‘Firmness, in any sphere, is ultimately the only thing anyone respects. Murtlock seems to have foreseen a refusal at first. Either that, or he enjoyed linking Fiona and myself in a kind of game.’
‘He would be capable of both.’
‘His instincts told him that he could force Gwinnett’s address out of me, sooner or later, through Fiona herself. Murtlock, as you know by now, is exceedingly cunning in getting what he wants. He was well aware that Fiona felt that he, Scorpio Murtlock, must in some manner release her, personally, from his domination — give her leave to go, before she herself, of her own volition, could escape the net.’
‘All she had to do, in plain fact, was to walk out.’
‘That is just what Fiona could not bring herself to do. Murtlock knew that perfectly. He knew she must have some sort of legal dismissal from his service, one afforded by himself.’
‘An honourable discharge?’
‘Even a dishonourable one, I think — since all abandoning of himself and the cult must be wrong — but it had to come from Murtlock. It was no good arguing with her. That was how she felt. We talked it over exhaustively — and exhaustingly — during various meetings.’
Delavacquerie seemed to have established a more effective relationship with Fiona than any up-to-date achieved by her own family.
‘So what happened?’
‘In the end I revealed Gwinnett’s sleazy hotel. The price of that was that Fiona should be free to leave. Even then Murtlock would not allow her to go immediately. He said she could only go when she had taken part in a ceremony that included the presence of Gwinnett.’
‘So it was through you, in a sense, that Gwinnett went to see Widmerpool. He said it was because he wanted to observe gothic doings done in a gothic way.’
‘That was true too. It was a bit of luck for Murtlock — unless he bewitched Gwinnett too, put the idea into his head. I prefer to think it luck. No doubt he always has luck. Those people do. Once I had told Murtlock where to find Gwinnett, Gwinnett himself decided there was a good reason to fall in with what Murtlock wanted all along the line.’
‘Where’s Fiona now? Has she got away from Murtlock yet?’
Delavacquerie looked for a moment a little discomposed.
‘As a matter of fact Fiona’s living in the flat — not living with me, I mean — but it was somewhere to go. In fact it seemed the only way out. She didn’t want to have to live with her parents — obviously she could, for a time anyway, if she felt like doing that — and, if she set up on her own, there was danger that Murtlock might begin to pester her again. A spell of being absolutely free from Murtlock would give a chance to build up some resistance, as against a disease. There’s no one in Etienne’s room. It was her own suggestion. As you can imagine, she’s rather off sex for the moment.’
‘I see.’
That was untrue. I did not in the least see; so far as seeing might be held to imply some sort of understanding of what was really taking place. A complicated situation appeared merely to be accumulating additional complicated factors. Delavacquerie himself evidently accepted the inadequacy of this acknowledgment in relation to problems involved. He seemed to expect no more.
‘When I say we talked things over, that isn’t exactly true either. Fiona doesn’t talk things over. She’s incapable of doing that. That’s partly her trouble. One of the reasons why it was better for her to be in the flat was that it offered some hope of finding out what she was really thinking.’
He abruptly stopped speaking of Fiona.
‘Now tell me your story.’
To describe what had happened at The Devil’s Fingers, now that Fiona was living under Delavacquerie’s roof, was an altogether different affair from doing so in the manner that the story had first rehearsed itself to my mind. Then, planning its telling, there had been no reason to suppose her more than, at best, a sentimental memory; if — which might be quite mistaken — I had been right in suspecting him a little taken with her, when, in connexion with his son, Delavacquerie had first spoken Fiona’s name. Nevertheless, there was no glossing over the incident at The Devil’s Fingers. It had, in any case, been narrated by Gwinnett with his accustomed reticences, and, after all, Delavacquerie knew from Fiona herself more or less what had been happening. That was only a specific instance, though, for various reasons, an exceptional one. If he felt additional dismay on hearing of that night’s doings, he showed nothing. His chief interest was directed to the fact that Gwinnett had been present in person at the rites. This specific intervention of Gwinnett had been unknown to him. He had also supposed anything of the sort to have been, more or less as a matter of course, enacted at whatever premises Widmerpool provided.
‘How does Fiona occupy herself in London?’
‘Odd jobs.’
‘Has she gone back to her journalism?’
‘Not exactly that. She has been doing bits of research. I myself was able to put some of that in her way. She’s quite efficient.’
‘Her parents always alleged she could work hard if she liked.’
One saw that in a certain sense Fiona had worked hard placating Murtlock. Delavacquerie looked a little embarrassed again.
‘It seems that Fiona revealed some of her plans about leaving the cult to Gwinnett, when he was himself in touch with them. Gwinnett suggested that — if she managed to kick free from Murtlock — Fiona should help him in some of the seventeenth-century donkey-work with the Jacobean dramatists. I hadn’t quite realized — ’
Delavacquerie did not finish the sentence. I suppose he meant he had not grasped the extent to which Gwinnett, too, had been concerned in Fiona’s ritual activities. Evidently she herself had softpedalled the Devil’s Fingers incident, as such. He ended off a little lamely.
‘Living at my place is as convenient as any other for that sort of work.’
I expressed agreement. Delavacquerie thought for a moment.
‘I may add that having Fiona in the flat has inevitably buggered up my other arrangements.’
‘Polly Duport?’
He laughed rather unhappily, but gave no details.
6
WHEN, IN THE EARLY SPRING of the following year, an invitation arrived for the wedding of our nephew, Sebastian Cutts, to a girl called Clare Akworth, I decided at once to attend. Isobel would almost certainly have gone in any case. Considerations touched on earlier — pressures of work, pressures of indolence — could have kept me away. Negative attitudes were counteracted by an unexpected aspect of the ceremony. The reception was to take place at Stourwater. Several factors combined to explain that choice of setting. Not only had the bride been educated at the girls’ school which had occupied the Castle now for more than thirty years, but her grandfather was one of the school’s governing body. The church service was to be held in a village not far away, where Clare Akworth’s mother, a widow, had settled, when her husband died in his late thirties. Mrs Akworth’s cottage had, I believe, been chosen in the first instance with an eye to the daughter’s schooling, for which her father-in-law was thought to have assumed responsibility. Anyway, the Stourwater premises had been made available during a holiday period, offering a prospect that Moreland might have regarded as almost alarmingly nostalgic in possibilities.
That was not all, where conjuring up the past was concerned. In this same field of reminiscences, the bride’s grandfather — no doubt the main influence in putting Stourwater thus on view — also sustained a personal role, even if an infinitely trivial one. In short, I could not pretend freedom from all curiosity as to what Sir Bertram Akworth now looked like. This interest had nothing to do with his being a governor of a well reputed school for girls, nor with the long catalogue of company directorships and committee memberships (ranging from Independent Television to the Diocesan Synod), which followed his name in Who’s Who. On the contrary, Sir Bertram Akworth was memorable in my mind solely on account of the fact that, as a schoolboy, he had sent a note of an amatory nature to a younger boy (my near contemporary, later friend, Peter Templer), been reported by Widmerpool to the authorities for this unlicensed act; in consequence, sacked.