“I’ll take you upstairs,” said Rachel. Her manner was brisk but anxious, and she scuttered quickly up the stairs ahead of them. She led them into a low-ceilinged room looking out onto the hill behind the house.
“How pretty this is,” Emily said, meaning it. Everything in the room was fresh. The plaster ceiling here was brightly white, the woven rush carpet pale and clean, the flowers on the chintz clear and delicate.
“I’ve just done it up,” Rachel said, looking vaguely around the room as though she had just noticed it. “It’s come out rather well.”
“It’s lovely,” Emily said, but Rachel did not answer a second time.
Left alone in the cold bedroom, Emily and Richard abandoned the truce at once. Without speaking they moved back and forth, unpacking, avoiding each other’s touch or gaze.
They did not speak until they were ready to go down again. Richard, with his hand on the doorknob, turned to Emily and asked in a patronizing voice, “Now, before we go down, do you have anything to say to me?”
“Such as what?”
“Such as that you’re sorry?”
Emily gave him a look of contempt and pushed past him, opening the door herself and going out into the dark hallway.
Before dinner they all sat in the drawing room. The children, two girls and a boy, Giles, the youngest, came down with the nanny to be introduced. Emily watched William’s face as Giles, his favorite, was led forward. The child was fair-haired, like William, with huge bright patches of pink on his broad cheeks. Bold, triumphant, he stood with his arms crossed on his chest. He grinned precociously when he was introduced, and did not hold out his hand.
“Now, Giles,” said his nanny. She was a nice young Welsh woman, plump, with pale skin and very black short hair. Watching Giles she was full of anticipation.
“Giles,” William said, warningly, but with delight in his voice. Audacious, Giles waited, his legs apart, his eyes cast down, a private smile on his face. The moment lengthened. Just as the nanny and William simultaneously drew stern and audible breaths, Giles, without looking up, suddenly pulled out his hand, like a conjuror with a rabbit. Pleased with himself, he then shook hands, meticulously.
“Hello,” he said, looking first up into Emily’s face, then Richard’s. His older sisters watched him, full of suppressed hilarity. A performance was obviously expected.
Finding Giles to be the center of attention did not surprise Emily. She had heard about William’s family for years, over their lunches in New York. At a certain point in the meal Emily would ask, “And how is everyone at home?”
William would smile. “Everyone is very well.”
He was always reticent at first, but Emily had discovered the key. Next she would ask, “And how is Giles?”
At this, William’s face would light up.
“Giles is frightfully well,” he would answer, delighted. Then he would begin to talk.
It was one of the things Emily liked best about William, the great and evident joy he took in his family. It was how she knew him, and why she trusted him. It was one of the things she and Richard had fought about, here.
The day before, at breakfast, Richard had said, “Now, tell me about this household where we’re going.”
Richard had a meeting later that morning, and he was already dressed for business: gray suit, striped tie. He was sitting at a linen-covered table that the waiter had wheeled in. He was addressing a huge English breakfast: kippers, poached eggs, cold, crustless toast.
Emily was still in her bathrobe and still in bed. On her knees was a tray holding her breakfast: jugs of tea and hot water, croissants, a little pot of honey. The papers were spread haphazardly around her on the bed.
“William has a wife and three children,” said Emily. Her voice, like Richard’s, was carefully neutral: in between fights they were excruciatingly polite. “But they live out in the country. He only sees them on weekends.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the house is too far from London for him to commute,” said Emily. “He has to stay in the city during the week.”
Richard sliced his eggs with a neat crosshatch stroke.
“He hates it,” Emily went on. “It’s like living in exile.”
“Then why does he do it?” Richard asked. He took a bite.
“I just told you,” Emily said. “The house is too far to commute to.” She tore a tiny piece off the end of a croissant.
Richard looked skeptical. “If he really wanted to see his family every night, he would.”
“He can’t,” Emily said, nettled. “He can’t afford a big place in town. And it’s a family house. He can’t just sell it and move in closer.”
