Cavalier Case (11 page)

"Next?" Jemima took the girl's hand—she couldn't help noticing her fingernails bore the unattractive remnants of bright red polish. Did no-one care about her get-up or her general appearance? Jemima led Nell gently to the stone seats beneath the fan vaulting which closed over their heads like the branches of trees, making an elaborate carved stone tunnel. The brilliant sunshine on the grass sward in the centre of the cloisters contrasted with the slightly dank gloom in which they were now enveloped. The girl shivered.

Nell began her story. At first it was substantially the story that she had related to the
Daily Exclusive
, if presented in a less lurid manner. But all the elements were there: the phantom Cavalier, Nell's sighting of him in the lifetime of her elderly Cousin Tommy, above all her sighting of him on the night of the death of Haygarth. But there were certain new insights for Jemima concerning Nell's mother, Babs— former secretary and now gift-shop owner. (It occurred to Jemima that both Handsome Dan's wives were shop-owners, Charlotte with her upmarket cake shop, Babs with her somewhat more downmarket gift shop; did the man drive his wives to commerce?) The picture of Babs which emerged from Nell's account was an interesting one, given that Marcus had alerted Jemima to the origins of that unfortunate first marriage. If she, Jemima, was to be involved in an investigation of Haygarth's death—and let's face it, she was already involved—then an encounter with Babs Meredith might be instructive.

Nell, she noticed, was prone to repeating: "Cousin Tommy loved Mum. And he loved having me to stay when Mum had to do her work," to the extent that Jemima thought she definitely protested too much. How had the lonely child spent her time at Lackland Court in those days, other than chatting to Haygarth about his version of the family history? 

Jemima also treated with a pinch of salt Nell's other repeated remark on the subject of the Merediths: "Cousin Tommy never liked it half so much when Charlotte came down instead of Mum, and it was worst of all when she brought the children. 'No brats,' he said to her once. I was never a brat to him," she added proudly. "And he didn't like Aunt Zena very much either. She used to come down without asking and race round the library looking for things. And give him lectures about his own history. Well, I see now they were fully interesting lectures," added Nell, with new loyalty. "But Cousin Tommy used to call her the Schoolmistress. He once called her that to her face! 'Here comes the Schoolmistress,' he said." Nell giggled. "Aunt Zena was awfully cross. He had had a bit too much, you know."

"In front of you?"

"It was quite late. But actually I was sort of listening."

Nell returned to the subject of the phantom Cavalier and her sightings, and Jemima returned to it as well. Babs could wait.

"You've told all this to the police, I take it? About the ghost." She did not add: since you've told it all to the Press.

Nell hung her head again. "They didn't believe me, they thought I was really hysterical, the man was horrible to me."

"What man?"

The policeman. And the woman too. The policewoman. She was horrible too. And the other one. The nurse or doctor or whatever she was. All those horrible questions. They thought I made it all up, just to be important. But I didn't. I didn't." Nell lifted her head and for a moment her eyes blazed. "I didn't. And that's why . . . ," more quietly, "that's why I'm not going to tell them anything ever, ever again. "

"Tell me then, Nell."

"You won't laugh or call me hysterical and think I'm silly or call me a typical idiotic teenager or a child of a broken home telling lies ..."

"None of those things, I promise."

"Okay, so I'll tell you." Nell still spoke reluctantly. Nevertheless Jemima got the impression that talking to anyone she regarded as official (and television
was
official to her) other than the ungrateful police was a relief to her. There was an air of loneliness about her, that Cinderella-look Jemima had noted originally. Nell was a Cinderella on the look-out for Fairy Godmothers to a touching degree: first of all Zena and now Jemima.

So with a flood of detail Nell now described to Jemima how—two nights ago—the Decimus Ghost had appeared to her again, but in her bedroom (which had never happened before). And how the ghost had "vanished" when her little brother began to cry, "as ghosts are supposed to do."

"But supposing it
wasn't
a ghost, supposing all the time it was a person," concluded Nell looking anxiously at Jemima, as though expecting to be mocked yet again. "A person
dressed
up as a ghost. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. And that's why I'm frightened."

In spite of her own suspicions, Jemima was momentarily taken aback. She had been expecting to have to convince an emotional teenager of the non-existence of ghosts; now she was disconcerted to find a situation which was the exact reverse.

"But why, Nell?" she asked finally. And in her gentlest interviewer's voice. "Nell, what made you think that all of a sudden? Considering what you told the police." Jemima did not add: and the Press.

"It was the smell," Nell said at last. "I know it sounds funny but the ghost had a sort of human smell. A smell I recognised. Except I
didn't
recognise it. That's the point. But ghosts don't smell like people. How can they? So it must have been a person." Jemima did not want to argue that point—who on earth could tell what ghosts smelt like since they did not exist? She decided to pursue the exact nature of the smell instead and see if she could get somewhere that way. Familiar—how familiar? Pleasant—unpleasant? Sweet-sourrank-delightful?

