"Used to enjoy supplying guerrillas when I was your age. Ideals before money... cause of human liberty. Didn't last long, thank God. Today's guerrillas are tomorrow's fat cats. Good luck to 'em. Real enemies were the big power governments. Everywhere you looked, big governments were there ahead of you, flogging anything to anybody, breaking their own rules, cutting each other's throats, backing the wrong side, making it up to the right side. Mayhem. Us independent chaps got squeezed into the corner every time. Only thing to do, get in ahead of 'em, beat 'em to the draw. Balls and foresight, all we had left to rely on. Pushing the envelope, all the time. No wonder some chaps went off the reservation. Only place to do business. Young Daniel sail today?"
"All the way round Miss Mabel's Island. I didn't touch the rudder once."
"Well done. Cooking another carrot cake soon?"
"Whenever you say."
As they climb the steps to the gardens, the close observer notices Sandy Langbourne entering the guesthouse and, a moment after him, the Langbourne nanny. She is a demure little creature, about nineteen, but at that instant she has the casual larceny of a girl about to rob a bank.
* * *
There are the days when Roper is in residence, and there are the days when Roper is away selling farms.
Roper does not announce his departures, but Jonathan has only to approach the front entrance to know which kind of day it is. Is Isaac hovering in the great domed hall in his white gloves? Are the MacDanbies milling in the marble anteroom, smoothing their Brideshead hairstyles and checking their zips and ties? They are. Is the protection manning the porter's chair beside the tall bronze doors? It is. Slipping past the open windows on his way to the back of the house, Jonathan hears the great man at his dictating: "No, damn it. Kate! Scratch that last paragraph and tell him he's got a deal. Jackie, do a letter to Pedro. 'Dear Pedro, we spoke a couple of weeks ago,' blah-blah. Then drop him down a hole. Too little, too late, too many bees round the honeypot ― that one, okay? Tell you what, Kate ― add this."
But instead of adding this, Roper interrupts himself to telephone the Iron Pasha's skipper in Fort Lauderdale about the new paintwork on the hull. Or Claud the stablemaster about his fodder bills. Or Talbot the boatmaster about the bloody awful state of the jetty on Carnation Bay. Or his antiques dealer in London to discuss that decent-looking pair of Chinese dogs that are coming up at Bonham's next week, could be just right for the two seaward corners of the new conservatory, provided they're not too bilious green.
"Oh, Thomas, super! How are you ― no headaches or anything ghastly? Oh, good." Jed is in the butler's pantry, seated at a pretty Sheraton desk, talking menus with Miss Sue the housekeeper and Esmeralda the cook while she poses for the imaginary photographer from House & Garden. She has only to see Jonathan enter to make him indispensable: "Now, Thomas. Honestly, what do you think? Listen. Langoustines, salad, lamb ― or salad, langoustines, lamb?... Oh, I'm so glad. Well, that's exactly what we thought, isn't it. Esmeralda?... Oh, Thomas, can we possibly pick your brains about foie gras with Sauternes? The Chief adores it, I loathe it and Esmeralda is saying, very sensibly, why not just let them carry on with champagne?... Oh, Thomas" ― dropping her voice so she can pretend to herself that the servants can't hear ― "Caro Langbourne is so upset. Sandy's being an absolute pig again. I wondered whether a sail might cheer her up, if you've really got the energy. If she goes on at you, don't worry, just sort of close your ears, do you mind?... And, Thomas, while you're about it, could you bear to ask Isaac where the hell he's hidden the trestle tables?... And, Thomas, Daniel is absolutely determined to give Miss Molloy a surprise birthday party, if you can believe it, on the eighteenth. If you've got any ideas about that at all, I'll love you for absolutely ever...."
But when Roper is not in residence, menus are forgotten, workmen sing and laugh ― and so in his soul does Jonathan ― and happy conversations break out everywhere. The buzz of handsaws vies with the thunder of the landscapes' bulldozers. And Jed, walking pensively with Caroline Langbourne in the Italian gardens, or sitting with her for hours on end in her bedroom in the guesthouse, keeps herself at a careful distance and does not promise to love Jonathan even for an afternoon, let alone for absolutely ever.
For ugly things are stirring in the Langbourne nest.
* * *
The Ibis, a sleek young sailing dinghy available for the pleasure of Crystal guests, is becalmed. Caroline Langbourne sits in the prow, staring back to land as if never to return. Jonathan, not bothering with the tiller, is lounging in the stern with his eyes closed.
