The Skull Beneath The Skin

'But that's different; at least I shall persuade myself that it is. I'm just a temporary employee. But Tolly believed Clarissa when she was told that there was no immediate danger; she trusted her. How can she stay with her now?'

'They've been together almost all their lives. Tolly's mother was Clarissa's nurse. The family with a small f served the Family with a large 'F' for three generations. They're born to be served, she was born to serve them. Perhaps, given the habit of subservience, a dead child here or there doesn't make any difference.'

'But that's horrible! It's ridiculous, and degrading. It's Victorian!'

'Don't you believe it! The instinct for worship is remarkably persistent. What else is religious belief? Tolly's lucky to have her God walking the earth with shoes that need cleaning, clothes that need folding, hair that needs brushing.'

'But she can't want to go on serving. She can't like Clarissa.'

'What has liking to do with it? Though she slay me yet shall I trust her. It's a perfectly common phenomenon. But I admit I do sometimes wonder what would happen if she faced the truth about her own feelings. If any of us did, come to that. It's getting colder, isn't it? Don't you feel it? Perhaps it's time we were getting back.'

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They hardly spoke on the way back to the castle. For Cordelia, the sunlight had drained out of the day. The beauty of sea and shore passed unregarded by her desolated heart. Ivo was obviously very tired by the time they reached the terrace and said that he would rest in his room; he wouldn't bother with tea. Cordelia told herself that it was her job to stay close to Clarissa however unwelcome that might be to both of them. But it took an effort of will before she could make her way back to the theatre, and it was a relief to find that the rehearsal still wasn't over. She stood for a minute at the back of the auditorium, then made her way to her own room. The communicating door was open and she could see Tolly moving from bathroom to bedroom. But the thought of having to speak to her was intolerable and Cordelia made her escape.

Almost on impulse she opened the door next to her own which gave access to the tower. A circular staircase of elaborately decorated wrought iron curved upwards into semi-darkness lit only by occasional slit windows less than a brick in width. She could see there was a light-switch, but preferred to climb steadily upwards in the gloom in what seemed an endless spiral. But at last she reached the top and found herself in a small, light-filled circular room with six tall windows. The room was unfurnished except for one cane armchair with a curved back and was obviously used to store acquisitions for which Ambrose hadn't yet found a place or which he had inherited from the previous owner; chiefly a collection of Victorian toys. There was a wooden horse on wheels, a Noah's ark with carved animals, three china dolls with bland faces and stuffed limbs, a table of mechanical toys including an organ-grinder with his monkey, a set of cat musicians on a revolving platform, gaudily dressed in satin and each with his instrument, a grenadier toy soldier with his drum, a wooden musical-box.

The view was spectacular. The whole island, seen as if from an aircraft, was a neatly patterned coloured map precisely placed in a crinkled sea. To the east was a smudge which must be the Isle of Wight. To the north the Dorset coast looked surprisingly close; she could almost make out the stunted pier and the coloured terraces. She gazed down over the island, at the northern marshes fringed with white gulls, the central uplands, the fields, small patches of green amid the many-hued curdle of autumnal trees, the brown cliffs sliding down to the shore, the spire of the Church rising amid the beeches, the roof of the arcade leading to a toy theatre. From his cottage in the stable block the foreshortened figure of Oldfield crept, a bucket in either hand, and, as she watched, Roma emerged from the copse of beech trees which lined the lawn and made her way, hands hunched in her pockets, towards the castle. Across the grass a peacock stalked, dragging his tattered tail.

Here, slung between earth and sky in a brick-enclosed eyrie, the sound of the sea was a low moan almost indistinguishable from the sighing of the wind. Suddenly Cordelia felt immensely lonely. The job which had promised so much seemed now a humiliating waste of time and effort. She no longer cared who was sending the messages or why. She felt that she hardly cared whether Clarissa lived or died. She wondered what was happening at Kingly Street, how Miss Maudsley was coping, whether Mr Morgan had come to see to the name-plate. And thinking of him reminded her of Sir George. He had paid her to do a job. She was here to protect Clarissa, not to judge her. And there were only two more days to be got through. By Sunday it would all be over and she would be free to get back to London; need never hear Clarissa's name again. She recalled Bernie's words when he had once rebuked her for being over-fastidious:

'You can't make moral judgements about your clients in this job, mate. Start that and you may as well shut up shop.'

She turned from the window and, on impulse, opened the musical-box. The cylinder slowly revolved and the delicate metal filaments plucked out the tune 'Greensleeves'. Then one by one she set the other mechanical toys in motion. The grenadier thumped his drum; the cats revolved, mouths grinning, jerking their satined arms; cymbals clashed; the plaintive 'Greensleeves' was lost in the discordant din. And thus, in a gentle cacophony of childish sounds, which couldn't entirely shut out from her mind the image of a dying child but which helped to release some tension in her, Cordelia stared down over Ambrose's coloured kingdom.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ivo had been wrong. Clarissa didn't apologize for her behaviour at the rehearsal but she did exert herself to be particularly charming to Cordelia over tea. It was a boisterous and protracted feast of sandwiches and over-rich cake, and it was after six before the launch bearing De Ville and the other principals back to Spey-mouth finally drew away from the quay. Clarissa spent the hour before it was time to dress for dinner playing Scrabble in the library with Ambrose. She played noisily and badly, constantly calling out to Cordelia to look up challenged words in the dictionary or to support her against Ambrose's allegations that she was cheating. Cordelia, happily engrossed with old copies of the Illustrated London News and the Strand Magazine, in which she could read the Sherlock Holmes stories as they had originally appeared, wished that she could have been left in peace. Simon was apparently to entertain them with music after dinner and the distant sound of Chopin from the drawing-room where he was practising was pleasantly restful and evocative of her schooldays. Ivo was still in his room and Roma sat in silence with the weekly journals and Private Eye. The library, with its barrel roof and carved brass-fronted bookcases set between the four tall windows, was one of the most beautifully proportioned in the castle. The whole of the southern wall was taken up with one immense window decorated with round panes of coloured glass. In the daytime the window framed nothing but a view of sea and sky. But now the library was in darkness except for the three pools of light from the desk lamps, and the great window rose like a sheet of rain-washed marble, blue-black and smudged with a few high stars. It was a pity, thought Cordelia, that, even here, Clarissa was incapable of occupying herself in peaceable silence.

