Symposium (14 page)

‘Oh,
aren’t they; oh, aren’t they? I would like to know, I said to Flora, how you
think I could be involved in the murder of Sister Rose, a complete and harmless
nobody who was the assistant to Sister Rooke who at least was a plumber, a
somebody.’

‘Nobody’s
blaming —’

‘Oh,
no? Listen to this. Flora got questioned again by the police. She’s furious.
They said it was only a matter of routine. That ought to please her a lot, not
to mention her ghastly Bert, they are slaves to routine both of them. But no,
the police came to their door, and that was enough. All my fault. Only a couple
of months ago, perhaps a bit more, they were saying how sorry they were for me.
And now, look how quick people can change. It’s —’

‘Margaret,’
said Dan, gazing in despair and confusion at her wonderful complexion and her
piled-up dark-red hair, ‘Margaret, leave your sisters out of it. Your mother
and I —’

‘Oh no,
oh no,’ said Margaret. ‘Mother is terrified. She’s inclined to take their
part. She is terrorized altogether. And you know it.’

‘What
can I do? There is no proof against you, Margaret. There never has been any
proof.’ Oh God, he seemed to be saying there has always been everything except
the proof. He had a small red silk handkerchief tied round his neck, a light
brown shirt.

And she
answered, ‘The Mother Superior made a clear confession.’

In came
her mother, Greta, in a pale mauve jersey, a pale fawn skirt and pearls; but
nothing could make her look distinguished, which would not have mattered in the
least if only she had been friendly. Instead, Greta was frightened. She looked
at Margaret with a look that said, What, what, have I begotten?

It
might have been strange that they had neither of them, Greta nor Dan, asked
themselves this question at least ten years ago, when the unexplained deaths
by violence began. But it was not strange. The previous deaths had not drawn
public attention as the last two had. Therefore, being more or less feeble,
they had taken the previous deaths into their minds only, and stored them away
until further notice. Now that the two public occasions had occurred, further
notice had likewise happened.

Margaret’s
best friend at school had jumped into a lake in the school grounds, had swum
for it, got caught in some reeds and had drowned. The lake was in a private
area, forbidden the girls. Margaret said she saw her friend struggle, having
been drawn to the spot by her cries, but was too far away to help. Everyone
said what a dreadful thing it had been for Margaret, aged twelve, to witness.
Her parents were advised not to mention the incident again. They found another
school for Margaret. It was near Hawick on the Borders of Scotland.

Here
she was taken to tea in a teashop in the town by one of the teachers as a
treat. It was this teacher’s habit to take the girls out one by one for a
treat. Only, on this occasion the teacher disappeared. She left her gloves on
the table, took her bag and went, apparently, to the ladies’ room. Margaret
waited a long time, over an hour. She then applied to the owners of the tearoom
who investigated the ladies’ room without success and telephoned the school. No
sign of the teacher, a woman in her early thirties whose home was in
Staffordshire. It was an unsolved mystery. The papers were full of it for a time,
the district was combed by the police and their dogs. Nobody had the slightest
clue what had happened to Miss Dewar. Had she said anything special to Margaret
before she left the table? ‘No, nothing special at all. She ordered the tea and
then she went to the bathroom.’

‘And
you just waited doing nothing?’

‘I
drank the tea, it was getting cold, and I ate two biscuits. Then I asked the
teashop lady to look in the ladies’ room as it seemed a long time.’

At that
time Magnus was in one of his good periods and on the Sunday he came to his
brother’s house for lunch and to spend the afternoon. It was only four days
after the teacher’s disappearance and the search for her was still on.

‘It’s
so bad for young Margaret,’ said Greta. ‘She’s impressionable. What a thing to
happen!’

‘Such a
nice woman, too,’ said Magnus.

‘Well,
you can’t tell from a photograph on the television or in the papers. She’s
probably bonkers,’ said Greta.

‘I
wouldn’t say that,’ said Magnus. ‘She was highly intelligent and very sweet.’

