Harold took out his note-case.
The coloured woman removed the chain, and stood back for him to pass.
A visitor, someone to amuse her mistress and make her laugh, was exactly what the lady needed, she said. She would tell the lady the good news immediately. Even if she had to break down the bedroom door, she would do it. Her hand went wandering out towards the note-case.
The room into which he had been shown was stifling. Behind the drawn curtains, the windows were all closed, and the jalousies fastened. The housekeeper gave a little tug to straighten the lace antimacassar on the nearest chairback, and said that she would be returning immediately.
He could hear the slop-slop of her shoes as she went away down the corridor. Then there was silence. It was broken only by the ticking of the gilt clock on the mantelpiece, and the sound of someone sweeping on the balcony outside.
Ten minutes later, when he could not breathe, he got up and opened one of the windows. Then he closed it again to keep out the dust. The sweeper himself was hidden in the midst of it, Harold undid his collar.
Half-an-hour went by. The housekeeper came back to say that the lady was still sleeping. She slept very badly nowadays. Sometimes she was awake all night. It would not be right to rouse her, even to say that a gentleman was there. But it should not be long now. Any moment, in fact. Who could say? She shrugged her shoulders, and left him.
Harold tried opening the window again. The sweeper had moved away, but one of the garden-boys had taken over. He was changing the earth in a row of flower pots along the balcony. Dead petals lay all round him, and the newly sifted soil rose up into the air like smoke. Harold took his coat off.
This time the housekeeper was already shrugging her shoulders as she entered the room. The lady was awake, she said. She could hear her moving about. But she refused to answer. She would try again later. It was all a question of selecting the right moment. She asked if Harold would like coffee.
When she brought the tray to him, she said that it was now only a matter of time. In any case, the lady had not yet had her breakfast. Then there would be the bath, and choosing what she should wear. It could not all happen in an instant. She begged him to be patient.
The delay was even longer now. Harold could hear the dragging feet of the housekeeper as she went back and forth along the corridor, but each time she went straight past his room. He began to wonder if she had forgotten about him.
Then, breathless and excited, the housekeeper burst in. She had delivered the message. Its effect on the lady had been tremendous. She had never seen anyone so deeply moved. There had been both smiles and tears. No doubt, she was dressing at this very moment. The housekeeper could not stay any longer, in case the lady needed her.
There was silence again. He could no longer even hear footsteps. Out in the front of the house the endless sound of sweeping continued. But that was all. Even the tick of the gilt clock had grown so familiar that he had ceased to be aware of it. Pulling up a stool, he thrust out his legs and lay back. He was wondering if he ought to have brought flowers.
That was how Lady Anne found him, all slumped down in his chair, when she came in. It was the sound of the door opening that woke him. He scrambled to his feet, and stood there, staring at her.
He thought that he had never seen her look so beautiful. She was wearing one of those plain schoolgirl dresses that she used to go about in, back in the Residency garden; and her hair was loose over her shoulders the way she knew he liked it.
Her eyes were on him, and her lips were parted.
‘I saw you arrive,’ she said. ‘You’ve waited quite long enough. You can go now.’
It was late when the messenger arrived.
In the dining-room, the solitary waiter was already going round folding back the corners of the striped table-cloths, so that the floor underneath could be scrubbed properly.
It was, the manager and his wife agreed afterwards, almost as though Harold had been reluctant to touch the envelope, let alone open it and read what was inside. He simply sat there, not moving, looking down at the pink notepaper with the big excited handwriting that he knew so well.
The manager’s wife had to repeat, quite loudly the second time, that it was for him, that it was urgent, that it had only just arrived, and that the boy who had brought it was, even now, recovering on the porch so that he could run all the way back with the reply. Then, and only then, did Harold begin to understand.
He reached out for it, and the manager’s wife noticed that his hand was shaking. He could hardly insert the knife to slit it open. But she could make out nothing from his expression while he was reading. Pink and scented and obviously feminine as the letter was, it might simply have been a trade circular for all the emotion he was showing.
‘There’s no answer,’ he said quietly. ‘Just no answer at all.’
‘But it’s not exactly the centre of the world, remember. I knew that there wasn’t another train out of here until tomorrow,’ Lady Anne was saying. ‘Otherwise I might have been really worried that you wouldn’t come.’
She broke off for a moment to stir the ice in the glass that she was holding; in that heat it was necessary to keep adding fresh lumps all the time.
‘But I knew you would. I was sure of it. I didn’t see how you couldn’t.’
Harold drew in his lips.
‘We’ve wasted nearly one whole day,’ he said.
‘Whose fault was that? I wrote to you, didn’t I? I said I was sorry.’ She paused. ‘And I sat up all night waiting for the answer. I didn’t go to bed at all. I was here in this chair by the window so that I could see you if you did come.’
She had left her chair while she was speaking, and gone over to the side table where the bottles were. On the way, she paused long enough to stroke the backs of her fingers down along his cheek.
‘Just to feel that you’re really here,’ she said.
