It was a misfortune of Andrew’s that when his mind was not otherwise occupied, it tended to fill itself with scraps of verse or songs that he supposed he must once have admired, but which he had long outgrown. And unfortunately once one of these usually puerile fragments had taken possession of him, it would repeat itself until it was replaced by something equally inane. It gave him no pleasure and had sometimes made him wonder if it was a symptom of a mild form of insanity.
When he woke up next morning and was waiting for his breakfast to arrive, he found himself almost immediately repeating to himself:
‘On a tree by a river a little tomtit
Sang Willow, titwillow, titwillow …’
The seed of it had of course been sown in his mind the evening before, when Ian had talked with enthusiasm of the birds that he had watched in the neighbourhood. He had also talked of a trip that he hoped to make in the winter with a few other members of the Rockford branch of the RSPB to Kenya, a place to which people went for really serious bird-watching, though there was a possibility that they might decide to go to the Gambia, as it would be cheaper. But the result of this was that Gilbert and Sullivan was almost sure to pursue Andrew for at least the next few hours, perhaps even the next few days. He remembered that long ago, when he was about twelve years old, he had been taken to the theatre, in itself a great adventure, had seen The Mikado and the song had charmed him. But now he found it intensely irritating to be compelled to repeat it over and over again until his breakfast arrived.
Mollie brought it to him soon after eight o’clock. There was coffee, some orange juice, toast and marmalade and a small square of Cheshire cheese.
‘Oh, really, Mollie, you shouldn’t have bothered,’ Andrew said when he saw this. ‘I mean to grow out of the habit.’
‘But why should you?’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s a habit that’s very little trouble to other people. Did you sleep well?’
She was again in her black jeans and scarlet shirt with the look of having slept well herself.
‘Excellently,’ Andrew replied, and as she placed the tray on his knees, went on, ‘Mollie, there’s something I must ask you. I’m so struck by it. That embroidery there, did you design it?’
She looked up at it and frowned slightly, as if she were uncertain what to say, and it intrigued Andrew to see that she blushed. At least, it seemed to him that she blushed, though the normal colour in her cheeks was bright enough for him not to be sure of it.
‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘No, really not at all, except for the colours. The design itself came from a photograph from an electron miscroscope, and was black and white, of course. It’s interesting that it caught your eye, because you know so much more about that sort of thing than I do.’
Talking to Mollie had successfully driven the tomtit back into Andrew’s unconscious.
‘But how do you get hold of photographs from an electron microscope?’ he asked. ‘You’re neither of you scientists.’
‘No, but a friend of ours is,’ she said. ‘I think we talked about him yesterday evening. Brian Singleton. Didn’t we tell you he was a biochemist who works at the Rockford Agricultural Institute? It was his idea. I’d been trying my hand at watercolours soon after we came here, but I’d absolutely no real talent for that and got bored with it, and then a woman I’d met here suggested I should try my hand at embroidery. But I didn’t care for the designs she suggested. They were quite nice, but mostly traditional, and I wanted to do something original. And Brian suggested I ought to look at these photographs he had, that they might give me some ideas, and they seemed to me exactly what I was looking for.’
‘You must be very skilled,’ Andrew said. ‘They’re charming.’
He was sure now of the blush on her cheeks.
‘Don’t let your coffee get cold,’ she said, ‘and come down when you feel like it. You’re going to Eleanor’s presently to be photographed, aren’t you?’
‘I’m afraid I said I would,’ Andrew answered. He poured out some coffee. ‘Of course, if you could think of some really good excuse to get me out of it, I’d be grateful.’
‘Oh, it won’t be as bad as all that,’ she said. ‘But if you like, I could ring up and say you’ve woken up with a terrible headache and have got to lie down.’
‘She’d only ask me to come tomorrow, wouldn’t she? I can hardly spend all my time here with a terrible headache. I’ll just have to face it.’
He sipped some orange juice. Mollie laughed.
‘Actually, you’ll probably find some of her old photographs quite interesting, and you’ll get to like her better when you’ve seen a bit more of her.’
Andrew doubted this. However, as Mollie left him, he found himself wondering at her blushing so easily when her work was praised. It seemed to him that there was something a little pathetic about it, as if she was not normally appreciated as she longed to be. He wondered what she thought of Ian’s bird-watching. But that brought back the wretched tomtit.
He did his best to drown it in orange juice and coffee, ate his cheese and his toast and marmalade, then got up, shaved and had a shower, and as by then it was only half past nine, decided to go for a walk before he was due at Eleanor Clancy’s. Ian was in the garden, mowing the lawn, and from sounds in the kitchen it seemed probable that Mollie was occupied already with cooking. Looking into the kitchen, he told her that he was going out, then set off across the common.
The morning was one of the delightful kind that sometimes comes in early September. The sky was a pale but radiant blue, and a slight breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees that edged the common. It was warm but not at all oppressive. Some young children with an older girl watching them were playing on the swings and slides of the playground. Passing it, Andrew walked on across the rather dusty turf towards the lake that he had seen from his window. The activity of walking kept his mind pleasantly free of songs and rhymes, but allowed him to think with some seriousness of Malpighi. Should he embark on another biography? And unlike its predecessor, would it not in truth probably never be finished? Even if he did not actually die before he had come to the end of it, would his mind maintain sufficient clarity to make steady work possible?
These thoughts were interrupted by the fact that a man was approaching him from the direction of the lake. He was carrying a fishing-rod, a basket, and two fairly large fish strung on a line.
Coming level with Andrew, he observed, ‘Two fine tench.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Andrew agreed, thinking that he had misheard what the man had said and that actually he had remarked on it being a fine day.
‘Tench,’ the man said. He had stood still and was looking at Andrew with some interest. ‘Plenty in the lake. Plenty in all the inland waterways in this country. Generally underrated, like carp. The thing is to know how to cook them. Coarse fish, of course, but if you soak them for three or four hours in slightly acidulated water—if you don’t do that they just taste of mud—then cook them according to Mrs Beeton, you’ll find they’re delicious. Our forefathers knew all about that, but naturally they depended on lakes and rivers for their fish. In the days before trains and lorries you didn’t eat fish if you lived inland. Well, good day.’
He strode on, leaving Andrew wondering if he had just had a brief conversation with Mr Samuel Waldron. He was a tall man and walked with long strides. He looked about fifty, and was wearing a white sweater, brown corduroy trousers and gumboots.
That gumboots would have been necessary if he had been fishing in the lake Andrew recognized as soon as he reached it himself, for its banks were muddy and its edges reedy. But the water was clear and the faint ripples raised by the breeze sparkled in the sunshine. Andrew walked all the way round it, at one point crossing a small bridge which he realized was over a narrow stream that flowed out of the lake, a placid stream in which there was hardly any movement. There were trees on its banks, not yet even faintly touched by the copper tints of autumn. And yet it seemed to him that there was a scent of autumn in the air, or at least of the ending of summer.
He enjoyed his walk and because he was returning from it too early for his appointment with Eleanor Clancy, he sat down for a while on a bench that overlooked the children’s playground and watched them on the swings and slides, occasionally fighting with one another, with a good deal of shouting and hitting and kicking, to be separated by the girl who was in charge of them, only to revert, as soon as her back was turned, to this occupation which they seemed to enjoy most among those that were available. Violence shows itself early in the human creature, Andrew thought. But at times the combatants strolled about with their arms round one another, their warfare forgotten. He waited until a few minutes to eleven, then strolled down to the Clancy cottage.
Eleanor must have seen him coming, for the door opened a moment before he reached it and she welcomed him in. She took him into a small, square room with one casement window that overlooked the road and a glass door of more recent construction that opened into the garden. Outside it, on a small patio, were a couple of garden chairs and a low round table. The garden was packed in a disorganized way, but very richly, mostly with herbaceous plants, not many of which were still in flower. There was a big cluster of black-eyed susan in bloom, and some tall marguerites, a few snapdragons and geraniums, as well as roses and clumps of greenery that Andrew could not identify. There was also a splendid vine growing against the fence that enclosed the garden. It looked as if it might have been there as long as the cottage.
‘You’d like some coffee, wouldn’t you?’ Eleanor said. ‘Shall we have it in the garden? It’s such a lovely morning.’
Andrew said that he would enjoy coffee and that it would be delightful to have it in the garden, and after seeing him installed in one of the chairs outside, she disappeared to make the coffee. Coming back soon with a tray, she settled down in the second chair and poured out the coffee. She was wearing the same jeans as the day before, but a frilly pale blue blouse which did not suit her angular build or her tanned colouring. It was made of silk, however, and looked as if it might have been put on in honour of her visitor.