“He could do something different,” said Richard loftily. “Trust me.”
Emily looked up at him. “Why should I trust you? Why are you suddenly an expert on William’s life?” she asked. “You don’t know what their situation is.”
“A man who lives apart from his wife does it for a reason,” said Richard. “I do know that.” He took a long swallow of coffee without looking at her.
“Richard, it’s just possible that you’re wrong,” said Emily. “You hardly know William. It’s just possible that he does this because he wants his children to grow up in the country, not because he loathes his wife.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound like much of a marriage to me,” said Richard.
“Maybe it doesn’t,” said Emily, “but it’s not your marriage. As far as I know, William is happy.”
“Happy,” said Richard. He shook his head slightly, not looking at her.
But Emily would not answer him. She buttered the curly horn of a croissant and began to eat it; she picked up a section of the newspaper in a terminating way. She refused to say anything more on the subject; she refused to explain William to Richard. She knew William; Richard did not.
At their lunches, Emily had learned what William was like: warm and accessible, funny and responsive. From their conversations she could see how he was, glowing and benign. She saw him in place among his family like a sun. She could see him at home, radiant, generous, giving off heat and light to them all, without end or effort. Simply sitting across the table from him, Emily could feel William’s benevolent warmth. Richard was wrong. He knew nothing of William’s kindness, and nothing at all of his marriage.
The dining room at Welnore Court was long and bare, furnished haphazardly. There was no rug; skimpy pale-green curtains drooped at the tall windows. The satinwood table was very formal, highly polished, and much too big for the four of them. William and Rachel sat miles apart, at each end, and Richard and Emily confronted each other, at the center of the long sides. As soon as they all sat down Rachel sprang up from her seat.
“I’ll get the soup,” she said. She was sitting at the foot of the table, the farthest from the door to the kitchen. She walked rapidly the length of the table, past them all, her heels clicking loudly on the bare floor.
“Can I help?” asked Emily, but Rachel did not answer. She vanished through the swinging door.
William leaned forward. “Now,” he said attentively, “tell me what you’ve been doing in London.” He sat with his hands folded neatly in front of him on the table. He looked earnestly at Emily, his head tilted forward, one eyebrow lifted, as though he cared about every word of hers, every thought. Rachel reappeared, holding a shallow bowl of soup on a plate. She walked slowly, with cautiously hobbled steps, staring commandingly at the soup, as though her gaze would prevent it from slopping.
“We’ve had a lovely time,” Emily began. Rachel set the soup down in front of her. “Oh, thank you,” she said, looking up at Rachel, but Rachel had gone again.
“Have you been to the theater at all?” William asked, turning to Richard.
“Yes, we saw the new Pinter play,” said Richard. Rachel pushed through the swinging door again with another plate of soup.
“And?” asked William. “How did you find it? Do you like Pinter?”
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“Well, what’s brilliant about Pinter is what he doesn’t say, what’s left out of the dialogue, don’t you think?” said Richard.
Emily looked up. She was still angry at Richard, but her rage had begun to lose its heat. There was something here that she had not expected and could not decode. These cold half-empty rooms seemed increasingly strange; so did the atmosphere. She had begun to wish for an ally, a friend. She was no longer trapped alone with Richard, and now, hearing him talk to someone else, hearing him relaxed and thoughtful, Emily saw him in a different light. He no longer seemed an enemy.
“Those wonderful, ambiguous, ominous silences,” Richard went on. “They mean whatever you want them to mean. Pinter gets the audience to furnish the subtext with their own thoughts. Which means that intelligent people, or the people with the most interesting thoughts, think the play is intelligent, and that the silences are complex and full of subtle layers of meanings. Stupid people, whose own silences are not full of subtle meaning, think the play is stupid. But they aren’t the ones who write the reviews, or the essays on theater. So the work has a self-selecting audience of intelligent supporters. It’s quite neat, really, the way it all works.”
