‘The gents? Down the stairs on the left. Rather classy.’
‘Thanks.’
The Stourwater passages had by now acquired the smell common to all schools: furniture polish: disinfectant: fumes of unambitious cooking. I found the little library — now a schoolroom hung with maps — which Sir Magnus had entered with such dramatic effect that he seemed to have been watching for his guests’ arrival through a peephole in the far door (concealed with dummy books), the night we had come over with the Morelands to dinner at the Castle. One of the pictures in this room had been another Barnby, an oil sketch of the model Conchita, described by Moreland as ‘antithesis of the pavement artist’s traditional representation of a loaf of bread, captioned Easy to Draw but Hard to Get.’
After striking one or two false trails, I came at last to the dining-room of the Seven Deadly Sins. Rows of tables indicated that its function remained unchanged, though the Sins no longer exemplified their graphic warning to those who ate there. The fine chimneypiece, decorated with nymphs and satyrs — no doubt installed by Sir Magnus to harmonize with the tapestries — had been allowed to remain as adjunct to school meals. Above this hung a large reproduction of an Annigoni portrait of the Queen. Here, scene of the luncheon where I had first met Jean Templer after her marriage to Duport; later, of the great impersonation of the Sins themselves, recorded in the photographs shown by Matilda, were more pungent memories. I stood for a moment by the door, reconstructing some of these past incidents in the mind. While I was doing so, a man and a girl entered the dining-room from the far end. They were holding hands. Without abandoning this clasp, they advanced up the room. If wedding guests, like quite a few others present at the reception, neither had dressed up much for the occasion.
‘Hullo, Fiona — hullo, Russell.’
Gwinnett offered the hand that was not holding Fiona’s.
‘Hullo, Nicholas.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘You’ve heard.’
‘Yes.’
Gwinnett gave one of his rare smiles. I kissed Fiona, who accepted with good grace this tribute to her marriage. She, too, looked pleased. Her dress still swept the ground — as on the crayfishing afternoon, the last time I had actually set eyes on her — but her breast no longer bore the legend HARMONY. In her disengaged hand she carried a large straw hat trimmed with multicoloured flowers. A considerable cleaning up, positive remodelling, had taken place in Fiona’s general style. No doubt much of that was owed to Delavacquerie. Gwinnett had surmounted the sober suit of the Magnus Donners dinner with a thin strip of bow tie. His head seemed to have been newly shaved.
‘Have you both just arrived?’
‘A side door outside was open. We thought we might look around before meeting the family. Is the Castle thirteenth or early fourteenth-century? I’d say that was the date. The machicolations might be later. What’s its history?’
Gwinnett had shown architectural interests in Venice.
‘Not much history, I think. Sir Magnus Donners, who owned it, had some story about a mediaeval lord of Stourwater, whose daughter drowned herself in the moat for love of a monk.’
Halfway through the sentence I saw that tradition was one preferably to have remained unrepeated in the circumstances. Sir Magnus had narrated the tale to Prince Theodoric the day the Walpole-Wilsons had taken me to luncheon here. I added quickly that the room we were in had once contained some remarkable tapestries depicting the Seven Deadly Sins. That seemed scarcely an improvement as a topic. Fiona may have felt the same, as she enquired about the wedding.
‘How did Sebastian stand up to it?’
‘Very well. Let’s return to them, and drink some champagne.’
Fiona looked questioningly at Gwinnett, as she used to look at Murtlock for a decision; perhaps had so looked at Delavacquerie, before relinquishing him.
‘Do you want to see them all yet?’
‘Whatever you say.’
I supposed they would prefer to remain alone together.
‘I’m going to continue my exploration of the Castle for a short time, then I’ll see you later at the reception.’
Fiona did not seem anxious to face her relations yet.
‘We’ll come with you. You can show us round. I’d like to see a bit more of it. Wouldn’t you, Rus?’
‘I don’t know the place at all well. I was here absolutely years ago, and only went into a few rooms then.’
‘Never mind.’
The three of us set off together.
‘I’m glad I wasn’t at school here.’
Stourwater was one of the educational establishments Fiona had never sampled. The new role of young married woman seemed to come with complete ease to her. There could be no doubt that she liked exceptional types. Gwinnett’s attraction to Fiona was less easy to classify. A faint train of thought was perceptible so far as Pamela Widmerpool was concerned, though Fiona had neither Pamelas looks, nor force of character. The impact of Pamela might even have jolted Gwinnett into an entirely different emotional channel, his former inhibitions cured once and for all. That was not impossible.
‘Sir Magnus Donners once took some of his guests down to the so-called dungeons, but I’m not sure I can find them.’
Gwinnett pricked up his ears.
‘The dungeons? Let’s see them. I’d like to look over the dungeons.’
Fiona agreed.
‘Me, too. Do have a try to find them.’
They did not cease to hold hands, while several rooms and passages were traversed. Structural alterations had taken place in the course of adapting the Castle to the needs of a school. The head of the staircase leading to these lower regions, where the alleged dungeons were on view — knowledgable people said they were merely storerooms — could not be found. Several doors were locked. Then a low door, a postern, brought us out into a small courtyard, a side of the Castle unenclosed by moat. Here school outbuildings had been added. Beyond this open space lay playing fields, a wooden pavilion, some seats. Further off were the trees of the park. Gwinnett surveyed the courtyard.
‘This near building might have been a brewhouse. The brickwork looks Tudor.’
Fiona turned towards the fields.
‘At least I’ll never have to play hockey again.’
‘Did you hate games?’
‘I used to long to die, playing hockey on winter afternoons.’
Gwinnett gave up examining the supposed brewhouse. We moved towards the open.
‘In the ball-courts of the Aztecs a game was played of which scarcely anything is known, except that the captain of the winning side is believed to have been made a human sacrifice.’
Gwinnett said that rather pedantically.
‘The rule would certainly add to the excitement of a cup-tie or test match.’