‘Was dinner on time or earlier than usual — because of the performance?’
‘Much earlier. Well, Lord Remnant was in a highly excited state. He was wearing his snow-white robes and he kept making appalling jokes. He asked Basil how the pigs on the farm were shaping up and, as he did so, he looked at me fixedly. He pointed to the jewellery Clarissa was wearing — to her necklace, bracelet, rings, earrings — and informed us that it was he who had given it all to her. He reached out and raised Clarissa’s hand to his lips. He then declared he hadn’t actually paid a penny for any of Clarissa’s jewels. He said he had pinched them.’
‘Pinched them?’
‘Yes. Every single piece of jewellery Clarissa was wearing that night had been stolen from the debs he had deflowered back in the sixties. There had been so many of them, he said, that sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he counted deflowered debutantes the way other people count sheep.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yes! A very unusual brand of debs’ delight, that’s how he described himself. A sort of erotic Raffles. Plumbing the depths of bestial debauchery had been his favourite pastime, but then most of the girls had been more than willing to be seduced by him. It wasn’t always plain sailing, though. Sometimes a girl struggled, which he found terribly irksome. He was not the kind of man who accepted no for an answer. Normally he was gentle and gracious, but he could also be pugnacious.’ Louise raised the saucer to her lips.
‘I hope he wasn’t hinting at rape,’ said Antonia.
‘He was hinting at rape.’
‘I don’t suppose he used the word?’
‘No. He had been firm, forceful and uncompromising, that’s how he put it. He had been in the habit of collecting trophies, to remind himself of his conquests. It was mainly jewellery he stole, but he’d also taken scarves and gloves and, on one memorable occasion, a stiletto-heeled shoe. Well-born girls in those days were fond of bedecking themselves, he said, frequently wearing the family jewels, so there were always rich pickings.’
‘You don’t think he was making it up, do you? Perhaps he was just showing off? One of his appalling jokes?’
‘Somehow I don’t think he was … The girls were usually so scared or ashamed of what they had allowed him to do to them, he said, they never made any fuss afterwards. They never complained, never told anyone about it. But he took no chances. He was careful to make it hard for anyone to track him down.’
‘How did he manage that?’
‘He wore disguise. He described himself as an “inveterate masquerader”. He had a talent for voices and accents. He would attend parties wearing a variety of beards, moustaches, wigs and so on, and each time he gave a false name. He said there was nothing like making love in disguise. He got a kick out of passing himself off as a foreigner, French or Italian, sometimes Portuguese. He spoke French like a native. That made things easier, he said.’
‘He chose nations he liked?’
‘He chose nations he particularly disliked. That was part of the joke. He’d pretended to be a sheikh and a maharaja several times, but maharajas, apparently, took ages to get right.’
‘He was never recognized?’
‘He said he wasn’t. Afterwards no one would associate him with the character he had played. Some of his hosts and hostesses cooperated with him, though he was a notorious gatecrasher as well. He also admitted that on a number of occasions he resorted to spiking the girls’ drinks.’
‘He drugged them? Rohypnol? That’s a notorious date drug,’ Antonia murmured. ‘I wonder if it was available in the sixties?’
‘It was awful, sitting there listening to him. It was particularly awkward for Clarissa of course,’ Louise said with ill-concealed relish. ‘She pretended to treat the whole thing as a joke, as a ridiculous fantasy, but I could see she was upset. Poor old Hortense looked quite shaken too. I thought she might faint. In fact she got up and left the room. When she came back she looked sick as a parrot. Even Augustine seemed shocked — and he is rumoured to have slept with every single woman on Grenadin!’
‘Did anyone say anything?’
‘No. We all pretended that nothing untoward had been said. Basil praised the wine. SS asked if there was anything wrong with the air-conditioning. Renee, as usual, said nothing. Then suddenly Lord Remnant declared he was bored. He launched into one of his monologues. Why was it that most of the people he met were bores — conventional conformists, trivial-minded, insignificant little people with peanut-sized brains? Did anyone have an explanation? He invariably felt depressed and demoralized after a dinner party. Talking to bores was like prodding at particularly resilient mattresses. He could bear neither the sound nor the look of bores. He glanced round the table as he said that. He then said he felt an irresistible urge to have himself blindfolded. There was only one chap he knew who wasn’t a bore. A chap called Quin.’
‘Quin?’
‘Yes. Peter Quin. Lord Remnant then said he intended to leave Quin something in his will, as a reward for not being a bore. He went on to describe Quin as one of the cleverest, most inventive, most stimulating men he had ever known. Hadn’t we ever heard of Peter Quin, the man of the hundred faces? He seemed surprised and annoyed when we said we hadn’t.’
‘The man of the hundred faces,’ Antonia said thoughtfully.
26
‘Hello? Clarissa? It’s Peter Quin speaking.’
There was silence on the line and he thought they had been cut off, but then he heard her catch her breath, so he smiled and said, ‘Peter Quin’ again, with greater emphasis, then went on to greet her with courteous formality and ask after her health.
He wanted to know how things had been since the funeral. Had she been coping well with her widowed state? Was she feeling lonely? Was she feeling forlorn? She wouldn’t go so far as to describe herself as ‘inconsolable’, would she?
At the sound of his voice Clarissa’s hand had gone up to her mouth. ‘Where — where are you?’ Her voice sounded incredibly hoarse, as though she had suddenly developed a sore throat.
‘Sharp, inquiring and purposeful as ever. No time for small talk, eh? You seem to have embraced the hyperactive spirit of the age, my dear … I don’t suppose you have given the matter of the memorial service any serious consideration, have you?’
‘What memorial service?’
‘Lord Remnant’s memorial service. The eloges funebres are always the same and so tiresomely fulsome. If you’ve heard one sanctimonious, mock-sorrowful eulogy, you’ve heard them all. No one is likely to say what they really think, are they?’
‘What — what do you mean?’
‘No one is going to say that the late Lord Remnant will be remembered mainly for his monstrous manners, his terrible temper and his flair for inflicting discomfort. There won’t be a single reference to the fact that when his death was announced, the whole island of Grenadin erupted in wildest jubilation, will there?’
‘You aren’t on Grenadin, are you?’
‘No, of course not. On reflection, a memorial service may not be such a good idea. If you really miss someone,’ he went on, ‘you would be better off doing something you both enjoyed doing together, which is unlikely to mean, except in the most bizarre cases, standing around in a draughty church, wearing black and singing hymns.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In London. The Ritz is not, alas, as it used to be. London is not what it used to be. England is not what it used to be.’ He sighed deeply. ‘To think that once we had an empire, that we ruled the waves and so on, and now we have degenerated into a provincial, polyester sort of place.’
‘Did you have a good flight?’ She had secretly hoped the plane had crashed, that he had perished.
‘A good flight? Are you trying to be clever, my darling? Wit has never been your strongest suit, you know. But do tell me, how are things? How is life at the castle? Does good old Remnant still stand? Smothered in mists, as usual? Are there daffodils and crocuses in the garden?’