by Simon Raven
‘– CARMILLA, sir? –’
‘– Carmilla, sir. There, too, is need of economy and no need of one more thieving house servant.’
‘What did Carmilla die of?’
‘Nobody appears to know. Her friend, Piero Caspar, died at the same time –’
‘– Oh. Oh. Is anyone left alive?’
‘Yes,’ said Luffham of Whereham. ‘I am for one, and you, sir, for another; and so you’d better settle down to some hard work and close supervision of the estate which is just about all we’ve got left.’
Tessa Malcolm and Rosie Stern were sitting on the boundary of Harlequin’s, on the same bench that Ivan Blessington had sat on during the girls’ match versus Benenden. Today there was no match of any kind; but it was a pretty and peaceful place in which to converse.
‘But what has Canteloupe actually got?’ Rosie was asking. ‘A bad fit of depression, to say nothing of guilt.’
‘About anything…in particular?’
‘No. About his life in general.’
‘Ah,’ said Rosie, somewhat reassured. ‘No good worrying then,’ she went on sensibly. ‘Meanwhile, what am I to tell Dobrila? About Theodosia’s advances? It appears that ladies never behave like this on the island of Vis, and poor Dobrila is absolutely at sea…so to speak. I think the best thing would be to write to Marigold Helmutt, who first brought Dobrila to England.’
‘Marigold is on her travels,’Tessa said. ‘You will have to cope. Tell Dobrila that in civilised countries ladies often fancy other ladies and enjoy a bit of physical contact…which sometimes goes deeper than mere contact. If ladies masturbate on Vis, she will know what you mean.’
‘I shouldn’t think ladies do masturbate on Vis, should you?’
‘No. How silly of me,’ said Tessa, ‘to suggest that they might. No doubt they are too busy carrying babies about and gutting tuna fish. ’ Jealousy was not improving Tessa’s character. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Tell Dobrila that in England milords and miladies have the absolute power of ordering common girls like her into their beds. Then perhaps she’ll panic and bolt and leave the field to me, once again.’
‘I think you might be a little more charitable,’ Rosie said. ‘Dobrila is very fetching – with those rolled-up trousers and everything.’
‘Whose side are you on?’
‘Darling, darling Tessa,’ Rosie said: ‘I’m on your side now and for ever. I shall tell Dobrila exactly what Theodosia will try to do to her, and since she is a simple innocent sea-girl she will be very shocked and go straight home to her mother. So tell me, darling Tessa: to judge from your experience, what will Theodosia try to do to Dobrila?’
When Fielding Gray had parted sadly from Jeremy at Heathrow, he went to ground in his suite at Buttock’s Hotel, and waited for Jeremy to let him know how much money he could ‘lend’ him without interest or inconvenience. When Jeremy, funking the telephone, sent a letter which said that he couldn’t ‘lend’ Fielding anything at all, and explained the dreariness of his new circumstances, Fielding was very put out, mostly because he was sorry for himself, but partly, to be fair, because he was sorry for Jeremy too.
After he had read Jeremy’s letter, he sent for the acting manager(ess), the transvestible M/S Hilda Geddes.
‘Good morning, Hilda,’ Fielding said.
‘Good morning, Major Gray, darling. I’ve decided to be Missis Lucretia Geddes, divorced, from now on. Hilda is, after all, rather plebby. Lucretia is serious and sombre, conferring and conveying authority, and the status of divorcee will give more credulity to my role.’
‘Remember that Lucretia was raped,’ Fielding said. ‘If anyone starts raping you and gets as far as where your cunt ought to be –’
‘– Don’t be coarse, darling. Do you think I ought to have the operation?’
‘No. It would leave you with a nasty little slit which is no good to anyone. If you have the operation, I shall see to it that you are sacked.’
‘Still so masterful, darling. Now, what did you want to see me about?’
‘First, to congratulate you on the way you seem to have managed the hotel in my absence. Secondly, on a simply delicious dinner last night – I gather you still do a lot of the cooking yourself. And thirdly, to ask whether you have talked with Miss Tessa Malcolm.’
‘Yes, darling,’ said Geddes. ‘She came in for a word on her way back to school…quite a while ago now.’