Behind him, he could hear the sound of the whisky splashing into the glass.
‘It’s only to make it taste of something,’ she told him. ‘I mustn’t start stirring this one.’
Again, there was the feel of her fingers brushing across his cheek as she passed. He tried to catch her hand, but already she had drawn away from him.
‘And don’t go on sulking because I wouldn’t see you,’ she said, as she sat down. ‘It didn’t mean anything.’
She was smiling at him. It was an extremely possessive kind of smile.
‘Anyhow. None of it matters now. You’re back again. That’s all that counts.’
‘And you do believe about the letters?’ he asked. ‘About Sybil Prosser stopping them, I mean?’
Lady Anne shrugged her shoulders.
‘It’s just the sort of thing she would do,’ she said.
‘She obviously had it on her conscience,’ Harold replied. ‘Otherwise she wouldn’t have come and told me.’
Lady Anne gave a little laugh.
‘She’s got a lot more than that on her conscience.’
There was the little catch in her voice as she said it. Harold wondered how long she had been sitting there drinking before he had arrived; how long she had sat on all those other nights.
‘Why don’t you get away from here?’ he asked. ‘What’s the point of staying on like this?’
‘What’s the point of doing anything—now?’
He sat back, and looked at her. The lines under her eyes were new: they were deep lines. And the corners of her mouth had begun to drag downwards.
‘Don’t… don’t you even want to see Timothy?’
‘Not any more. He reminds me too much of Gardie.’
‘I went to see him,’ he told her. ‘I wrote all about it in one of those letters.’
She did not answer for a moment.
‘You’re very sweet,’ she said. ‘Really you are. But you shouldn’t have bothered. I don’t want to see him.’
‘He may want to see you.’
‘Not Timothy. He’s le
arnt to get along without me. He’s like Gardie.’
He noticed again this mixture of bitterness and the pet name.
‘You can’t just bury yourself here.’
‘Why not? I like it here.’
He got up, and went over to her.
‘I’m not going to let it happen.’
She moved away from him; drew back in her chair as if she did not want to be touched.
‘There isn’t anything you can do. Not any longer.’
‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ he told her.
He tried to put his arms round her, but she pushed him away from her.
‘That’s what Sybil used to say. And it wasn’t all right, was it?’
She lifted her head, and he was looking down into those astonishing, deep eyes again.
‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘We’d better just give up.’
He started to speak, but she stopped him.
‘I’m finished. That’s what you don’t seem to realise. I’m finished. I’m no use to anybody. Not after what happened.’
He thought for a moment that she was going to start crying. But instead she reached over, and took up one of the photograph frames from the table beside her chair. As she held it in front of her, the lines around her mouth softened.
She passed the photograph to him.
‘Look at that, and you’ll see what I mean,’ she said. ‘That was me at eighteen. I’d only just met Gardie. Don’t you wish you’d known me in those days? I was something, I can tell you. That was before I knew how it was all going to turn out. That’s the way I like to think of me.’
He put the frame back onto the table.
‘I’ll take you as you are,’ he said.
Her head was to one side, so that the long curve of her neck was showing.
‘I believe you would,’ she told him.
He glanced down to look at his watch, but Lady Anne put her hand over it.
‘You’re not to look at your watch,’ she said, ‘and you’re not to go. I’ve been horrible to you. I’ve talked about myself all the time. I didn’t mean to. Really, I didn’t. It’s just that I haven’t seen anyone.’
She was already holding her arms out to him; and he could see that her hands were trembling. It was always the same: the trembling and the catch in her voice went together.
‘I don’t see why you’ve got to go at all,’ she said. ‘It means that we shall both be alone then. Don’t go back to that dreadful hotel. Stay here with me. Tell me you’ll stay.’
She began to stroke his cheek again, very slowly this time.
‘Poor, poor eye,’ she kept saying. ‘And I didn’t know. It’s all my fault. And I didn’t know a thing.’
‘It wasn’t your fault it happened.’
‘Oh, but it was. I should have warned you.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘It was an accident. I moved.’
She let her hand rest on his cheek, fondling it.
‘You wouldn’t have believed me, so I didn’t tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘That Gardie meant to kill you. It’s what I was afraid of all the time.’
Chapter 53
The housekeeper had grown reconciled to the new arrangement; even rather liked it, in fact. Having a man in the house gave a feeling of security and permanence. Admittedly, there was more cooking to be done. But anything, she reflected, would be better than a lifetime spent endlessly waiting on a single lady.
‘And they’re beautiful letters,’ Lady Anne was saying to him. ‘I’ve never had letters like that before. Gardie was a terrible letter-writer. I didn’t always finish his.’
She was leaning over the back of his chair while she was speaking, and she kept stroking the sleeve of Harold’s jacket.
‘If I’d ever had them, I don’t think I’d have been ill again. I don’t see how I could have been. But that’s what Sybil wanted. She didn’t want me to get well. Then I’d have been independent.’
She reached down and put her hand over his.
