A Guilty Thing Surprised Part 1

A Guilty Thing Surprised.

Ruth Rendell.

For Michael Richards, my cousin, with love.

High instincts, before which our mortal nature.

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised; ... those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day ...

-William Wordsworth.

1.

WHEN Quentin Nightingale left home for London each morning his wife was always still asleep. His housekeeper served him with breakfast, opened the front door for him and handed him his hat and his umbrella, while the au pair girl fetched his newspaper. Next to speed him on his way were the two gardeners, saluting him with a respectful 'Good morning, sir', then perhaps his brother-in-law, hurrying to the sequestered peace of his writer's haven in the Old House. Only Elizabeth was missing, but if Quentin minded he never showed it. He walked briskly and confidently towards his car like a happy man.

On this particular morning in early September everything was just as usual except that Quentin didn't need his umbrella. The gardens of Myfleet Manor lay half-veiled by a golden mist which promised a beautiful day. Quentin came down the stone steps from the front door and paused briefly in the shrubbery to remind Will Palmer that the incurved chrysanthemums they were nursing for Kingsmarkham flower show were due for a dose of liquid fertiliser. Then he followed the path to the courtyard between the old coach-houses, where his car, its windscreen newly polished by Sean Lovell, stood waiting.

Quentin was a little early. Instead of getting into his car, he strolled to the low wall and looked down over the Kingsbrook valley. The view never ceased to delight him.

Hardly another house was visible, only the meadows, green, and, those that had been newly shorn, pale gold; the river winding through its thin sleeve of willows; the low round hills each topped with its ring of trees, and there, to his left, on the other side of the road, the great fir forest.

It covered a whole range of hills and this morning in the mist it looked like a dark velvet cloak flung carelessly across the landscape. Qucntin was always thinking of metaphors for the forest, comparing it to something, romanticising it. Sometimes he thought of it not as a forest or a velvet cloak but as a rec.u.mbent animal, guarding the fields while it slept, and of those irradiating plantations as spread, powerful and protective paws.

He turned his gaze to his own parkland, then to the nearer grounds, the sleek misted lawns and the ma.s.sed roses whose colours were made pallid by haze, and he was just considering whether he should take a rose, an Iceberg perhaps or a Super Star, when a finger touched his shoulder and a cool voice said: 'To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man.'

'Good morning, Denys,' Quentin said heartily. 'Not a very cheerful quotation to make on a lovely morning. Wordsworth, isn't it?'

Denys Villiers nodded. 'If I'm not cheerful,' he said, 'it must be because term begins in two days' time and after that I shan't get any more work done till Christmas. By the way, I've something for you.' He opened his briefcase and brought out a book, new, glossy, evidently fresh from the binders. 'An advance copy,' he said. 'I thought you might like it.'

Quentin's face lit with pleasure. He read the t.i.tle: Wordsworth in Love, by Denys Villiers, and then, with barely controlled excitement, he turned to the dedication. This he read aloud. ' "For my brother-in-law, Quentin Nightingale, a true friend and patron." Ah, Denys, that's wonderful! Makes me feel like Southampton.'

Villiers gave one of his crooked, rare smiles. 'The only begetter of these ensuing essays, Mr Q.N ....'He frowned, as if at his own weakness. 'As long as you like it. Well, as I have work to do and so do you ...'

'Yes, I must be off. Look after yourself, Denys. I shan't be able to wait to get home and start on this.' He tapped the book, patted Villiers' shoulder and turned away. Villiers pushed open the door in the Old House wall and entered the shady court where limes and cypresses grew and where the sun never penetrated. Still smiling, his present on the seat beside him, Quentin drove away to London.

Elizabeth Nightingale spent an hour preparing herself for the eyes of the world. The effect aimed at was one of simple youth, spotless, fresh, lightly painted, dressed with casual precision or perhaps precise casualness. People said she looked no more than twenty-five. Ah, said Elizabeth to her reflection, but they didn't know me when I was twenty-five! Sometimes she also said that nowadays it took her twice as long to look half as good.

Ever-democratic, she took her morning coffee with the staff in the kitchen. The two gardeners sat at either end of the table and Elizabeth sat opposite Katje Doorn. Mrs Cantrip drank her coffee standing up, issuing her orders.

'If you catch sight of that Alf Tawney, Will, mind you tell him I've got a chicken ordered for tonight and I want it this morning, not five minutes before Madam's dinnertime. Take your elbows off the table, young Sean. If I've told you once, I've told you fifty times. Now, Catcher, when you've drunk your coffee you can take Mr Villiers' over to him. He'll think we're all dead and that's a fact. And, for pity's sake, turn off that radio. Madam doesn't want to listen to that racket, I'm sure.'

'Oh, but I like pop, Mrs Cantrip,' said Elizabeth.

Sean lifted his head. 'Only got to look at you,' he said, 'to see you're no square.'

Shocked, Mrs Cantrip said, 'That's no way to talk to Madam!'

'I take it as a great compliment,' said Elizabeth.

Sean's dark face flushed with pleasure and he smiled his pomegranate smile, showing even white teeth between red lips. Inspired by his employer's encouragement, he eyed first Mrs Cantrip and then Will Palmer. Katje was giggling, but he ignored her. 'You're all the same, you oldies,' he said, 'stuck in the same old groove.'

'Your groove's gardening and don't you forget it. You'll never be one of them singers.'

'And why not?' But Sean's aggressive mood had changed to despair. 'I'll have to get cracking, I'll just have to. I said to my old lady, Time's getting on, I'll be twentythree come April. What would have happened if the Beatles had waited till they was twenty-three before making a start?'

'What would have happened?' said Mrs Cantrip. 'The world'd have been a quieter place and that's a fact.'

'Never mind, Sean,' said Elizabeth with her sweet smile. 'You know what I've promised. I won't forget.' And Sean nodded eagerly, watching Elizabeth with rapt eyes. 'Now, Will, there's a suit Mr Nightingale's finished with that might fit you. While I'm in the giving vein, I've packed up a little parcel for your mother, Katje. Some of those biscuits she can't get in Holland. You'll find it on the hall table with a parcel of mine. Perhaps you'd take them to the post?'

'Madam,' said Mrs Cantrip when Elizabeth had gone, 'is an angel. It's a crying shame there aren't more like her about.'

Katje giggled.

The mist had lifted and the rooms of Myfleet Manor were full of light-strong, late summer sunlight that would show up the slightest vestige of dust, But Mrs Cantrip and Katje had been at work and there was no dust. Elizabeth walked from room to room across the thick smooth sun-bathed carpets, checking that the flowers in copper bowls and famille rose vases were still fresh, occasionally drawing a curtain to protect old delicate satin from the sun. From her bedroom window she watched Katje cross Myfleet village street, holding the two parcels, the one for Holland and the one for London in her plump pink hands. Elizabeth sighed.

Almost any of her friends or her servants would have supposed she sighed because Katje had left both the gates-wrought-iron gates whose design was of wyverns rampant with snouts which should have met at the lock-wide open. On the bright white surface of the road Katje's shadow was black and bouncy, a little deformed by the bulges the parcels made.

Elizabeth went down and closed the gates. She got into the Lotus, driving first to Queens Waterford to discuss with Lady Larkin-Smith the arrangements for the country club dance, next to Pomfret to receive from Mrs Rogers the proceeds from the Cancer Relief collection, lastly to the hairdresser's in Kingsmarkham. She kept the windows of the car wide open, the top down, and her primrose pale hair streamed out behind her as she drove, like the thistledown hair of a young girl.

At half past one Mrs Cantrip served luncheon in the dining room. Katje's status gave her the right to eat en famille, but in the absence of Quentin Nightingale she said little. The woman and the girl ate their asparagus, their ham and their blackberry shortcake, in a silence which Elizabeth occasionally broke to comment with pleasure on the food. When they had finished Katje said she would have preferred chipolata pudding.

'You must teach Mrs Cantrip to make it.'

'Perhaps I am teaching her this afternoon,' said Katje, who had difficulties with her present tense.

'What a good idea!'

'When you are tasting it perhaps you never wish blackberries again.' Katje poked about in her mouth, retrieving seeds from between her teeth.

'We shall have to see. I'm going up for my rest now. If anyone calls or telephones, remember, I'm not to be disturbed.'

'I am remembering,' said Katje.

'Were you thinking of going out tonight?'

'I meet a boy in Kingsmarkharn and maybe we go to the movies.'

'Cinema or pictures, Katje,' said Elizabeth gently. 'You must only say movies when you're in the United States. You can take one of the cars if you like but I'd rather you didn't take the Lotus. Your mother wouldn't like to think of you driving a fast sports car.'

'I am taking the Mini, please?'

'That's right.'

Katje cleared the table and put the crockery in.the dish washer with the gla.s.s and the plates from Denys Villiers' luncheon tray.

'Now I am teaching you to make chipolata pudding,' she announced to Mrs Cantrip, who had been taking ten minutes off with a cup of tea and the Daily Sketch.

'And what might that be when it's at home? You know Madam never has no sausages in this house.'

'Is not sausages. Is cream and jelly and fruit. We have cream, yes? We have eggs? Come on now, Mrs Cantrip, dear.'

'There's no peace for the wicked and that's a fact,'said Mrs Cantrip, heaving herself out of her rocking chair. 'Though what's wrong with a good English dessert I never shall know. Mr Villiers ate up every sc.r.a.p of his.

Mind you, with all that book-writing he gets a hearty appet.i.te.'

Katje fetched eggs and cream from the refrigerator, 'Often I am asking myself,' she said thoughtfully, 'why he is not working in his own home.

When he has a wife too, is odd, very funny.'

'And might I ask what it's got to do with you, Catcher? The fact is Mr Villiers has always worked up there. It must be fourteen or fifteen years since Mr Nightingale had the Old House done up for Mr Villiers to work in. It's quiet, see? And Mr Nightingale's got a very soft spot for Mr Villiers.'

'A soft spot?'

'I don't know, these foreigners! I mean he likes him, lie's fond of him. I reckon he's proud of having an author in the family. Switch the beater on, then.'

Tipping the cream into a bowl, Katjc said, 'Mrs Nightingale is not liking him at all. Every day in the holidays he is working up there and never, not once, Mrs Nightingale is going to see him. Is funny not to like her own brother.'

'Maybe he's not easy to like,' said Mrs Cantrip. 'You can depend on it, if there's a quarrel-and I'm not saying there is, mind-it's not Madam's fault. He's got a very funny manner with him, has Mr Villiers. A nasty temper, like sarcastic. Between you and me, Catcher, I wouldn't be too happy if I had a boy at that school where he teaches. Now switch that thing off or the crearn'll all be turned to b.u.t.ter.'

Elizabeth didn't appear for tea.

The sky was cloudless, like a Mediterranean sky, and the sun, at five, as hot as ever. Out in the grounds Will Palmer lit a bonfire down by the gate which led on to the Kingsmarkham road, fouling the warm, scented air with acrid smoke. He fed it with gra.s.s mowings and helped it occasionally with a drop of paraffin. Sweating and grumbling, Sean pushed the motor mower over the terraced lawns.

Mrs Cantrip laid the dining table and left a cold dinner on the trolley.

Fair weather or foul, she always wore a hat when she went outside. She put it on now and went home to her cottage at the other end of the village.

In the Old House Denys Villiers typed three more sentences on Wordsworth and the emergence of nature as artistic inspiration, and then he too went home. He drove slowly and cautiously to his bungalow in Cl.u.s.terwell, to be followed half an hour later by Katje Doorn, revving up the Mini and making it roar and squeal its way through the villages to Kingsmarkham.

Elizabeth lay on her bed with witch-hazel pads on her eyes, conserving her beauty. When she heard the Jaguar come in she began to dress for dinner.

She wore a pale green caftan with crystal embroidery at the neck and wrists.

'How's my beautiful wife?'

'I'm fine, darling. I lad a good day?'

'Not so bad. London's like a hothouse. Can I get you a drink?'

'Just a small tomato juice,' said Elizabeth. Quentin poured it for her and for himself a double whisky. 'Thank you, darling. It is hot, isn't it?'

'Not so hot as in London.'

'No, I suppose not.'

'Not nearly so hot,' said Quentin firmly. He smiled; she smiled. Silence fell.

Quentin broke it. 'Katje not about?'

'She's taken the Mini into Kingsmarkham, darling.'

'All on our own then, are we? No one coming in for c.o.c.ktails?'

'Not tonight. As you say, we're all on our own.'

Quentin sighed and smiled. 'Makes a pleasant change, really,' he said, 'to be on our own.'

Elizabeth made no reply. This time the silence was intense and of longer duration. Quentin stood by the window and looked at the garden.

'We may as well have dinner,' said Elizabeth at last.

In the dining room he opened a bottle of Pouilly Fuisse. Elizabeth took only one gla.s.s.

'Turning cooler at last,' said Quentin during the vichysoisse. 'I suppose the nights will soon be drawing in.'

'I suppose they will.'

'Yes, no matter how hot it is at this time of the year, you always feel that faint nip in the air.' Elizabeth ate her cold chicken in silence.

'But it's been a good summer on the whole,'Quentin said desperately.

'On the whole.'

Presently they returned to the drawing room.

'What time is it?' asked Quentin from the french windows.

'Just on eight.'

'Really? I should have said it was much later.' He went out on to the terrace to look at his chrysanthemums. Elizabeth looked at Queen magazine, turning the pages indifferently, Quentin came back and sat looking at her. Then he said, 'I wonder if Denys and Georgina will look in?'

'I shouldn't think so.'

'I think I'll give Denys a ring and see if they'll come over for a hand of bridge. What do you think?'

'If you'd like it, darling.'

'No, no, it's up to you.'

'I really don't mind one way or the other, darling.'