‘Is she thinking of selling her half of the hotel, would you know?’
‘She assured me she wasn’t. She said old Mrs Buttock hated developers and all those sort of crap, and nothing would make her sell Buttock’s.’
‘Good for Tessa. But the trouble is, Hi – Lucretia, that I need money. My half of the hotel is potentially worth millions, but if Tessa won’t sell her half, bless her heart, I can’t sell mine.’
‘You can live here for nothing,’ Lucretia said.
‘As I grow older, I more and more detest London. Full of terrorists and foreigners and whores.’
‘Getting faddy, are we, Major Gray?’ Geddes had been the Squadron Barber of the 10th Sabre Squadron, when Fielding was Captain Commanding it, of Hamilton’s Horse (Earl Hamilton’s Light Dragoons). This was a regiment which had permitted very frank exchanges between all ranks, so long as everyone knew and kept his place.
‘Getting poor, sweetheart,’ Fielding said.
‘You’ve got a house down at Broughton Staithe by the Wash, someone told me, where you write your heavenly, rubbishy books.’
‘Yes.’
‘Go and live there, then, for a time anyway. I’ll lend you my savings, if you’re short. For years I’ve been living quite free in the Sterns’ London house as caretaker. Thanks to lovely Marius, I was – and still am – very well paid for the job. I’ve got plenty of money, O Captain, my Captain. Take what you wish. Res Unius Res Omnium, as we used to say in the old days.’
Fielding started to blink and sniff a bit.
‘Come along, darling. No waterworks in front of Lucretia. But as you see, I do remember Captain Gray, leader of the Tenth Sabre Squadron, who looked like Hermes – if occasionally rather red in the face. And now that Major Gray has no face to speak of, and only one little pink eye, and a slit of a mouth (like what I should have between my legs if I had the operation), and is as gross (not to mince the matter) as Silenus, he still commands my loyalty and my love.’
‘Thank you,’ Fielding said. And then, pulling himself together, ‘There is no immediate urgency for me to decide anything. But I shall not forget your offer… Lucretia. Rather a good name, I think.’
Lucretia rose, kissed Fielding on his scaly forehead, adjusted her grey skirts, which reached to the floor, and then moved towards the door as if on castors.
Tessa was in the school chapel, praying that Canteloupe might recover his health and that she, Tessa, might recover Lady Canteloupe’s love.
‘Please, God, let her still desire me, as I desire her,’ Tessa prayed.
Raisley Conyngham sat down beside her.
‘I have had a letter from the Marchioness Canteloupe,’ he began. ‘She asks me, as your schoolmaster and your guardian, that I should obtain special leave for you to go to her in one week’s time and stay for some while, to help her with her little daughter. I gather that she had a foreigner for a nanny, who has now, suddenly, gone.’
Her prayer in part answered already.
‘Why in a week’s time?’ she said. ‘Why not now?’
‘Because Lady Canteloupe and the child must go into hospital. There are some minor surgical adjustments to be effected on both of them, as a result of lesions caused by the rather irregular manner of the birth.’
‘Nothing serious, sir?’ Raisley shook his head. ‘You promise me, sir?’ Raisley nodded. ‘Then why has she not written to me?’
‘I believe she has – about the visit to the hospital. You should have a letter about that tomorrow at the latest. As to this other matter – well, to take you out of school for an indefinite period in t
he middle of the quarter is obviously an unusual and difficult proceeding, and she felt, quite rightly, that I was the person to deal with that.’
‘You will let me go, sir? My O levels are done with, and I can easily catch up with my work for A levels later.’
‘And your cricket?’
‘Not as important…as some other things.’
‘Then of course you shall go, Teresa – on one condition.’
‘Sir?’ said Tessa, still on her knees.
‘In some five days’ time, Teresa, I have an important request to make of Marius Stern. It is possible that he will accede to it immediately, in which case you will hear no more of the matter. But if he does not, I shall be compelled to ask you, Teresa, to teach him his manners and enforce his obedience to me.’
‘And this, I suppose, is the “simple and easy” task of which you warned me? The task I must perform on pain of my being forbidden to go to Theodosia Canteloupe?’
