Author: Anya Seton
Category: Literature
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Fringed purple plush curtains shut out the evening sunlight. The light of thirty candles on the mahogany table and in sconces wavered over ten ancestral portraits, nine of them garish and ugly. The tenth had been painted by a pupil of Holbein’s in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and represented a Thomas Marsdon, Esquire, in doublet and hose. A dark lean young man, whose delicate hand rested on a greyhound’s head, and whose haunting melancholy eyes always seemed to follow the beholder. There was a slight resemblance to Richard in this portrait which always had made Celia vaguely uneasy, even though it was proof of the long established lineage which thrilled her.
The Bent-Warners who had expanded the house party were an ebullient young couple in their thirties. Pamela was a blonde, so pretty that one forgave her constant chatter about either her children or the theatre. Robin Bent-Warner sat on Celia’s right, and was most amusing. He looked and acted rather like a P. G. Wodehouse character, and capitalized on this. “My job being tourism, ‘Come to Britain and enjoy our quaintness’ you know. I don’t quite sport a monocle, but I hope that’s the general effect.”
Celia laughed. The laugh was high-pitched and shrill. Lily, across the table, scrutinized her daughter anxiously. What had come over the girl? Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glittered like those extraordinary crystal hunks she wore on her ears and wrist. The tangerine dress clung to her very small breasts as it never had before. Or, could it be the way Celia was holding herself? Arched backwards, almost flaunting. And while she laughed at Robin Bent-Warner, surely her bare shoulder was pressing against Harry’s maroon-covered shoulder, for he looked startled and pleased. Lily put down a forkful of crab ravigote and pushed her plate back. Celia could not be tight, she had taken no cocktails, nor yet even tasted her wine. Then she was coming down with something. Flu made people act unnatural. Some virus, Lily thought, would of course explain the fainting and this change in her. Right after dinner we’ll see if she has a temperature.
Other people were also watching Celia. One was her husband. Richard made no pretense of listening to either Pam’s chatter or Myra’s husky blandishments until the latter flicked his cheek with her finger, saying, “Must you glower, my lad? It’s so tiresome. I’ve seen a side of you this weekend I never suspected.”
Richard turned to her slowly and smiled, not with his eyes. “Men are perhaps more complicated than you quite realize, dear Myra.” He raised his glass in a mocking toast.
She laughed. “Well, Harry isn’t complicated anyway. He’s just plain susceptible. I might be glowering a bit myself, seeing that he’s now giving that heavy-lidded bedroom look to your Celia, but actually, I think it’s funny.” And she did. She had all the assurance of beauty, position and experience. An unexpected move in the eternal game was zestful. Imagine that quiet little mouse of a Celia suddenly acting sexy, and looking it, too, Myra thought with critical interest. As though somebody had pressed a switch and a light bulb flared on. That this phenomenon was designed to pique the mysterious Richard, Myra had no doubt, since she was an adept at that ploy herself. And that the ploy seemed to be succeeding, Myra thought admirable. She shrugged mentally, retiring for the moment from the lists. She would deal with Harry later.
She also abandoned Richard and addressed Akananda on her left. “Tell me about India, Doctor,” she commanded. “My grandfather was stationed there, governing something or other, but I’ve never been east of Istanbul. Would I like India?”
Akananda, who had been gravely eating, responded with smiling courtesy. The other close watcher of Celia was Edna Simpson. Edna, thanks to the tincture, had slept heavily all afternoon, not even awakening at the housemaid’s knock when tea was brought up. During the nap she had suffered a recurrent nightmare. Every time that she roused a little and angrily heard herself moaning she slipped back again into the same high-vaulted room. Her host and hostess were in the nightmare though they did not look like themselves. Sir Richard had no face, but he had a fat long black snake twisted around his waist. The snake kept hissing and darting at her as she tried to grab it and strangle it. Or sometimes she wanted to grab the snake and make it bite Celia Marsdon, who stood spread-eagled against the stone wall.
