torment to them, so he and George weren't exactly friends. In
fact George hated him. And then to find him here and at his
mercy. Wasn't it odd?'
Ivo said easily:
'Not particularly. The British public schools produced their share of Nazi sympathizers and this is where you'd expect to find them in 1940.'
Cordelia stared down at the iron ladder. The light in the passage, fierce and garish, did nothing to mitigate the horror; rather it intensified it. In the old days, the cruelty of man to man was decently shrouded in darkness; the mind dwelt on airless unfit dungeons, on light filtering through the slits of narrow windows. But the modern interrogation rooms and torture chambers were ablaze with light. The technocrats of pain needed to see what they were at. Suddenly the place became intolerable to her. The chill of the passageway intensified. She had to tauten her arms and clench her fists to prevent herself visibly shaking. In her imagination the tunnel behind them stretched to infinity and they were doomed to rush down its contracting brightness like terrified rats. She felt a bead of sweat roll down her forehead and sting her eyes and knew that it had nothing to do with the cold. She made herself speak, hoping that her voice didn't betray her.
'Can't we get out of here? I feel like a voyeuse.'
Ivo said:
'And I feel cold.'
Taking her cue promptly, Clarissa shivered. Then Sir George spoke for the first time. Cordelia wondered whether it was her confused senses or the echo from the low roof which made his voice sound so different.
'If my wife has satisfied her curiosity perhaps we might go.'
Then he made a sudden jerk forward. Before they could guess what was coming he put his foot behind the open trapdoor and pushed. It crashed down. The walls seemed to crack and the passage shook under their feet. They must all have cried out, their voices thin screams in the echoing, reverberating roar. When it had faded no one spoke. Sir George had already turned on his heel and was making his way towards the entrance.
Cordelia found herself a little ahead of the others. Fear, and a deadening sense of misery which was stronger than fear and which added to her claustrophobia, urged her forward. Even the crypt with its neatly disposed ossuary was preferable to this horrible place. She stooped to pick up the neatly folded oblong of paper almost instinctively and without curiosity, without even turning it over to see if it were addressed. In the harsh light of the single bulb the neatly drawn skull and the typed quotation were starkly clear and she realized that she had known from the first what it must be.
Thy death is plotted; here's the consequence of murder.
We value not desert nor Christian breath,
When we know black deeds must be cur'd with death.
It was not, she thought, completely accurate. Surely the first word should be 'My' not 'Thy'. But the message was plain enough. She slipped it into her shirt pocket and turned to wait for the rest of the party. She tried to recall where they had all been standing when the lights went out. Surely it had been at about this spot where the tunnel curved. It would have taken only a few seconds for one of them to dart back under cover of the darkness, someone who had the message ready, someone who didn't care, might even have been pleased, that Clarissa would know that her enemy was one of this small party. And if anyone other than she had seen it first, or if the group had been together, then it must have been placed in Clarissa's hands. It was addressed to her in the same typed letters. Ambrose was perhaps the most likely culprit. That light had failed very conveniently. But any of the others could have done it, any except Simon. She had felt his hand firmly in hers.
And then they- came into view. She stood under the light and scanned their faces. But none betrayed anxiety, none showed any surprise, no eyes dropped to the ground. Joining them she felt that she fully understood for the first time why it was that Clarissa was so afraid. Until now the messages had seemed little more than a childish persecution which no intelligent woman would think worth more than a moment's real anxiety. But they were a manifestation of hatred, and hatred, whatever else it was, could never be petty. They were childish, but there was an adult and sophisticated malice behind the childishness and the danger they threatened might, after all, be real and imminent. She wondered whether she was right in keeping this message and the earlier ones from Clarissa, whether it might not be safer to put her on increased guard. But her instructions had been clear; to save Clarissa from any anxiety or annoyance before the performance. There would be time enough after the play to decide what else should be done. And there were less than four hours now before the curtain rose.
While they were passing the row of skulls, this time without a glance, Cordelia found herself walking with Ivo. His speed, whether by necessity or design, was slower than the others and she kept pace with him. He said:
'That was an instructive episode, don't you think? Poor Ralston! I take it that the whole episode and his subsequent moral scruples were an offering of conjugal unreserve. What did you think of it all, oh wise Cordelia?'
'I thought that it was horrible.'
And both of them knew that she wasn't thinking only of that poor renegade's last agony, his lonely and terrible death. Roma came alongside them. Cordelia saw that, for once, she looked animated, her eyes brightly malicious. She said:
'Well that was an unedifying performance. For those of us fortunate enough to be unmarried it makes holy matrimony seem a pretty unholy estate. Almost terrifying.'
Ivo said:
'Marriage is terrifying. At least I've found it so.'
Roma was unwilling to let the matter rest.
'Does she always need to psych herself up with an exhibition of cruelty before a performance?'
'She's nervous certainly. It takes people different ways.'