Raisley Conyngham nodded gently.
‘What do you want of Marius, sir?’
‘That need not concern you,’ Raisley Conyngham said. ‘All that concerns you is to compel him – should compulsion prove necessary – to obey me.’
‘And how am I to compel him?’Teresa said.
‘By threatening to make public the criminal behaviour of his father Gregory, whose memory he adores.’
‘What criminal behaviour?’
‘Do you not remember,’ said Raisley Conyngham lightly, ‘how Gregory Stern used to come to you in the night sometimes…when you were a child staying with Marius and Rosie? The house was large, and all the children in it had their own bedrooms, which made it easy for Gregory to visit you. How you dreaded those visits! How you longed for them! For Gregory was very kind and gentle with you. He didn’t hurt or rape or rip you, he just fondled you to the point of delight…and encouraged you to fondle him. Perhaps you did not need much encouragement; after all, you were an inquisitive child. But in any case, however much you enjoyed Gregory’s attentions, and however willingly you reciprocated them, there can be no doubt that it was he who tempted you, defiled your innocence, took advantage of your precocity.’
‘Gregory Stern is dead,’ said Tessa.
‘Yes indeed, Teresa. Nothing can harm him now. That is why your task is so easy. You will say to Marius, “This is what your father did to me when I was a child. I think, now, that certain others should know of it, Marius,” you will say:“not only you, but your mother and Rosie and many other people who admired him – Major Fielding Gray and Lord Canteloupe, for example. It is wrong that they should venerate his memory as they do.” And Marius will say, “I loved my father and love him still; please do not tell people those things about him, Tessa.” And you will say,“Nor shall I, Marius, if you will only do what Mr Conyngham requires of you. ”’
‘But I should have been lying to Marius, sir. Gregory Stern was always wholly courteous towards me in every particular.’
‘Precisely. That was why you enjoyed his visits so much. Please do not be naïve, Teresa.’
‘If I told Marius this wicked tale, it would ruin his image of his father, and it would make him hate me.’
‘You may not have to tell him anything. If he consents to do what I shall ask him, without further ado –’
‘– And if he doesn’t, and if I try to force him by this blackmail you describe, and if he still refuses to do what you ask?’
‘Then you will have done your part in good faith, Teresa, and you may go to Lady Canteloupe, to help her with Lady Nausikaa, for as long as you are needed.’
‘And what shall you do to Marius?’
‘That need not concern you,’ Raisley Conyngham said.
‘When will you tell me whether or not I must deceive Marius in this horrible way?’
‘As I have told you, Teresa, I shall put my request to Marius in five days’ time. If he is…compliant…you will hear no more of this; if he is not compliant, I shall come to you immediately. But if I have not come to you by six in the evening five days from now, you will know that Marius and I have been able to agree, and that you may join Lady Canteloupe, without further discussion with anybody, on this day week.’
Raisley Conyngham and Giles Glastonbury met for dinner, by Glastonbury’s invitation, and in Glastonbury’s second London club. (The first was much grander, which was why he used the second when engaged in seedy intrigues.)
‘Well?’ said Glastonbury greedily. ‘What have you to report?’
‘I have lit the fuse,’ said Raisley.
‘Excuse me,’ said Glastonbury. He rose and hurried out to the lavatory. When he came back, he said:
‘When do you want me to start doing my bit? Talking to people?’
‘Very soon now. Very soon indeed. I had an especially good opportunity to bring pressure to bear on Teresa Malcolm, and I took it. I am now confident that she will make Marius do what I require of him – should he prove reluctant.’
‘Tell,’ said Glastonbury, who wished to savour every drop of pleasure in the matter.
Raisley told.
‘You said that you had thought of two ways of using Teresa to compel Marius,’ Glastonbury persisted. ‘What, as a matter of interest, was the other? – Wait till I’ve had a pee.’
‘Have you thought of having an operation on your prostate?’ said Raisley when Glastonbury returned.
‘No. What was your second idea for dealing with Tessa Malcolm?’
