Oxford Blood

  At this moment, the rest of the meal having passed in a kind of daze for Jemima while she accepted food in continuing large quantities as a method of covering the desperate sorting of her thoughts, she was aware of a soft voice at the end of the table trying to engage her attention.

  'Miss Shore,' Lady St Ives was saying, leaning down the table. 'Isn't it lovely? Binyon will sing for us after dinner.' Jemima realized that Lady St Ives was actually doing that old-fashioned thing of catching her eye; as a result of which the ladies of Saffron Ivy were expected to abandon the dining room to the gentlemen.

  The sight of Lady St Ives' pale drawn cheeks, her thin throat hardly concealed by the rows of pearls, and a green silk evening dress, rather grand, the colour too bright for her complexion, reminded Jemima that the truth, if disclosed, would cause pain to far more people than merely Tiggie and Saffron. It would be a vicious stone to throw into any pool, and pain and astonishment and shock and scandal and fear would spread in rings.

  Fear. The word recalled her sharply to the original reason for her visit to Saffron Ivy. Someone was trying to kill Saffron. How and where did the surmise of his true parentage fit into this scheme of things?

  With a purpose which she hoped was not too apparent, Jemima sought out Eugenia Jones in the White Drawing Room as the ladies settled themselves down for their period of ritual planned waiting. It was noticeable how the style of the White Drawing Room rendered some costumes so much more appropriate than others. Lady St Ives settling her wide emerald green taffeta skirts and picking up a large bundle of embroidery, possessed an unconscious grace which she had not displayed throughout the day. Fanny Iverstone, in a pale pink dress with a wide white collar which owed a great deal to the current fashions of the Princess of Wales (although their figures were markedly different), suddenly looked elegant; her healthy plainness vanished. But Tiggie, in a white chiffon dress, no petticoat but a trail of sequins laid across it, and a bedraggled feather in her hair, looked like a little ghost. There was no place for her at Saffron Ivy.

  'Gommer's dress,' exclaimed Fanny, as though she read Jemima's thoughts. 'I've got it. You're wearing Gommer's court dress, Tiggie.' She sounded quite angry. 'And you've torn it.'

  At once Tiggie, in her chiffon, stood and sketched an impertinent little dance in front of Fanny; she did it all without speaking, like some chiffon-draped Squirrel Nutkin in front of a conspicuously irritated Brown Owl. But she was much hampered by her shoes: battered white satin court shoes, several sizes too big. The long white kid gloves, with their pearl buttons, were also too big.

  'Doesn't the dress look charming on Antigone?' enquired Lady St Ives to the world at large. 'It belonged to Ivo's mother,' she added into the general silence. 'Darling Gommer. How we all loved her.' Her voice trailed away.

  'We used to be allowed to dress up in her clothes as children. On special occasions. If we were very careful.' Fanny still sounded sulky. 'Such a pity if it were ruined now.'

  Daphne shot Fanny a look in which the warning was unmistakable. It was the look of the poor relation down the ages. The look meant: don't overstep the mark. It's Tiggie's dress now - or it will be. And one day, who knows, we will depend on her favour to come here. If we come here at all.

  The full dislike which both ladies harboured for Tiggie was equally unmistakable.

  Jemima was just thinking how ironic it was that Tiggie's dress, deemed by her so inappropriate, had actually turned out to be, as it were, the dress of the house, when Tiggie made her first pronouncement since they had entered the White Drawing Room.

  'I think I'll just go and have some sleepy-byes,' said Tiggie. She half danced, half stumbled towards the door, catching her foot in its battered white satin shoe with the pointed toe in the train as she did so. (Gommer St Ives' shoes? Presumably.) There was a tearing sound.

  Fanny cast her eyes up to heaven. Daphne Iverstone hummed. Lady St Ives kept her eyes on her embroider)'. Jemima, seeing her opportunity, sat down hastily beside Eugenia Jones, who, as ever where she was concerned, had not sought to intervene or even speak to her daughter.

  'She's very like you—' Eugenia Jones creased her lips slightly. 'To look at, I mean,' continued Jemima. 'But then I suppose one always thinks that, if one knows only one parent.'

  Eugenia Jones inclined her head.

  'Perhaps Tiggie is after all very like her father?'