‘I don’t know what she told you about me but, whatever it is, it isn’t true. She was just a wicked old woman who went round inventing things. You’ll always believe me, and not Sybil, won’t you?’
She turned so that he could kiss her. She was looking down at him, and her face was half hidden by a wing of dark hair that fell across her forehead.
‘She didn’t tell me anything,’ he said.
The letters, thrust back into their envelopes, were spread out on the rug in front of them. Lady Anne had gone down on her knees, and was gathering them up again.
‘I shall keep these for always,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you look sometimes. Just to remind you when you’ve got tired of me. But nobody else is ever going to see them.’
She was holding them up against her bosom as she said it.
‘I’m glad Sybil only opened the first one,’ she added. ‘I couldn’t bear to think of her touching any of them.’
She had put the envelopes very carefully together, smoothing out the crumpled corners as she did so. Then she tied them up again. It was Sybil Prosser’s piece of ribbon that she was using.
‘They’re too precious to get lost,’ she said.
‘I meant what I said in the letters,’ he reminded her. ‘I meant every word of it.’
‘Even the cross, rude ones when you hadn’t heard from me?’
‘Even the cross, rude ones.’ He reached out and pulled her closer, so that she was resting up against him. ‘And are you going to marry me?’
She turned her face towards him. Her eyes seemed larger than ever now.
‘You know how much I want to,’ she said. ‘I want it more than anything.’
‘Then …’
‘But I can’t. Not yet. You must see that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too soon. Much too soon.’
‘It’s nearly a year.’
‘People would start talking.’
‘There isn’t very much left for them to say.
‘It’s you I’m thinking of. They can’t say anything new about me.’
She gave a little laugh as she said it; her old Residency social laugh that didn’t mean anything. And she began pulling his wrists away from her. Then she stood up, running her hands down her dress where it had become crumpled. She was completely composed again.
‘We’ve just got to be sensible,’ she said. ‘There’s no point in rushing things. I couldn’t marry you while Old Moses is still alive. I just couldn’t. It wouldn’t seem right somehow.’
‘Old Moses may live for years.’
Lady Anne shook her head.
‘Not much longer,’ she said.
‘And we can get married then?’
She had her head on one side, smiling at him.
‘Haven’t I got you into enough trouble already?’ she asked.
ii
It was the one train of the day; and, at Nucca terminus, the restaurant car was already being loaded up with ice, fresh vegetables, sea food, liquor, hot rolls. By the time the passengers got there, most of the ice would have melted: there would be large pools of steamy water underneath the kitchen coaches.
‘I don’t see why you’ve got to catch it at all. Why can’t you just stop here with me?’
She stubbed out the cigarette that she was holding. Inside the ashtray, it went on smouldering.
‘I’ve got a job to do,’ he told her.
‘Is it much more important than I am?’
‘Not to me, it isn’t. Only to other people.’
‘I’m sick of other people.’
She pushed the ashtray away from her while she was speaking.
‘I didn’t want it,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I took it. Sybil was the one who smoked, not me. I must have been thinking about something else.’
She was smiling again; not directly at him, but quietly, contentedly to herself.
‘It was about us. When w
e’re married, we can be together all the time. You won’t ever have to go away again. We can just forget about other people. We needn’t bother about anything.’
‘There’ll still be my job.’
‘Not unless you want it. Gardie was awfully rich, really. Timothy gets most of it. But there’s still plenty left over. It was the settlement part that Gardie couldn’t alter.’
She spoke as though she had been at pains to make sure: he suddenly saw her going over the will carefully, clause by clause; with Sybil, possibly.
‘But I don’t want to live on Gardie’s money.’
He realised as he said it that it was the first time he had ever called him by that name. It was as though already Harold had become one of the family; but, in a strange way, it was still Gardie’s family.
‘He wouldn’t have minded. Gardie liked you.’
‘Last time you said he tried to kill me.’
‘So he did. That hasn’t got anything to do with it.’ She paused. ‘Gardie was quite mad, you know.’
She spoke as though it were something which, between friends, she would have expected Harold to have realised.
‘That’s why I was so frightened of him.’ She broke off to brush away some ash from the cigarette that she hadn’t wanted. ‘He’d killed somebody already, remember. Miles committed suicide. Gardie drove him to it.’
Harold was watching her closely now. She seemed unconcerned enough; even not concerned enough, perhaps.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘It was before you came out,’ she said simply.
She spoke as though that disposed of the whole matter, made it not worth talking about any longer.
‘You never had to live with him, did you?’ she added. ‘You never knew what he was really like.’
‘We got on very well together.’
She laughed. It was a quick, unamused sort of laugh.
‘Oh, that wouldn’t have stopped him killing you.’
The travelling clock on the table beside her gave a little ping. It was the half-hour. Harold looked down at his watch. The first of the passengers were probably already seated in the train by now.
‘He knew all about us,’ she said. ‘The A.D.C. told him. That’s what he was there for. And Gardie just couldn’t let it go on, could he? You must see that.’
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