FOXES, page 25
Louis, at the head of the table in Rollo’s chair, was visibly enjoying himself. There was an empty chair on his left, which I thought must be for Ty, because as yet she was nowhere to be seen. All I wanted was for her to come through the doors, rocking her red dress, and show us all that she was OK, that she’d been a willing participant, that she was in one piece. I was determined to ask Louis, but there was something that had to be got out of the way first. ‘How’s your uncle?’
‘A touch of concussion, as Aunt Caro said,’ he replied.
I didn’t really know how serious that was. ‘I know, but will he be OK?’
‘Of course. It often happens after a fall. No one ever died of mild concussion.’
I felt a rush of relief. However monstrous Rollo was, I didn’t want him to, well, die. But I thought that was exactly what someone did want. Who had been behind that Guy Fawkes mask? Who had jumped out at Rollo’s stallion and made it rear in that sickening way? Was it Henry, who had stored up years of enmity towards his father? What about Cass, who hated Rollo on behalf of a well-loved cousin? Or Louis, impatient for his title of Earl of Longcross? Or even Ty herself, who could have got ahead of the pack and donned the mask in the undergrowth? What was the ‘plan’ she’d hatched that we had to let play out?
Of course I could say nothing of this to Louis. ‘So everybody is happy with the ball and everything going ahead? Even without your uncle?’
‘Doesn’t matter if he’s here,’ said Louis, slathering butter on a white roll. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
It was clear: Louis was more than happy to stand in as the host with the most. Fine. Now I could move on to my main concern. ‘And at the risk of repeating myself, where is Ty?’
Louis sighed and smiled, but he didn’t seem irritated. He was far too buoyant tonight for anything to burst the bubble of his happiness. ‘Greer, you’re like a broken record.’ This was a typical Medieval metaphor – they’d always reference something archaic. ‘Didn’t we have the same conversation this morning? I told you you’d see Ty, and you did. She’ll be down in a minute. She’s just getting ready. Something about Afro hair. Apparently, it’s much harder to manage than normal hair. Especially when it’s rained. Or something.’
I bumped hard on the word ‘normal’, but at the same time, something about this dreadful sentence was reassuring. There was no way that Louis could have made up that excuse. It sounded like Ty, and furthermore it sounded like Ty buying time. What was she really doing up there? It could’t be taking her this long to get ready, whatever she’d sold Louis about her hair. Was this all part of her mysterious plan? She’d asked for our help; she’d asked us to find out about Foxes. We’d done that, and then when we’d seen her in the wood she’d asked us to stay away. There was only one explanation. In the interim, while she’d been at Longcross without her phone, she’d got the help she needed.
From someone else.
Being with Louis reminded me of something else. Throughout the entire hunt, what with Ty and the fox and the sudden appearance of the Guy Fawkes figure, I’d achieved the impossible: I’d forgotten about Henry. Now Cass’s words about her cousin’s fate came back to me. I think Louis’ll find out tonight … Everybody will. Was there going to be some sort of announcement? Might the empty chair be for Henry?
This idea was swiftly nixed by Cass herself sliding into the empty place. For once, she’d followed convention and was wearing a floor-length ballgown of white lace. With her elfin cropped hair she looked like a fairy – ethereal, almost transparent and very Blithe Spirit. She wreathed her arms about her twin like a vine and kissed Louis very tenderly on the edge of his jaw. She was more affectionate to him than ever, but something about the gesture made me uncomfortable. There was something weirdly valedictory about it. It was almost as if she was being super-nice because she knew this was his last act as king – that the pretender was about to be replaced by the rightful ruler. When Cass sat down I clocked that the seating was boy-girl-boy-girl, and although I’d got lucky on one side with Louis, the scales were tipped on the other side by Piers. Nel was on his other side with Shafeen beyond her, and opposite us, Charlotte and Esme flanked Cookson. Fasten your seatbelt, Greer, I told myself. It’s going to be a bumpy night.
Never one to miss a chance to be superficial, Esme instantly began to talk about my appearance. ‘Darling, you look lovely in the white. Goes great with the black bob.’
‘Why is everyone in white anyway?’ Numbed by the shock of Rollo’s fall, I’d automatically put on the white satin sheath dress that had been left out on my bed, and clipped into my hair the pair of 1920s diamond hairslides. It was only now, looking around, I clicked that as well as all the men being in white tie, a lot of the women seemed to be in white too.
‘Not everyone,’ admonished Esme teasingly, ‘just the ladies under twenty-one. It’s a debutante thing.’
‘A what thing?’
‘Your “coming out” ball.’
Now I was confused. ‘But I’m not even gay.’
Esme laughed her tinkling laugh. ‘No, silly. Queen Charlotte held a ball in the eighteenth century to introduce the young unmarried women to society. They were all presented at court wearing white. It still happens. Have you never heard of Queen Charlotte’s ball?’
‘I’ve never even heard of Queen Charlotte.’
‘I think Caro wanted to revive the tradition. Perfect opportunity, since there’s to be dancing.’
My stomach did a little flip. It seemed to me this evening had massive potential for me to make a fool of myself. I’d never learned to dance, and the full extent of my knowledge came from watching Strictly Ballroom. How did you dance at a ball? I had a sudden and wholly unwanted Jane Austen fantasy about dancing with Henry.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Esme, reading my expression. ‘You’ll be the belle of the ball.’
I pulled a face.
‘Don’t you like the white?’
‘Feels a bit bridal.’
‘Well, you never know, Greer,’ sing-songed Charlotte, breaking into our conversation. ‘Maybe soon.’
Although I was sitting near to Shafeen, no one looked at him archly or smiled at him in that nudge-nudge-wink-wink way. Suddenly I got the strongest feeling they weren’t hinting about him. They were hinting about Henry. Did they, his closest schoolfriends, know that he was going to make a comeback tonight? Was I his chosen consort, from all those Cinderella maidens dressed in white? Was that why they were all being super-nice to me? Lara, sitting beyond some chinless guy on Charlotte’s right, managed to look bored and sour at the same time. If they were talking about Henry, it was probably crossing her tiny mind that a little over a year ago she would have been on the receiving end of arch comments like this. I couldn’t feel sorry for her. I couldn’t feel sorry for any of them. I downed another wine.
Suddenly Shafeen was at my elbow, saying, ‘Steady on,’, but I was in no mood. I suddenly realised what a strain we’d been under, and that we’d been on the go since dawn that morning.
‘Not now, sweetie,’ I said. ‘Mama’s had a day.’ I ceased to care about this table of deplorables and what they thought of me. It was time for some straight-talking. ‘How’s Oxford, Piers?’ I asked.
He put his elbow heavily on the table and turned to look at me in an unfocused way. ‘It’s exactly the same as school.’
This gave me a chill. If I was going there next year, would I be in the crosshairs of these poisonous predators once again? Well, I wasn’t having it. I wasn’t going to be a victim. I was in a hunting mood. I was a fox in a hen coop, and it was time to ruffle some feathers. ‘Does that mean you’re carrying on your little reindeer games into further education?’
‘Greer …’ warned Shafeen. But I was on a roll. There was an element of relief in my drinking. Ty hadn’t been hunted down, and all we had to do now was wait for her to come down, get through this evening and go. I waved my glass for a refill of my wine from a passing footman, and Shafeen had to return to his seat to make way for him. The footman poured for me, eyes down, but I wasn’t having that. ‘Thanks. What’s your name, sorry?’
He raised his eyes an inch, surprised. ‘Bell, miss.’
I took the wine and it sloshed over my hand a little. ‘Not your last name, silly. I meant your first name.’
Then he looked me in the eyes. ‘Joshua, miss. Josh.’
I raised the glass to him. ‘Well, thank you very much, Josh.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he murmured, taken aback. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, miss?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘you’ve done quite enough.’
And he moved on along the chairs, hand behind his back, pouring the bottle until it was gone, no one even sparing him a glance.
Reluctantly, I turned back to Piers. Frankly, I’d rather talk to Josh than him. ‘What are you even studying anyway?’
‘Twentieth-century poetry.’