‘Under threat of keeping her away from Theodosia for ever – as with the scheme I am actually using – I was going to order her to seduce Marius. What she doesn’t know and Marius does is that she is his half-sister – got on old Maisie Malcolm, when in her prime as a whore, by Gregory Stern on an uncharacteristic night out while Isobel his wife was in hospital. I should have kept Teresa in ignorance of this during the period of seduction, and later made her pretend to Marius that she was pregnant – which for that matter she well might have been. Marius, thinking he had made his half-sister pregnant, would have been rather desperate, I apprehend. I should then have offered to tidy up the entire mess – provided Marius was malleable.’
‘What a swine you are. Why didn’t you do it that way in the end?’
‘It would have taken so much longer. Seductions and pregnancies and that kind of carry-on – weeks and weeks. As it is, I expect to get Marius to start spreading the word –’
‘– About Jeremy Morrison contaminating his lovers and causing those suicides,’ said Giles with glee, ‘and about Luffham’s hushing the coroner up –’
‘– I expect to have Marius blurting all that round the place in only a few days. Then, when Luffham is no longer in a position to speak against me as candidate for Headmaster (or even a little earlier), I shall give you details of what to say for me and to whom to say it.’
Glastonbury chuckled in a senile fashion and went out to the lavatory. There was a large patch of damp, Raisley noticed, round the crutch of his companion’s trousers. Well, Raisley thought, at least I’ve given him some pleasure, and if he lasts a week or two longer he will still be a useful supporter – at any rate when sober and continent, i. e. between nine a. m. and noon. I do not think I shall be seeing much of Giles Glastonbury, here or elsewhere, once I have become Headmaster of the school.
Canteloupe lay supine and sweaty on his huge canopied bed as the cracked bell from the Campanile chimed midnight. The door was opened from outside and Leonard Percival came in. Behind him Lady Canteloupe, stiffly and awkwardly carrying the infant Nausikaa, stalked into the room and towards the bed, while Leonard closed the door and then followed.
‘Both Nausika’s operation and mine have been successfully completed,’ Lady Canteloupe announced, ‘so I have brought her home.’
‘Three days early, Theodosia?’
‘In the end she only needed a tiny skin graft. ’ Theodosia lifted the baby’s robe and showed her father a small and very white patch on the left thigh. ‘It was little more in my own ca
se.’
‘I’m delighted to see you both,’ said Canteloupe feebly; ‘but isn’t this rather an eccentric hour for a home-coming?’
‘I was going to wait in the nursing home until tomorrow morning. But then I decided I couldn’t stand the place a moment longer. Even though it is a private affair for private patients, the nurses behave as if they were somehow set in authority over one. They never come when you ring the bell, they infallibly disturb you with some trivial piece of routine just when you are comfortably settled to your book.’
‘Well, I am pleased to see you both,’ murmured Canteloupe: ‘we have matters to discuss.’
‘If you say so, Canteloupe; but I’m tired of carrying the child.’
She handed the baby to Leonard Percival, causing him to drop his stick, which she picked up and hooked on to one of his arms. ‘Take the child to the night nursery, Mr Percival. I’ll join you as soon as possible.’
Theodosia opened the door. Leonard hobbled out, glancing briefly back towards Canteloupe; his long hooky nose, as so often at times when he was amused, seemed to penetrate with its tip the ill-shaven cleft in his chin. Nausikaa, who appeared to be content with the arrangement, nestled her head into his shoulder.
‘Thank God,’Theodosia said when she had closed the door, ‘that Teresa will be here to help me with that child in three days’ time. I think I can just bear it until then. I know you love Nausika, Canty –’
‘– Nausikaa –’
‘– And for your sake I’m prepared to do my best for her. I shall sleep these next nights with her until Teresa comes, and then Teresa and I will sleep there in the night nursery until a proper nurse is found by the agency. But if that’s not pretty soon, I shall telephone old Florence at Burnham-on-Sea and make her come and take a turn. Now then: what did you want to discuss?’
‘Money,’ whispered Canteloupe.
‘Simple. You shall have what you need to keep this place going – on two conditions. The first is that you get rid of your private secretary.’
‘Leonard? Why? You’ve just entrusted Nausikaa to him.’
‘He is perfectly trustworthy. He is also odious. He’s a memento mori, a death’s head.’
