‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.’
The reference to sounding brass was appropriate, recalling a sole personal memory of the reader, the rebuke administered by our housemaster, his nerves always tried by pupils with strident voices.
‘Don’t shout, Akworth.’ Le Bas had said. ‘It’s a bad habit of yours, especially when answering a question. Try to speak more quietly.’
The habit remained. It seemed to have been no handicap in Sir Bertram’s subsequent career. At one of the closing sentences of the Lesson he hardened the pitch of the utterance. It rang through the nave.
‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.’
Giving a final glance round the congregation, he returned to his seat. The striking image of seeing through a glass darkly again brought thoughts of The Devil’s Fingers. Fiona did not appear to be present in the church. She might well have decided to skip the service, just turn up at the reception. In the light of her newly organized life she was unlikely to forgo altogether her brother’s wedding. So far as I knew she was still living at Delavacquerie’s flat, their relationship no less undefined. Her parents were united in agreeing that, whatever the situation, it was preferable to the previous one. The impression was that Roddy and Susan Cutts, perhaps deliberately, had known little enough about the Murtlock period too. The handout issued by them now was that their daughter had taken a room in an Islington flat that belonged to a man who worked, respectably enough, in Donners-Brebner. Poets not playing much Part in Cutts life, Delavacquerie’s business side was more emphasized than the poetic; potential emotional ties with Fiona not envisaged, more probably ignored. Delavacquerie was after all considerably older than their daughter; though, it had to be admitted, so too had been the handsome married electrician. The Wedding March struck up. For some minutes the congregation was penned in while photographers operated at the church door. Outside, we walked with Veronica Tolland towards the car park.
‘Are your kids here? Angus couldn’t get away either. He had to cover a strike. Iris will be at the reception. Fancy fetching up at Stourwater again. I used to go on visitors’ day when I was a child. The park’s open to the public now. My father’s job was in the local town. I expect I’ve often said that — also I was at school with Matilda Donners, when she was a little girl called Betty Updike. Did you hear she’d died?’
‘Apparently been ill for some time. I didn’t know that. I always liked Matilda.’
‘She made quite a career for herself. I don’t know half the people here. Who’s the good-looking black girl with the young Huntercombes. I know — she’s wife of Jocelyn Fettiplace-Jones. His mother was an Akworth. How glad I am I live in London now.’
Like Ted Jeavons, Veronica had taken on the workings of a world rather different from that of her earlier life, without ever in the least wanting to be part. She had always regarded that world, not without a certain enjoyment, from the outside. Now she felt free of it all, except on occasions such as this one, which she liked to attend. In spite of such inherent sentiments, Veronica had come by now to look more than a little like a conventional dowager on the stage.
‘See you later.’
The immediate vision of Stourwater, in thin vaporous April sunshine, was altogether unchanged. On the higher ground, in the shadows of huge contorted oaks, sheep still grazed. Down in the hollow lay the Castle; keep; turrets; moat; narrow causeway across the water, leading to the main gate with double portcullis. All seemed built out of cardboard. Its realities had in any case belonged more to the days of Sir Magnus Donners, rather than to the later Middle Ages, when the Castle’s history had been obscure. The anachronistic black swans were gone from the greenish waters of the moat. A large noticeboard directed to a car park. Round about the Castle itself playing fields came into view.
‘What games would they be?’
‘Net-ball, hockey, I suppose.’
We parked, then crossed the causeway on foot. The reception was taking place in the Great Hall, now the school’s Assembly Room. Armoured horsemen no longer guarded the door. Forms had been pushed back against the walls, a long table for refreshments set across the far end. In place of Sir Magnus’s Old Masters — several of doubtful authenticity according to Smethyck, and others with a taste for picture attribution — hung reproductions of the better known French Impressionists. We joined the queue, a long one, formed by guests waiting to meet bride and bridegroom. The two families had turned out in force. There must have been a hundred or more guests at least. We took a place far back in the line, working our way up slowly, as Roddy, relic of his parliamentary days, liked to talk for a minute or two to everyone he knew personally. When at last we found ourselves greeting the newly married pair, their closer relations in support, I felt this no moment to remind Sir Bertram Akworth that we had been at school together. There would in any case have been no opportunity. Susan Cutts drew us aside.
‘Come away from them all for a moment. There’s something I must tell you both.’
Leaving her husband to undertake whatever formalities were required, Susan was evidently impatient to reveal some piece of news, good or ill was not clear, which greatly excited her.
‘Have you heard about Fiona?’
‘No, what?’
One was prepared for anything. My first thought was that Fiona had returned to Murtlock and the cult.
‘She’s married.’
I thought I saw how things had at last fallen out.
‘To Gibson Delavacquerie?’
Susan looked puzzled by the question. The name did not seem to convey anything to her, certainly not that of their daughter’s new husband. Susan’s words plainly stated that Fiona possessed a husband.
‘You mean her landlord? No, not him. What could have made you think that, Nick?’
So far from Susan considering Delavacquerie to rate as a potential suitor, she was momentarily put off her stride at the very strangeness of such a proposition. Any emotional undercurrents of the Delavacquerie association must have completely passed by the Cutts parents, unless Susan was doing a superb piece of acting, which was most unlikely.
‘No — it’s an American. I believe you know him, Nick? He’s called Russell Gwinnett.’
Roddy, disengaging himself from the last guest for whom he felt any serious responsibility at the moment, was unable to keep away from all share in imparting such news.
‘Wasn’t there some sort of contretemps years ago about Gwinnett? I believe there was. That fellow Widmerpool was mixed up with it, I have an idea. I used to come across Widmerpool sometimes in the House. Not too bad a fellow, even if he was on the other side. He’s sunk without a trace, if ever a man did. I can’t remember exactly what happened. Gwinnett seems a nice chap. He’s a bit older than Fiona, of course, but I don’t see why that should matter.’