The dream Celia had very long fair hair which she would not keep decently bound in a kerchief. That was one of her crimes. Another was the depth of her laced bodice. It showed pink nipples on the tips of full white breasts. Disgusting. So vile a creature should be destroyed. The crucifix said so. At this point Edna always saw a silver crucifix writhing with snakes, and Sir Richard standing behind it, laughing. He would not laugh when the wench was dead. God said so. God was perched on top of the crucifix and he had little black horns. “Kill!” he shouted. “Thou must kill! It is a commandment!” Then the snakes slithered off the crucifix and glided towards her. They reared their heads ready to strike.
Each time that Edna awoke, she heard herself making the mewing stifled noise. And her fat body was clammy with sweat.
She finally roused herself completely at the sound of the car returning from Ightham Mote. She looked down from her window. She watched as Sir Richard ran to the car, and saw Celia get out. She stared hard at Celia. While her brain felt thick, fuzzy. Her hands were shaking. She was trying to pour out more tincture as George timidly knocked then walked in.
“Have a good rest, m’dear?”
The green bottle rattled against the glass rim as Edna rounded on him. “Ye dumb bustard, creeping about like a cat. Ye’ve made me slosh me tonic. Wot be ye gawking at? Get oot a her-re!”
George bit his lips, his round jaw trembled. They had been married twenty-six years and he was quite fond of her. He had always coped with her quick tempers by capitulation or flight. But he had never seen her like this. Nor heard her forget her careful diction. He glanced frowning at the bottle of tincture, even though the stuffy room reeked only of peppermint. “Ought you take more of that stuff?” His voice faltered and he retreated as Edna raised a massive arm as though to strike him. Instead she seized the glass and gulped down what liquid hadn’t spilled.
“I need it for m’nerves,” she said in a more normal tone, “and my head’s splitting.” She belched and then began to hiccup.
“You shouldn’t go down for dinner, you’re not up to it,” he cried anxiously.
Edna hiccupped again and slumped on the bed. “Oh, I’m oop to it. Musht—must keep an eye on that mealy-mouthed minx.”
“Please, Edna . . . please . . .”
But her brain cleared, she stopped hiccupping and walked determinedly to the cupboard where the new evening frock from Harrods hung ready. It was of navy blue satin with white polka dots; it fitted snugly over the foundation garment which molded her abundant hips and breasts into a thick shapeless column. She ran a comb through her crinkled hair, polished her spectacles and set them squarely on her reddened nose.
“Coom on,” she said with her usual authority.
Edna had sat silent in the drawing room, contemptuously refusing cocktails—“I am afraid I don’t indulge.” At table she was silent, sitting like a monolith between Igor and Sir Harry, whose entire attention was devoted to Celia. Celia’s altered appearance and actions gave Edna a venomous satisfaction. The intruder, the interloper showing her true colors. Little slut, thought Edna. Her glance flickered once towards Richard, then back to Celia where it remained.
After the chocolate soufflé, Celia signalled to the women, rose, and led the way to the drawing room. The men remained behind for coffee and port, since Richard continued the old custom.
Celia poured coffee for the ladies. She responded to casual remarks from Myra, and Pam Bent-Warner. She assured Sue that the weather would probably hold, and there’d be tennis tomorrow. She brightly refused Lily’s whispered request that she take her temperature. “Oh, I’m all right, Mother, never felt better.”
Below these actions she was empty. “Celia” had gone off somewhere, far away, into a cramped little space. Cold, damp, far away. Someone else was using “Celia’s” bod
y. Someone else who could laugh and talk, who could think how ridiculous that Edna Simpson was, squatting on the gold sofa, her thighs spread wide under their covering of polka dots, the pale eyes looking blank as shutters behind the reflection of the bifocals.
As soon as the men joined them in the drawing room Celia jumped up crying, “Let’s do something! It’s Saturday night, and we’ve got to be gay! I know, let’s dance! We’ll go to Richard’s music room.”
“Splendid!” cried Igor, twirling gracefully on his toes and waving his beautiful white hands. Harry laughed, while eyeing Celia with the new startled admiration. Been so taken up with Myra I hardly noticed this gal before. Looks like a gypsy suddenly, and she most certainly leaned hard against me at dinner. Astonishing little beasts—women.
