Cavalier Case (10 page)

"At least the status of the female has changed for the better since the early seventeenth century!" remarked Jemima with some spirit. "It may not be perfect but it has changed."

"Has it, Jemima?" Zena gave her that same teasing smile which she had bent on her brother, masquerading in her Decimus costume. "Are you saying that if my sweet little sister-in-law, Charlotte Lackland, had to erect a monument to Dan and her children in her own lifetime - which God forbid - that, left to her true inclinations, she wouldn't do exactly the same? Dessie, the boy, the
heir
, would be twice the size of his two older sisters."

Since Jemima could hardly contradict that statement, which sounded to her all too likely to be true, she had an impulse to ask: "And Little Nell, Charlotte's step-daughter Nell, what size would she be on this modern Meredith monument?" Nell's behaviour, in effect blowing the gaff on her family's affairs, was not the least intriguing aspect of what she now mentally, in common with the rest of the world, termed the Cavalier Case.

Jemima curbed the impulse. This was not an appropriate moment to question Nell's aunt about Nell's behaviour. And she had to admit to herself - if not to Zena - that she didn't actually know the names of Uecimus' sisters. Louisa and Emily? No, dammit, those were Dan Lackland's daughters by Charlotte. Well, she wasn't going to feel guilty about this particular piece of ignorance. She wasn't a historian - just an amateur lover of Decimus' poetry. And she did appreciate his splendid wife Olivia Lackland: very much so. If her programme ever got made, which seemed more and more doubtful, the world would know about her appreciation of Olivia.

Now Jemima repeated to Zena, but with rather less spirit: "Of course the female status has changed. Look at you for example."

"Don't you mean, look at
you
?, Jemima Shore Investigator who won the NIFTA Award for documentaries three times running and also happens to look—I quote yesterday's
Jupiter
review I believe—'good enough to eat.'" But Jemima had already had one screaming row on the telephone with the
Jupiter's
television critic about his words (such rows were a rare occurrence with her): "Don't bleat to me about compliments," she had shouted—the critic happened to be an old beau from Cambridge: "Even a vulgar sexist like you should have known better than to say that when the programme was actually about starvation in Africa." She had thus no intention of returning to the subject.

"No, look at you, Zena," she replied in her most patient interviewer's voice. "Your books: you've written six of them, I understand, or is it seven? And didn't you win some prize recently for
The Young Piigrim
?" Jemima had, to be honest, derived this information from the blurb of one of Zena's books at Lackland Court. "And now you're going to write Decimus' biography. A new stage. What did Decimus' sisters ever do except have children? To me," said Jemima firmly, "your career is every bit as interesting as your brother's. And without any of his advantages." Jemima was also aware from the same blurb that Zena had had very little proper academic education and had certainly not gone to university; Dan on the other hand, in the intervals between playing tennis, had been at Oxford.

Zena looked at her without answering and for a moment Jemima glimpsed some other more complicated feeling following the mention of her brother's name—be it love, envy, hatred or something of all of these. Then she said in a more relaxed voice: "Originally I wanted you to see the Meredith Monument to explain to you what history means to me. We might have talked about it on the programme perhaps. I gather the programme is unlikely to go ahead." Jemima nodded. "I used to come here by myself as a little girl. We lived the other side of Taynford when Cousin Tommy was alive. I used to bicycle over pretending I was going to see the Bishop's ghastly twin daughters. Instead, I used to come here and gaze at it and make up stories about the fifteen children. That was even before I knew about Decimus' poetry. In fact I made up stories about all the people I found buried in the cathedral and in the stained glass windows."

Zena waved a hand in the direction of the other tombs, the big west window of the Lady Chapel, like the east window, rich in emblazoned figures, was just visible from where they stood.

"I found it almost too exciting at times," she went on, "the thought of all those lives—and deaths. Which I was going to recreate. And I did recreate them in a way. Do you know, a lot of my characters are named from people in these tombs? So you see, I wanted you to understand what history can mean, if it means anything at all. It means everything to me. And oddly enough it means quite a lot to my cousin Marcus and even, in an odd way, Charlotte, because it will one day be her son's. But it means nothing to him, Dan," Zena concluded quite violently. "Not a heritage at all. Just an inheritance—to be turned into a tennis court as fast as possible."

"And now? Because you didn't put me off from this meeting. You said that there was something else to discuss."

