In any case my days passed in a haze of euphoria the like of which I had not thought to feel again.
For the first time in three years—and from a distance of fifty years I know this to be true—I had a sense of participating in life in some real way; a sense that in its details, in which I had feigned interest for so long, there was some meaning for me again. By writing to Ella I had admitted defeat; I acknowledged that. I accepted, in my own mind at least, that I had been unable to continue indefinitely in self-inflicted imprisonment for the part I had played in Eric’s death. And this acceptance freed me; Ella’s love, or rather the knowledge that she loved me still, liberated me from the past in a way which I was helpless to resist. Try though I might I could not silence a quiet, insistent voice which told me that life might be a fine thing after all; that perhaps there were better ways of making amends to Eric than the spiritual mutilation which had been my only recourse until then. And for six nights he disappeared from my dreams, his sightless eyes replaced by the sound of Ella’s laugh, the image of his soaking body by the warmth of her cheek against mine.
I almost told Camilla everything in my desire to share my happiness; but she was full of her own news and plans and no opportunity arose for me to speak. For too long I had assumed the role of appreciative listener; and the run-up to her night of glory was no time to choose to alter things.
“It’s so much work, darling,” she told me one evening on the telephone. “Even now people are coming for last-minute alterations. And you’ve never heard so much conversation about shoes. It’s enough to send the puritan in one insane.”
Camilla’s facility for martyrdom, be it social or commercial, had only increased with the passing of the years.
“You’ve no idea how draining it is.”
“None at all, I’m afraid.”
“Lucky old musicker. I’m sure playing old ditties on a fiddle can’t be half as difficult as advising Lady Markham on handbags.”
“Not half as difficult.”
“Don’t be cheeky, young man. We can’t all have just won the Hibberdson, you know.”
“Hmmm.” But I was thinking of Ella and of how she would congratulate me.
“Speaking of which,” my friend continued, “I’m taking you to dinner to celebrate next Wednesday. Eight thirty sharp. I’ll pick you up.”
And with that she rang off.
So three nights before the ball, over a dinner broken by frenzied interruptions from Camilla’s mobile phone (“It’s so tiresome, I know. But clients must feel that one is contactable.”), she told me several things: some important, some less so. Details, at any rate, which I must chase now and recapture if ever I am to do the planning of it all any justice.
I remember Camilla describing her clients to me (“Terribly indiscreet, I know, but such fun—and you’re quite trustworthy”). I remember the hushed tones in which she told me that Ella would not be wearing a dress at all but a suit of men’s evening clothes, especially cut. I remember her saying that Sarah Harcourt (“You remember her, don’t you, Jamie?”) had come to her for initial fittings but had finally chosen some hideously obvious red concoction from a rival designer. “Such a pity, darling, since she’s actually rather pretty and could have looked quite good,” whispered Camilla with more than a hint of pique. “But there’s no accounting for taste, is there?”
From her mother, my friend had learned details of the party’s arrangements; and she related these eagerly too as our food arrived. Over steamed asparagus I learned that there was going to be a bonfire (because Atlantic winds can be freezing, even in September) and fireworks and hothouse roses and a huge marquee. “They’re not letting the guests into much of the house itself,” said Camilla confidentially. “Perfectly understandable, of course, because there’re so many valuable things. And I think a marquee will do fabulously in any case.”
I nodded; and asked whether reports that an American film star was flying her hairdresser over for the night were true.
“Probably, darling. That’s just the kind of stunt Mummy would dream up. You know how she is.”
I did know; and together we laughed.
I remember Camilla’s undisguised excitement; the eagerness with which she related her tidbits of pre-party scandal; the professional pride which lent a weight to her pronouncements which they had lacked in the early days of our friendship.
“You can count on it that everyone dressed by me will look fabulous,” she promised as she signed her receipt—for she was taking me; it was her celebratory treat—and kissed me good-bye. “I’ll show you the pictures when I get back. And I’ll tell you all then.”