‘Ah, you’re looking at my vine,’ she said and as she said it she picked up a small camera that Andrew had noticed lying with some books on the table and began to fiddle with it. ‘I don’t know how old it is. At least a hundred years or more, I should think. I believe I’m going to have a good crop off it this year, and I’m going to try my hand at making wine. I’ve never done it before, but I think it should be rather exciting. I’ve quite a good cellar under the cottage, so I mean to make plenty. I’ll take you down there presently, if you’d care to see some of the old photographic equipment I inherited from my father. It actually dates from my great-grandfather’s time, and my father and his father never took any interest in it, but they treasured it—great box things, you know, that stood on tripods, and the photographer had to put a black thing over his head when he was taking the photograph, and the model had to sit absolutely motionless for some minutes while he was doing it. Is that what you were expecting today? Is that why you were so nervous of coming?—there!’ She had lifted the camera while she had been talking and it had just gone click. ‘That didn’t hurt, did it?’ She gave a giggle. ‘And I’m sure it’ll be very nice. Of course I want to take a few more and I’ll send you proofs to choose among for the ones you like best. I can get your address from the Davidges, can’t I? Or are you staying here long?’
‘About a week, I think,’ Andrew replied.
‘Then I expect I can get them ready for you to look at before you go.’
She chatted on about her photography, and wanted to know about the book that she had been told Andrew had been writing, and although the camera went click from time to time, Andrew did not find it as disagreeable as he had expected.
‘Now, come inside and look at some of my pictures,’ she said, when the coffee was finished. ‘I’d like you to see some of the ones I took while I was still teaching. Did you know I’d been a teacher? Games mistress at a place called St Hilda’s in Hampshire, till I got too old to keep on with that kind of job. Very rewarding, except financially.’ She giggled again. ‘But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve had a very satisfying life. Now look at that!’
They had gone into the little sitting-room and she was pointing at a framed photograph on a wall. It was of a group of girls in dark red sweaters and short grey skirts holding cricket bats.
‘Our first eleven, the year they beat Etchingham—that was another school they played matches against regularly—and there am I beside them. A bit younger than now! You needn’t say it doesn’t show.’
Andrew had not thought of saying that it did not show, though as a matter of fact the high, bony shoulders, the long neck, the strong, bony features and the hair cut like a cap had not changed so very much. But the grace of youth had been lost.
‘Who was taking the photograph?’ he asked. ‘It couldn’t have been yourself, since you’re in the picture.’
‘Oh, I forget. One of the other mistresses. It was an honour that the girls wanted me to be included. It showed gratitude, didn’t it, for all the coaching I’d given them? And that—’ she put a finger on one of the girls in the photograph—‘is the Waldron girl. I remember her very well. A natural athlete, and a sweet personality, though very quiet. I wonder if she’s any connection of the Waldrons here, or even if she’s Mrs Waldron. I mean, if she’d married a cousin, she might not have changed her name. But I suppose it isn’t such an uncommon one. But hearing it made me think of how much I’d like to see her again. Some of the girls, of course, used to visit the school after they’d left, and so one kept in touch with them, but I don’t think Suzie ever did. Suzie Waldron, that was her name, it’s just come back to me.’
‘And how long ago was this photograph taken?’
The girls all being in school uniform, their clothes did not tell him anything about the date of the picture.
‘Oh, twenty years at least,’ she answered. ‘Yes, I’d have been about thirty. I hadn’t been at the school very long. But I stayed there until I retired and they gave me a most magnificent present when I left, a tea-set of lovely Copenhagen china. Of course I never use it, because my dishwasher would ruin it. Now, would you like to see some of my great-grandfather’s work? Only wait a minute—I think I’d like to take just one more of you, in here, with that background of books. That would be appropriate for a professor, wouldn’t it?’ She gave her little giggle once more.
It would also be one of the real clichés of photography, Andrew thought, remembering all the portraits of politicians, of writers, of people being interviewed on television, that he had seen against a background of books. In television the books were only too often the same ones, which did not say anything special about the subject’s erudition. However, he obediently subsided into the chair that Eleanor pointed out to him and let her do her worst.
Afterwards they went down into her cellar, which he realized was used not only for storing the old cameras, jars of unknown chemicals, and some racks of glass quarter-plate negatives, but also as her own dark-room. She pointed out the negatives to him.
‘I wish we had time for you to see more,’ she said. ‘I’ve a lantern and a screen on which I could show them to you, but it’s a bit of trouble to set up.’
