The Finishing School by Muriel Spark Read Free Book Online Page B

afford to send him away from the school, and in any case he also knew he had Nina’s affection. As to Rowland, he continued to sense an unnatural curiosity bearing in on his actions, particularly his writings. Chris was quite sophisticated enough to question in his thoughts if this invasive interest of Rowland’s was sexual. He decided, perhaps it was, basically, in the sense that sex is basic, but that Rowland had no actual sexual motive or intention. Rowland’s interest in Chris was developed, mature, complex. In realizing this, Chris was flattered, and thought better of himself than was warranted. For his book, he did not feel it necessary to follow the historians in every small particular. He was quite capable of making history work for him, his plot, his characters. To Chris, those six years of Bonivard’s imprisonment at Chillon, from 1530 to 1536, had turned him into a socialist of his time. Well, why not? This made him all the more amenable, in his advanced age, to turn a benevolent gaze on the young Jacopo Rizzio who came to remind him of their meetings at the ambassadorial court of Savoy and other places, when David Rizzio was alive. Bonivard was seen to recall David’s musical talents, his diplomatic abilities and charm, and was infuriated against the Scottish Lord Darnley (“leader of the powerful Scottish establishment and husband of the Queen”). Bonivard promised Jacopo help: men, munitions, money, horses and brains adept at intrigue. They would cross to Scotland secretly, silently, arrange a mass of explosives and blow up Darnley.
    And the Queen, Mary Queen of Scots? Chris pondered deeply whether to make her, too, a socialist at heart. In which case she would be a justified part of the plot. Or was she completely innocent of the murder, but still a leader of the Scottish establishment? Chris felt that Bonivard would have sympathized with the Queen, in the light of her ultimate imprisonment by Queen Elizabeth in England. It had lasted far longer than his, and ended tragically. Chris felt he had to make Mary a rebel, on the side of the victimized Rizzio faction, and certainly, even the straight history books bore witness to Mary’s distress on the brutal massacre of her servant. How to prove she was a rebel at heart, socially speaking? Chris decided not to explain this factor.
    Princess Tilly was writing a thesis on the massacre of the Nepalese royal family in recent years. She had met one of their remote cousins at the Plaza Hotel in New York. This gave her confidence to describe the already well-documented scene, as if she herself had been there. She had forgotten the name of the young man she had met and dined with at the Plaza, but she made out it was a secret not to be revealed. She called him “R.” “As I danced in R’s arms, little did I dream of the drama awaiting him back at the Royal Palace . . .” In fact there had been no dancing at the Plaza, and the youth in question was nowhere near Nepal when the King and Queen were slaughtered by the distraught Crown Prince, but Tilly was already launching herself excellently on her future journalistic career. Rowland marveled as he read her essay. How slick and self-confident these young people were . . . How they could cover the pages, juggling the paragraphs around on their p.c.s and never for a moment thinking that any word could be spelt other than the way they wanted it to be. Tilly “dansed” with her friend from “Nipall.” Why not? Rowland thought. She will always have an editor to put her story straight. And if only, thought Rowland, I could know what Chris is composing, there alone in his room from which he emerges with that sly and cheerful smile: “No, Rowland, you can’t see it. To show it to you at this stage would ruin it for me.”
    Rowland regretted his early efforts to persuade Chris not to write the book. That had been a mistake. At least Chris would have felt at ease to show him what had been written so far, and he would