‘Ah!’ I raised my forefinger. ‘Do you know that poem about Reynard the Fox?’
‘Of course. John Masefield.’
I poked the forefinger into his shoulder in congratulation. ‘Yes!’ I watched him closely, but neither the mention of foxes, nor the name Reynard, seemed to set any suspicious bell ringing in his personal belfry. There was no doubt about it, Piers was hard work. I looked across to Shafeen longingly, wishing I was close enough to chat to him, and as I did so I saw Bates come to stand behind him, politely wait for a lull in conversation, and then bend to murmur in his ear. I was close enough to see Shafeen turn in his chair, his face a mask of surprise. He rose from his seat and walked the three places to me, crouching on his haunches. ‘Rollo’s asked to see me.’
Despite my tipsy fog, I was surprised too. ‘Just you?’
‘Yes. But will you come with me?’
‘Of course.’ I got up too, slightly unsteadily, as the wine rushed to my head. As we walked past all those Very Important People, those shining royals and polished politicians, Shafeen slipped his hand into mine. We walked like that into the great hall and up the stairs, following Bates’s ruler-straight back.
53
The butler led us to a part of the house I’d never seen before, a wing guarded by knights in shining armour, visors closed for business – a part even more ancient, it seemed, than the rest of the house.
Bates opened the door into a dark room, all chocolate-brown oak panels, and a magnificent bed in the centre of the space hung with swags and swathes of old gold tapestry. In the middle of that bed, even a man of Rollo de Warlencourt’s stature seemed very small. The ancient doctor – the Doctor Morand who had patched up Shafeen’s shotgun wound the previous year – was attending the earl, white head bent over the bed. He gestured impatiently to Shafeen. ‘Come in, my boy. There’s not much time, I fear.’
Not much time. My brain, slow as slime, could not quite understand what this meant. Shafeen, suddenly very serious, walked forward to the bed like a man in a dream. I was not required in this peculiarly male moment, so I hung back. But even from the doorway I could see how Rollo looked. I don’t know what I’d expected the effects of mild concussion to look like, but it wasn’t this. The earl looked awful – somehow shrunken. His breathing was laboured and his face a sickly yellowy green. His skin seemed almost stretched across his cheeks and the fine bones of his nose. He fixed watery blue eyes on Shafeen as the younger man knelt beside the bed, almost as if he were praying. The earl reached out and clasped Shafeen’s brown hand, his own pale knuckles knotted with the blue snakes of his veins.
‘Hardy,’ he croaked.
Shafeen said, softly but a little coldly, ‘It’s not Aadhish. It’s Shafeen. His son.’
The doctor, straightening up, stood over them both, shaking his head. ‘He’s confused. I’ve seen this before, very near the end.’
Shafeen looked at the doctor for a long moment. Then he looked back to Rollo and did the sweetest thing. He squeezed the hand that held his. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s me, old friend. It’s Hardy.’
‘Hardy,’ said Rollo, a smile stretching his pale blue lips. ‘We had some gay old times, didn’t we?’
Shafeen lifted the papery hand to his cheek so the earl could feel him smile. ‘That we did.’
‘Hardy. I’ve wanted to contact you for ever so long. I wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened that Justitium weekend, in 1969. What we did to you.’
There was nothing Shafeen could say to this, so he said nothing.
‘But I’m not sorry for what we did together,’ gasped the earl breathlessly. ‘Never that.’ There was a silence. ‘Hardy. Can you ever understand?’
‘Of course I can,’ said Shafeen. ‘I do.’
The earl’s face seemed to slacken with relief and release. The hand relaxed and fell back on the coverlet.
A figure loomed from the darkness behind me, and my heart leaped for one stupid moment – was it the man from the woods, the Guy Fawkes character come to claim his victim? But no – the one shape and colour I could see in the gloom was a white dog collar.
A priest.
The doctor clocked him. ‘Stand back now, my boy,’ he said to Shafeen. ‘Let Father Wright do his work.’
