Before The Cock Crow (First Born of Egypt)

by Simon Raven

  ‘Eminently.’

  ‘Conyngham knows about my father’s ambition to emulate Uncle Giles’ plots – harmlessly, as I said. So Conyngham has proposed a plan to my father – it’s to do with some horses they own – which will serve very well and by which Uncle Giles will be much impressed when it is applied. Uncle Giles, for once, is not in the secret: my father aims to surprise him. The plan makes use of that young Marius and also the girl who’s staying at Ullacote. I know all this because my father told me.’

  Myles stopped and coughed with a rasp.

  ‘What, then, is the plan?’ Fielding said.

  ‘Tell you in a minute. But first I want you to understand that I feel – I can’t prove but I feel – just as I used to feel, he’d happily cut my throat if it met his purpose – that Raisley Conyngham’s real plan is not what my father thinks it is.’

  ‘Not harmless?’

  ‘Dangerous, at least. Perhaps lethal.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could be any of the people involved, except Conyngham.’

  ‘Deliberately so?’

  ‘Perhaps not. But taking what Conyngham must know to be a horrible risk.’

  ‘And since you only feel all this, you cannot be precise?’

  ‘No. But I know my feeling…my intuition…is not at fault, because the last time I saw Conyngham at my father’s home – quite accidentally, I only came home for the night by chance – I not only felt that something was wrong, and that I ought to warn my father, but I felt Conyngham feeling me feel it, as he always had when he patted my head as a boy. So he patted my head this time too, and he said, “Do you remember, Myles, how I used to do this to you when you were small?” Just to let me know he was on my wavelength, you see. And now I am not well. Do you know that novel of Balzac’s, a short story really, one of those about the “Thirteen”, and the Arch-Crook, not Vautrin but another arch-crook, pats a young man’s hair, and the young man falls into a hideous decline–’

  ‘–Stop it,’ snapped Fielding. ‘I do know the story: Balzac at his silliest. Now collect yourself, and tell me what I must know: what is this plan as your father conceives it? Never mind just now how Conyngham may aim to pervert it. What does your father think is intended?’

  ‘It’s to do with the horses. There are to be two races, one at Regis Priory and one at Bellhampton, ’chases of three mile odd, in which Conyngham’s stallion, Lover Pie, will be opposed by, among others, my father’s mare, Boadicea. Now, as you may know, Marius Stern is being instructed as a stable lad by Conyngham’s Private Trainer, Captain Jack Lamprey. When it is time for the race at Regis Priory, Marius will go there with Lover Pie and with nominal charge of him – though both of ’em will be carefully watched by Lamprey’s head travelling lass, Jenny, Gat-Toothed Jenny. Now, while Marius is leading Lover Pie round the paddock–’

  –Len came in with the College Matron, who looked at Myles Glastonbury, at first with concern and then with mounting dismay. She put a thermometer in his mouth; examined his neck and armpits; and then, unembarrassed by Myles or the audience, his groin, and then his feet. She took the thermometer out of his mouth, read it, primmed her mouth, shook down the thermometer, put it away in her huge bosom, opened a black bag, produced a Heath Robinson type of syringe, shot some liquid into the air, injected Myles on the inside of his elbow, and said to Len:

  ‘Case for Sick Bay. Tell Wilfred to send a stretcher and bearers. I’ll go ahead and make up the bed.’

  ‘I can walk,’ said Myles Glastonbury.

  ‘Indeed you’ll do what you’re told.’

  ‘Right,’ said Len, sorting everybody out. ‘Matron to the Sick Bay. I myself will telephone Wilfred in the Porters’ Lodge. You stay here with Glastonbury, Fielding, till the stretcher party comes.’

  Good, thought Fielding; now for the rest of it. As soon as they were alone together, he said to Myles Glastonbury:

  ‘And then, while Marius is leading Lover Pie round the paddock at Regis Priory…?’

  ‘What is the man’s name?’ muttered Myles, thick and very low. ‘The one that touched the young man’s hair? Not Vautrin. By way of benediction everyone thought, but–’

  ‘–Myles. Back to Regis Priory. Your father thinks there is a plan. What is it?’