Emily was now reminded that Richard was someone she liked—his company, his thoughts.
Rachel set down Richard’s soup. “Thank you, Rachel,” he said, but she was heading back to the swinging door.
“Do start, both of you,” said William, “before it gets cold.” Emily and Richard murmured; they did not start.
“Would you call Pinter a charlatan, then? Does the emperor have no clothes?” William asked Richard. He listened with meticulous attention, as though Richard were a famous British theater critic and not an American lawyer.
“Not a charlatan,” said Richard, “not at all. I find some of his plays brilliant. I like ambiguity.”
“Oh, Richard. How can you say that? You don’t, really,” said Emily, but her tone was friendly.
“In plays, at least,” amended Richard. He smiled at her. “I suppose not so much in real life.”
“Which is where ambiguity is, of course, rampant,” said William.
“And where everyone furnishes their own subtexts,” said Emily. “Where we interpret things however we want to.”
“And where we change our interpretations continually,” said Richard, looking at Emily, “and drastically. The way you saw something earlier, even an hour ago, may now seem absurd. Don’t you think?” He held her eyes steadily, friendly.
Emily could see what he wanted: a real truce. But though she was thawing, she was not yet warm. She still remembered the things he had said the night before, they were still piled up, her spoils, her private hoard. Her gaze was mild but unresponsive, and she let it drift through Richard’s face as though he were clear glass.
Rachel set the soup down in front of William, who picked up his spoon. At that, Emily and Richard picked up theirs. When Rachel brought her own soup in and finally sat down, the rest of them had begun eating.
“I do hope you don’t mind, Rachel,” William said, giving her the same extravagant and courteous attention he had given Richard, his eyebrows raised solicitously. “We’ve started.”
Rachel looked up at him without speaking. They all were looking at her. She glanced at Emily, as though it had been Emily who had spoken.
“It’s quite all right,” she said, and picked up her spoon.
It seemed to Emily that the conversation went very well while Rachel was clearing and bringing in. It was when she was sitting with them that talk flagged. She refused to let Emily help, and with each course they all sat while Rachel walked determinedly back and forth to the kitchen, carrying one plate at a time: she would not stack. The lamb was pink and tender, but stone cold by the time they began to eat it.
“I was admiring your garden as we drove up,” Emily said to Rachel when she finally sat down with her own plate. “I hope you’ll show it to me tomorrow.”
Rachel looked up. “Have you a garden?”
“A small one,” Emily said.
“Oh, Emily has a perfectly lovely garden,” said William, who had seen it. “A perfectly lovely garden.”
“Yes, of course,” Rachel said, frowning slightly. “Of course it’s the wrong season, but if you’d like a look round tomorrow, I could take you. I could show you the shrubbery.”
“That would be lovely,” Emily said.
Rapid steps were heard outside in the hall, and the nanny burst into the room.
“Mr. Langdale, it’s Giles,” she said, excited. Her cheeks were pink, and she had a screwdriver in her hand.
“What is it, Julia?” asked William, putting down his napkin.
“He’s locked himself in your bedroom,” said Julia. “We can’t get him out.”
“Good Lord,” said William. “What in the world was he doing in there?”
“He was a bit overwrought, you see,” said Julia. Her eyes were shining. “I told him he could start off in his mother’s room, just to get to sleep. He does that sometimes. And then, since you were here, he changed his mind just as he was getting into bed, and ran down the hall and into your room. I was running after him and he got quite excited, I think. Just as a joke, you see, he banged the door against me. ‘Giles, you open that door,’ I said, and I’m afraid he locked it, just as a joke. Only now he can’t get it open again. I’ve had the gardener up there. He can’t get it open either. We’ve all tried. Shall I call the fire department, or will you have a go?”
William got up, shaking his head. “Excuse me,” he said, without looking at anyone. He left the room, focused as a hound.