Instead, taking him upstairs again, and opening a drawer in an old bureau in a corner of the room, she showed him a box full of prints, most of them sepia, and most of them of scenes taken in the Far East, many of them of delightfully pretty ladies in lungis and with parasols held over their heads and flowers in their dark hair. A few were of white ladies in what must have been an almost intolerable quantity of clothing, considering the climate, and of white gentlemen with beards and straw hats. She picked out one photograph of a young girl in a high-necked lacey blouse, gloves to her elbows and a skirt which she was saucily holding in such a way that it showed the frills of the petticoat she was wearing under it. She looked about twenty.
‘Isn’t she sweet?’ she said. ‘She’s my great-grandmother. She died of malaria when she was twenty-five. There’s a lot about her in the letters my great-grandfather wrote home to his parents. Of course they took weeks and weeks to arrive, but they were all treasured and they’re very interesting. I really think I must make them into a book, with illustrations. Do you think any publisher would look at it?’
‘I think I should attempt it,’ Andrew said. ‘As you said yesterday, it’s history.’
He did not add that it to some extent depended on her ability to make a good job of it.
She looked pleased.
‘I think I really will have a go at it, though I’ve never tried writing anything before,’ she said. ‘Not that I’d have to write much. It would be mostly a case of editing. Do you think you could take a look at it from time to time as I go along and give me advice? It would be such a help to have someone experienced to give me an opinion.’
‘Experienced! My dear Miss Clancy, I’ve written only one book in my life which took me several years to get into a form that any publisher would look at. I’m sure you could find someone better suited for your needs. You might think about Mr Waldron. It sounds as if he’s a bit of a historian.’
‘Do call me Eleanor,’ she said, ‘and thank you so much for coming this morning.’
The first guest to arrive at the small party that Ian and Mollie were giving that evening came punctually at six o’clock, and struck Andrew as someone who would always arrive at the exact time of any appointment. He was introduced to Andrew as Ernest Audley, who, he remembered from what Mollie had told him the day before about the guests they expected, was a solicitor, who lived in Lower Milfrey but worked in Rockford. He was a tall, gangling man, with sandy red hair that stood straight up from a high, narrow forehead, a thin nervous face which except for some noticeably red blotches on his cheekbones was unusually pale, light blue eyes with thick, sandy lashes, and a small mouth that seemed to have some difficulty in smiling. There was something about his whole personality that expressed a kind of detachment, even when what he was saying was friendly. He told Andrew that he had heard about him from the Davidges and had been looking forward to meeting him, yet the look with which he was regarding him might have been as fittingly fixed upon one of the pieces of furniture in the room.
However, Mollie had greeted him with a warm kiss, which as the evening progressed Andrew saw was how she greeted everybody, and Audley had returned the kiss with a certain warmth which suggested that there might be feelings in him which could be worth reaching if only one knew the trick of doing so.
The next to arrive was Brian Singleton, the biochemist who worked in the Rockford Agricultural Institute and who was the brother of the noted writer. He looked about thirty-five and was tall, broad-shouldered and strongly-built, with a square, bronzed face, big, wide-spaced grey eyes, a wide, well-shaped mouth and the sort of short nose that it is easy not to notice. His hair was fair and curly. He was carrying a basket of nectarines which he presented to Mollie after receiving the kiss of greeting, a somewhat warmer kiss than had been awarded to Ernest Audley. She said that it was sweet of him to bring them and that he ought really not to have troubled, then introduced him to Andrew, whom he said that he was delighted to meet because he had once been a student of his, though no doubt Andrew would not remember him.
A faint recollection stirred in Andrew’s mind.
‘I’m sorry, my memory for names and faces is terrible nowadays,’ he said, ‘but I believe I remember you.’
‘Not for any distinction in my work,’ Brian Singleton said cheerfully. ‘I was lucky to get a Second, and then to get the job I’ve got. I’d sooner have got into a university, but I’m afraid I haven’t quite got what it takes. Having one brilliant member in the family seems to be as much as one can expect.’
‘Oh, you’re referring to your brother,’ Andrew said. ‘Luke Singleton. He is your brother, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. And that’s what everyone says to me these days,’ Singleton answered, smiling. ‘I’ve got used to it.’
‘Then I hope you don’t mind it.’
‘Oh no, I’m even moderately proud of it. It’s a pity he isn’t here this evening, but he’s not arriving till tomorrow. He’ll be in time for the Waldrons’ shindig on Saturday. You’re going to that, of course.’
