37

The cluster of tiny tombstones amid the trees reminded him of Gayfere. He imagined him buried here, alongside the mortal remains of Toby and Fido and Sue. Where is your bark now?

As he walked back to the house, he scanned the four windows of Mrs Shakeshaft’s bedroom, hoping to see her peeping out.

She’s hiding from me; this is absurd.

It occurred to him that she need never appear again; she could become a recluse in her own house—it was large enough to conceal one frightened woman—but how about hunting? Was she going to give that up? He did not think this possible.

While Herbert was trying on his father’s helmet, with its handsome plume, and dropping the breast plate upon the floor, Pellerin was turning over the pages of an album of photo­graphs. He recognized one Prime Minister and two Foreign Secretaries, guests at Bezill apparently.

He and Herbert were up in the tower. There was no Gayfere to disturb them now. Pellerin had taken in the view of the surrounding countryside, and seen at close range a kestrel in flight. He was feeling like an usurper king—at any moment, he feared, Mrs Gayfere would appear, and kick him down. I’m the queen of the castle, get down you dirty rascal.

He’d come up here to please Herbert (who was now losing himself in his father’s enormous cavalry boots), and to find out what there was to find out.

Mrs Shakeshaft had had a tremendous row with her husband who was having an affair with her sister, Marion. Oh, well, that sort of thing went on even in the best of families.

Now here was a photograph of Herbert’s father at Eton. And here he was at Sandhurst with other gentlemen cadets.

“That’s Aunt Marion,” said Herbert as the page fell open at the photograph of a young woman with light, sad eyes and a fluffy dog in her arms.

A pretty woman. How could one tell, from that dreamy face, that one day she’d go off her rocker, and stay off it, in spite of all the king’s psychiatrists to get her back again. No smiler, she, but what was there to smile about?

“So that’s Aunt Marion,” said Pellerin.

Herbert drew the fearsome sword from its scabbard and pointed it at his tutor.

Pellerin, undaunted, turned the pages. At any moment he would fall dead for prizing open these secrets.

The girls’ cricket eleven, Aunt Marion among them. A stalwart lot, they. Their names were printed below. Marion Shakeshaft . . .

Pellerin paused, and his head went up a couple of inches. Shakeshaft? That was a mistake, surely? Or was she a Shakeshaft? Impossible.

Oh, well, incest was not unheard of, even in the best of families. Far worse horrors had been committed in these days. He’d probably given her a baby. Careless fellow. No wonder she’d gone off her rocker . . .

Pellerin closed the album with a slam. He wanted to get out of this place, lock the door, never come back.

And what had happened to the baby, if there had been one? Come to think of it, Herbert didn’t look like his mother at all. Pellerin opened the album again, hurriedly turned the pages till he found the photograph of Miss Marion Shakeshaft with her fluffy dog. Yes, Herbert did look extraordinarily like her . . . Did it matter? Pellerin found himself looking at his pupil with critical apprehension.

But they had been quarrelling when Herbert was four years old . . . Well, of course, Captain Shakeshaft could have continued the liaison in secret. He’d been forgiven once, perhaps twice, and Alice had adopted the baby, but like the dog that returneth to its vomit . . . Pellerin heard the dim reverberation of Gayfere’s voice: “You must divorce him. A man who will sleep with his sister, who will persist in sleeping with his sister, will do anything.” But Captain Shakeshaft had saved them the trouble of divorcing him, and his sister had gone clean off her rocker.

Poor boy. He must never know. Never, never, never, never! No wonder he wrote poetry and had fits.

Suddenly he saw Mrs Gayfere in a new light. She was as cold as an ice lolly, but it was not surprising. Who wouldn’t be as cold as an ice lolly in the circumstances? As cold as the cold winds of hell.