"What sort of person?" she began.

Jemima could have sworn that Nell was about to speak. She even opened her mouth, a rather small rosebud of a mouth, perhaps, but not at all unattractive when she smiled; it was the perpetual sulky jroop which ruined Nell's features. When something seemed to stop her. Afterwards, going over the scene in her own mind, Jemima seriously wondered whether Nell could have glimpsed Zena and Marcus advancing on the other side of the cloisters through the arches and that this presence had warned her off the final revelation. Yet even if Marcus and Zena were coming—ultimately—to join them, they could certainly never have overheard what Nell was about to say.

Whatever the truth of it, the girl had looked momentarily quite haunted as though some memory had returned to plague her. Now she merely looked anxious again, her habitual expression.

"I can't say any more. Honestly, there isn't anything else to tell, I'd tell you, Jemima, honestly, I would, but there's nothing to tell. Honestly." The little whining note had returned to her voice. "It was silly really. I just wanted to tell someone about what happened to me and now I have. But I expect it's all imagination just like the police said. I have got a very strong imagination you know, my school reports often talk about my strong imagination."

Nothing more could be got out of her.

From the cathedral itself the distant sound of singing reached them only faintly in the cloisters. It was too early for evensong. Another rehearsal of the
Nune Dzmittis
? Certainly the case of the departed servant—as that part of the Cavalier Case which concerned Hay-garth's death might be termed—grew more complicated hourly. And more surely than ever Jemima knew that the servant Haygarth had not been allowed to depart in peace.

Sport for Spectators

The huge wash of smart women's clothes in the Plantaganet changing room alerted Jemima Shore to the fact that some kind of multiple female event was in progress. Which was not quite what she had expected.

Without any warning the weather had turned much cooler overnight. It was now what might be described as a traditional English July day, overcast with a threat of rain and a temperature that made you shiver in a summer dress. The Planty members were evidently not prepared to shiver. Rows of immaculate silk blouses and linen jackets, both heavily shoulder—padded, and pale perfectly creaseless skirts faced Jemima hanging languidly on the Plantaganet pink hangers. Innumerable designer labels were thus innocently displayed and sizes too——some of the latter were slightly surprising to Jemima's inquisitive eye. Was everyone really size 10, or the equivalent American size 8, these days? Some of the jackets looked quite large. Perhaps an elegant size 10 or 8 label came with the designer label itself.

At all events, here in the Planty changing room, gazing at the linings of Saint Laurent, Armani, Valentino, with the odd Jasper Conran and Joseph, you could certainly tell the fakes for what they were; safe on their owners' backs, you simply had to guess. In the same way Jemima noted that of the rows of pretty light high—heeled sling—backed shoes beneath the suits, some were Chanel — and some were Chanel—style.

'The PPT — don't you love it?' gasped a very pretty but distinctly plump dark—haired woman of about Jemima's own age. She had entered the room at a run, and now threw down her Chanel — or Chanel—style — navy—and—whitc jacket on the floor. (Jemima was not surprised to see thai it was a sizer 10.) Seeing Jemima's air of polite incomprehension, she elaborated. "The Pink Plantaganet Tournament, no, the Pretty Pink tournament, no, well, I guess it doesn't matter. The last one before the holidays. We're all wearing pink favours in our hair— I got Kenneth to make up something special, a kind of wreath, actually. How the hell do I
serve
with that on? Costa keeps telling me to
concentrate
.'' A ravishing concoction of pink roses wan exhibited. 'Anyway, that's why I'm so late. Then there's a salmon mousse, pink champagne.' She removed her navy silk blouse, revealing a splendid brown bosom barely contained in a lacy bra, and donned a bright—pink T—shirt which itself included enormous shoulder pads.

'Adriana, you are always late,' pronounced Lady Manfred, accompanying her words, however, with an indulgent smile 'The roses, darling, are nothing to do with it.'

Jemima, preparing to add her own Chanel shoes (three years old but
real
) to the row, turned to her in alarm. "Jane, this is a tournament? You never warned me."

'A tournament? At my age? Certainly not,' replied Lady Manfred haughtily. She touched the heavy pearls which swung in her ears: they were presumably her tennis pearls, since she had worn them on the previous occasion of their play. 'Tournaments are for children, like our little Adriana here.' She gave Adriana, now panting as she struggled with the zip of her shorts, an even more gracious smile before turning back to Jemima. 'We are playing a doubles with Dan and Alix Carstairs — Dan plays with me, of course, but you will find Alix a perfect partner. With your long legs you do not need a man—' Yet another smile followed in which triumph as well as geniality could be detected. 'We shall play on the "Royal Court". Since all the other courts are taken up by this children's tournament.'