  ‘Ferragus. Ferragus the Twenty-Third. Why the Twenty-Third?’

  ‘I told you. Balzac’s monstrous silliness. Please, Myles. I thought there must be something wrong about Conyngham too. Everyone else said “no”. But I’m on your side. If he’s really up to anything seriously wrong, you must tell me his plan.’

  ‘Conyngham? Don’t know his plan.’

  ‘But you know what your father thinks his plan to be? They worked on it together.’

  ‘The Comte de Marsay worked for a “demon”. The devil, I suppose, or one of his assistants. De Marsay was another of the “Thirteen”. It can’t be much fun working for the demon or the devil and knowing that things will go right for you. For the time being at least. No sense of personal achievement, if the demon does it all.’

  ‘MYLES. Please.’

  Myles stirred and looked at Fielding, as if understanding him. ‘My father’s plan?’ he said.

  ‘What your father thinks the plan is. Please.’

  Four porters entered, arranged the debilitated and now almost unconscious Glastonbury on a stretcher, and carried him away to the College Sick Bay.

  When Rosie had Oenone in her charge (which was most of the time) they went either to the meadows near the chancel in which they lived, or, more often, into the old part of the churchyard, where Oenone liked to clamber on the sunken box tombs and hide from Rosie behind the broken stone coffins. On one occasion, Oenone went right into a coffin and lay flat. It took Rosie a long time to find her, as it had not occurred to her that Oenone might hide in this way, and when she did find her she came nearer to scolding her than at any time since she had arrived in Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges at the beginning of the holidays.

  ‘You must never lie in there again,’ she said.

  ‘Why not, Rosie?’

  Unwilling to give tongue to the irrational and atavistic fears which moved her, knowing, in any case, that Oenone would not understand the concept of death or the dangers of aping its postures in its own place (and thus perhaps inviting it to regard one as its own), Rosie had recourse to traditional nursery discipline.

  ‘You must not lie in there because I say you must not,’ she said.

  Oenone’s face twisted.

  ‘Oenone likes those old stone boxes,’ she said.

  ‘You can like them: you can touch them: you must not lie in them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Clearly, thought Rosie, something more than a simple ‘nanny knows best’ is required of me.

  ‘Because an angel might fly over and shut you up in one of them forever.’

  Oenone was impressed by this speech. She came and held Rosie’s hand and snuggled into her thighs.

  ‘But Rosie will take care of Oenone,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. If she does not lie in those boxes. The angel might not like it, and Rosie cannot help Oenone against an angel.’

  She had a vision of the angel in its passing. It was female and carried a torch as it flew, although it was travelling through broad daylight. It had Tessa Malcolm’s gentle face and auburn hair, though this was much longer than Tessa’s. Like Tessa, it had a very slight lump on one of its shoulder blades. I wonder whether she’s having a nice time in Somerset with Marius, thought Rosie: whether she’s having a nice time or not, she’s doing what she thinks she wants to, and there’s an end of it.

  She prised Oenone away from her fork and said:

  ‘Now we shall walk up to the square of the cathedral and have ice-cream in the café of the hotel.’

  ‘Rosie will carry Oenone.’

  ‘No. Oenone is big enough to walk.’

  ‘Twelve-thirty, dinner time,’ Gat-Toothed Jenny said. ‘That’s it for today, heart. You�
��re improving. I’ve talked to Jack, and we’ve agreed you can have the afternoon off.’

  ‘Thank you, Jenny.’

  ‘What shall you do with it?’

  ‘First of all, I shall have a bath.’

  ‘I wish I could give you your bath. Scrape the dirt away. Soap your legs and arms and wash them. Dry you off afterwards. Would you like that?’

  ‘My mother used to bath me when I was little. I think I am too old to be bathed now.’

  ‘Not if you fancied the person that did it. Did you fancy your mother?’

  ‘I suppose so. Without really knowing,’ Marius said.

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘In France with her lover.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s a woman. A girl.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jenny, unshocked, unsurprised, uninterested. ‘Do you miss your mother?’

  ‘Sometimes. But not much. In a funny way, you make up for her. Being so kind, yet so fierce and bossy. Using such foul language – my mother is a great one for foul language. But there are a lot of differences.’

