The music was reasonably good, and Charles was enjoying it. He would have liked a dance, but there were too many people and not enough room, and he could not see anyone in the Keith family suggesting it. He had his wine glass refilled by the maid, and wondered if he should try to approach anyone about becoming a tutor, but the only prospective employer he could see in the room was Lord Scoggie, and his life would not be worth living if he beat Thomas to that particular golden goose. He bit thoughtfully into a chicken pastry, and tried to calculate how long it might be before his father found out that he was back in St. Andrews. George was always over-optimistic.
He was thus lost in thought when he felt his arm tapped, and Professor Shaw was standing at his elbow.
‘Excuse me, Charles, but if you don’t mind – Lord Scoggie has just asked if you would be good enough to come and be presented.’
Astonished, Charles straightened smartly and disposed of the chicken pastry. He followed the little Professor over to the fireplace.
‘Lord Scoggie, may I have the honour to present one of my fourth-year students, Mr. Charles Murray, younger of Letho?’ Professor Shaw said, with great exactness. Charles bowed very low, but Lord Scoggie aimiably claimed not to need such worship, and urged him to straighten up at once lest he injure his back. Lord Scoggie was a little shorter than Charles but above the middle height, with teeth so prominent that they seemed to act on their own account, and a little of his own grey hair showing indecorously at the temples of his powdered wig.
‘I hope you are taking great benefit from your studies?’ said his Lordship.
‘I am, my lord, indeed,’ Charles replied. ‘I am very fortunate in my tutors, of course.’
Lord Scoggie smiled broadly, allowing his teeth a freedom of expression that was fascinating. Charles tried not to stare.
‘You are indeed, as I was in my days here – not surprisingly, as Professors Urquhart and Shaw were among them even then. You are a young man, and probably do not find it surprising that such ancient relics as these gentlemen should have taught Methuselah in his youth, let alone me, but when you reach my age you will realise that indeed they must have begun with lecturing in their very cradles to have produced so many satisfied students. And do you hope to graduate?’
‘If the examiners are generous, my lord, I do!’ said Charles, hiding his concern over that very issue. ‘But even if I do not, it will never diminish, I think, my affection for the place and for what I have learned here.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Lord Scoggie, more solemn now. ‘For Master of Arts is not a title conferred lightly: it is a great honour. Money or privilege may bring you here, may fund your studies and make your life comfortable, but it will abandon you in that examination chair, as I found to my cost!’ Here he smiled again, at trials long past. ‘Hard work and native wit, in almost whatever proportion you please – that is the mixture to apply. Before the examiner, we are all equal, except in those two things. But here: this is a social occasion, and I see from your face you are eager to apply yourself at present more to admiring the endless line of young beauties entertaining us than to listen to a tedious old man, however remarkable he might be in the dental line, eh?’
Charles did not know what to say, and was spared by the general laughter of Lord Scoggie and Professor Shaw at his lordship’s own expense.
‘Never mind, Mr. Murray,’ said Lord Scoggie at last: ‘go back to your friends. I am heartily glad we have had this little talk, sir.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ said Charles, hesitating to bow low, and feeling himself completely dismissed. Turning, he saw Thomas at once, glowering at him, and thought it best to go straight to him.
‘What, precisely, was going on there?’ Thomas asked, in a voice almost entirely acid.
‘I have no idea, Thomas,’ said Charles, trying to soothe. ‘Professor Shaw called me over. I promise you, though: if he offers me a parish, I shall decline it with thanks, and lay your name before him. But Thomas – we must talk some time, though not here. There may be other reasons why I should like, if I could, to meet Lord Scoggie and his like at the moment.’
‘If it were anyone but you, with your money and position, I should not trust them an inch with the man,’ said Thomas with grim sincerity. ‘But I swear to you, he is my only chance of advancement, if I am not to be a miserable village schoolmaster for twenty years, waiting for preferment before I can think of – marriage, or anything beyond scraping a pathetic living for myself.’
‘I know, I know,’ Charles agreed. ‘If I could do anything to help you, I would: just be assured I shall not knowingly do anything to hinder you.’
They fell silent on this compromise, and listened again to the music, currently a pair of violins unhappily married and fallen on bad times. The door opened again and Professor Keith returned, on his own. Extra chairs had been brought in before the music started, and it was now easier for him to survey his guests than it had been when they were mostly standing. He had entered the drawing room with an unaccustomed smile on his face, and stood for a second with his gaze on his daughter, seated in the front of the informal rows waiting, presumably, to be asked to play again. Then, unfortunately, his gaze lifted and scanned the rest of the room, and the first person he saw was Rab Fisher.
Rab was lost in what might, in anyone else, have been thought. He did not see Professor Keith notice him, and had no idea that anything was about to happen, but munched contently on yet another of his hostess’s excellent pastries. The first he knew of his fate was when Professor Keith’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder, and the last mouthful of pastry shot out to land messily on the back of Alison Keith’s bare bony neck. She gave a shriek. The better violinist, faltering at Professor Keith’s progress across the room, stopped altogether. Rab dropped his wine glass, leaving a red trail down the yellow curtains, but he had no chance to do anything about it. Professor Keith, in grim silence, marched him to the door. What happened to him in the hall was a matter for conjecture: the silent guests shortly heard the front door slam, and Professor Keith returned in splendid isolation, just in time to see Picket flinging open one of the windows, one hand full of pastries. He darted across the room. Picket leapt through the window, crashed into a bush, and was heard rolling free, laughing and calling back at Keith something that was fortunately indistinct. Professor Keith slammed the window shut, and ran for the door, calling for the servants. He vanished into the hall, and silence returned once more.
‘Charlotte, dear,’ said Mrs Keith into the quavering hush, ‘do start that lovely piece again. I’m sure we should all like to hear it uninterrupted.’ She continued wiping her daughter’s neck free of pastry.
The page-turner scuffled back the pages, and the violinists, now even more shaky, began the piece again, but the guests, contrary to Mrs. Keith’s expectations, were more intent on listening to the shouts and laughter from the grounds outside. By the time they had eventually died away the piece was finished again, and in a moment or two Professor Keith returned to the drawing room, decorated with shards of pastry and bringing Peter and a pale-faced Boxie with him. By their muddy shoes, they had all three had a good run in the grounds, and Charles wondered how Boxie felt about that, chasing his friends.
Professor Shaw looked at his watch again, less discreetly this time, and suddenly it seemed like time to leave. There was a general upsurge of people from the seats, and a polite queue formed in front of Mrs. Keith, thanking her for a lovely evening. Professor Shaw, with the good excuse of his wife’s health, escaped first, and Mungo Dalzell was left to help with the little things at the end of an evening, the gathering of shawls or the locating of lost reticules. The maid Barbara came upstairs with a tray holding a jug of claret and a plate of biscuits, which she set on the top of a low kist before hurrying back down again to help everyone with their coats: Charles saw her anxious look as she passed the door, while he stood near the head of the queue. It must not be an enviable place, working for Professor Keith, he thou
ght. Hadn’t he heard that Ramsay Rickarton’s daughter had once worked here, too, and had been fired? Professor Urquhart, keen aesthete that he was, paused on the way out to admire the jug, which was silver, elegantly chased. Charles could not catch the remark he made to Lord Scoggie by his side, but could guess the tone from the sardonic twist of Urquhart’s thin lips.
At last Charles and George were at the head of the queue, and giving their thanks and farewells. Boxie, just ahead of them, was holding Alison’s hand for what seemed an unnecessary time, but fortunately George was looking the other way. Alison seemed particularly panicky as Boxie left her, her bracelets jingling, and Charles thought again that if she were a horse he would get off and walk before she had him killed. He bowed to her, smiling politely. George followed him, and impulsively she put out her hand to him, too, as she had done to Boxie. She looked as if she were about to cry, but George’s face lit up as he took the long, thin hand in his and put it to his lips. Charles nearly choked as he watched George torn between gallant anxiety and ecstasy, drawn up to his full height and width as if saying, ‘I can protect you. Shelter behind me.’
Even then, Charles could not see how soon she would need it.
Chapter Twelve
The crow flapped lazily across the dunes, paused for a moment on the edge of the wind, and swooped down to the sand where a dead seal had been abandoned by the high tide. Two gulls, already gouging the seal’s innards with yellow beaks streaked red, moved round generously to let the crow in, eying him warily. There was enough of the corpse to satisfy everyone.
George and Charles watched for a moment before strolling on, feeling the wind whip at their faces and tempt their headgear to freedom. George had his third-best boots on: there was no sense in sacrificing your best ones on the salty sand. They walked on the half-damp sand where it was firm, but the wind flicked waves of dry sand from high up the beach across in front of them, pale against the dark beneath, and made them feel loose at the knees, as if they were walking on water. The little waves of low tide, nervous frills of the sea, trickled up the shallow beach and were immediately deterred by the wind, flipping over on themselves and falling backwards in their eagerness to flow back to the sea.
If the Walkers had wanted an escort home as well as to Professor Keith’s unfortunate soirée the night before, they had not been disappointed: they were accompanied on their walk by Allan Bonar and Thomas Seaton, silently competing for Miss Walker’s arm, as well as by Charles and George. Daniel, very full of himself, walked ahead with his torch lit from the one outside the Keiths’ front gate, once he had been deterred from making patterns with it by swirling it round his head. The evening had ended so abruptly at the Keiths’ that Mrs. Walker seemed to feel that something more was required, and she and Patience quickly found some bottles of their elderflower wine while Charles lit the lamps in the parlour, and Allan Bonar set to to light a small fire in the grate. The elderflower wine was plentiful and very good indeed, and they had all drunk perhaps too appreciatively of it: Allan Bonar had left in uncharacteristic anger about eleven o’clock, Thomas had started to sing ballads of indeterminate tune, and Mrs. Walker had grown quite tearful, expatiating to George about the death of her reverend husband. Patience had brought out her violin and played German airs which did not consort – quite deliberately, Charles decided – with Thomas’ endless, meandering songs, and Charles found himself as a music lover quite unable to bear the contrast, and began to hum something else entirely under his breath. Thomas, feeling that he had made a grand contribution to the evening, finally left well after midnight, and the ladies retired to their chambers. Charles found that his legs were not as reliable as he would have liked, but once he had sorted them out he discovered that George was in an even worse way, having been unable to speak during Mrs. Walker’s soliloquy and therefore having drunk even more than the rest. Charles hauled him to his feet and pushed and dragged him to the bottom of the stairs, whereupon George fell to his knees and crawled the rest of the way. At the top, incapable of further movement, he rolled on to his back and began to laugh, and Charles in the end had to climb over him and leave him there, though he himself was almost helpless with laughter. Through the open window to the street, in the distance, he could still hear Thomas singing his tuneless way home.
The consequence of such entertainment was, naturally, that neither Charles nor George was particularly communicative this morning, and had a tendency to wince at sharp noises. The sands seemed the obvious place to go, particularly when breakfast smells began to waft up from the kitchens, and despite their delicacy both brothers were surprisingly quick to dress and leave the house, pausing for a moment to gasp in the fresh dawn air of South Street.
The sands were long and broad, and at that time of the morning were quiet. The scavengers who worked the tideline had long gone, but there were grooms exercising their horses along the water’s edge, a few boats hauled in and up for repair, and a dozen or so hardy sorts bathing. Up on the links an occasional golfer could be heard, playing before breakfast. There were five or six red gowns to be seen, worn by students probably very like themselves, whose happy Friday night had led to a rather more miserable Saturday morning. Not far ahead of them were three gowns in particular, clutched against the wind around three fairly familiar figures: one well-set and elegant, one stocky, and one so thin the wind seemed to go through it rather than round it. It was the Sporting Set.
Despite himself, George called out to them the moment he recognised them, then scowled at the sound of his own voice. Rab turned first, eagerly, but it took a moment for the other two to quit their intense conversation, move a little further apart, and turn to see who had hailed them. Picket was as pale as limewash, but was grinning from ear to ear as he waited for the Murrays to catch up with him and his friends. His teeth looked so weak Charles was slightly surprised not to see them blown out by the wind.
‘Good morning, dear friends!’ Picket exclaimed, with a deep and flourishing bow. ‘And how does the world treat you, this fine morning?’ His grin seemed already to know the answer, and when George explained briefly about the elderflower wine, Picket laughed out loud in delight. Rab, too, had the face of a very contented angel this morning, glowing with the wind and with something internal, too: perhaps the vision of a greater than usual number of sinners saved, Charles thought, ironically. If that were so, then Boxie had not heard the news, anyway. He looked - Charles was not quite sure what – unhappy, yes, and perhaps confused. Picket saw where Charles was looking, and slapped Boxie on the back.
‘Professor Keith’s new favourite here, eh? Maybe our new man on the inside, eh, Boxie? He’s good at keeping secrets, is Boxie: he had a little fight with the Professor’s son, and never mentioned it to anyone. And now he and the Professor’s son are all friends again, and he’s been taken to meet Papa.’ Picket made a face meant to represent some kind of lovesick charmer, all smile and wide eyes. The effect was horrible. ‘I think maybe Peter Keith thinks Boxie will make him a good husband – what do you think, Boxie? What’s his dowry like? You have to ask the Professor, you know: it’s very important to sort out things like that before you grow too fond of poor Peter. Isn’t that right, George? You know the right order of things, I think!’
George, who was sometimes a little slow on the uptake, laughed heartily at this joke, and did not blush until Picket had turned away. Boxie, however, was purple with embarrassment, and looked as if he would have run away from them like a fox from the hounds if Picket had not been keeping tight hold of his sleeve. Charles remembered, suddenly, a rumour that he had heard, that Professor Keith had accused Professor Urquhart of corrupting his son – was that what they had meant? Like all those dreadful but entertaining emperors in Suetonius? It was not something he wanted to think about just now: he had a nasty feeling that Picket was good at reading minds.
‘You gave them a good run for their money last night, anyway,’ he suggested, and both Rab and Picket cackled delightedly.
�
��Didn’t we just?’ Picket cried.
‘All over his daffodils!’ Rab added in excitement. ‘Broke a hedge and damn’ near broke a tree! Up and down, and out the gate, and away!’ It was not hard to imagine Rab, athletic and strong, leading the stout Professor and his willowy son out into the darkness of the street and losing them, but Picket, weak and tiring more easily than he would admit, would have had to have been cunning. That was not hard to imagine, either. Charles was only a little surprised that the Professor and his son had come back uninjured, and had not been the victims of some kind of trap.
‘You should have seen the old fool, huffing and puffing around his rose beds,’ Picket added.
‘Aye, he was a sight,’ Boxie said at last, and Picket looked at him approvingly. ‘But how did you ever manage to get in the first place?’ Charles asked.
‘Barbara, the maid,’ said Picket, grinning again. ‘It’s damn’ handy having a man like Rab around: the ladies – and their less elegant sisters – take one look at Rab and think the Angel Gabriel has bred with Apollo and sent his offspring to woo them. Anything, just any little thing they can do to oblige him – och! It’s lovely, so it is! It would probably have worked just as well on Peter,’ he added, thoughtfully, and fingered his long chin.
‘It’s an excellent joke,’ said George, recovered now from his embarrassment. ‘If I’d been asked I should have given a guinea to see Professor Keith’s face when you went out the window!’
Death in a Scarlet Gown (Murray of Letho Book 1) Page 15