In view of the immense regality of Jane Manfred's bearing, there was no doubt a good argument for her playing on the 'Royal Court', thought Jemima. For herself, on the other hand, she dreaded the idea of being divided from interested watchers in the bar merely by huge plate glass doors up to the lofty ceiling. Gloomily, Jemima predicted that the attention of the spectators would be fixed on their game, which, as it turned out, was a singularly accurate prophecy, if not exactly in the sense in which she meant.

In spite of Lady Manfred's smiles, poor Adriana was looking increasingly unhappy. 'It's for charity, the PPT, not for children,' she floundered indignantly. Jemima, deeply relieved at being let off the Tournament herself, could only sympathise with her. First to have to play and then be insulted!

I know it is for a charity, darling,' replied Lady Manfred imperturbably. 'A children's charity. I myself flew the salmon down from Scotland in our private plane.' It was a measure of the strength of her personality that for one mad moment, Jemima had a picture of Lady Manfred at the controls of the plane, pearls swinging under her aviator's helmet . . . 'Let us hope you win, darling. If you are not too late, that is. How pretty those roses are!' She swept out, leaving a trail of her peculiarly strong musky perfume behind her.

It was not only the devotion of its members to a cause—health in this case as well as charity—but also something about the high arched roof of the Planty, the lofty glass windows opening on to the river, that put Jemima suddenly in mind of that other more ancient site of devotion, Taynford Cathedral. Were health clubs in fact the modern equivalents of cathedrals, the Plantaganet Club in the late twentieth century replacing the Taynford Cathedral of the Middle Ages? It was a bizarre thought: but then what were health clubs about if not worship — worship of the body . . . And that was certainly a cult these days. Jemima said as much to Jane Manfred, forgetting the proximity of Taynford Grange to the Cathedral.

Jane swiftly reminded her of it. Clearly regarding Jemima's comparison of the Planty to Taynford Cathedral as somewhat distasteful, she observed, 'Ah, the beautiful Cathedral! Max and I bought the Taynford globe when it came up for sale last year. Gawain said we should do so and we did . . .'

'The Cathedral globe?' It was Jemima's turn to be shocked: she had a vision of the Green Knight prancing round the historic globe in admiration before placing it reverentially in the Manfreds' library.

'Of course.'Jane Manfred patted her shining black busby of hair beneath its white tennis visor, which on her had the air of a crown. 'When we presented it back to the Cathedral, the Dean made a most touching speech. Max had it printed. I shall send you a copy.'

Seeing that Jemima was suitably humbled, Lady Manfred once again radiated geniality as she had done to Adriana

But as they reached the bar area her geniality disappeared, It was clearly the presence of Charlotte Lackland, with a racket in her hand, which disconcerted her. Furthermore, Charlotte, quite apart from being dressed for tennis, had no pink roses in her hair and thus showed no signs of being included in the PPT. Beside her, towering over her in his navy—blue track suit (no Planty pink for Handsome Dan), her husband looked thunderous. Alix Carstairs, fully accoutred in pink, with a massive pink Bunny—girl bow secured on a comb in her flowing red hair, appeared to be equally angry.

'Oh, no, Charlotte, I'm not upset,' she was saying with icy politeness, her words contradicted by her expression. 'It really doesn't matter one bit. I can, after all, play any time. And with Dan, too.' This last was said rather less politely. 'But one just would like a little bit of warning. First of all Dan asked me to drop out of the Pink Tournament and make up a four, which I did. And now — well, of course it doesn't matter; apart from feeling an absolute idiot in this bloody bow, I just run the Club—' Her voice rose as Alix Carstairs began to tear at the vast bow, tears starting in her eyes. Players of the Tournament, passing through the bar area between matches, were beginning to regard the scene with interest, as Alix, control gone, tears by now spilling down her cheeks, dashed in the direction of her office.

'Now, darling, you really should have telephoned — ' began Dan to Charlotte. The thunderous expression had been smoothed away. He used a special tender tone which Jemima, now that she had seen more of him, had an awful feeling he kept for just this kind of occasion. But Charlotte now looked as if she too was going to burst into tears.

'But, darling, I did telephone,' Charlotte wailed. 'I thought you said we were going to play today. I'm sure it was today. Then I telephoned late last night and very early this morning on my way to the shop. And when I didn't get an answer — Dan, I'm terribly sorry, darling, if you'd said — ' This was so evidently a domestic trap, that Jemima did wonder how that Houdini, Handsome Dan, would break free. But it was in fact Lady Manfred, in her most charming manner, who rode to his rescue.

'Now, my dears,' she said. 'Please indulge an old woman and allow me to have my little game of tennis. It is already —' she inspected a tiny diamond watch — 'seven minutes past the hour. But, Charlotte, what good news that you are playing more now. That adorable shop used to take up so much of your time. Which reminds me, I have to give an order the moment we stop, for my dinner party tonight, my lovely Mrs Parsons forgot. But you won't neglect the shop, will you? Where would we all be without Charlotte's Cakes? And you're such a practical, down-to-earth person, I think you would miss it.'