Audley interrupted them. He had been talking, with a glass of wine in his hand, to Ian, but now turned to Singleton.
‘Did I hear you say that your brother’s coming down, Brian?’ he asked, and his voice had a rasp in it.
Singleton looked curiously embarrassed by the question.
‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact, you did,’ he answered.
‘And going to the Waldrons’ dinner?’ Audley went on.
‘I assume so, unless he takes it into his head not to go.’
‘I see.’ There was a chilly finality in the way that it was said.
Mollie heard it and put a hand on Audley’s arm.
‘Ernest, you won’t mind about that, will you?’ she said. ‘There are things one’s got to put behind one.’
‘On what compulsion must I, tell me that?’ he rasped at her.
‘For your own sake, Ernest. Please. Start trying to forgive and forget.’
‘I’ve no intention of doing either. I’m sorry, Brian, but if your brother’s going to that dinner, I shan’t be there. Perhaps you’ll ring me before then and let me know just what he’s planning to do.’
Brian Singleton had flushed a dark red, but unlike Mollie, he did not try to make Audley change his mind.
‘All right, Ernest. Understood. But I’m sorry about it.’
‘I’ll count on you, then.’
Audley turned away to resume his conversation with Ian, and at just that moment the doorbell rang again, and Mollie went to let in a young woman who nodded a greeting to the people in the room, then was introduced to Andrew as Dr Felicity Mace.
She looked as if she was in her early thirties, a slim, vital young woman, with an oval face, a fine complexion, grey eyes and straight dark brown hair that she wore combed back from her forehead in a casual sweep. She was wearing a neat, loose-fitting dress, coral earrings and white shoes. It managed to look both practical and fairly elegant.
Soon after her, Eleanor Clancy arrived, her jeans changed for a full, flowery-patterned skirt, but her frilly blouse was the same one that she had been wearing in the morning, and Andrew was inclined to think that jeans and a shirt suited her better. Nothing that she could do, he thought, would make her look feminine. The Waldrons were only just behind her, which Andrew gathered made the party complete.
He had been right that the fisherman with whom he had exchanged a few words that morning was Sam Waldron, changed from his sweater and corduroys into a dark blue blazer with brass buttons and twill trousers. His hair was grey, his features aquiline, and Andrew reflected that he had been right in thinking that he was about fifty, though somehow he looked older than he had out on the common. Anna Waldron was a small woman at least ten years younger than her husband and with a look of diffidence about her, almost as if she feared that it would be inappropriate for her to compete for notice with her husband. But she was pretty in a quiet way, with pleasant grace in her movements. Her hair, tied back from her face with a small knot of scarlet ribbon, was dark and curly, her eyes were dark and bright and innocent, her dress was pale grey and although it was only of cotton managed to have a look of having been expensive. Her pearls might be genuine.
As soon as Eleanor Clancy saw her, she gave a little cry and called out, ‘Suzie—it is Suzie, isn’t it?’
Anna Waldron started and spilled a little of the wine that Ian had just given her, and instead of answering Eleanor, exclaimed, ‘Oh dear, how clumsy of me! Oh dear, I shouldn’t have done that.’
Eleanor advanced towards her across the room.
‘It is Suzie Waldron, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Of St Hilda’s. I dare say you don’t remember me, Eleanor Clancy, but I’d have known you anywhere.’
The woman who had just been introduced to Andrew as Anna Waldron looked bewildered, and seemed to find it difficult to look the other woman in the face.
Her husband answered for her. ‘Yes, you’d have known her as Suzie, but since she grew up she’s preferred to be called Anna. Her actual name is Suzanna. She’s often spoken of you, Miss Clancy. She tells me she was very fond of games when she was a child. Sad to say, that’s one of the things one has to leave behind as one grows older.’
‘As I know only too well,’ Eleanor said, looking at him with a puzzled sort of thoughtfulness, then again at his wife, in the way she had of looking as if she were committing them to memory. ‘Are you cousins, perhaps?’ she asked. ‘I mean, because she hasn’t changed her name.’
‘Yes, first cousins,’ he answered, ‘but we haven’t any children, so you needn’t be afraid we’ve been producing dotty offspring. Not that they mightn’t just as likely have been geniuses. Professor, I’m sure you could put it more scientifically, but all I can say about it is that I believe a marriage between cousins simply exaggerates what’s inherited from their family. And we both had a grandfather who was a popular comedian in his time and made a fortune, and a grandmother who was a quite successful actress.’ He chuckled. ‘Well, if they weren’t exactly geniuses, either of them, they had talent of a sort, but we’ve neither of us inherited it from them.’
