STAGS 5, page 23
I carefully danced every dance with Shafeen, and throughout the evening we became closer and closer, relaxing into each other’s arms as if the ice between us was melting. But it felt all wrong; I was weighed down with guilt. I longed for us to get back together, but I knew that Nel was right. I couldn’t rebuild a relationship on a lie. I had to tell Shafeen the truth about that night in Castle MacLeod. Of course, Shafeen and I had officially broken up when I’d spent the night with Henry, but I wasn’t about to offer up the FRIENDS defence. Being ‘on a break’ didn’t excuse what was, in fact, a massive betrayal.
‘Shafeen?’
‘Yes?’ He sounded so kind, so gentle.
‘There’s something you should know.’
‘I think I know already.’
I looked up at him guiltily.
‘You slept with Henry. The night before the duel.’
I couldn’t believe he had known all this time. ‘Don’t you … mind?’
‘I mind less about you sleeping with him than the fact that you’re in love with him. You do love him, don’t you?’
I didn’t deny it – I couldn’t. But I answered with a question. The question, which I now knew had been buzzing around my head like a trapped bluebottle since Henry had confessed his feelings for me in a hospital corridor in India. No – before that – since he’d shivered in my arms in Cumberland Place, telling me how his father had trapped him in a boot room with a fox when he was a little boy. Or even before that, when he’d kissed me on the silver midnight roofs of Longcross Hall. ‘Is it possible to love two people?’
Shafeen smiled sadly, and somehow that was so much worse than if he’d frowned. ‘Not for me. But I’m sure there are people that do.’
‘I think I might be one of those people.’ I looked up at him. ‘How long have you known?’
‘I saw how you reacted after the duel,’ he said. ‘When you thought he might have been shot. It was the way you held him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Me too.’
‘I don’t deserve you,’ I said, quite truthfully.
‘Probably not,’ he said, with a half-laugh. ‘But I’d take you back, Greer. I’d like to try, despite all this. If you want to, that is.’
I opened my mouth to answer, but my treacherous gaze landed on Henry one last time. I caught sight of him just as he looked up from his glass and did a double take, the colour draining from his face. He looked like a ghost at that moment, or at least as if he’d seen one. His complexion was paper white, mouth agape, blue eyes staring. He turned the wide eyes on me, pointed towards the archway and mouthed two words.
She’s here.
A young woman walked into the quad. She was alone and looked unsure. I remembered her being in the year above me at Bewley Park Comprehensive, before I’d even heard of STAGS. She was one of those pretty, popular girls, one of those girls you look up to, that you wish you could be. Then I remembered her here at STAGS, the day she gave me the warning, that heartfelt, unheeded warning not to go to Longcross. Then she’d been a shadow of herself, a thin, grey ghost, almost transparent with terror.
Now she looked shy but determined. She was wearing a sky-blue ballgown and a defiant expression. ‘Sorry,’ I said to Shafeen, breaking our grasp. ‘I’m so sorry. We will get to this. But I’ve got to go and talk to someone.’
He followed my gaze. ‘Who’s that?’
‘That,’ I said, ‘is Gemma Delaney.’
43
Henry tossed his cigarette away and joined me, and we weaved through the dancers to meet Gemma.
He gave her a little bow. ‘Thank you for coming.’
She looked from Henry to me, the fragile self-possession gone, once more hollow-eyed and afraid. ‘Greer? What’s going on? Is this another trap?’ Her Manchester accent was like home to me. ‘I only came because you invited me. But you didn’t say he’d be here.’
‘Because you wouldn’t have come,’ I said, unrepentant. ‘But it’s not a trap,’ I reassured her. ‘This is the night that the Order of the Stag will finally be defeated, and I thought you’d want to be here for it.’
‘I’d like nothing better,’ she said. ‘But …’ Her eyes had not left Henry.
He said, ‘And I … I would like to talk to you, if you’d allow me. There’s something I want to say, something long overdue.’
She raised her chin an inch. ‘Well, go on then,’ she said, very northern. ‘I’m here. What do you what to say?’
I looked around. People were looking over with interest, and there were too many prying eyes and flapping ears. ‘Not here,’ I said. ‘Let’s go somewhere private.’
I led them out of the Refectory to the Hundred Steps, the stone staircase between Paulinus and Lightfoot. It was fully dark now, as it was almost midnight, but the stairs were beautifully lit with torches at intervals, and you could see someone coming from a mile away, either up or down. We talked a little as we walked. Gemma was at Newcastle University, so not far away, and over the summer vacation was working part-time for a children’s charity. I wondered if her experiences at Longcross had motivated her to work with other young children who’d been bullied and abused, and I felt both humbled and impressed that she’d been able to turn such a negative experience into a positive one.
Henry and Gemma sat together halfway up the steps. I hovered, unsure of what to do. This really had nothing to do with me, but I didn’t want to leave Gemma alone with Henry if she felt vulnerable. ‘Shall I stay?’
Henry looked to Gemma. This had to be her call. She shook her head and looked up at me, clear-eyed. ‘No, it’s all right,’ she said. ‘I was afraid of him once. I’m not now.’
So I wandered away, giving them some space and privacy. I wasn’t sure where to go. There would be more dancing in the Paulinus Quad, and I definitely had unfinished business with Shafeen, but today had been a lot and I didn’t really feel like being with anyone for a bit. I just wanted to go somewhere to sit and breathe. I thought about what Cass had said about putting on The Isle of Dogs again. I’d always known that she was pretty out there, but to actually buy into Ben Jonson’s black magic and think she could raise Louis from the dead was positively unhinged. Unbidden, my feet made their way across Bede’s Piece to the De Warlencourt Playhouse. A low mist clung to the grass, and the replica theatre rose above the playing fields like a mirage, its timbered walls and thatched roof glowing in the moonlight. As I reached the entrance I read the plaque above the door. It said:
THE DE WARLENCOURT PLAYHOUSE
BY KIND DONATION OF THE DE WARLENCOURT FAMILY
OPENED ON 24th JULY 1969
AND DEDICATED TO
‘GABRIEL SPENSER’
PLAYER
Cass’s voice came back to me.
It worked before.
Maybe she hadn’t been talking about Henry being brought back from the dead. Maybe she’d been talking about another family member from the seventeenth century: Nazereth de Warlencourt, who’d acted under the name Gabriel Spenser, and had been killed in a duel with Ben Jonson. His body was missing from his tomb in the Longcross crypt, and legend said that he lived his second life out on his secluded Northumberland estate. I put my hand on the timber of the door. I didn’t really expect the theatre to be open, but the door gave way at once. The theatre still scared me – I’d nearly lost my own life here – but I thought to myself that I should go inside. If I was never to return to STAGS, it would be good to face my demons, just as Gemma was doing now. So I walked in through the timbered doors underneath the de Warlencourts’ commemorative plaque, out of the summer evening sunshine, into the candlelit dark.
For a moment I couldn’t see a thing, but my eyes slowly adjusted to the light of wavering candles. I mounted the steps and climbed to the middle of the stage, to the very spot where I’d spoken my epilogue as Poetaster, with the noose around my neck. I remembered the rope growing tighter and winching me upwards until my feet no longer touched the boards. Even the memory made my throat feel tight. But I took a few deep breaths. There was nothing to fear here. It was just an empty theatre.
Except, it was not empty.
‘Hello, Greer.’
44
Abbot Ridley was suddenly there in the aisle, lighting the candles around the proscenium with a taper.
The flames flowered under his hand like he was some wizard from Fantastic Beasts or something. Obviously the candles had not just been left burning in an empty theatre. He’d lit them, and for a reason. Some nameless instinct told me he was here to meet someone. That someone clearly wasn’t me, but he greeted me without surprise. I almost expected him to say, I’ve been expecting you, like some Bond villain.
‘Hi,’ I said uncertainly. ‘Do … do you need the room?’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Actually, it’s good you’re here. I’ve come to meet a mutual acquaintance.’
Now, this puzzled and began to frighten me, because pretty much the only people we both knew were all partying in the Paulinus Quad. Then I heard footsteps in the aisle and a figure emerged from the dark. ‘You remember Professor Jennifer Nashe?’
Of course I did. I remembered her pretty well. You don’t tend to forget a woman who witnessed your hanging at the end of a revival of a play that was lost for 400 years. Not when that same woman subsequently interviewed and admitted you to her Oxford college. She looked just the same – strong Professor McGonagall energy with her iron-grey hair escaping from a messy bun, penetrating green gaze and fine, flaring nostrils. She was wearing a greeny-black gown, which added to the Harry Potter vibe, and it rustled as she walked.
‘You might have heard that I’m returning to Oxford to complete my doctorate,’ said Nathaniel. ‘Jennifer will be my tutor, and yours.’
She smiled, and I recalled that strange combination of a young face and old hair. ‘Hello again, Greer.’
‘Hello, Professor.’
She inclined her grey head. ‘I think we can dispense with formalities, since we are going to be working so closely together. All FOXES in the same den.’ She looked at Nathaniel, who gave her a tiny nod. ‘I think it’s time you called me something else.’
‘Well,’ I said shyly, uncertain of where this was going, and babbling as I always did when I was uncomfortable, ‘I mean, you’re still my tutor. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable calling you “Jennifer”. I mean, I was always pretty creeped out by those teachers who were all like, Call me Kevin. Always seems to be English teachers, doesn’t it, although I don’t know why. Maybe all that poetry makes them feel like they are freewheeling, unfettered dudes who are down with the kids. But I don’t –’
‘Greer,’ she interrupted gently, ‘I didn’t mean you should address me by my first name. It was another name I was referring to. Or rather, an alias.’ She looked at me significantly. ‘You received my reading list, did you not?’
This seemed like a dizzying change of subject, but I tried to focus. I’d all but forgotten about the reading list she’d sent – the page of books I was supposed to chew through before starting uni in October. ‘Yes. That is, I don’t have it on me …’
‘Then allow me to furnish you with a copy.’ She took a paper from her sleeve and handed it to me. It read:
Renaissance and Revolution – Joseph Anthony Mazzeo
European Theories of the Drama – Barrett Harper Clark
Youth Revolution – Anthony Esler
Notion of the State – Alexander Passerin D’Entreves
All’s Well That Ends Well: The Problem Plays – Simon Barker
Rebel Women – Stephen Wilmer
Dramas of the Revolution – Mikhail Shatrov
‘I think I wrote, at the time, that you would find this list very revealing,’ she said. ‘Look more closely.’
I did.
And this is what I saw:
R enaissance and Revolution – Joseph Anthony Mazzeo
E uropean Theories of the Drama – Barrett Harper Clark
Y outh Revolution – Anthony Esler
N otion of the State – Alexander Passerin D’Entreves
A ll’s Well That Ends Well: The Problem Plays – Simon Barker
R ebel Women – Stephen Wilmer
D ramas of the Revolution – Mikhail Shatrov
‘Reynard,’ I croaked. ‘Reynard … is you?’
She bent close and whispered, ‘Yes,’ before drawing back and giving me a significant green gaze. I opened my mouth, and shut it again, the world revolving around me.
‘I have to go …’ I muttered, backing away. ‘Sorry … nice to see you … see you in October … got somewhere to be …’
I hurried out of the theatre and her voice drifted after me. ‘To be continued … I’ll see you in Oxford …’
As I stumbled away from the playhouse I tried to process what I’d just heard. Professor Nashe was the mastermind behind the rebels who had sworn since the days of Guy Fawkes to bring down the elite? No wonder she’d come to the Surroyal Ball. Of course the head of the FOXES would want to see the final act – this was the boss-level battle and ultimate rout of the Order of the Stag. How singular that it was a Queen’s Gambit at the end, a face-off between two women: Cass for the STAGS and Professor Nashe for the FOXES.
My synapses firing with the implications of what I’d just learned, I hurried back to the Hundred Steps, where Gemma and Henry were still deep in conversation. To a casual observer they might have looked like friends, or even, I thought, with a little pang, a couple. The truth was, they were the hunter and the hunted. But the question now was: which was which?
I climbed halfway to reach them, breathless with exertion and revelation. I noticed that Henry was still clutching the little orange book like a totem – Aadhish Jadeja’s diary. ‘Everything all right?’
Gemma looked up and gave me a small, tight smile. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is now. I’ve accepted Henry’s apology. Not just for his sake, but for mine. I’ve been carrying this around a long time. Now I think I’ll be able to try to forget.’
Henry looked troubled. ‘About that – I have to tell you that there is now an active police investigation. You should contact them as soon as possible, because you’ll be the key witness. Only you can press charges against me for what I did to you that Justitium weekend.’
She looked down at her hands for what seemed like a long, long time. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t.’ She looked up. ‘They will ask me to relive it. All of it. And I can’t go back there.’ She began nervously pleating the silken folds of her skirt. ‘Before you talked to me I would have sung it from the rooftops. I would have happily seen you rot in jail. But now …’ She looked directly at him, suddenly stronger. ‘I’ve never had power before. Certainly not over someone like you.’
I knew now that I’d been right to ask myself the question as I’d approached them. Gemma was now the hunter and Henry the hunted. Her testimony would be what jailed him. The tables had well and truly turned.
‘But I’m better than you.’
‘I know,’ he said, seemingly with absolute honesty.
‘So I choose not to exercise that power. I’m not going to the police.’
Now we both looked at her, gobsmacked.
‘Are you sure?’ said Henry.
‘Yes.’ She stood and smoothed down her skirts decisively. ‘I ask just one thing of you.’ She looked down at Henry, now his superior. ‘Be better.’
‘I will,’ he said humbly. ‘That I promise you.’
‘And now,’ she said, ‘I need a drink.’
I smiled. ‘We’ll be right behind you.’
We watched her go, walking down the Hundred Steps, straight-backed as a princess.
I took her place next to Henry on the warm stone, suddenly feeling ridiculously happy. I nudged his shoulder with mine. ‘So I guess this changes everything,’ I said. ‘You’re not going to jail. And you don’t have to give away the earldom.’
He folded my hand in his, and I let it lie there. It was just for a moment. Just because it was the last time. ‘Greer,’ he said seriously, ‘I didn’t give everything up because I was going to jail. I gave it up because of you.’
‘What?’ I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. That seemed like such a huge thing to do – such a sacrifice. ‘Are you joking?’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Ever since I first began going out with girls they were always bedazzled by Longcross and the title. They could see themselves as the next countess. You were the only one who didn’t care about all that. You could look past it and see who I really was. And I was a shit, Greer. An absolute shit.’
‘You won’t get any argument from me,’ I said with half a smile. As usual, I had to joke when things got serious.
‘But you made me want to be better. And to do that, I have to get rid of all the trappings and the privilege. I like Horatio’s vision for the future of Longcross – I think he’ll be a fine custodian of the estate. I’m the younger brother now and with that comes a certain measure of freedom.’ He looked into the dark, as if he could see his future. ‘I want to see if I can make my way in the world on my wits. If I’m to have money, I want to be the one to make it – pull myself up by my bootstraps like Nel’s dad. I looked down on that kind of money once. Now I know it’s the only kind worth having.’
I tried to absorb all this. ‘So what will you do?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe uni. Against all the odds I did get some fairly decent marks in my Probitiones.’ He smiled. ‘But it hardly matters. The point is that you once said we were worlds apart. This can bring us closer together. If I give it all away, then we are the same.’
He’d never let go of my hand, and now he wiggled it until I looked into his eyes.
‘So, what do you say?’
I blinked once, as if that would somehow reset my spinning brain. My world had turned upside down in a matter of minutes. I’d discovered the identity of Reynard, learned that Henry was not going to jail after all, and now I was on the business end of – not a proposal, that would be ridiculous, but the most serious piece of wooing I’d ever heard. It was every Hallmark Christmas movie about the prince and the chalet girl, it was King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid on acid. This was courtship on a whole new set of terms. I’d been so sure that the right thing to do was to rebuild things with Shafeen, to make things right after cheating on him. But this evening I’d seen the gulf between me and him too – the distance, not just physical, between a palace in Jaipur and a rented flat in Manchester. I’d never really pictured myself – well, not more than momentarily – as the lady of the manor, the Elizabeth Bennet at Darcy’s Pemberley. My secret fantasies were far more focused on being a film director and winning a hatful of Oscars. But I’d never expected anyone to make such a colossal sacrifice for me as the one being laid at my feet now. Henry was offering himself to me as nothing more than a fellow university student, in the name of that Holy Grail of the movies: True Love.