'Actually, tennis is rather my thing these days,' replied Charlotte bravely. She had recovered her poise with the disappearance of Alix. 'Now that the shop is going so well and I've got this dishy American student — Dan is quite mad about her — who can actually do our accounts on the computer without bursting into feminine tears every five minutes.' Was this a dig at Alix? Charlotte rattled on. 'So Costa took my game utterly to pieces and hopefully put it back again.' She turned to Jemima. 'I bet you're jolly good.'

Lady Manfred now indicated that Dan should open the side door to the 'Royal Court' for her; he also, without being asked, picked up her racket and a tennis bag worthy of a Plantaganet king. Lady Manfred herself, unencumbered by anything more than a tiny white handbag, hanging on her shoulder by delicate gold chains, swept through.

At the start, it could only be described as an unequal match. Charlotte's new enthusiasm for tennis — her attempt, perhaps, to woo back her husband from the influence of Alix? — did not really survive the impact of those powerful swinging forehands from Lady Manfred. Moreover, the latter's determined immobility (which had been a marked feature of her previous match with Jemima) was no disadvantage at all, given that her partner was Handsome Dan Meredith, who simply covered the remaining seven-eighths of the court. As for Dan, his speed and agility made it quite obvious why his figure remained as slim and muscular as that of the tennis idol he had once been. Seen from afar, Dan might have been almost the same age as the current young stars of Wimbledon; it was only after a while that Jemima realised that it was more cunning than bravura play which enabled him (and Jane Manfred) to win so easily. Much of Dan's game consisted of brilliant placing—both of himself and the ball. In this way, he was somehow always right on the spot to retrieve a ball without effort, only to despatch it himself to the tennis equivalent of Timbuktu — or anyway somewhere where it was strictly irretrievable by either Charlotte or Jemima. In this way both of them were probably covering about twice the ground covered by Dan himself.

Jolly good shot, darling,' panted Charlotte, as, having just managed to get to a wickedly sliced ball at the front of the court, she had then been lobbed in the far corner of the trams right over her head. Jemima found herself on this occasion reduced to the role of helpless spectator: but she did wish Charlotte would swear at Dan instead of congratulating him.

Would Dan have been so deliberately teasing to Alix? Jemima doubted it. She herself would probably have done much better partnered by Alix, in any case: a much bigger girl — woman altogether, a good seven or eight inches taller than Charlotte, with a strong frame; more of a Steffi Graf to Charlotte's Chris Evert. . . although on reflection size was hardly relevant, since the latter had had her fair share of victories, as had Billie-Jean in the past. Lack of inches did not necessarily mean lack of strength.

Jemima prepared herself gloomily to serve in the first game of the second set, having lost the first 6-1. (It seemed to be her fate to be heavily defeated at the Planty; really, she would have to reconsider the question of membership!) Her nifty serve in the past had had its admirers, notably Cass Brinsley, who had praised its ability to probe certain weak backhands — but what was the point of doing that when there were no weak backhands on the other side of the net? The best she could do was to send it out of Jane Manfred's reach, hoping to get the satisfaction of the 'you-with-your-long-legs' look. But her nifty serve, like the rest of her game, was failing her as her confidence became whittled away by defeat.

It was somewhere in the middle of this set, with Dan and Jane having their original 4-love lead cut down to 4-3, that Jemima realised the atmosphere had changed. At first she fondly imagined it was due to the unexpected renaissance of the aforesaid nifty serve; with Jane Manfred 'aced' three times in a row, if you liked to put it like that, as Jemima certainly did. Even Dan dared to call out, 'Bravo,' the third time, while Jane Manfred, who was stationed several feet from where the ball had landed, looked predictably pained and leant for a moment, all vulnerability, on her racket.

I hen Jemima discovered a surprisingly powerful backhand of her own, to be ranked with Lady Manfred's own. Jemima's backhand under normal circumstances was a chancy affair. 'I'm  afraid it's liable to go off like milk,' she had once had to confess to a stranger partnering her in a country-house game — and she was only playing in the left-hand court because Charlotte vowed that her own was even worse and Dan did not disagree. So Jemima could not imagine to what she owed this welcome, but novel, apparition. Yet here it was, in the hour of need. Had she somehow managed to blow Roland's magic horn at Roncesvalles and brought it to her rescue?

Best of all, Jemima was now, in direct contrast to the first set, managing to be everywhere the ball was, as opposed to everywhere it wasn't . . . Unlike Charlotte, however. It had to he admitted that, although poor Charlotte continued to chase every ball with the gallantry of a demented terrier after a much faster rabbit, her own game was not actually improving.