  Eugenia Jones looked at Jemima with her enormous dark hooded eyes, eyes which despite being surrounded with a network of wrinkles, were still beautiful. She wore no make-up whatsoever: the effect was in one sense to make her look haggard beyond her years; but in another way the untouched olive skin, if one ignored the lines, the full mouth and fine firm chin, were ageless and might have belonged to a much younger woman.

  'Tiggie's father died before she was born. I was never able to compare the two.'

  The words were sufficiently abrupt to encourage Jemima, rather than the reverse. She felt some kind of advantage coming her way. 'How sad.' 'Sad?'

  'For you of course. But I actually meant: how sad for Tiggie never to have known her father.'

  'At the time - I was very young - it seemed more important that I did have her, than that she did not have a father.'

  'And now?'

  'Don't you find, Miss Shore, that being stuck with the decisions we make when we are too young to understand their possible consequences, is one of the most disagreeable aspects of middle age?'

  Then Eugenia Jones unexpectedly gave Jemima a most ravishing smile which eradicated the heaviness of her face and transformed it.

  'What am I saying? You are so much younger than I. What do you know of these things?'

  At that point, before Jemima could answer, the gentlemen appeared at the door of the White Drawing Room, preceded by Binyon bearing a tray which bore three categories of glasses: heavy tumblers of whisky, delicate champagne glasses and smaller tumblers which appeared to contain barley water. The choice of drink proved something of a test of character, even if it was not so intended. Both Lord St Ives and Andrew Iverstone took whisky, both Lady St Ives and Daphne Iverstone refused altogether.

  Saffron took three glasses of champagne, deposited one dexterously in front of Jemima and then preceded to sit at her feet nursing the other two. Fanny Iverstone and Poppy Delaware, and most of the other girls, took champagne; Jack Iverstone, alone of the young men, chose barley water.

  A little later all were once more concentrated on the figure of Binyon as the butler, standing in a position of advantage in the middle of the drawing room, began to sing with that mixture of melody and confidence which had once held fourteen million television viewers enthralled. Binyon, like the great John McCormack on whom, according to Lady St Ives, he modelled himself, had a tenor voice. And Jemima (who had once been presented with a McCormack record by Jamie Grand, a self-acknowledged expert on the subject) could see that the resemblance had been cultivated. It amused her to find this McCormack of the eighties dominating the after-dinner scene at the noble house of Saffron Ivy with his performance, so that there was no possibility of conversation, and all on the strength of his telly triumph. It was a splendid butlerian triumph of the times in which Downstairs finally succeeded in subjugating Upstairs (Jemima, for example, was longing to continue her conversation with Eugenia Jones) through the medium of television, just because they both shared it equally.

  'Fear no more ...' sang Binyon, his fine chest rising and falling.

  Jemima looked round. Fear. Saffron had settled his back comfortably against Jemima's knees which she found slightly embarrassing but not disagreeable. Tiggie had not reappeared. On a particularly sentimental song, Daphne Iverstone took her husband's hand: he did not disengage it. Jack and Fanny sat slightly apart from the rest of Saffron's friend, although Fanny at least had been very much part of the Oxford group in all the earlier festivities.

  Fear. She felt it. Someone in this room was frightened. Was it Eugenia Jones, frightened by the whirlwind which she was now rea
ping? Lord St Ives? His part in all this remained an enigma, if one that Jemima was determined to solve in the future. But she could not imagine pure fear as such ever holding this man in its grip. Proffy? He had placed himself beside Eugenia Jones on arrival in the drawing room; now he was leaning back and was either fast asleep or shamming sleep. Jemima remembered that Proffy like Eugenia lones was a passionate lover of opera: it was possible that he did not regard the singing butler with, for example, the same indulgent approval as Lady St Ives. As for the lady in question she was definitely asleep: quietly dozing over her embroidery.

  Golden lads and girls all must

  Like chimneysweepers come to dust.

  Jemima shivered. How odd, how morbid, that Binyon should have chosen that particular song on which to end his recital, in view of Saffron's unpleasantly publicized involvement with the club making use of that name. Perhaps it was innocent. Or perhaps it was deliberate: perhaps Binyon, no more than the rest of the world, did not love his employer's wild young son for the extravagances of his privileged youth, having witnessed them first hand.

