'Sorry to hold you up. I'm Ivo Whittingham. The quay looked deceptively close. And having started walking I couldn't, of course, find a taxi.'

He brushed aside Oldfield's proffered arm, but without impatience, and lowered himself into a seat in the bow, wedging his bag between his legs. No one spoke. The final end of rope spilled free from the bollard and was wound aboard. The engine shuddered into life. Almost imperceptibly the launch crept away from the quay and made for the harbour mouth.

Ten minutes later they seemed no closer to the island towards which crabwise they were edging, although the shore was visibly receding. The fishermen on the end of the pier shrank into match-stalk men with fairy wands, the bustle of the town was swallowed up in the noise of the engine and finally shaken off, the royal statue became a coloured blur. The horizon was a pale purple curdling into low clouds from which there separated great islands of creamy whiteness which rose to float almost motionless against a clear azure blue. The small waves seemed to be leaping with light, absorbing it from the bright air and reflecting it back to the paler blue of the sky. Cordelia thought that the sea and the distant shore were like a Monet painting, bright colour laid in streaks against bright colour, light itself made visible. She leaned over the edge of the boat and plunged her arm into the leaping wake. The cold made her gasp, but she held her arm under the water, spreading her fingers so that three small wakes spouted into the sunlight, watching the hairs on her forearm catch and hold the shining drops. Suddenly her mood was broken by a woman's voice. Roma Lisle had made her way round the cabin and come up beside her. She said:

'It's typical of Ambrose Gorringe just to send Oldfield and leave his guests to introduce themselves. I'm Roma Lisle, Clarissa's cousin.' They shook hands. Her fingers were firm and pleasantly cool. Cordelia gave her name. She said:

'But I'm not a guest. I'm going to the island to work.'

Miss Lisle's glance went to the typewriter. She said:

'Good Lord, Ambrose isn't writing another blockbuster is he?'

'Not as far as I know. I'm employed by Lady Ralston.' It might, thought Cordelia, have been more accurate to say that she was employed by Sir George but she sensed that this might only lead to complications. But sooner or later some explanation of her presence would have to be given. It might as well be now. She prepared for the inevitable questions.

'By Clarissa! Doing what, for God's sake?'

'Dealing with her correspondence. Making telephone calls. Generally easing things along while she concentrates on the play.'

'She's got Tolly to ease things along. What does she think of this – Tolly I mean?'

'I haven't the least idea. I haven't met her yet.'

'I can't see her liking it.' She gave Cordelia a look in which suspicion mingled with puzzlement.

'I've read of those stage-struck oddballs, without talent themselves, who try to buy themselves into the club by attaching themselves to one of their idols, cooking, shopping, running errands, acting as a kind of poodle. They either die of overwork or end up with nervous breakdowns. You're not one of that pathetic breed are you? No, I can see that you aren't. But don't you find your job well… odd?'

'What do you do? And is your job any less odd?'

'I'm sorry. I was being offensive. Put it down to the fact that I'm a failed schoolteacher. At present I work in a bookshop. It may sound pretty orthodox but I assure you it has its moments. You'd better meet Clarissa's stepson. Simon Lessing. He's probably nearer your age than anyone else on this benighted weekend.'

Hearing his name, the boy came out of the cabin and blinked in the sun. Perhaps, thought Cordelia, he preferred a voluntary appearance to being dragged out by Miss Lisle. He held out his hand and she shook it, surprised that his clasp should be so firm. They murmured a conventional greeting. He was better looking

than a first glimpse had suggested, with a long, sensitive face and widely spaced grey eyes. But his skin was pitted with the scars of old acne with a fresh outcrop along the forehead, and his mouth was weak. Cordelia knew that with her wide brow, high cheekbones and cat-like face she looked younger than her age but she couldn't imagine any time when she wouldn't have felt older than this shy boy.

And then there was a fresh voice. The last passenger was making his way astern to join them. He said:

'When the Prince of Wales came to Courcy Island in the eighteen nineties, puffing across the bay in a steam launch, old Gorringe used to have his private band waiting on the quay to play him ashore. They were dressed, for some reason not recorded, in Tyrolese costume. Do you suppose that Ambrose's love affair with the past extends to laying on a similar welcome for us?'

But before anyone had a chance to respond, the launch had turned the eastern edge of the island and the castle itself came suddenly into sight.

CHAPTER NINE

Although Cordelia wasn't aware that she had consciously thought about the architecture of Courcy Castle, it had, nevertheless, formed itself in her mind as a grey-stoned, massive, crenellated sham, over-ornate in its Victorian solidity, an unsatisfactory compromise between domesticity and grandeur. The reality, suddenly presented to her in the clarity of the morning sunlight, made her catch her breath with wonder. It stood on the edge of the sea, almost as if it had risen from the waves, a castle of rose-red brick, its only stonework the pale, flush lines and the tall, curved windows which now coruscated in the sun. To the west soared a slender round tower topped with a cupola, solid yet ethereal. Every detail of the matt-surfaced walls, the patterned buttresses and the battlements was distinct, unfussy, confident. The whole was compact, even massive, yet the high sloping roofs and the slender tower gave an impression of lightness and repose which she hadn't associated with high Victorian architecture. The southern facade overlooked a wide terrace – surely wave-swept in winter – from which two flights of steps led down to a narrow beach of sand and shingle. The proportions of the castle seemed to her exactly right for its site. Larger and it could have looked pretentious; smaller and there would have been a suggestion of facile charm. But this building, compromise though it might be between castle and family house, seemed to her brilliantly successful. She almost laughed aloud at the pleasure of it.

She was unaware that Ivo Whittingham had come up beside her until he spoke.

'This is your first visit, isn't it? What do you think of it?'

'It's remarkable. And unexpected.'

'You're interested in Victorian architecture?'

'Interested, but not at all knowledgeable.'

'I shouldn't tell Ambrose that. He'll devote the whole weekend to educating you in his passions and prejudices. I've done my homework so I'll forestall him by telling you now that the architect was E. W. Godwin who worked for Whistler and Oscar Wilde and was associated with the aesthetes. What he aimed for – so he tells us – was the careful adjustment of solids and voids. Well, he's achieved that here. He did some perfectly awful town halls including one at Northampton – not that Ambrose would admit to its awfulness – but I think that he and I will agree about this achievement. Are you taking part in the play?'

'No, I'm here to work. I'm Miss Lisle's secretary, her temporary secretary.'

His quick glance was surprised. Then his lips curved in a smile. 'So I should imagine. Clarissa's relationships tend to be temporary.'

Cordelia said quickly:

'Do you know anything about the play? I mean, which company is acting in it?'