  ‘I expect there are.’

  ‘For instance, I can never quite trust my mother. She doesn’t always tell the truth. I can trust you, Jenny.’

  ‘I’m too stupid to make things up, you mean.’

  ‘Too decent.’

  ‘Give me a cuddle, sweetheart,’ Jenny said. ‘I won’t muss you up at all, I promise. Just a cuddle.’

  Marius rested his cheek on her right breast and nuzzled the left with his nose and chin.

  ‘Christ, I wish you were my own,’ said Jenny, pressing his head more tightly against her with her thick, brown fingers. ‘Tell us a word.’

  ‘A word?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘I like being with you like this,’ said Marius. ‘I used to be like this with my nanny sometimes. And once with the matron of my school, when I was ill in the sickroom. Warm and safe. Thank you, Jenny. And now it is time I went and had my bath.’

  The Blessington family were having a picnic by the River Acheron, prior to paying a visit to the necromanteion in the village on the hill above.

  ‘The necromancers drugged their clients,’ said Jakki, who had been reading up on it in the guide book, ‘and sent them down in a kind of lift. Then, when the clients thought they had descended to the underworld, they were told prophecies by out-of-work actors who were pretending to be ghosts. The priests extorted a lot of money from the customers, because the ghosts always faded away just as they were getting to the interesting bits, and the customers had to come back again the next day and pay for another trip.’

  ‘It reminds me of night clubs in Berlin,’ said Ivan, ‘in the late l940s. Strip shows. You never quite saw what you wanted, but you were told it would be revealed in the next act. So you stayed another half hour and drank a lot more disgusting champagne at God knows what a bottle.’

  ‘What a good thing you married Mummy,’ said Caroline, ‘if that’s the kind of thing you used to do before.’

  ‘Far worse things than that, I promise you,’ said Ivan. ‘Yes. I think it was a good thing I married Mummy.’ He put a finger over one of Betty’s, where it lay on her thigh. ‘Do you remember the day I asked you?’ he said. ‘In that boat-house, in the rain?’

  ‘Get on with your nice taramasalata,’ said Betty, eyes brimming, ‘and allow me to get on with mine.’

  She yanked her finger from under his.

  ‘All right. Let’s be unromantic,’ said Ivan. ‘Now then: family vote. After the necromancy place, we can either backtrack a bit and spend the night in the Xenia at Arta, which is listed as very comfortable and is inside an old castle and apparently has an adequate restaurant; or we can advance to the shores of the Corinthian Gulf and try Naupactos, famous for its sea battles, where there will be another and more prominent castle and uncertainty about hotels and dinner.’

  ‘We mustn’t forget Nike,’ said Jakki: ‘there’s time for that after the necromanteion if we decide to sleep in Arta.’

  ‘What’s at Nike?’ said Betty.

  ‘A whole ruined city: waIls, theatres, Byzantine churches, and a museum, noted for its mosaics.’

  ‘You seem to have gone into just about everything,’ said Ivan: ‘I hope you’re keeping a diary.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘So that you’ll remember all this.’

  ‘How could I ever forget it?’

  ‘A diary to show your friends,’ said Betty: ‘Rosie and Tessa and Marius.’

  ‘Rosie might be interested,’ said Jakki. ‘Tessa and Marius have rather moved on. They’d be polite, of course, if I showed them a diary – particularly if there were photos as well. But they’d soon put it down and start talking to each other about something else. It’s as well to be clear about these things. When we were two or three years younger, we were all terrific friends, and when we’re a few years older we probably will be again; but while we’re going through adolescence, a year or two in age makes such a difference that there are bound to be cracks and gaps.’ She gulped, but, ‘Hiatuses,’ she concluded firmly, and helped herself to a great deal more taramasalata than she meant to.

  ‘Leave some for me,’ said her father, and blew her a kiss.

  Pally Palairet, staying in a house called Sandy Lodge because it was in the dunes at Burnham and almost in the sea, went to his jolly spinster aunt (who had built it there) and showed her the Four Day Declarations for Regis Priory, as listed in that morning’s Sporting Life, which paper alone the old girl had delivered daily, seeing no point in any other.