  Binyon gave a ceremonial bow. There was a flutter of applause. Lady St Ives gave a slight start and clapped in her turn. Proffy had clapped loudly from the beginning. His eyes however remained shut. Shortly after that the evening broke up. That is to say, the bright young things, including Fanny, proposed to vanish to some distant ground-floor billiard room now fitted up as a music room where it was understood they would play their 'horrible tunes' - Lord St Ives' cheerful phrase - out of earshot, as late and as long as they liked. Only Jack said he would prefer to go to bed.

  'Oh Jack!’ exclaimed Fanny. 'Just for once, why don't you unwind?'

  Jack gave a comic shudder.

  'Unwind to the sound of Saffron's thousand-pound amplified torture chamber? I shall be fresh for tennis - and revenge - in the morning.'

  'I shan't be long,' remarked Fanny rather vaguely as though some explanation was due to her brother.

  'I'll be along later,' said Saffron. 'Bernardo - the key—' He tossed across a large key. There was something almost too carefully casual about his voice. 'Something I have to do.'

  All in all, Jemima was not totally surprised when, about fifteen minutes after she had entered her vast dark bedroom, with its canopied bed, the door opened silently.

  Saffron entered. He was still dressed in the white ruffled shirt he had worn beneath his dinner jacket, but had taken off the tie. The shirt was open to the waist. His black eyes glittered. Jemima thought he was rather drunk.

  'To what do I owe this honour?'

  'The West Bedroom? I thought you were in Lady Anne's Bedroom. You might have told me. I've just been invited rather sharply to leave by Cousin Daphne. As if I should want to seduce her.'

  He was definitely drunk.

  'Your luck is out. You're about to be invited equally sharply to leave the West Bedroom.'

  'It's pretty, isn't it?' said Saffron inconsequentially, touching the faded chintz in a pattern of wisteria which was hung everywhere in the room. 'I think this is the room where I had my first fuck—'

  'Saffron—'

  'Or was it the Elizabethan Bedroom? Do you know, I think I've had someone in every room in this house. Except the servants' bedrooms, of course. And even one or two of those—'

  'Saffron, will you spare me? Your reminiscences. And your boasting. Both.'

  'Sorry. Gone too far. Really very sorry.' Jemima said nothing.

  'Don't you fancy me, Jemima Shore? I rather thought you did. Don't fancy the bastard?' Saffron put his arms around Jemima from behind and held her for a moment, pressing himself against her. 'A bastard. That's what I am, aren't I? You know it's true. We discovered it. You and I. The blood thing doesn't work. I am a bastard. Rather romantic in literature. I'm not so sure in real life. Don't you fancy me?'

  Jemima still said nothing.

  'Wouldn't you like to be in that bed with me? Cheer me up? I'm drunk of course. But not that drunk, not too drunk. Just say the word and I'll come back. I'll creep in. Lights out. No one will ever know. Go on. Say I can come back. Don't worry. I'm not going to force myself on you. Rape isn't my thing, you know.'

  Jemima, Saffron's arms still around her, feeling the dreadful possibility that the treacherous flesh might somehow betray her, remained silent. It was the best she could do.

  'Don't say anything then. I'll come anyway.'

  ‘Dont,' she said at last.

  'You don't mean that.'

  There was another pause.

  'Yes, I do.' Then she added: 'But Saffron, I'm sorry.'

  'I know you are. Bless you for that anyway.' He sounded more sober all of a sudden. 'You go to sleep in your great big bed,' said Saffron gently. He kissed her and this time she did not resist, but kissed him back, a consoling, passionless kiss. He went.

  All the same, long after Saffron had gone, Jemima found herself lying awake. Worse still, she discovered that oddly her ear was still slightly cocked for the discreet click of an opening door.

  Her door did not open. But sometime in the night hours, she did hear the distinct noise of a door opening and shutting somewhere else along the corridor of the big silent house. Jemima surmised, sardonically, that Saffron might be trying his luck elsewhere. Or might just conceivably be joining his lawful if thoroughly stoned fiancee, Tiggie Jones, in her drugged slumbers.

  Jemima finally fell asleep.

  In her dream she was aware of a body, a warm body, sliding into bed beside her. Somebody was pulling up the thin silk of her nightdress. Someone was touching her. She felt a hard, hot body against hers ... she had no idea what the time was when out of the mists of sleep, Jemima was aware that somewhere along the way, her dream had turned into reality. Someone was touching her, but touching her on the shoulder, on the cheek. Someone was pulling at her, whispering to her. The light snapped on.