Dan
first noticed Magnus’s use of the past tense, then the reflective glaze in his
brother’s eyes.

‘How
could you know?’

‘I met
her when I went to visit Margaret,’ said Magnus.

‘You
went to visit Margaret?’ said Greta. ‘When was that?’

‘A few
weeks ago. Lovely school. Beautifully situated.’

‘She
didn’t say,’ said Greta.

‘Oh, I
always believe in visiting young Margaret at school. The other girls are
extremely self-sufficient. They’re all right. But Margaret’s very different. I
understand her.’

‘Magnus,
it’s time for you to go back,’ said Dan. All those years ago, and Miss Dewar
was never found. It was obvious she had gone somewhere of her own accord, but
nobody knew where.

‘You
didn’t say Uncle Magnus had been to see you,’ Greta said to Margaret.

‘I
forgot. He often comes to see me. There’s nothing wrong with him when they let
him out.’

‘And he
met Miss Dewar.’

‘Yes.
You met Miss Dewar yourself.’

Margaret
was now beginning to look attractive. It was noticeable to Dan that she had a
special affinity with Magnus. She took advice from him. As soon as she had a
car she drove off to visit him from time to time at the Jeffrey King hospital.
When Magnus came to Blackie House for his Sunday outings he always had a special
greeting for Margaret if she was there. He liked to quote the Border ballads,
and he did it heartily:

‘O where hae ye been, my long, long love,

These seven long years and more?’ —

‘O I’m come to seek my former vows,

That ye promised me before.’

Dan was
frightened; of himself, of Margaret, and of Magnus. Before the other two girls
were married, they, too, were afraid of Margaret, but without being aware of
it. Flora, the eldest, translated her fear into disapproval and, this not being
a straightforward emotion, it took a hysterical turn. She would shriek at
Margaret on those Sundays of the school holidays when they both happened to coincide
at Blackie House, before the arrival of Uncle Magnus.

‘You
shouldn’t encourage him the way you do. Putting forward your sex. Don’t you see
his pills have side effects and he’s got a sex fixation on you?’

‘Effex
a fix sexation?’ Margaret taunted. And then Uncle Magnus arrived, dressed, even
in those days, too loudly; dressed, for instance, in a bright blue Harris tweed
coat and bright brown Harris tweed trousers, and, as it might be, a purple tie.
There was no knowing what Uncle Magnus might wear.

The
second sister, Eunice, three years Margaret’s senior, and fearful of Margaret,
was timid with her red-haired attractive young sister; she was timid but
underhand. Her fear took the form of secret bitchiness so that she seemed to be
highly amused when Uncle Magnus greeted Margaret with the verse:

O was it a wer-wolf in the wood,

Or was it a mermaid into the sea,

Or was it a man or a vile woman,

My true love that mis-shapit thee?

but later, when Magnus had
gone, she said, ‘What did he mean by “a man or a vile woman”? Why wasn’t the
man vile but only the woman?’

‘That’s
the ballad, that’s how it goes,’ said Margaret.

‘Don’t
take Magnus seriously,’ said Dan. ‘At best he’s an enthusiast for Scottish
lore.’

‘But
you ask his advice,’ said Flora.

‘Forget
it,’ Greta said. ‘I’m the vile woman of the ballads, all right. But I don’t
think Margaret’s misshapen; far from it. Is she? Now be honest.’

‘Uncle
Magnus meant it in another sense.’

‘Why do
you always laugh when he recites like that?’ Margaret said. ‘You should ask him
to his face what he means.’

Eunice
became flustered when Margaret spoke like this.

And
now, years later, after the murder in the nunnery, when Margaret returned home,
both Dan and Greta were frightened, as they had every reason to be. Because
Margaret’s capacity for being near the scene of tragedy was truly inexplicable
in any reasonable terms. If they had been able to see, as, to do them justice,
nobody else was capable of seeing, that there was absolutely no link of any
rational, physical or psychological nature between Margaret’s personal
activities and what went on around her, Dan and Greta might have felt a certain
consolation. But still they would never have let well alone. One can see their
point of view. Whether they understood Margaret or not, they couldn’t help
waiting with dread for the next disaster.