Pam Bent-Warner cried, “Ooh, what fun! I didn’t know you had a music room at Medfield Place, Richard! But then, there were never any parties in Sir Charles’s time.”
Everyone looked at Richard, who removed his unfathomable gaze from his wife and said, “‘Music room’ is a bit grand for the old schoolroom on the second story. I do happen to have a stereo there, and a collection of records which appeal to me. Nothing modern.”
His decisive tone piqued Myra, who cried, “Let’s go invade the schoolroom, see what Richard has got! He so obviously doesn’t want us to, I believe the records are naughty. Are they, Celia?”
“I don’t know,” answered Celia, in a voice as light and brittle as Myra’s. “Nothing about my husband would surprise me. I called it the music room because Nanny did once. Actually, I’ve never been in there. Richard keeps it locked.”
“Thrilling,” said Myra. Her long mocking green eyes turned from Richard’s stormy face to Celia’s flushed one, and she perceived that the girl was under great tension behind that flamboyant mask. She felt for Celia a sudden flicker of feminine alliance. “How thrilling,” she repeated. “Bluebeard’s closet with a gaggle of slaughtered wives? Or perchance a den of iniquity, psychedelic curtains, clouds of marijuana smoke, erotic statues! We’ll suspect the worst, darling. Unlock the ancient schoolroom door!”
Richard reddened. A furious refusal nearly burst out, but he encountered Akananda’s gaze. The anxious look of a distressed parent.
Richard controlled himself, and raising his eyebrows said, with a shrug, “Your lurid hopes will be disappointed, Myra. But, by all means let’s inspect the schoolroom. I lock it simply to keep out officious housemaids who disturb everything.”
This was not quite true. Richard locked the door because he had locked it since he was twelve, and the abandoned schoolroom represented the only privacy from his stepmother. It was situated in a remote part of the house next to the servants’ quarters. He had gone there seldom since his marriage, and then only when Celia had been shopping in Lewes, or up to London for the day. He had not known that she knew the room existed, and he resented her idiotic wish to expose it to all these people as much as he resented her extraordinary behavior since the return from Ightham Mote. Yet, he was aware of her as he had not been in months. Aware that she was alluring, desirable, that deep within him she was arousing a crude lust like the rare and repulsive seizures which had driven him to whorehouses in his university days.
Richard silently led the party upstairs into the south wing. He unlocked a cheap wooden door, dulled by neglected varnish.
“The Chamber of Horrors,” he said, “and, if you consider it either sinister or festive I shall be most interested.” He switched on the one electric light, which dangled from a massive old gas chandelier.
The room was quite large because the Victorian baronet had produced nine children, and had thrown together two servants’ rooms to use for the primary education of his brood. There was an empty coal grate opposite the door. Battered desks and stools had been piled against a wall. On the floor there was a length of ink-stained drugget. On a plain deal table stood the stereo phonograph, above a rack of records. The speakers had been placed at either end of a long bookshelf.
There were other objects in the room, but only Akananda saw them.
At the shadowy east end of the schoolroom the door of a closet had been removed, thus forming a shallow alcove. Akananda recognized the outline of a priedieu, or kneeling chair, and a wooden ledge behind, supporting two candlesticks, and above them on the wall, a crucifix, so black that it must be ebony; the Christ figure seemed to be made of tarnished silver.
Akananda knew at once that the crucifix was very old, and knew with equal certainty that Richard did not wish it to be noticed. Nor did anyone else notice the sketchy little chapel.
The disappointed house party grouped around the stereo, except Edna and George who had remained in the drawing room, Edna from annoyance with this impulsive expedition, George from diffidence.
“Good Lord, Richard,” cried Myra, after a rapid survey. “You win! I never saw a duller place. We can hardly dance here, Celia, but let’s see what the records are.”
She swooped down over the neatly filed rack and drew out one of the albums. She read the title aloud, hesitantly, “‘Gregorian Chants—Kyrie Altissime,’ from the ‘Graduale Romanum’—Heavens, what’s all that about?”
Richard gave a shrug. He answered with elaborate courtesy, “It is a plainchant as sung by monks throughout the Christian world, and for centuries. That one you picked is a ninefold Kyrie Eleison which means ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ and is always appropriate, I should think. Would you care to hear it?”