  ‘I particularly want to watch a horse called Lover Pie,’ said Palairet.

  ‘A stallion which goes over fences,’ remarked Auntie from memory: ‘unusual. Though there was always good old Rubor… Of course we’ll go if you want.’

  The reason why Palairet wished to watch Lover Pie was the horse’s association with Marius: not because Marius was its stable boy (for Palairet was as yet entirely ignorant of this last, which on Milo’s insistence had been kept an absolute secret at school) but because Marius had once told him that he had made a lot of money on Lover Pie when he had won a flat race at Newmarket some years before.

  Although Palairet was determined to follow Jeremy’s advice and keep absolutely away from Marius for the next six months, he felt that he could not live without some occasional reminder of his friend (a place they had visited together, or a film they had watched), and a sight of Lover Pie would serve very well. Palairet, thought Palairet, could watch Lover Pie in the paddock at Regis Priory (some two hours’ drive from Burnham) and think of Marius as he had been when two and a half years younger, as he had watched the horse in the paddock at Newmarket and then cut away to back it; and this would make him (Palairet) quite happy in a melancholy way. Whether Palairet would still have wished to see Lover Pie had he known that its owner was Raisley Conyngham and that there must therefore be at least a chance of Marius’ being present as Conyngham’s guest, is a nice question. He had sworn that Marius should not get even a glimpse of him (and vice versa) for half a year, and he meant to keep his oath; on the other hand he might have thought that a coincidental meeting on a racecourse (should such occur) need not really count. The truth is, however, that Pally did not know that Lover Pie was Raisley Conyngham’s horse, did not know that Marius was being trained as Lover Pie’s stable boy or indeed had ever set eyes on it since the Newmarket bonanza two and a half years before, and did not know that Marius would be present at Regis Priory. He had asked his old Auntie to take him there simply because he would get an emotional pleasure out of backing and watching a horse whom Marius had once backed and watched; and his old Auntie had agreed to take him because she was (though poor these days) a kind, sporty, energetic woman, who loved her nephew and was only too glad to give him any treat that she could conceivably afford, particularly just at this time when he was looking (so she averred to herself) very peaky and low.

  Milo Hedley sat with Tessa Mal
colm under a plover cut from yew, in the garden of Montacute House. Tessa was reading aloud from Gibbon about the translation of Theodora from whore to empress.

  ‘That will do, sweetheart,’ Milo said: ‘you read it very nicely.’

  ‘Thank you, Milo,’ said Tessa, and blushed fiercely. God make him hold my hand, she thought; God make him touch me in any way he likes.

  “The point is,’ said Milo, ‘as of course Theodora discovered, that virtue is much more rewarding, amusing and generally agreeable than vice. Although vice has marvellous, even ecstatic moments, these are heavily paid for by bankruptcy, disease and ostracism. Virtue, on the other hand, if not exaggerated by excessive abstinence or perverted into martyrdom, can offer comfort, entertainment and an excellent livelihood: bishops’ palaces, the right to censure mankind, a plenitude of tithes, or, as in Theodora’s case, an imperial crown.’

  God make him touch me, make him put his knee against mine.

  ‘Didn’t she become a saint?’ said Tessa.

  ‘Yes. She altogether overdid it… She took religion seriously, went in for inquisitions and persecutions, and became a monster of bigotry and zeal. Though even that,’ said Milo, ‘tiresome as we may find it, must have been more fun for Theodora than being a creature of the common pleasure…in which role she was equally extreme. Do you read Greek, sweet Tessa?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Milo.’ Sweet Tessa…thank you, God.

  ‘Then I shall translate these footnotes for you. Or give you the gist of them. It seems that Theodora used to lie prostrate and have pieces of grain scattered in and round her groin.’ Very lightly and for a split of a split second, he touched Tessa’s lower belly. ‘In the hair…just there. You have hair there, Tessa?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What colour?’

  She pointed to the hair on her forehead.

  ‘How charming. I doubt whether Theodora’s was such a pretty colour. Anyway, after the grain had been scattered in it, two geese were let loose, who came and pecked the grain out of Theodora’s crutch, thus driving her and her audience – for this was a public performance, you understand – into frenzies of pleasure. What do you make of that?’