"There is, Jemima. Now, I want you to investigate Haygarth's death. And Cousin Tommy's death too, if necessary. I've got this theory that he was selling off the manuscripts and books from the Lackland Library, which may or may not be relevant. I have to say that history didn't mean much to him either—unless you could see it in the bottom of a whisky glass. Except his own history of course: his wartime history. All very tedious, and not my idea of real history at all.

"We never got on," she continued. "You've gathered that. He didn't like independent women. At times, I would have been glad to see him dead myself before he had sold up everything. That is until I knew about the club. Out of the frying pan into the fire! Dan just broke it to me after Cousin Tommy's funeral. And I burst out crying. Not for Cousin Tommy, you understand me, but for the house."

Zena visibly controlled herself. "But above all, I want you to investigate Haygarth's death and tell me what you find: I know you've done this sometimes for people in the past. Another mystery you might solve." She said very solemnly: "There's something odd going on at Lackland, which I don't understand. I want you to lay the ghost of Decimus."

"Whatever I find?"

"Whatever you find."

The Departed Servant

Just as Zena finished speaking to Jemima, the sound of singing, a sweet perfect unison of voices, broke out from somewhere just above their heads in Taynford Cathedral. The effect was startling, especially as the song was immediately recognisable: it was the
Nunc Dimittis
. Why were these quintessential words of the eventide—life's eventide—soaring out over the cathedral sanctuary, and yet it was barely eleven o'clock?

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace ..." There was something slightly creepy about hearing the beautiful phrase in this particular setting, since it suddenly seemed to have a sinister relevance to the death of Haygarth, the faithful—and departed— servant. A servant, what was more, who had evidently not been allowed to depart in peace . . . After a moment, Jemima realised that the invisible choir high up above them—she could just glimpse the corner of the huge cathedral organ—was merely rehearsing for evensong. But her discomfort remained.

By now, a body of the visitors were percolating through from the nave to the apse, via the sanctuary and the modern choir stalls, each one commemorating some Taynford worthy of recent vintage. (There were not many series to be made up out of them for an imaginative little girl; the 1920's War Memorial Window in the side chapel on the other hand might provide quite a lot of material since it contained young soldiers with angels' wings sprouting out of their First World War uniforms. But then Zena found war history "tedious.") One or two visitors had even stopped to give the Meredith Monument a cursory glance and strolled on.

The footsteps which were now approaching sounded already more purposeful than those of the casual tourist. The next moment, the stocky bowed figure of Zena's cousin, Marcus Meredith, appeared, as though hy appointment - which after her first surprise, Jemima reflected was no doubt the case. Then there was another surprise in the fact that he was accompanied by a further cousin in the shape of Zena's niece, Nell Meredith.

"I'm sorry if I'm early, Zeenie, I know I am, extremely early, and yes, I have brought her too." Marcus indicated Nell, standing beside him with her shoulders sloping in her characteristic attitude of sulky hopelessness. "She's desperate to talk to
someone
, she says, other than the police."

Marcus Meredith still did not look at Nell as he spoke; indeed they presented an odd contrast as a pair, the man tidily and conventionally dressed as usual, in a blazer, shirt and tie, all perfectly correct for a Conservative M.P. in a country cathedral mid-morning in the summer; the girl wearing what looked like a sarong top and a mini-skirt which also did not particularly suit her, since it revealed that for all her skinny frame, she had quite strong well-muscled legs and thighs. Nell's bushy hair on this occasion covered at least two thirds of her face.

"So I thought: why not let her talk to you, Jemima Shore?" went on Marcus. Jemima realised that the reason Marcus had not looked at Nell - nor indeed at her, beyond a first polite greeting - was that his eyes were as usual fixed on Zena.

"Yes, I'm desperate to talk to somebody," repeated Nell. Her voice was extremely light and childish, with a very slight whine to it; it might have been one of her little blond step-sisters speaking, except that Nell's accent had a twang somewhere, nothing as strong as Cockney, hut not quite the upper-class accents of Dan's children by his second marriage. Jemima realised that she had in fact hardly heard Nell use her voice before—except once to hiss jealously in the direction of Dessie. Nell had the air of one repeating a lesson.

"Well, we can't all have a good talk
here
," murmured Zena crossly. "In the cathedral. Marcus, I don't understand why you brought her here. Wouldn't lunch have done? We were going to meet at The Happy Bishop."

