Death at the Alma Mater sm-3

by G. M. Malliet

  Two of the visitors, Sir James Bassett and his wife, having arrived not by train but by Bentley, were already in their assigned room in the Rupert Brooke wing, continuing a conversation that had begun in London and kept them occupied all the way down the M11 to Cambridge from their much-admired townhouse (which, to their mutual delight, had been featured just the month before in Tatler). Rather, they were in India's room, the college never since its monastic days (and never until the last trumpet sounds) being organized for couples. Sir James would spend the weekend in the room next door to his wife. Needless to say, there was no adjoining door.

  "What I don't understand," Lady Bassett was saying now, and not for the first time, "is how you could not have realized?" She held up a gauzy peignoir in a shade of dusky rose and gave it a good shake, staring at it critically as if she couldn't quite decide what to do with it. This was likely true, as she was not used to unpacking: She always left all that to her maid. She gave the garment one more critical squint, then rolled it in a ball and stuffed it inside one of the drawers of the room's massive oak bureau.

  "I mean, you must have known she was going to be here," she continued.

  She held out to him a sheet of paper letterheaded with the college's crest. Shook the list at him, rather, as if it were another puzzling garment from her suitcase. It contained the names of people attending the weekend gathering. With one finger, which trembled with outrage, she pointed at the offending name halfway down the list: Lexy Laurant.

  Foolish of me not to have told her before, Sir James thought now. That was a miscalculation. But he'd been hoping to avert or at least delay the scene that was almost certain to arrive. He'd really doubted Lexy would attend, and couldn't believe it when he saw the name on the final, official list. Even now he thought there was a chance she might not show. She'd claimed an undying hatred for the place at one time. It was the type of dramatic statement Lexy was given to. He spoke the thought aloud.

  "She spoke of her 'Undying Hatred' of the place, India. Capital U, capital H. I never dreamed she'd even reply to the invitation." He shook his head ruefully. "Dear old Lexy. Always one for melodrama."

  "Yes, dear old Lexy," repeated India.

  "She may not show up."

  "She will, if only to annoy me. If I'd known, I wouldn't have come. I'll spend the whole weekend avoiding her, or being forced to pretend how thrilled I am to see her. And after the letters she's sent you, I would think you would be less than thrilled, too."

  Sir James sighed. "I know. She can't help it, you know. She gets depressed, and she was used to thinking of me as someone she could talk openly with. 'Share her feelings,' is I'm sure how she'd put it."

  "You shouldn't have burned those letters she sent. I have a bad feeling about this. It's like she's, well, stalking you. Us."

  He took her hand in his, and traced the blue veins showing against the sun-warmed skin. He didn't think India's concern was whether or not he loved her-that she knew. India was not a woman given to jealousy, one of the reasons he had grown to love her more than life. But he told her now, just in case.

  "You know you are my life, my heart, and my soul. Don't worry. It's only for a couple of days. It will be fine."

  She disagreed, but she kissed him anyway. -- Several doors away, the topic of this marital conversation had indeed shown up and was removing her clothes from the scented tissue in which her maid had wrapped them for the trip. She wasn't thinking of Sir James, however, or even of India (who she refused, in any case, to think of as Lady Bassett. Stuff that). She was thinking of all the bullshit mantras her astral therapist had given her. She'd tried, really she'd tried. The gods and goddesses knew she'd tried. But what good had it done, really?

  May good befall me. Sure, fine, all right.

  May I be fit for perfection. Well, she was already a size four, wasn't she? She worked out every day. Her clothes and hair were perfect, and widely imitated. She was perfect. It wasn't helping, though. None of the Eastern religions, in fact, seemed to have grasped the essence of her particular set of problems.

  Most annoying and useless of all were the little platitudes. You must learn to be in the moment, Madame Zoerastra had told her, completely missing the point. It was the moment that Lexy so often couldn't bear to be in. The past was better, painted rose-colored over time as only Lexy could manage. And dreams of the future were way better.

  It was the Now that sucked.

  In the distant and unexplored recesses of her mind, she knew her unhappiness was, on its surface, irrational. She lived in a big, white Kensington townhouse of light-filled rooms offering views into the gardens of her millionaire neighbors. She had a hectic and well-documented social life. She had, if not friends, people she could call on to take her places. She was young and admired. Sought-after, even. What more could anyone ask?