Numb, I watched as the priest kissed his ceremonial sash and placed it round his neck, and then began, very methodically (how many of these had he done?) to arrange his oils and his candles and his silver vials and begin the process of an ending. As this holy man dabbed holy oil onto Rollo’s forehead and chest, I didn’t have to wonder what he was doing. I knew about this from Brideshead Revisited. These are the last rites, I thought, as the mumbled Latin prayers hit my ear. The priest was giving the last rites. This was how Catholics checked out.
There was no drama, no big end-of-life speech, no final cross sketched by the quaking hand over the failing heart. But when the ritual was over Rollo held out his hand to the doorway, looking past the priest and the doctor. They could no longer help him. He reached out to Shafeen. ‘Kiss me, Hardy,’ he said.
I looked at Shafeen, as he looked at Rollo. I could see him doing battle with himself. Suddenly that Lion in Winter thing that Rollo had said the very first time we’d met made sense to me.
When the fall’s all that’s left, it matters a great deal.
I stared at Shafeen until my vision blurred. Do it. I willed him. Just do it. Whatever Rollo had done, whatever kind of monster he was, give him this one last gift. Then Shafeen walked forward, bent and tenderly kissed the hectic cheek of the Earl of Longcross.
I’d never seen anyone die before, but I can tell you it is a moment of real clarity. There is absolutely no mistaking it – it is very binary. One moment the earl was there on the bed, the next moment he was gone.
If I had been drunk when I came into the room, I was now absolutely stone-cold sober.
We watched, numb with shock, as the priest finished his work – he snuffed out the candles with absolute finality. Then, as he knelt to pray with the body, the doctor ushered us out of the room. He closed the door behind him and there were just three of us in that passageway, but a million questions crowded in there with us. ‘But … but …’ I began, but I didn’t know how to finish. But he couldn’t just check out like that. But he had a roomful of guests downstairs. But what about Henry? He never got to say goodbye. Eventually my brain zoned in not on a question, but a statement – something I’d heard Louis say less than an hour ago, before the world had changed. ‘But no one ever died of mild concussion.’
The doctor pushed his half-moon glasses up his nose and now his hand was shaking. He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been practising medicine for fifty years and I can tell you that one can never account for the vagaries of chance. Sadly, the concussion must have been the manifestation of some sort of head trauma. These things happen.’
‘These things happen?’ Shafeen found his voice. ‘These things happen?’ He moved closer to the doctor – he towered over him. His eyes were full of contempt. I remembered what he’d said on the day he’d been shot in the arm – that this Doctor Morand had been covering up the injuries that ensued from the Order of the Stag’s death hunts for years. Shafeen got right in his face until the older man was backed up against the panelling.
‘I’ve been practising medicine for exactly no years,’ said Shafeen bitingly, ‘but even I know that what I saw on that bed wasn’t just concussion. How do you account for the jaundice of the skin? The high temperature but the cold extremities? The cyanosis of the lips?’
I was proud of Shafeen and scared of him in equal measure. How did he know this stuff? He was a badass. The doctor began to shake his head, the loose skin of his chins shivering like a turkey’s wattle.
‘I think you’d better start talking,’ said Shafeen in a steely voice. ‘Your protector has gone now, and as far as we are concerned, you did your very best to save him. But there is a different version of events: that you were incompetent. That you were unable to diagnose a secondary condition. That you let the Earl of Longcross die.’
The doctor looked from Shafeen to me, and back again.
‘I happen to know Lord Fenton of the General Medical Council,’ said Shafeen. He wasn’t lying either – I remembered the bow-tied guy at the STAGS Club. ‘Perhaps I should discuss the earl’s cause of death with him?’
That did it. The doctor began to bluster. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘without a post-mortem I couldn’t possibly say with any certainty …’
‘… but …’ prompted Shafeen.
‘… but if I was a betting man,’ whispered the doctor, ‘I’d say poison.’
The shock of that word, toxic and potent, percolated through my own veins. It didn’t make any sense to me – I could barely process what had just been whispered in this ancient passageway. I could think only of what would happen next. ‘What shall we do now?’
Sweating, Doctor Morand ran a finger inside his collar. ‘Go back down,’ he croaked, ‘and act as if nothing is amiss. Don’t say a word until I’ve had a chance to tell the countess privately.’