As he left, Rachel called after them. “Julia!” Julia turned back. “Is Giles all right?”
“Oh, he’s fine, Mrs. Langdale,” Julia answered. Her voice was high and animated, as though she were at a carnival. She trotted eagerly off after William.
Rachel watched them go, but stayed where she was. There was a pause, and Emily tried to revive the conversation.
“Do you do all the gardening yourself?” she asked.
Rachel glanced at her doubtfully. “No,” she said, “I have help.”
“Have I made a gaffe?” said Emily cheerfully. “Am I at Hid-cote? Are your gardens world-famous?”
“Oh, no,” said Rachel, forbiddingly, and did not continue. Snubbed, Emily subsided.
Richard took a turn, asking politely about schools.
“And will you send Giles away when he’s seven?”
“Oh, I should think so,” Rachel said. All their questions seemed to surprise and alarm her.
“You won’t miss him?” Emily said. She thought this custom cruel and barbaric, sending infants away from their parents. If it was the lower classes who did it, she thought, the state would intervene to prevent it.
“Everyone does it,” Rachel explained, as though this justified the orphaning. “All his friends will go.”
William reappeared in the doorway with a suppressed smile at his son’s triumphant naughtiness.
“Did you get him out?” Rachel asked.
“I got him out,” William said, sitting down. “Please excuse this appalling circus,” he said to Emily. “Giles is a perfectly dreadful child. His behavior is quite intolerable.” He sounded pleased.
When they finished eating, Emily, without asking, stood when Rachel did. She took her plate and Richard’s, carrying them firmly through the swinging door behind Rachel. The kitchen beyond was terrible—prisonlike, low-ceilinged, and cement-colored. The floor was dirty linoleum, the old refrigerator turquoise. The white tiles behind the stove were yellowed with grease, and old dirt seemed to fill the cracks on all the surfaces. Two windows looked out over a kitchen garden, and the light from the house illuminated the frost-blackened carcasses of vegetable plants.
“What a nice view,” Emily said.
“It’s nice in summer,” Rachel said. In silence they scraped the plates, and Emily loaded them into the dishwasher. Emily kept hoping th
at a cheery gray-haired woman with stout forearms would appear and tell them energetically to leave the rest for her, but she did not. Emily thought of Julia, upstairs with the three children, playing uproarious games, giving them baths, reading aloud, while Rachel toiled down here alone in this ghastly kitchen. Why would you pay someone to have fun with your children, Emily wondered, and assign yourself to drudgery? But how could you send your child off among strangers at the age of seven?
Emily thought longingly of her own small, faraway daughter, the glowing wistful face. Now, in this dark place, the thought of the distant child was agonizing: a bright star in deep space. Emily could not imagine, now, how she could have left her daughter for these two weeks. She remembered Richard, saying good-bye to her. He knelt down on the hall floor, pressing the small body to his chest, wrapping himself tightly around her, closing his eyes. Remembering that, remembering his closed eyes, his fervent face, the last of Emily’s anger at him loosened and dissolved.
After dinner they had coffee in the sitting room. Rachel set a tray on an upholstered bench in front of the sofa. The sitting room, too, seemed half empty: the one sofa and the few chairs were scattered awkwardly about, too far away from each other for conversation. The chairs matched neither each other nor anything else. All the rooms except the guest room seemed bare and unfinished.
“This is a lovely house,” Emily said, stirring her coffee in its tiny cup. She looked around the bleak room. “Have you been here long?”
There was a pause. William was sitting on the sofa, his legs crossed at the ankle. He was leaning back among the silk pillows, supple, at ease. In one hand he held his emerald-green demitasse, in the other, a cigar. Rachel was walking behind the sofa, and at Emily’s question she stopped. She stepped close to the sofa, stood behind her husband and put her hand on his shoulder. It was not a clasp, her fingers did not seem bold enough to take possession. Her hand lay lightly against his dark wool jacket, pale, uncertain, brave.
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