As if she felt that she had just been given permission to do it, Anna Waldron suddenly walked up to Eleanor Clancy and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Of course I remember you, dear Miss Clancy,’ she said. ‘You know I used to hero-worship you. I wanted to be a games mistress just like you.’
‘Didn’t you live with your grandparents?’ Eleanor asked. ‘I seem to remember we were all so sorry for you because your parents were dead.’
Anna nodded. ‘They were killed in a plane crash. But I was very happy with my grandparents.’
‘She’d never have been any good as a schoolmistress,’ her husband said. ‘Not nearly tough enough with anyone, and much too shy. Now, Miss Clancy, if we’d met sooner I’d have asked you before, but is it too late to invite you to a dinner we’re giving on Saturday? A slightly odd dinner, I ought to warn you, because I’m basing it as nearly as I can on a dinner given in the eighteenth-century by a certain Parson Woodforde. The good parson is rather a hobby of mine. I’ve the sort of feeling for him that I have for some of my old friends. He’d immense good-nature. For instance, he’d a manservant called Will who had an unfortunate habit of coming home in the evenings, “disguised in drink”, as the parson put it. He was always doing it and it worried the good man, and he kept on trying to make up his mind to sack Will, as he wasn’t exactly the sort of servant a parson should have. But nine years later Will is still coming home, disguised. Now you’ve been warned. Will you come?’
Eleanor Clancy’s small, deep-set eyes sparkled.
‘Thank you so much. It will give me the greatest pleasure.’
‘But which of your servants, Sam, will be coming in disguised, as you call it?’ Ian asked. ‘I thought you had the two Bartlett sisters, sober characters if ever there were any.’
‘Ah yes,’ Sam Waldron said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t produce the whole atmosphere correctly. I’ve never seen either of the Bartletts touch liquor, as they call it. But they’ve entered into the spirit of the thing and are being most helpful. There’s a good deal of work involved, of course, but I’m determined to make a success of it.’
‘Just one moment, Sam,’ Ernest Audley said, moving from the side of the young doctor, with whom he had been having a quiet conversation. ‘I’ve been told that one of your guests will be that man Luke Singleton. Is that true?’
‘Ah yes, he’s our celebrity for the evening,’ Sam Waldron answered enthusiastically. ‘Brian’s bringing him along. That may get our dinner at least in the local paper.’
‘Then I hope you’ll forgive me,’ Audley said, his pale, blotchy face stern, ‘but I’m afraid I must withdraw my acceptance of your invitation. I’m not going to spend an evening in the company of that bastard.’
‘Oh, Ernest!’ Anna said with a little gasp.
‘Now, now, Ernest,’ Sam said, ‘you don’t mean that. Why, it was all years ago.’
‘I certainly mean it,’ Audley said.
‘No, you don’t. You’ll come. Do you want him to think he’s somehow permanently defeated you?’
Andrew turned to Felicity Mace, who had just moved to his elbow.
‘Would it be very tactless of me to inquire,’ he asked, ‘just what Mr Audley has against Luke Singleton?’
She smiled. She had a very pleasant, friendly smile.
‘Not seriously,’ she said, ‘since it’s common knowledge. Jane Audley left Ernest for Luke Singleton. There was a divorce, a very gory one, because with Luke being as well-known as he is, the popular press had a field-day. And then when it was through, instead of marrying Jane, he deserted her. Just which part of the story really hurts him most I don’t know, her leaving him, or the horrible publicity, or Luke ditching her when it was over. I think he was very angry for her.’
‘And how long ago did it happen?’
‘About five years.’
‘That isn’t so very long.’ The years, for Andrew, were passing faster and faster and five years did not strike him as amounting to much. He thought it might well have taken him more than five years to get over something as traumatic as the breakdown of Ernest Audley’s marriage, if such a thing had ever happened to him. It was more than ten years since Nell had died and he had never wholly got over it.
‘And you didn’t read anything about it when it happened?’ Felicity Mace asked. ‘But I suppose you don’t patronize the popular press. The Times probably had only a small paragraph about it.’
The attempt to persuade Ernest Audley to attend the Waldrons’ dinner, even if Luke Singleton was there, was continuing. Eleanor and Ian had joined in, and so after a few minutes did Dr Mace. In fact, the only people who did not seem concerned by the matter were Mollie and Brian Singleton who were sitting side by side on a sofa and talking together in low voices. About another photograph from the electron microscope, Andrew wondered. There was an air of intimacy about them and almost of withdrawal from the other people in the room, until all of a sudden Brian astonished Andrew by apparently extracting a golf-ball from Mollie’s ear. She gave a little squeal, then burst out laughing.
‘Oh, Brian, you fool! That’s a new trick, isn’t it? When did you learn it?’ She looked up at Andrew and explained, ‘Brian’s a quite expert magician. But that’s a new trick. It startled me, Brian. Why don’t you show Andrew a few more tricks?’
He laughed too and shook his head. ‘I haven’t brought the necessary apparatus, no magic jugs that disgorge yards of silk scarves, or hats with rabbits in them. Actually I don’t do the trick with a rabbit, because I shouldn’t be able to look after the poor creature properly. But I’m coming along quite nicely. Strictly as an amateur, but I believe I could keep a children’s party entertained, at least if the children were very young.
Eleanor was saying, ‘I used to know Luke years ago, before he became successful. Such an unassuming, modest young man he used to be, but very reserved. I suppose all the ideas he had were already beginning to go round in his head, but he never talked about them.’
Mollie stood up and started handing round a plate of canapés that she had made, and Ian brought round more wine. The party broke up about eight o’clock, with the Waldrons leaving first, having extracted a half-promise from Audley that he would at least think about attending their dinner, though they were by no means to expect him. Audley himself left soon after them, then Eleanor and Brian. Felicity Mace was last.
Standing in the doorway, just about to leave, she said, ‘Of course, Ernest will go to the dinner, but don’t be surprised if he manages to make some sort of scene. He may even be working out now just what kind of scene to make.’
‘I didn’t know solicitors made scenes,’ Andrew said. ‘I thought they left that to barristers.’
‘But solicitors are said to be human,’ Felicity said. ‘Of course, his scene might simply consist of refusing to notice Luke Singleton’s existence. Cleverly done, it could make all of us feel very uncomfortable. Good night now, my dears, and thank you for the party.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Ian said, and went to see her home.
She evidently lived quite near, for he was back in a few minutes. In the quiet that came to the room when all the guests had gone, Ian poured out one more drink for the three of them who were left, which they drank almost in silence, pleasantly relieved of the necessity to talk, then Mollie went out to the kitchen to heat some Cornish pasties in the microwave, put the nectarines that Brian had brought her out in a bowl on the table there, and made some coffee.
Andrew went to bed early, claiming to be very tired. At least, he said that he was going to bed, and it was true he felt very tired. The day seemed to have been a very full one, and nowadays he was finding that even a quiet little party of the kind that he had been at that evening seemed to fret his nerves in a way that made him feel an acute desire for peace. But once in his room and in his pyjamas, he did not get into bed, but put on his dressing-gown and sat down in a chair by the open window.
The night sky was starry and there was a soft scent in the air of green things that were just beginning to feel the breath of autumn and yield a little to the first touch of decay. He had an Agatha Christie with him, one that he knew he had read at least once before, but which he was fairly sure he had managed to forget. One of the things for which he admired her was the number of times that he could read one of her books as if it was for the first time. He was most unlikely, even at a second or third reading, to remember who had done the murder. Most of his reading nowadays tended to be re-reading. He seemed almost to be on the defensive against new writers. Those who were recommended, or even lent to him by his friends had a way of remaining unread. He told himself frequently to resist this failing, but in the end he generally fell back on old friends.
But this evening, even Agatha Christie did not engross him fully. He found himself thinking with some apprehension of the Waldrons’ dinner-party. The idea of it, based on the menu of an eighteenth-century parson, sounded amusing, but he was sure that he would find it a great strain, even if nothing dramatic happened in the way of a quarrel between Ernest Audley and Luke Singleton. He hoped that Ernest Audley would stick to what he had proclaimed and stay away. Andrew had never been an aggressive man, and he shrank with great distaste from aggression in others. The often reasonless aggression to be encountered in the academic world, the jostling for position, for power, had always bewildered him. The escape from it had been one of the compensations for retirement. But now it sounded as if on the visit to old friends in the quiet of the countryside he was to be embroiled in it. He did not like the thought of it. He did not like it at all.