  Jemima found herself gazing at Saffron. He was wearing a red towelling robe and nothing else. He looked ghastly.

  'Jemima, please come, please help me. It's Tiggie. Something's happened to her,' he was saying. 'You must help me. I think - think she's dead.'

  17

  Two Unlucky Lives

  Jemima followed Saffron in his red towelling robe down the broad darkened corridor, oil paintings of bygone Iverstones dimly glimpsed, nearly to the end where a big uncurtained window looked onto the park. Tiggie's bedroom - inconsequentially Jemima noticed the name 'The Butterfly Room' on the open door - had one light burning by the bed. The bed was smaller than Jemima's, canopied in soft white material on which butterflies were lightly printed.

  On the walls there hung various pictures made up of brilliant butterflies, pinned down in deep frames. On the bed lay the little butterfly, Tiggie Jones, with her hand stretched out as though in appeal. She was naked except for a pair of tiny white briefs; her body was so thin that she had the air of a naked child asleep in a picture. Her eyes were shut. There was no sign that she was breathing.

  Jemima ran forward and felt her pulse. There was no pulse that she could find. She felt her flat infantine chest; it was still. Then Jemima stumbled on something at her feet. It was a syringe. She pushed it aside, then, more carefully, picked it up between finger and thumb and put it on the table. The syringe lay next to a glass paper-weight containing a butterfly whose spread wings were the colour of viridian.

  Tiggie's body was not cold, but it was not completely warm either. There was a cool damp feel to it.

  Jemima pulled one of the sheets over Tiggie's body, leaving her head still exposed as it lay half on, half off the white pillow.

  'A doctor. Saffron, you must get a doctor at once.'

  Saffron turned, hesitated.

  'Tigs. Is she dead?'

  'I don't know.'

  'She is dead.'

  'Get a doctor for God's sake! He'll tell you.' 'Yes, yes, I'm sorry. Look—' 'I'll stay here. In case—' 'OK. And - thanks.'

  It seemed to Jemima an age before Saffron returned altho
ugh probably not much more than fifteen minutes had passed while she sat in a low embroidered chair beside Tiggie's bed in the Butterfly Room.

  Twice Jemima touched Tiggie again and felt if there was a pulse. She could find nothing. She believed the body was growing cooler. She began to try and order her thoughts a little.

  Tiggie was dead. Jemima had not much doubt of that. But Tiggie had not been dead long. How had she died? Her eyes were closed. Had she administered some fatal dose by mistake and in the mists of a narcotic dream passed from life into sleep and from sleep into death. Or...

  When Saffron came back he was dressed: jeans, an old green jersey and trainer shoes. That reminded Jemima that she was only wearing her silk nightdress and a thin kimono over it; she was barefoot. Grey light was beginning to steal through the thick curtains, chintz patterned in butterflies. Jemima like Tiggie was growing cold. It seemed another age in which Saffron had put his warm arms around her and tried to take her into bed.

  'He's coming. The doctor. I've told Pa. He'll be along. He's dressing and waking Binyon to let in the doctor. We're letting Ma sleep.' 'What happened? To Tiggie.' 'She's still... ?'

  'I'm afraid so. What happened? After you left me.'

  'I was drunk. You know that. Christ—' Saffron put his hand to his brow. He had dressed but he had not combed his hair; the effect was to make him, like Tiggie, look very young. 'It's odd, I don't feel at all drunk now. Anyway, what happened? First, I went back downstairs to the old Billiard Room and drank a good deal more. A lot of champagne. A lot of whisky. We watched this horror video which Ned brought. Called The Girl-eating Ghouls or something like that. Did somebody have some coke? Probably. I was too drunk to care. At some point they all went to bed. I roamed about a bit. I like this house at night. Even as a child - look, the point is I don't really remember. I think I attempted to pay a social call on Nessa, rather forgetting that old Bernardo was here, but he was here, or rather he was there, and they didn't seem to welcome the idea of a party. Then I went back to the old Billiard Room. It was empty. Played some music, The Clash, Thriller, that kind of thing. I may have ended on Wagner. Then back up here. A call on Tigs. When I found her.'