‘There’s
an affinity with Magnus,’ said Dan. ‘Perhaps we should keep them apart?’

‘Too
late,’ said Greta. ‘You can’t stop her going to visit him.’

Dan,
enamoured of his daughter, couldn’t help fancying that, by contrast with
Magnus, he himself stood out to advantage. He was aware that Margaret was now
cultivating an exterior sweetness which was really not her own. Why? What was
she covering up? — ‘I really do think’, Margaret had said, ‘that it’s necessary
for one of us at least to visit Uncle Magnus. I don’t mind the drive. After
all, we should sometimes think of
les autres,
don’t you agree?’

Magnus
came for the Sunday after Margaret’s return from the convent to Blackie House.
Certainly she had an affinity with Magnus; it was an old alliance. Uncle
Magnus, however, was not unpopular with any member of the family. Although he
was decidedly mad, he was by far the least boring of all, which goes a long way
with a brother, a sister-in-law and four nieces.

‘You
should get married,’ Magnus said to Margaret when they were alone. ‘I’ve been
thinking of it for some time.’

‘I
know. Do you think I have got the evil eye?’

‘Think
it? — I know it. It’s quite obvious. Even your block-headed parents and sisters
have begun to notice.’

‘I’ll
tell you what,’ said Margaret, ‘I’m tired of being the passive carrier of
disaster. I feel frustrated. I almost think it’s time for me to take my life
and destiny in my own hands, and actively make disasters come about. I would
like to do something like that.’ She sat on the sofa beside Magnus, tossing
back her red hair, rather like a newly graduated student seriously discussing
her future with her college tutor.

‘Perpetrate
evil?’ Magnus offered.

‘Yes. I
think I could do it.’

‘The
wish alone is evil,’ said Magnus with the distant equanimity of a college tutor
who has two or three other students to see that afternoon.

‘Glad
to hear it,’ said Margaret.

The
next Sunday Magnus arrived in a more manic state than Greta and Dan could
usually cope with. The source of supply for his vivid shirts was something that
neither Greta nor Dan had been able to fathom. When questioned, Magnus’s
answers were either vague — ‘Oh, the shirts, they come my way.’ Or pure lies — ‘My
shirts? —I just send the orderly to the village shop. They come in all
colours.’ More recently, it appeared that Magnus had received parcels from
Mexico and California as well as from the Charing Cross Road in London. There
was no doubt that Magnus’s capacity for arranging his own life was formidable. It
was only his overwhelming fits of wild and savage mania, lasting sometimes for
as much as three weeks, even with the pills, that distinguished him from a
normal Scottish eccentric and made necessary his permanence in hospital. But as
he only put in an appearance during a more placid mental cycle, many of his
contemporaries were convinced there was nothing much wrong with Magnus.

That
Sunday his shirt was purple with a scarlet tie.

‘Are
you thinking of giving a television interview, Magnus?’ said Dan.

‘You’re
referring to my shirt. Sheer envy. Look at yourself in your drab sweater from
some popular department store. I wouldn’t be you if you paid me a fortune to do
it.’

Magnus
went for a walk with Margaret after lunch. They kicked last winter’s leaves on
the damp floor of the woods. The smell of spring came to meet them along the
path. ‘I’ve made out a list,’ said Magnus, producing a folded paper from his
pocket, and unfolding it.

‘What
list?’

‘A list
of eligible bachelors from rich families for you to marry.’

‘A
list, a whole list?’ said Margaret, taking the paper from his hand.

‘You
will only marry one, of course.’

‘But I
don’t know these people.’

‘You
only need know one. If I were you I would pick him out with a pin.’

‘And
then?’