  Leaning into the mirror, she took stock: bright red lips, flawless white skin, bright blue eyes. Check. Blonde hair feathered about her face and neck in a much-imitated style that had become her trademark. Check. Uncapping a tube, she darkened the cherry red stain on her full lips. Thoughtfully, she pressed her lips together as she snapped the cap back into place.

  She'd tried the traditional therapists, as well. This had advantages; they could write prescriptions, for one thing. But it wasn't, she told herself, like scoring pills for a party or whatever. Not an addiction.

  Doctor Mott, one of the traditionalists, had told her she must confront her demons of the past. But some demons were best left undisturbed, surely? Even Lexy knew that. Let sleeping dogs lie. That was the ticket. What was important this weekend was that everyone see that she was over it. She really was, too. The water had long gone under that bridge. They'd see her with her dishy Argentine, who was unpacking next door at the moment and no doubt flexing his muscles as he did so. The man flexed his muscles as he brushed his teeth, for God's sake. If seeing her with Geraldo didn't signal to the world the end of her interest in that poo-wipe James and his donkey-faced wife, she didn't know what did.

  She reached into one of the elastic pockets lining either side of her suitcase. These, she'd packed herself. She pulled out a sheaf of financial statements that had come in the post from her broker just as she'd left for Cambridge. Yes, that would need seeing to this weekend. Keep an eye on things. Never completely trust the experts-one would have to be a fool to do that. Stashing the pages back into the pocket, she rootled around some more. Success.

  She unscrewed the cap from a plastic vial, shook out a tablet.

  One extra couldn't hurt. It was going to be a long weekend, after all. -- "Part of the thrill of the whole weekend is that we're all allowed to use the SCR, a room from which we were roundly banished when we were students here," Gwennap Pengelly was saying to Hermione Jax. The women were sitting on a bench in the Fellows' Garden, basking in the filtered sunlight. "Personally, I can't wait. I may take off my shoes and run barefoot through the carpet. And to have allowed us the use of this heavenly garden! They must really be quite hard up for donations. Before you know it they'll be letting all of us walk on the grass, Fellow of the college or no." She paused to adjust the tortoise-shell slide holding back the caramel-colored curls from her square face. The teeth of the thing bit into her scalp; it felt as if it were cutting off circulation to the brain. What price beauty.

  Hermione, who held Gwenn's intellect in no high regard, might have agreed. She was shocked at hearing this truthful assessment of the college's financial situation spoken aloud, and merely said repressively, "No indeed. I believe the Master's only thought is that we should all enjoy ourselves."

  "Make a change then, won't it?" Seeing her companion's aghast countenance-she'd forgotten how Hermione worshipped the Master-she tried to jolly her along. Always rough sailing with Hermione, but still, worth a try.

  "Hermione, my dear old thing. You don't seriously think any of us is fooled by this invitation? One only has to look at the guest list to see we're all what the Americans would call 'loaded.' Am I su
pposed to pretend this was a random sampling of old members drawn up by the Bursar? Names drawn from a hat? No indeed. Much better, really, that we all know what we're in for. It will save ever so much need for subtlety and subterfuge on the part of the Bursar. I've brought my chequebook in anticipation."

  "Really, Gwenn." Hermione stroked the nubby arms of her sweater, as if smoothing her own ruffled feathers. "You needn't always say whatever comes into your head, you know."

  "Why ever not? It's an inclination that made me a telly reporter, and a jolly good one. And a highly compensated one, to boot."

  Again, disapproval settled over Hermione's lugubrious face. Such things were never spoken of when she was a girl.

  "Which brings us full circle," Gwenn continued. "I don't think for a minute I was invited along to help this lot parse the Dead Sea scrolls. Neither were you, even though you're probably the brightest of the bunch. Why pretend otherwise?"

  Hermione, unused to praise-in fact, unused to any attention whatever, flushed, tongue-tied. But no matter. Gwenn swept on.

  "You saw who else is coming, of course. How do you think that's going to play out?"

  "You mean Sir James and Lady Bassett, of course," replied Hermione. "And Lexy. Yes, I still have reservations about that. I did mention it to the Master. He doesn't seem to have fully realized until it was too late that there might be… a problem."

  "Too right. To invite both the ex-wife and current wife to a gathering under the same roof with the husband. Well. Bound to end in tears, especially if Lexy hasn't changed much."

  "Lexy was always given to letting her emotions rule, yes. But not without cause in this case, as you know."

  "I never understood, really." Giving up on beauty for the moment, Gwenn removed the slide and massaged her scalp, sending her curls flying in all directions. "James leaving Lexy for India. It was like trading in a new Rolls-Royce for a beaten up old Land Rover." But he'd gravitated, quite obviously, to his comfort level, she thought. People did.

  "How long do you think they'd been at it before Lexy found out?" she wondered aloud. "Did anyone ever hear?"

  "Really, Gwenn! It's hardly our business."

  "Oh, come on. It was the scandal of the year, if not the decade. Don't pretend you aren't just a bit curious. All I ever heard was that Lexy discovered the pair of them-in flagrante, no less-and went ballistic. I never quite got the details; it was all hushed up so quickly and I never got a chance to speak with Lexy in private about it before she-before they all-left. Too bad-there's quite a story there."

  "You wouldn't!" Hermione stared at her friend in staggered disbelief. Gwenn shrugged her thin shoulders impatiently.

  "Who wouldn't? Once they're all dead and gone, the truth might just out. The only thing preventing me now, really, is Lexy. I always felt sorry for her, somehow. India is a different story. She was a troublemaker always."

  "Certainly, there was always a man involved," agreed Hermione, caught up, despite herself, in remembered outrage. "What basis there could have been for the attraction-indeed, that struck many as a mystery. Pheromones?" she wondered, calling on remembered reading in her botanical research.

  "Yes, certainly something primitive like that was in play," replied Gwenn. "But I would call it an uncanny ability to get into the head of your victim-it's the only possible word, other than 'target'-and charm the pants off of them." She smiled, a slow lazy smile of reminiscence. "I suppose I mean that literally. India always had this ability-seldom wasted on the likes of me or you, I assure you-to talk on whatever subject most interested the object of her affection. It's as if she herself doesn't exist-all bug eyes, and little interjections of 'ooh' and 'ah' at the relevant points in the narrative. I'd say she had no personality at all but of course she has the most powerful personality I've ever come across. Not to mention, destructive. That son of hers is much the worse for her brand of mothering, if you ask me. That's one unhappy kid. I ran into him earlier on the stairs, looking like thunder."

  Hermione nodded. "Sebastian is a bit of a worry."

  They sat in silence a moment, contemplating the possible future for the handsome if troubled offspring of their former fellow student.

  "Have you spoken with Karl yet?" Gwenn now asked.

  "No. I saw him and Constance arrive, but they must have gone straight up to their rooms."

  "He's probably somewhere trying to work the ring out of his nose."

  Hermione allowed herself a delicate snort. She always enjoyed Gwenn's company, almost despite her better instincts. That two women so exactly opposite should have remained friends was something Hermione always wondered at and, in her way, was grateful for. She had few friends: No one, if she but knew it, felt they could quite live up to her high moral standards. Gwenn, because she didn't care, didn't try.

  "She does rather lead him around, doesn't she?" agreed Hermione now. "Always has done."

  "I've seen Chihuahuas with more courage than Karl."

  Hermione nodded.

  "And I've seen Rottweilers better disposed than Constance." -- Constance and Karl Dunning were in the SCR, taking advantage of the rare freedom of the place, he to admire the woodwork and she surreptitiously to take a peek inside the walnut drinks cabinet.

  "They do all right for themselves, these Fellows," she said, assessing the paneled walls, the oil paintings, and the two deeply embrasured windows that looked out over the front of the college. Their window seats held padded tapestry cushions, depicting the college shield (goats and unicorns rampant), that had in 1951 been the project of the then-Master's wife.

  From the open windows of the SCR came the sweet fragrance of flowers and newly shorn grass and the faint "thwump" of a tennis ball in play. Tall leaded windows on the opposite side of the room were merely decorative.

  "As for our rooms," Constance continued, "I've seen better accommodation in a stable."

  "There are parallels in Christianity, of course," said her husband mildly.

  "What?"

  "Oh, nothing, nothing. Take a look at this. That's a genuine Chippendale or I miss my guess."

  She nodded, gray eyes judiciously weighing and measuring, oversized round earrings gleaming. She smoothed her skinned-back dark hair, which she habitually wore shellacked into a tight chignon at the base of her large skull, and straightened the knitted jacket of her suit.

  "There's mold somewhere in this room," she announced. "And in my room upstairs. I can feel it, seeping into my pores. My allergies-"

  "There's mold in most Cambridge rooms. It's probably what prevents the buildings from collapsing altogether-it acts as a sort of glue. Oxford's far worse, I hear."

  "And the food! Remember what you said about the food! It's all not going to be what we're used to."

  "No, indeed, my dear."

  "We should leave now!"

  "Sweetest, it's only for a few days."

  "I'll be in a hospital by then, I tell you. And, my room is going to be freezing at night. There is no heat coming out of that contraption on the wall. But-you just don't care, do you?"

  "Darling, I told you: The heat is at the optimum setting already. The thermostat must be broken. But it's only for the weekend. Besides, it's summer. Could be much worse, and probably usually is." He gave her a hopeful, benign smile.

  She leveled at him a venomous look from beneath high-arched eyebrows.

  "Do I look happy?" she asked him.

  As there was no need for reply, wisely, he made none.

  "Then have it seen to," she commanded. "Ask the Porter or someone."

  People wondered how Karl stood it, and why. He would be mortified to hear some of the theories and rumors that had been bruited about over the years, most of them originating with Gwenn Pengelly. Gwenn had read widely of the tales surrounding the Duchess of Windsor and her baffling hold over HRH. The story had been spread around the time of the abdication, and had gained rapid currency, that Wallis had picked up some diabolical sexual techniques during her time in China, and that she had
used these to ensnare the future King. For some reason, foot fetishism was the most agreed-upon outlet for the Prince's ardor.

  But the truth, probably in the case of HRH and certainly in the case of Karl Dunning, was much simpler. Karl, introverted and shy, had been lonely when he met Constance. Insanely lonely and, thanks to his financial acumen and various inventions for which he held the patents, wealthy. Constance, with the sure instincts of her kind, had spotted the weakness and gone in for the kill, unawed by either Karl's social status or his intellect, where lesser egos had been deferential to his genius. Far from resenting his entrapment, Karl remained grateful and deeply attached to his wife, recognizing the neediness behind the constant demands. He was one of those people who needed to be needed. Most would have agreed that according to his lights, he'd found the perfect match.

  "Just get through the weekend, my dear," he said now. Her unhappiness made him almost physically ill, so attuned was he to her moods. "Get through just these few days, and I promise you a week at the Ritz in Paris that you'll never forget. Whatever you want is yours."

  She didn't have to pause for thought. She kept a mental list of her latest wants constantly updated.

  "You know I've had my eye on that cocktail ring…"

  "Anything."

  "All right, then. But don't expect me to enjoy myself for a moment."

  "You're a saint, Constance."

  AULD ACQUAINTANCE

  As the instructions accompanying the invitation to the alumni weekend had explained, there would be an informal meal in Hall Friday night, to be followed by a formal dinner on Saturday night. Saturday day would be taken up with lectures, tours, and chances to reminisce. Augie Cramb, late of Austin, Texas, debated the choices as he walked along Sidney Street, past Sidney Sussex College, his footsteps carrying him ever farther away from St. Mike's. He'd much prefer a pub meal and a chance to chat up the locals to what, however "informal," would surely be the grinding bore of a meal in Hall. Even when he'd lived here as a graduate student for the two long years it took to get his Master's, he'd avoided meals in college like the plague they often were. It wasn't the pomp and circumstance of college life he was after, but to get to know the people. He regarded this natural inclination as the secret to his success. He understood the little man. It was the nobs he couldn't fathom. Besides, the weekend was going to be awkward enough in spots without his having to go out of his way to have meals with the others. He was here to sightsee. Sightsee he would.