'But this is only an amateur performance, for God's sake! The theatre can't hold more than eighty or so. And she's supposed to be a professional. What do you think George Ralston was feeling back there?'
The note of satisfaction was unmistakable. Cordelia wanted to say that one had only to have looked at his face to have seen what Sir George was thinking. But she didn't speak. Ivo said:
'Like most professional soldiers, Ralston is a sentimentalist. He takes the great absolutes, honour, justice, loyalty, and binds them to his heart with hoops of steel. I find it rather appealing. But it does make for a certain… rigidity.'
Roma shrugged.
'If you mean that he's abnormally controlled, I agree. It will be interesting to see what happens if ever the control snaps.'
Clarissa turned and called to them, her voice happily imperious:
'Come on, you three. Ambrose wants to lock the crypt. And I want lunch.'
CHAPTER TWENTY
The contrast between the sun-warmed terrace where, once again, luncheon was set out on a linen-covered trestle table, and the dark, rank-smelling pit of the Devil's Kettle, was so great that
Cordelia felt disorientated. That brief descent into the hell of the past could have happened in a different place and time. Looking out across the light-flecked sea to where the canvases of the Saturday sailors curved to catch the breeze, it was possible to imagine that it hadn't happened at all, that de Courcy's plague-ridden court, Carl Blythe's agony as he struggled against the horror of his long dying were the remnants of a nightmare which had no more reality than the caricatures of a horror comic.
It was a light meal, a watercress and avocado salad followed by salmon souffle, chosen perhaps to soothe a nervous digestion. But even so, no one ate with appetite or evident enjoyment. Cordelia took one glass of the cool Riesling and forced down the salmon, knowing rather than tasting that it was delicious. Clarissa's brittle euphoria had given way to a silent preoccupation which no one liked to disturb. Roma crouched on the step at the end of the terrace, her unregarded plate in her lap, and gazed moodily out to sea. Sir George and Ivo stood together but neither spoke. But all of them, except Clarissa and herself, drank steadily. Ambrose said little but moved among them refilling the glasses, his bright eyes amused and indulgent as if they were children behaving predictably under stress.
Unexpectedly, Simon was the liveliest of the party. He was drinking heavily, apparently unnoticed by Clarissa, swilling the wine down as if it were beer, his hand a little unsteady, his eyes bright. At about ten to one, he suddenly announced loudly that he would go for a swim, looking round at them rather as if he expected them to take an interest in this news. No one did, but Clarissa said:
'Not so soon after a meal, darling. Take a walk first.'
The endearment was so unexpected that they all looked up. The boy blushed, gave them a stiff little bow, and disappeared. Shortly afterwards, Clarissa put down her plate, looked at her watch and said:
'Time to rest. No coffee, thank you, Ambrose. I never take it before a performance. I thought you knew that. Will you ask Tolly to bring up the tea-tray at once? China tea. She knows the kind I have. George, would you come up in five minutes? I'll see you later, Cordelia. Better make it ten past one.'
She made her slow way across the terrace with the graceful deliberation of a stage exit. For the first time, she seemed to Cordelia to be vulnerable, almost pathetic in her lonely, self-absorbed fear. She felt an impulse to follow, but knew that it would only arouse. Clarissa's fury. And she had no fear of Clarissa finding another message thrust under the door. Cordelia had checked the room immediately before coming down to lunch. She knew now that the person responsible had been one of the small party who had visited the Devil's Kettle and all of them had been under her eye throughout the meal. Only Simon had left early. And she did not believe for one moment that the culprit was Simon.
Suddenly Roma struggled to her feet and hurried out after her cousin, almost running from the terrace. The eyes of Ambrose and Ivo met but neither spoke, inhibited perhaps by the presence of Sir George. He walked to the end of the terrace, his back to them, coffee cup in hand. He seemed to be counting the minutes. Then he glanced at his watch, replaced his cup on the table and made for the french windows. Looking round, foot on the step, he asked:
'What time does the curtain rise, Gorringe?'
'At three thirty.'
'And we change before then?'
'That's what Clarissa expects. There won't be time afterwards, anyway. Supper is at seven thirty.' Sir George nodded and was gone. Ivo said:
'Clarissa organizes her helots with the brutal precision of a military commander. Ten minutes before you need report for duty, Cordelia. Time surely for a second cup of coffee.'
When Cordelia unlocked her bedroom and went through the communicating door, Sir George was with his wife standing by the window looking out over the sea. The round silver tea-tray with its single cup and saucer, its elegant matching pot, was on the bedside chest as yet untouched. Clarissa, still in her Bermuda shorts and shirt, was pacing up and down, her colour high.
'She asked me for twenty-five thousand, came out with it, red-faced, as if she were a child asking for an increase in pocket money. And now of all times! She couldn't even wait until after the performance. Talk about crass stupidity! Is she deliberately trying to upset me or something?'
Sir George spoke without turning.