Wishing that I had written to Ella sooner, for then we could have enjoyed the festivities together, thinking wistfully of how lovely she would look, I left the restaurant with my arm around Camilla’s shoulders and saw my friend into a taxi.
“Bye,” she called from the back window. “See you soon with lots of news.”
“Good-bye,” I called after her, waving.
But it was not Camilla who told me of that party, though she filled in the details for me later, days later, when most of the events were a matter of public knowledge. It was not from her lips that I learned of what had happened; Fate permitted me no such civilities. I read it all on the front page of a fellow commuter’s newspaper in the heat of a crowded Underground train four days after our dinner. PEER MURDERED AT SOCIETY FUND-RAISER bellowed the headline; and my mouth dry, fear catching at my throat, I saw Ella’s father staring at me from the center of the page, his eyes smiling, his arm around his daughter’s dinner-jacketed shoulders.
In disbelief I left the train at the next station, moving slowly at first through the crush on the platform; then quickly, impatiently, brushing past the queues on the escalator, swearing at the broken barrier machine, running at last with the blood beating on my brain to the newspaper stall at the station’s entrance.
I was sitting at home, numb with disbelief, when Camilla called that afternoon, almost in tears. “Oh God, James,” she said. “Oh God. Have you heard?”
I had heard; of course I had. It would have been impossible for me not to have done. The story was in every paper; on every channel; by now it seemed the subject of every overheard conversation. In front of electrical shop windows people in their lunch hours watched the banks of television screens for news of it.
“Everyone saw, you see,” she said. “Hundreds of people watched her do it.”
And as I listened I thought inconsequentially, as one does think at times like that, that Camilla’s voice as she spoke was oddly expressionless for one with such a talent for colorful delivery; that she sounded distant, distracted, unlike her usual self. I listened to her story as though its characters were unknown to me, as though they formed no part of my life and never had done. I followed their fortunes as one might follow those of famous figures whose experience is far removed from one’s own. Only later, alone, did the delayed realization dawn that Ella was a murderer: that the girl I had loved, the girl for whom I had twice sacrificed my self-respect, the girl with the lilting voice and the bitten fingernails, was the person at the center of the story Camilla told; was the child who had killed her father in cold blood in front of more than two hundred witnesses.
“I couldn’t believe it, Jamie,” Camilla told me tearfully. “And I wouldn’t have believed it.” She paused. “But I saw her. I saw her do it. And in front of so many people. There was no way she could possibly have got away with it.”
I was silent.
“And she must have known that.”
“Tell me what you saw,” I said slowly.
And Camilla did. It is from her account and the fuller one given later at the trial that I learned the facts of that night; and recalling them now, even from a distance of fifty years, part of me can only marvel at how daringly it was executed; at how arrogantly it was done. Yes, it is her arrogance which shocks me now; her arrogance, more even than her callousness, which leaves the bitter taste.
But memory is rusty and its work slow. It is difficult for me to remember precisely what Camilla told me; to call to mind the whole wealth of ugly detail which emerged in the weeks which followed Alexander’s murder. Over fifty years I have taken care to bury the details of Ella’s trial with those of Eric’s death: far from the intrusive scrutiny of easy recall. I have not wished to remember; and I have had remarkable success in forgetting. I see that more than ever now. More than ever I understand my debt to Sarah; for it was she who was my teacher. It was she who showed me how self-deception might be achieved; she who taught me to insulate myself against anything which might ruffle the smooth calm of a placid inner life. My wife was so untroubled herself, you see; and her calmness was exemplary in its control.
Now I must remember. As I have done with Eric, so must I with Ella and her father’s death: I must open locked doors, exhume old ghosts. It is hard for a man of my age; hard because disillusion is the saddest of life’s scars. And there is self-pity in my anger now; for life, so recently offered to me again, was snatched from my grasp before I could sample it once more. And I cry for that man—he was a boy no longer—who sat, stupefied, as Camilla Boardman told him what Ella had done, what she had watched her do. I long to comfort him. But I cannot; and if I could, what would I say? There was nothing he could have done; no steps he might have taken. He was lost already; lost in ways he could neither have imagined nor understood.
Ella as murderer changed everything. It made a lie of all we had had; a lie of which I could tell no one.
And I went up to the attic that evening and sat in the moonlight where she had sat, hearing her voice, watching her smoke her endless cigarettes. I remembered our meeting in the park; the announcement of her engagement to Charlie at Camilla’s birthday party; the way she had taken me to Seton. I saw her flick the hair out of her eyes and curl up on that window ledge above the sea. I heard her tell me of Blanche, of the history of her family, of Sarah. “This house has plenty of dark secrets,” she had said. I remembered her frightened eyes by the quarry with Eric; the clipped intensity of her voice as she told me to tell him the truth. I saw it all; heard it all. And I felt that some kind of spell had been broken; that the person I had loved had ceased to exist, if ever she had existed at all.
Reading of Alexander’s murder in the papers, in the hot and crowded ticket hall of an Underground station, I had clung still to some sort of crazy hope; to the blind faith that had made me draw short of condemning Ella in the years since Eric’s death. But listening to Camilla describe what she had seen, in a quiet voice I had not heard before, I came to see that I had been wrong. And later, alone in the room where I had played to her, where so recently I had written of love and of longing in the passionate language of naïve adoration, I felt a wave of disgust sweep over me. Eric’s body, heavy with water, returned in the darkness; I saw it swing jerkily up the sides of the quarry, to be laid out before me. I remembered the tears in Dr. Pétin’s eyes. And I thought with something like hatred that I had twice sacrificed myself for a girl who had killed her father. To earn her trust I had betrayed all notions of friendship; to see her again I had undermined three hard years of self-punishment. And as I cried I wept not for Ella, nor even for Eric, but for myself.
CHAPTER 29
EVEN THE HORRORS OF THE PAST deserve some recognition, I suppose; and the obstacles to her success were great. I can see that more than ever now. For a start, the access of guests to the house was strictly limited; and the great hall itself was locked (for all the most valuable objects in the open rooms were stored there for the night). It is only from the great hall that access onto the balcony is possible; and Cyril Harcourt had the only key to this room, a key later found secure and untouched in his desk by the police. When it happened there must have been more than two hundred people on the terrace: standing by the bonfire; talking and laughing; apparently preferring the fresh air, cold though it was, to the heat of the reception rooms. So more than two hundred people watched her do it; more than two hundred people, some of whom knew her well.
It is sad for me to trace the events of that night, sad because I know the house in which they happened so well now. Everything is so real. When Camilla told me the story I could only imagine how everything must have been; I had none of the feeling for the place which fifty years’ kinship has given me. Now I know precisely the layout of the terrace; precisely the angle at which one must tilt one’s head if one is to see the balcony which overlooks it far above. I know the smell of the sea in September; the color of the stone in bonfirelight. I can feel the chill of an Atlantic breeze on my neck. Recounting it now I can see it all; feel it all; and I watch for a sign which someone might have seen, a detail which someone must have overlooked. But all I can sense is the happy anticipation of the crowd; all I can hear are its sporadic cheers as Alexander and Ella appear.
But I am anticipating myself; losing the thread of events. And just once, however painfully, I must trace them precisely once again. Having come so far I can hardly turn back now. Slowly, dispassionately, I must remember all that Camilla told me; and to her account I must add the details established later by the police. With so many witnesses their investigation was hardly a challenging one, hardly a test of any great detective powers. But they were thorough. Uninspired, perhaps, but thorough. And one can hardly blame them; for they, like me, were out of their depth. So it is a clear, balanced narrative which I must attempt; and attempt it I will. It is the least she deserves.
The Setons’ guests arrived between seven and seven thirty. They were given champagne cocktails in the ballroom and many, as I have said already, strayed out onto the terrace. Between half and three quarters of an hour later, immediately before dinner was announced, Ella and her father appeared on the balcony above them, from which access is only possible through the windows of the great hall. According to the testimony of most present they seemed relaxed, though it was noticeable that the years had taken their toll on Alexander and he seemed older than many remembered him. An expectant hush fell and cries of “Speech!” were heard. Some people cheered. Ella in her dinner jacket moved behind her father and put her hands on his shoulders, a gesture which seemed sweetly affectionate. Standing behind the taller man, little of her was visible but the stylish cut of her sharply parted blond hair, and Lord Markham called, “Show yourself, Ella. Don’t be shy.” Someone laughed.
Alexander began to shuffle his notes.
And as he did so, with unhurried grace, Ella lifted her arms and brought them down with a crack on his neck. Her father cried out, startled, and dropped his papers. Some fluttered down into the crush below. People scrambled to catch them; one or two went into the bonfire. Some guests on the edges of the crowd, who could not see, began to laugh. But those in its center watched, increasingly confused, as Alexander turned in surprise towards his daughter, and as they watched they saw her bend down and lift his feet from under him in a quick and practiced movement, pushing him over the rail. Clutching wildly as he fell, he caught at the balustrade with one hand and for a sickening moment he hung there. Everyone stopped laughing. In the silence Ella bent over him, and it looked to some as though she were holding his arm, pulling him back to safety. A woman screamed. Then he fell. Alexander fell to his death with a long shout which ended sickeningly on the flagstones of the terrace below. Ella disappeared from the balcony.
When they found her she was in her father’s bedroom, calling for him, apparently quite unperturbed by what she had done. At first she seemed shocked to see the policemen; and when they made it clear that they had come to arrest her, she went “quite crazy,” as one of the officers described it at her trial: “quite crazy, like a mad thing.” Screaming, hysterical, she refused to be handcuffed. Calling for her father, for Pamela, screaming abuse at Sarah—who was in tears in the entrance hall—she was forcibly taken down the staircase and led out through the front door, watched by silent lines of shocked guests.
“You can’t imagine how awful it was,”
Camilla said the next night. “That look in her eyes. The way she screamed. And when Sarah tried to get the policemen to treat her gently, she lashed out like you’ve never seen.”
On the other end of the telephone I heard my friend begin to cry.
“I’ve known Ella for seven years,” she said through her sobs. “Ever since she came back from America. And I can’t tell you how ghastly it was seeing her like that. Screaming abuse; calling Sarah a lot of unrepeatable things. Even saying that Sarah must have done it.” She blew her nose. “That was when I felt sorry for her, you know; if you can feel sorry for someone who’s done such an awful thing. It was when she tried to point the finger at someone else, in front of people who had watched her do it herself. There was something pathetic about the way she did that, Jamie. Something truly pathetic.”
I listened, sick at heart.
“Perhaps the papers were right after all,” Camilla went on. “You know about the madness in her family, don’t you?”
I said nothing.
“Don’t you, Jamie?”
There was silence.
“Yes,” I said at last. “Yes, I know all about it.”
And I listened as Camilla, whose mother had heard it from Pamela, told me how Ella had had to be sedated at Penzance police station: “Kicking and screaming like a wild thing,” my friend said.
In the ensuing search the police found a key in the pocket of Ella’s dinner jacket, a key later shown to be a replica of the one to the great hall, the original of which was found safe in her uncle’s desk. A London locksmith came forward and testified at the trial that she had had two copies made a fortnight before the party, and because the other copy was never found it was assumed that she had hidden it or thrown it into the sea.
“You’ve no idea how awful it was,” said Camilla. “Listening to Alexander scream. Watching her push him.”
And I went to bed that night with those dreadful words echoing endlessly in my head. WatchingherpushhimWatchingherpushhim.
The Drowning People Page 28