Nell hung her head. Jemima had the impression she was sadly used to having her presence dismissed as unwelcome or at the very least to being treated impatiently. The life of a step-daughter was traditionally hard in fairy stories, generally thanks to the persecution of her step'mother; in the seventeenth century too, the early deaths of numerous women in childbirth must have produced numerous tricky relationships of that sort. Jemima remembered how the admirable Olivia Lackland had—at least according to "
Heaven's True Mourning
"—declined to marry again after Decimus' death "that my son might not feel the cruel weight of another man's rod, for the weight of a father's blow, be it never so heavy, is given in love which makes it light to receive."

All very admirable, even if Olivia was probably quite optimistic about the light weight of every father's blow . . . However, given that the ghost of Decimus was due to pop up at the siege of Lackland Court, perhaps it was just as well Olivia, unlike Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, had no new husband at her side. Nowadays the endless broken marriages and divorces had the same effect as childbirth mortality: step-parents for a great many children. It was not that Jemima suspected Nell had ever felt "correction" at Charlotte Lack- land's hand: on the contrary, Charlotte had been most affectionate towards her at lunch that Sunday. In a funny way, it was more Dan Lackland than Charlotte who treated Nell as a stepdaughter.

Jemima wished she knew about Nell's mother—what was her name? Babs? Had there been some talk of her being a secretary? Jemima wished in particular she knew more about the reasons for the breakup of Dan Lackland's first marriage; beyond the strong impression she got that the present Lord Lackland had a roving eye towards every woman he met. About the only female he treated with real respect was Jane Manfred: and that respect probably had money or at least influence somewhere at the root of it. Had poor Babs been in some way inferior - or held to be inferior.' A programme on ill-treated first wives of allegedly lower social status - now that was an idea. "First among equals?" How about that for a title? On second thoughts, perhaps not.

"
Nell
wanted to see the Meredith Monument; that's why I brought
Nell
here." Marcus spoke with careful emphasis, his eyes as ever on Zena. "She's never seen it, you know. For that matter, she's never even been in the cathedral."

At this revelation, Nell hung her head with its curtain of curls lower than ever so that her face was totally invisible; it was as though she was deeply ashamed of this lack, which must be her own fault. Zena, on the other hand, had the grace to look ashamed.

"My God, Nell, how awful of me! I'd no idea. And all the times you stayed with Cousin Tommy. I suppose he didn't go in for too much cathedral-visiting, and as for Babs, I can see that - well, anyway, I'm jolly pleased you are here. I was just telling Jemima here how I used to make up stories about the people in this cathedral as a little girl."

"I've read all your books, Aunt Zena, well, most of them. I like
The Young Pilgrim
best, the end always makes me cry, it's just brilliant. That's why I wanted to see the cathedral, really, where he sits and prays and doesn't see her, and if he had, he wouldn't have gone on the pilgrimage, it really makes me cry."

Zena Meredith cast quite a new type of look upon her niece, one of dawning benevolence. It was a look Jemima too had reason to give upon occasion when some hitherto thoroughly unlikable person had proved, by genuine if clumsily expressed praise of a programme, to be full of unsuspected good qualities. Zena's previous apology, sincere or insincere, was forgotten. This was A Fan.

Half an hour later, Jemima found herself sitting in The Happy Bishop (which turned out to be a Chinese restaurant, not a pub as she had expected) with Marcus Meredith but without either Zena or Nell. The aunt was engaged in taking the niece on a lull historical tour of the cathedral.

"Isn't Zena wonderful.'" exclaimed Marcus. "I've always thought, if only someone would just take an interest in Nell! Cousin Tommy did, oddly enough, or to a certain extent and in so far as he took in anything in his last years - beyond his all too well-known habit. It used to embarrass me so much - all that. The head of the family! And one is the local M.P. He once took it into his head to go to the local supermarket. There was the most ghastly scene. I had to rescue him. He was totally plastered of course. But he did, drink or no drink, take an interest in Nell. Since then, no one."

Jemima forbore to enquire why, if Zena was being so wonderful now - and she was certainly being very sweet - she had not been wonderful or at least sweet earlier. She did not think that Marcus would take kindly to any criticism, albeit implied, of Zena. Instead she asked after Nell's mother.

"Oh, Babs! A pathetic woman these days, I have to say. Just the sort of woman one is glad not to have as a constituent. She'd always be in the surgery, or writing to one, you know the sort of person. All the same - one has to say it - it was all Dan's fault in the first place. If you think that getting a young girl pregnant is the man's fault. Which I
do.
" Marcus nodded his head vigorously. "I'm a great believer in male responsibility, in fact in a recent speech ..."