When it was time to dress they went up together and Cordelia unlocked both rooms and made a check on Clarissa's bedroom before she went in. All was well. She dressed quickly, put out the light, then sat quietly at her window looking out at the distant clumps of trees, black against the night sky, and the faint shimmer of the sea. Suddenly a light flashed from the south. She watched. In three seconds it flashed again and then for a third and last time. She thought that it must be some kind of signal, perhaps in answer to one from the island. But why and from whom? But then she told herself that the thought was childish and melodramatic. It was probably some solitary sailor on his way back to Speymouth harbour casually flashing a light over the quay. But there remained something discomforting and almost sinister about that threefold flash as if someone was signalling that the cast was assembled, the leading lady ensconced in splendour under the castle roof, that the drawbridge could be drawn up and the play begin. But this was a castle without a drawbridge, its moat the sea. For the first time since her arrival, Cordelia was touched by a sense of claustrophobic unease. Here their only lifelines were the telephone and the launch, both easily put out of commission. She had been drawn to the mystery and loneliness of the island; now she missed the solid reassurance of the mainland, of towns and fields and hills ranged at her back. It was then that she heard Clarissa's door close and Tolly's departing footsteps. Clarissa must be ready. Cordelia went through the communicating door and they made their way together to the hall.

The dinner was excellent, artichokes followed by poussin and spinach au gratin. The south-facing room still held the warmth of the day and the wood fire had been lit more for its sweet-smelling and comforting glow than because it was needed. The three tall candlesticks threw a steady light on the epergne of coloured glass and Parian, the rich gold, green and rose of the Davenport dinner-service and the engraved table-glasses. Above the fireplace was an oil painting of the two daughters of Herbert Gorringe. Their poses were awkward, almost angular, and the faces with their bright, exophthalmic eyes under the strong Gorringe brows and the moist, half-open mouths looked flushed and feverish while the reds and deep blues of the evening dresses shone as brightly as if the paint had recently dried. Cordelia found it difficult to keep her eyes from the picture which so far from being tranquil or domestic seemed to her charged with a hectic sexual energy. Watching her gaze, Ambrose said:

'It's by Millais, one of the comparatively few social portraits which he did. The dinner-service we're using was a wedding gift to the elder daughter from the Prince and Princess of Wales. Clarissa insisted that I bring it out for tonight.'

It seemed to Cordelia that there was a great deal which Clarissa insisted on at Courcy Castle. She wondered if she also proposed to supervise the washing-up.

It should have been a festive meal but the pleasure didn't match the food or the excellence of the wines. Beneath the glittering surface and the easy social chat flowed a current of unease, which from time to time spurted into antagonism. No one but Simon and herself with their youthful appetites did justice to the food, and he shoved it in furtively, watching Clarissa from the corner of bis eye like a child allowed up for his first dining-room meal and expecting any minute to be banished to the nursery. Clarissa, elegant in her high-necked dress of blue-green chiffon, began by teasing her cousin about the absence of her partner who had apparently been expected for the weekend, a topic which she seemed reluctant to let go.

'But it's so odd of him, darling. Surely we didn't frighten him away? I thought you wanted to show him off? Isn't that why you schemed for an invitation? Who are you ashamed of, us or him?'

Roma's face was an unbecoming pink above the harsh blue of her taffeta dress.

'We're expecting an American customer to drop into the shop this Saturday. And Colin has got behind with the accounts. He's hoping to get them finished before Monday.'

'On a weekend? How conscientious of him. But I'm relieved to hear that you have some accounts worth doing. Congratulations.'

Cordelia, finding that she could make little headway with Simon, who seemed afraid to speak, withdrew her interest from her fellow guests and concentrated on her meal. When she next took notice it was to hear Roma's belligerent voice. She was addressing Ambrose across the table, clutching her fork as if it were a weapon.

'But you can't opt out of all responsibility for what's happening in your own country! You can't just say that you're not concerned, not even interested!'

'But I can. I didn't collude in the depreciation of its currency, the spoliation of its countryside, the desecration of its towns, the destruction of its grammar schools or even the mutilation of the liturgy of its Church. For what am I personally expected to feel a responsibility?'

'I was thinking of aspects which some of us see as more important. The growth of Fascism, the fact that our society is more violent, less compassionate and more unequal than it has been since the nineteenth century. And then there's the National Front. You can't ignore the Front!'

'Indeed I can, together with Militant Tendency, the Trots and the rest of the rabble. You'd be surprised at my capacity for ignoring the ignorable.'

'But you can't just decide to live in another age!'

'But I can. I can live in any century I wish. I don't have to choose the dark ages, old or new.'

Ivo said quietly:

'I'm grateful that you don't reject modern amenities or modern technology. If I should enter into the final process of dying during the next few days and need a little medical help to ease the way, I take it you won't object to using the telephone.'

Ambrose smiled round at them and raised his glass:

'If any of you decide to die in the next few days, all necessary measures will be taken to ease you on your way.'

There was a short, slightly embarrassed silence. Cordelia looked across at Clarissa, but the actress's eyes were on her plate. For a second, the long fingers trembled and were still.

Roma said: