complete chaos. My mother wept all over the house saying she couldn’t think who could have been so cruel as to play such a dreadful practical joke, and my father without hesitation took me by the scruff of the neck and nearly belted the life out of me. I never forgave him for that beating; if he hadn’t neglected me for years at a time I wouldn’t have sent the telegram, so in effect he was punishing me for his own sins.”

  Justin swallowed unevenly. “But you didn’t neglect me.”

  “I did when you didn’t answer my letters.” He leaned back, slumping against another rock and drew heavily on his cigarette so that the glowing tip wavered in the darkness. “Justin, I have to know. Why did you think I’d killed your mother?”

  “I—I knew she wasn’t faithful to you.” He leaned forward, closing his eyes for a moment in a supreme effort to explain his emotions of ten years ago. “I knew you quarreled, and it gradually became impossible for me to love you both any more. It was like a war in which one was forced to choose sides. And I chose your side because you always had time for me and you were strong and kind and I admired you more than anyone else in the world. So when she died, I—I didn’t blame you, I only knew it was just and right, and so I never said a word to anyone, not even to you because I thought it was the best way showing my—my loyalty—that I was on your side. And then when you went away to Canada and I never heard from you again, I began to think I’d made the wrong judgment and gradually I grew to hate you enough to make that phone call when you came back to London.” He stopped. Far away below them, the surf thudded dully on the shingle and the waves burst against the black cliffs.

  “But Justin,” said Jon, “I didn’t kill your mother. It was an accident. You must believe that, because it’s the truth.”

  Justin turned his head slowly to face him. There was a long silence.

  “Why did you think I’d killed her, Justin?”

  The night was still, the two men motionless beneath the dark skies. For a moment Justin had a long searing desire to tell the truth, and then the ingrained convictions of ten years made him cautious and he shrugged his shoulders vaguely before turning away to stare out to sea.

  “I suppose,” he said vaguely, “because I knew you were always quarreling and I felt you hated her enough to have pushed her to death. I was only a child, muddled and confused. I didn’t really know anything at all.”

  Was it Justin’s imagination or did his father seem to relax almost imperceptibly in relief? Justin’s senses sharpened, his mind torn by doubts. In the midst of all his uncertainties he was aware of his brain saying very clearly: I must know. I can’t let it rest now. I must find out the truth before I go away to Canada. Aloud he said: “Shall we go back to the house? I’m getting rather cold as I forgot to bring a sweater and Marijohn and Sarah will be wondering where we are...”

  3

  It was late when Jon came to the bedroom, and Sarah opening her eyes in the darkness, saw that the luminous hands of her clock pointed to halfpast eleven. She waited, pretending to be asleep, and presently he slid into bed beside her and she felt his body brush lightly against her own. He sighed, sounding unexpectedly weary, and she longed to take him in her arms and say, “Jonny, why didn’t you tell me about the anonymous phone call? You told me about the dreadful rumors which circulated after Sophia’s death, so why not tell me about the call? And after Marijohn had said the caller was Justin, why did you go through to the other room to the piano and start playing that empty stilted rondo of Mozart’s which I know perfectly well you dislike? And why did you say nothing else to Marijohn and she say nothing to you? The conversation should have begun then, not ended. It was all so strange and so puzzling, and I want so much to understand and help...”

  But she said nothing, not liking to confess that she had eavesdropped on their conversation by creeping back downstairs and listening at the closed door, and presently Jon was breathing evenly beside her and the chance to talk to him was gone.

  When she awoke the piano was playing again far away downstairs and the sun was slanting sideways through the curtains into the room. She sat up. It was after nine. As she went down the corridor she heard the sound of the piano more clearly and she realized with a shaft of uneasiness that he was again playing Mozart. After a quick bath she dressed in a pair of slacks and a shirt and went tentatively downstairs to the music room.

  He was playing the minuet from the thirty-ninth symphony, lingering over the full pompous chords and the mincing quavers so that the arrangement bore the faint air of a burlesque.

  “Hullo,” she said lightly, moving into the room. “I thought you didn’t like Mozart? You never played his music at home.” She stopped to kiss the top of his head. “Why have you suddenly gone Mozart-mad?” And then she suddenly glanced over her shoulder and saw that Marijohn was watching them from the windowseat.

  Jon yawned, decided to abandon classical music altogether and began to play the Floyd Cramer arrangement of Hank Williams’ “You Win Again.”

  “Breakfast is ready and waiting for you, darling,” he said leisurely. “Justin’s in the diningroom and he’ll show you where everything is.”

  “I see.” She went out of the room slowly and made her way towards the diningroom; she felt baffled and ill-at-ease for a reason she could not define, and her uneasiness seemed to cast a shadow over the morning so that she started to feel depressed. She opened the diningroom door and decided that she didn’t want much breakfast.

  “Good morning,” said Justin. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes,” she lied. “Very well.”

  “Cereal?”

  “No, thank you. Just toast.” She sat down, watching him pour out her coffee, and suddenly she remembered the conversation she had overheard the previous night and recalled that for some unknown reason Justin had anonymously accused Jon of murdering Sophia.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cooked breakfast?” he asked politely. “There are sausages and eggs on the hot plate.”

  “No, thank you.”

  The piano started to play again in the distance, abandoning the American country music and reverting to classical territory with a Chopin prelude.

  “Are you going painting this morning, Justin?” she asked, her voice drowning the noise of the piano.

  “Perhaps. I’m not sure.” He glanced at her warily over the Times and then stirred his coffee with nonchalance. “Why?”

  “I thought I might try some painting myself,” she said, helping herself to marmalade. “I was going to consult you about the best views for a landscape watercolor.”

  “Oh, I see.” He hesitated, uncertain. “What about my father?”

  “It rather sounds as if he’s going to have a musical morning.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I suppose it does.”

  “Does Marijohn play the piano?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Oh ... the piano seems very well-tuned.”

  “Yes,” said Justin. “But then she knew he was coming.”

  “She didn’t know for certain till yesterday afternoon!”

  He stared at her. “Oh no, she knew a long while before that. She had a man up from Penzance to tune the piano last week.”

  The shaft of uneasiness was so intense that it hurt. Sarah took a large sip of her coffee to steady her nerves and then started to spread the marmalade over the buttered toast.

  From somewhere far away the piano stopped. Footsteps echoed in the corridor and the next moment Jon was walking into the room.

  “How are you this morning, darling?” he said, kissing her with a smile and then moving over to the window to glance out into the garden. “You hardly gave me a chance to ask just now ...
What do you want to do today? Anything special?”

  “Well, I thought I might paint this morning, but—”

  “Fine,” he said. “Get Justin to take you somewhere nice. Marijohn has shopping to do in Penzance and I’ve promised to drive her over in the car. You don’t want to come to Penzance, do you? It’ll be crammed with tourists at this time of year and much too noisy. You stay here and do just what you like.” He swung to face her again, still smiling. “All right?”

  “Yes ... all right, Jon.”

  “Good! Look after her, Justin, and be on your best behavior.” He moved to the door. “Marijohn?”

  There was an answering call from the kitchen and he closed the door noisily behind him before moving off down the corridor to the back of the house.

  Justin cleared his throat. “More coffee, Sarah?”

  “No,” she said. “No, thank you.”

  He stood up, easing back his chair delicately across the floor. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go and assemble my painting gear. I won’t be long. What time would you like to leave?”

  “Oh ... any time. Whenever you like.”

  “I’ll let you know when I’m ready, then,” he said and padded out of the room towards the hall.

  She lingered a long time over the breakfast table before going upstairs to extract her paintbox and board from one of her suitcases. Jon called her from the hall just as she was pausing to tidy her hair.

  “We’re just off now, darling—sure you’ll be all right?”

  “Yes, I’m almost ready myself.”

  “Have a good time!”

  She sat listening to the closing doors, the quick roar of the engine bursting into life, the crunch of the tires on the gravel, and then the sound of the car faded in the distance and she was alone. She went downstairs. In the drawing-room she found Justin waiting, studiously reading the Times, scrupulously dressed in the best English tailored casual clothes, but still managing to look like a foreigner.

  “I don’t know which way you’d like to go,” he said. “We could take Marijohn’s car and drive south to Sennen and Land’s End, or north to Kenidjack Castle and Cape Cornwall. The views from the cliff out over the ruined mines of Kenidjack are good to paint.” He paused, waiting for her comment, and when she nodded he said politely, “Would you care to go that way?”