"Wait a minute," - Nell was fifteen, Jemima did a calculation - "I suppose the pill did exist ..." From exactly the opposite angle to Marcus Meredith, she suspected (and God save her anyway from politicians quoting their speeches!) Jemima refused to blame the male piecemeal for everything. That could after all be equally insulting to the female.

'Yes, but she was so madly in love with him, how could she resist him? And why not? He was like a god to her; she wasn't even on the tennis circuit, just a secretary. Mischievous, easy routine seduction." Marcus was becoming quite heated at the memory. "She believed every word he said, romantic love, Cinderella and Prince Charming, etcetera etcetera. You can't blame poor little Babs - not then. She was such a pretty little thing! So innocent, yet so attractive."

For a moment Marcus became positively dreamy. "I have to admit I fancied her madly myself. I even once had a little romantic notion that we two might have got together. We had a lot in common: both of us hopelessly in love, she with the brother, me with the sister. Thank God, that came to nothing! Nowadays it's a very different matter, as I indicated." He went on more briskly. "She's terribly bitter. It doesn't help. Dan hates being constantly attacked." Marcus smiled. "I suppose most men do. But he's so used to adulation . . . Then all that making up to Cousin Tommy - just another way of getting to Dan of course. When that didn't work, it became another way of getting at him."

"Why did he marry her?" asked Jemima curiously. "If he was such a cad. We're talking about the seventies. Abortions were known in those days."

"Someone intervened and intervened heavily." Marcus Meredith's smile had vanished. He stared at Jemima. They were toying with some Chinese hors d'oeuvres called "Little Cathedral Canapes" (a name which seemed to mix a number of cultures). "Can't you guess who? The only person who has any real influence with Dan - "

"Jane Manfred."

"That was long before her day. No, it was Zena. Zena talked Dan into marrying Babs - I have to say that she probably thought Babs wouldn't be a rival - Zena is a little strong-minded." Marcus smiled. "And then became so jealous about what she'd done that she never spoke to her again."

When Zena finally returned with Nell, the latter was glowing and Zena too displayed an unusual kind of exhilaration. Perhaps it was Nell's newfound confidence which led her to insist - quite determinedly - on talking to Jemima alone. She noticed that Marcus was not particularly happy with the arrangement; but the return of the sulky look to Nell's face, the old droop of the head, led Jemima to say hastily: "I always think one to one is better. In my preliminary interview I always do talk to people alone—"

"You're talking about television, I take it," Marcus interrupted. "But you're not going to be putting Nell on television, I hope, hasn't one had enough—"

"Of course not!" Jemima saw that look of dawning hope on Nell's face which occurred on most faces under twenty—and a good many over it—at the prospect of appearing on television. It was Zena who clinched the matter. With an emphatic look at Jemima—you're my investigator now, it seemed to say—she swept Marcus' objections aside.

"After lunch—what
is
this? 'Bishop's Gaiters Chinese chicken,' yes, well I suppose that is roughly what it tastes like—Nell will show Jemima the cloisters. We never got that far. She'll talk to her at the same time. Secluded places, these cloisters. Remember Decimus' sonnet: "In thy dear cloister, .secret from the world, So might I dwell and never pine for sun . . ." In my biography, by the way, I shall hope to show that it was the Taynford cloisters he had in mind, not just some imaginary stone arches. That pompous academic at Cambridge simply doesn't understand."

Since Jemima had an awful feeling that the pompous academic in question was Dr. Rupert Durham (his public persona being so very different from his private one) she was glad when Nell burst in.

'But in
The Young Pilgrim
he takes her hand in the cloisters, thinking nobody can see them, but the old monk, the one that wants him to be a monk and serve God and all that, not love her, does see them, and he does overhear them ..."

Times have changed at least to that extent," observed Zena in her new kindly tone. "Eat up, Little Nell, if you can."

So for the second time that day Jemima, who had frankly not spent much time in an ecclesiastical atmosphere since her departure from her convent school, found herself back within it. The cloisters were indeed secluded, since for all their arched and fluted beauty, the cathedral shop in the far corner drew off all possible visitors. 

Nell pointed out the monks' work places with some pride: "Zena says they're called carrels. She knows
everything
, doesn't she?" But as they turned the corner so as to be invisible to those in the shop, her mood changed. Nell burst out: "The Decimus Ghost! I'm frightened. I think it's going to kill me next. I know it doesn't touch children. But I'm growing up. I'll be sixteen next birthday. And that was ancient in those days."