Clarissa laughed, a small bell note of triumph.
'Darling, I wasn't asking for a family history.'
'Weren't you?' he said easily. 'Oh, I rather thought you were.'
The table fell into a silence which, to Cordelia's relief, lasted with few interruptions until the meal was at last over and Munter opened the door for the women to follow Clarissa into the drawing-room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ivo wanted neither coffee nor liqueur but he carried the decanter of claret and his glass with him into the drawing-room and settled himself in an armchair between the fire and the open french windows. He felt no particular social responsibility for the rest of the evening. The dinner had been sufficiently grim, and he had every intention of getting quietly but thoroughly drunk. He had listened too much to his doctors. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it. Obviously, what he needed was to drink more, not less; and if it could be wine of this quality and at Ambrose's expense, so much the better. Already his self-disgust at allowing Clarissa to provoke him into that spurt of angry revelation was fading under the influence of the wine. And what was taking its place was a gentle euphoria in which his mind became supernaturally clear, while the faces and words of his companions moved into a different dimension so that he watched their antics with bright sardonic eyes as he might actors on a stage.
Simon was preparing to play for them, arranging his music on the stand with uncertain hands. Ivo thought: Oh God, not Chopin followed by Rachmaninov. And why, he wondered, was Clarissa draping herself over the boy, ready to turn the pages? It wasn't as if she could read music. If this was to be the start of her usual system of alternate kindness and brutality she would end by driving the boy out of his wits as she had his father. Roma, in the taffeta dress which would have looked too young on an ingénue of eighteen, was sitting rigidly on the edge of her chair like a parent at a school concert. Why should she care how the boy performed? Why should any of them care? Already his nervousness was communicating itself to his audience. But he played better than Ivo expected, only occasionally attempting to disguise the misfingerings by too fast a tempo and the over-use of the sustaining pedal. Even so, it was too like a public performance to be enjoyable, the pieces chosen to show off his technique, the occasion made more important than anyone wanted. And it went on too long. At the end Ambrose said:
'Thank you, Simon. What are a few wrong notes between friends? And now, where are the songs of yesteryear?'
The decanter was now less than a quarter full. Ivo stretched himself more deeply in the chair and let the voices come to him from an immense distance. They were all round the piano now, roaring out sentimental Victorian drawing-room ballads. He could hear Roma's contralto, invariably late and slightly off-key, and Cordelia's clear soprano, a convent-trained voice, a little unsure but clear and sweet. He watched Simon's flushed face as he bent over the keys, the look of intense, exultant concentration.
He was playing with more assurance and sensitivity now than he had alone. For once, the boy was enjoying himself.
After about half an hour Roma drifted away from the piano and walked over to look at two oils by Frith, crowded anecdotal canvases showing rail-travellers going to the Derby by first class and third class. Roma walked from one to the other studying them intently as if to check that no detail of social or sartorial contrast had been neglected by the artist. Then Clarissa suddenly dropped her hand from Simon's shoulder, swept past Ivo, her chiffon floating against his knee, and went out on the terrace alone. Cordelia and Ambrose were left singing together. The three of them at the piano were linked by their enjoyment, seemingly unaware of their audience, transposing and consulting, choosing and comparing and collapsing into laughter when a piece proved beyond their range or competence. Ivo recognized only a few of the songs; Peter Warlock's Elizabethan pastiches, Vaughan Williams's 'Bright is the Ring of Words'. He was listening now with the nearest he had come to happiness since his illness had been diagnosed. Nietzsche was wrong; it wasn't action but pleasure which bound one to existence. And he had become afraid of pleasure; to admit even the possibility of joy to his shrivelled senses was to open the mind to anguish and regret. But now, listening to that sweet voice blending with Ambrose's baritone and floating past him out and over the sea, he lay back, weightless, in a dreamy contentment which was without bitterness and without pain. And gradually his senses began to tingle into life. He was aware of the cool stream of air from the window on his face, nothing as inconvenient as a draught, but a barely perceptible sensation like a stroking finger; of the sharp red of the wine glowing in the decanter and its softness against his tongue; of the smell of the wood fire, evocative of lost boyhood autumns.
And then his mood was broken. Clarissa stormed into the room from the terrace. Simon heard her and stopped playing in mid-bar. The two voices sang on for a few notes then broke off. Clarissa said:
'I'll have enough of amateurs before the weekend's finished without you three adding to the boredom. I'm going to bed. Simon, it's time you called it a day. We'll go together; I want to see to your room. Cordelia, ring for Tolly will you and tell her
I'm ready for her, then come up in fifteen minutes, I want to discuss arrangements for tomorrow. Ivo, you're drunk.'
She waited with a shiver of impatience until Ambrose had opened the door for her, then swept out, merely pausing briefly to offer him her cheek to kiss. He bent forward but was too late and his pursed lips pecked ludicrously at the air. Simon bundled up his music with shaking hands, looked round as if for help, and ran after her. Cordelia went across to where the embroidered rope hung by the side of the fireplace. Roma said:
'Black marks all round. We should have realized that we're here to applaud Clarissa's talent not to demonstrate our own. If you plan to make a career as secretary-companion, Cordelia, you'll have to learn more tact.'
Ivo was aware of Ambrose bending over him, of his flushed face and the black eyes bright and malicious under the strong half circles.
'Are you drunk, Ivo? You're remarkably quiet.'
*I thought I was, but I seem not to be. Sobriety has overtaken me. But if you would open another bottle I could begin the agreeable process again. Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.'
'But shouldn't you keep your mind clear for the task of tomorrow?'
Ivo held out the empty decanter. He was surprised to see that his hand was perfectly steady. He said:
'Don't worry. I shall be sober enough for what I have to do tomorrow.'
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Cordelia waited exactly fifteen minutes, refused Ambrose's offer of a nightcap, then made her way upstairs. The communicating door between her room and Clarissa's was ajar and she went through without knocking. Clarissa, in her cream satin dressing-gown, was sitting at the dressing-table. Her hair was tugged back from her face and tied with a ribbon at the nape of the neck; her hairline was bound with a crêpe band. She was scrutinizing her face in the glass and didn't look round.
The room was lit only by one bright light on the dressing-table and the softer glow of the bedside lamp. A thin wood fire crackled in the grate and threw leaping shadows over the richness of damask and mahogany. The air smelt of woodsmoke and perfume and the room, dim and mysterious, struck Cordelia as smaller and more luxurious than in its daytime brightness. But the bed was more than ever dominant, glowing under its scarlet canopy, sinister and portentous as a catafalque. Cordelia was certain that Tolly must have been there hefore her. The sheets were turned back and Clarissa's nightdress had been laid out, its waist pinched. It looked like a shroud. In the shadowed half-light it was easy to imagine that she stood in the doorway of a bedroom in Amalfi with Webster's doomed duchess bright-haired at her toilet, while horror and corruption stalked in the shadows and beyond the half-open window a tideless Mediterranean lay open to the moon.