Page 105 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘Sabine and Tommy swam to the boat, but there was no sign of the others, and then Faye came up on her own, without her mouthpiece in and half drowned. They hauled her on to the boat, but Tommy went straight back down and came up with Asa, who was semi-conscious and had had some kind of heart attack.’
‘How horrible!’ I said, staring at him. ‘No wonder Mrs Powys hates to be reminded of that time!’
‘But we know he was all right later, because he excavated the temple site,’ Henry pointed out.
‘Yes, he made a good recovery, but as you can imagine, it was all panic and pandemonium while they got him on board the boat and tried to bring him round.’
‘You’re putting it so well, dear, that I’ll leave you to it and take up this cocoa. Don’t forget the bit about murder.’
Nancy went out, carrying the mugs carefully, and Henry turned expectantly back to Xan, who shrugged.
‘There wasn’t any murder, though I’m sure Sabine might have tried to kill Faye later, if she hadn’t run off that night. It’s just that as soon as Faye had stopped coughing up seawater, she insisted Asa had tried to kill her – but she was hysterical, and it was so silly anyway, that no one took any notice.’
‘But it was just an accident?’ I asked.
‘Yes, Faye had swum into the wreck and snagged her air pipes, and instead of remembering what she’d been taught, struggled so much she jerked off her mouthpiece. Asa got hold of her to calm her down and help – and that’s when he had the seizure.’
‘I can understand now why Mrs Powys blames her half-sister,’ I said. ‘If she’d done as she was told and stayed near Sabine, it would never have happened.’
‘It might still have happened some time, because it turned out he had an undiagnosed heart condition,’ Xan said. ‘He always seemed so strong and healthy that no one ever suspected it.’
‘And you said Faye ran off that night?’ Henry asked.
‘My grandmother, Rose, had been on the boat that day and took Faye back to the villa, while the others got Asa to the nearest hospital. But she vanished in the night, bag and baggage. They found out much later she’d sailed off on the floating gin palace with what Nancy called the Beautiful People, but of course, by the time they traced it to the South of France, the trail was cold.’
‘It’s like a mystery novel!’ I said. ‘Did she ever reappear?’
‘Briefly, a few years later, to claim some money her father had left her. Then, not long after, she died. It appeared she’d got the sailing bug and the yacht she was on went down in a storm, with no survivors.’
‘She sounded annoying enough to have got pushed overboard,’ Henry said uncharitably.
‘She was very young, so it was still a bit of a tragedy all round,’ I said. ‘I assume the heart condition put an end to Asa diving again, Xan?’
‘He was advised against it, and Sabine wouldn’t dive without him,’ he agreed. ‘Asa turned his attention to excavating that temple complex and life was still good, but I’m sure it was never quite the same as those first wonderful years of their marriage.’
We were all silent for a moment and then I said, ‘Well, I’m glad now that you did tell us, after all, because I’ll be very careful not to say anything that might remind Mrs Powys about it.’
‘I can’t really avoid touching on it when we’re recording her memories,’ Xan said. ‘Some time soon we’ll have to move on from the early years of their underwater explorations, to the land-based ones and I’ll have to at least mention the reason for the change.’
He sighed and then looked at me. ‘I suppose I can’t persuade you to come and do a bit of therapeutic dusting? I could do with some company.’
‘You go and enjoy yourself, in your own peculiar way,’ said Henry kindly. ‘There’s a quiche for cold supper in the fridge, isn’t there? And I’ll cut some sandwiches.’
‘My hero!’ I said gratefully.
Sabine
Later, I tried to explain to Nancy why I’d been so very upset at seeing that film of the party.
‘It wasn’t just seeing Faye, or that the party took place only a few days before Asa was taken ill,’ I said. ‘We’d invited the usual crowd for Asa’s birthday bash, and then Faye’s new friends from the yacht turned up, with hangers-on, all more than half-drunk and making a nuisance of themselves. Faye had invited them without asking, but Asa was so easy-going, he didn’t really mind …’
‘I don’t suppose he did,’ Nancy agreed. ‘And anyway, I expect he and his friends could have got rid of them easily enough, had they got really rowdy.’
‘Yes, and that’s what they had to do in the end. Faye sneaked off with them, though we didn’t notice till much later. By then, we were counting down the days until the people who’d brought her out to us came back and collected her!’
‘It was very bad of her guardians to dump her on you without notice, in the first place,’ Nancy said. ‘But I expect they were at their wits’ end wondering what to do with her after thatsecond school expelled her, and they thought a change of scene might do her good.’
‘It didn’t dousgood,’ I said bitterly, then confessed, ‘But whatreallyupset me in that film, Nancy, was the way Faye was standing so close to Asa, looking up at him and he—’