Myra swallowed. “I—I suppose so,” she said ruefully, “I brought it on myself, didn’t I!” She glanced at the others who had crowded into the schoolroom, at the young Bent-Warners and Sue, who looked blankly polite; at Igor, who was obviously enjoying what he had instantly perceived to be a scene of sorts; at Lily Taylor, who was staring in a nervous way at her son-in-law; at Celia, who had seated herself in the window, her head turned so that only one crystal earring glittered in the crude electric light, while Harry bent over her possessively. Myra was aware of that tension which had seemed to arise so often during this interminable day.
“Well, put the thing on—do, Richard,” she said impatiently.
He complied with deliberation, placing the record on the spindle, adjusting the speakers and the volume, flicking the control.
The schoolroom was suddenly filled with male voices, mournful and beseeching. “Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison,” chanted the voices, over and over, insistently minor and dirgelike.
Various shades of boredom gradually glazed all the faces that Akananda could see, but he also saw Celia’s back go rigid, and saw that she grabbed the window latch. Then, in Richard’s eyes he caught a strange, fleeting look of anguish, and what seemed to be tears. Poor fellow, I believe he’s chanted this himself in the past, Akananda thought, “Lord have Mercy, Christ have Mercy . . .” He does not quite know it, but he feels it, as I do.
When the record ended in a long drawn-out wail, Myra sat down on the only stool and lit a cigarette. “A bit monotonous,” she observed, “definitely damping to the spirits. Surely you don’t listen to this kind of stuff shut up here by yourself? You are rather peculiar, darling.”
“No doubt,” said Richard. He carefully removed the record and was replacing it in its case when Igor, who had been squinting at the titles in the rack, gave a pleased cry.
“But, here’s something different! ‘Merry Songs of Love-Sport,’ I think I’ve heard it!” He scanned the list of songs. “Oh . . . good and bawdy, you’re human after all, Richard! Let’s hear these!”
“Yes, let’s . . .” cried Myra, who had been peering over Igor’s shoulder at the sixteenth-century titles. “‘A Lusty Young Smith,’ ‘A Maiden Did a-Bathing Go,’ ‘A Rampant Cock.’ My, my, they sound promising, and here’s one about you, Celia! ‘Celia, The Wanton and Fair.’ Didn’t Richard ever play that for you?”
Celia slowly turned her head. “No . . .” she whispered, then cleared her throat to repeat more clearly, “No, I’ve never hear
d it.”
“And I’m quite sure those songs are not for mixed company,” struck in Lily, with decision, glancing at Sue. “We’ll go back downstairs. There’s bound to be something on television, or some of us can play bridge.”
Except for Igor, who wanted to hear the songs, everyone looked relieved. They straggled back down to the drawing room where Edna sat in glassy silence.
Since Celia at once regained her feverish glow and began to flirt with Harry—while Richard uncharacteristically ignored his duties as host, and poured himself a stiff brandy—Lily continued to try to retrieve the evening. An impossible feat. There was nothing interesting on television; nobody cared to play bridge.
Suddenly, Celia put her hand on Harry’s arm, and suggested quite audibly that he might like to see the garden by moonlight. He chuckled, and they disappeared together.
“Well—of all the brazen . . .” began Edna loudly, looking towards Richard who was pouring more brandy. Myra joined him with a highball.
“Are you the jealous type, my sweet?” she asked softly. “Because if Celia returns the same chaste wife she left, I don’t know Harry, nor does Celia seem to be in the mood to fight him off. Maybe she’s sexually frustrated . . .” added Myra in a silken voice.
Her boredom with the evening and desire to provoke Richard had led her further than she intended. The look on his face frightened her. It was murderous, dark blood suffused it, his body trembled. He said nothing at all.
“Good Lord, Richard,” she said apologetically. “No need to go all primitive, these are the nineteen-sixties, you know; and I was only kidding, as the Americans say. What is the matter with you? You used to be fun!”
He smiled then, a smile more frightening than the anger.
“All women are whores,” he said in the bland tone of one saying, “Please pass the salt.”