14

I AM BACK. It wasn’t any good.

Nothing will ever be the same again between Rose and me.

All the time that Stephen and I were cycling to Scoatney Station very early yesterday, I kept remembering the start of my last trip to London, when she was with me. I found myself talking to her as she was then; even asking her advice about what I should say to the new Rose. The Rose with the thousand-pound trousseau seemed an utterly different person from the Rose in the skimpy white suit who set out with me that bright April morning. How fresh the countryside was then! It was green yesterday, after the rain, but there was no hopeful, beginning feeling. The sun was hot, and though I was glad the bad weather was over, I found it rather glaring. High summer can be pitiless to the low-spirited.

Being alone with Stephen was far less difficult than I had expected. We talked very little and only about the most ordinary things. I felt guilty towards him and, most unfairly, slightly annoyed with him because I did. I resented being worried about him on top of everything else.

While we were waiting at the station, Heloïse arrived, exhausted – having eluded Thomas and raced after our bicycles. She is out of purdah now, and we didn’t like to leave her on the platform, because once when we did that she stowed away on the next train and ended up at King’s Crypt police station. So Stephen got her a dog-ticket and the stationmaster gave her a long drink and found some string to make a leash. She behaved beautifully on the journey, except that after we changed into the London train she took a little boy’s cake away from him. I quickly thanked him for giving it to her and he took my word for it that he had meant to.

Stephen insisted on escorting me all the way to Park Lane. We arranged to telephone each other about what train we would go home by, and then he dashed off to St John’s Wood.

I walked Heloïse round the block of flats, then went in. It was a most palatial place with bouncy carpets and glittering porters and a lift you work yourself. There is a queer, irrevocable feeling when you have pressed the button and start to go up. Heloïse got claustrophobia and tried to climb the padded leather walls. It didn’t do them any good.

I have never seen any place look so determinedly quiet as the passage leading to the flat; it was hard to believe anyone lived behind the shining front doors. When Mrs Cotton’s was opened to me it came as quite a shock.

I asked for Rose and told the maid who I was.

‘They’re all out,’ she said.

I suddenly realized I ought to have let them know I was coming.

‘When will they be back, please?’ I asked.

‘Madam said six-thirty – in time to dress for dinner. Won’t you come in, miss?’

She offered to get water for Heloïse, who was panting histrionically, and asked if I would like anything. I said perhaps some milk and might I tidy up? She showed me into Rose’s bedroom. It was superb – the carpet was actually white; it seemed awful to walk on it. Everything was white or cream, except a great bunch of red roses in a marble vase on the bedside table. By it was a card sticking out of an envelope with ‘Good morning, darling’ on it, in Simon’s writing. While I was staring at the roses the maid came back with my milk, and water for Heloïse; then left us alone.

Rose’s bathroom looked as if it had never been used – even her toothbrush was hidden away. She had said in her letter that there were clean towels every day, but I hadn’t visualized there being so many – three sizes, and the most fetching monogrammed face-cloths.

When I had washed, I went back to the bedroom – and found Heloïse blissfully relaxed on the white quilted bedspread; she did look nice. I took off my shoes and lay down beside her, trying to think out what I had better do. The scent of the roses was most beautiful.

I saw that it would be hopeless to talk to Rose if she didn’t get back until so late; I needed to go slow and be tactful, and there would be no time for that either before or after dinner, even if I waited until the nine-thirty train. I wondered if I could find her – surely she would come back if she knew I was at the flat?

I rang for the maid, but when she came she had no idea where they had all gone.

‘Wouldn’t anyone know?’ I said desperately.

‘Well, we could try Mr Neil – though we haven’t seen much of him lately.’ She rang up his hotel; but Neil was out. Then I wondered if the Fox-Cottons could help, and we got their number.

Leda Fox-Cotton didn’t sound at all pleased to talk to me.

‘You silly child, why didn’t you warn them?’ she said. ‘No, of course I don’t know where they are. Wait a minute, I’ll ask Aubrey. Topaz might have mentioned something to him.’

She was back in a minute. ‘He only knows that Topaz will be home this evening – because he’s calling for her. I suppose you’d better lunch with us – you’ll have to wait till two, though, because I’m having a long morning with Stephen. I’ve got to take him to some film people this afternoon. You can amuse yourself for an hour or so, can’t you? Get a taxi at half-past one.’

I thought of refusing, but I did want to see her house and studio – and have another look at her and her husband; it sounded as if Topaz was very thick with him. So I thanked her and accepted. After I stopped hearing her bleating voice, I told myself that it was really very kind of her to ask me and that I ought to get over my prejudice against her.

‘That’ll be nice for you,’ said the maid, ‘though Cook would have given you some lunch, of course. Let’s see, you’ve got an hour and a half to put in – I expect you’d like to look at some shops.’

But I didn’t fancy lugging Heloïse round crowded streets, so I said I would just walk in Hyde Park.

‘Your frock’s quite a bit creased, miss,’ she told me. ‘I could press it, if you like.’

I had a look at myself in Rose’s long glass. It is strange what surroundings can do to clothes – I had washed and ironed my green dress the day before and thought it very nice, but in Rose’s room it seemed cheap and ordinary. And lying on the bed in it hadn’t helped matters. But I didn’t like to take it off to be pressed, because my underclothes were so old and darned, so I thanked the maid and told her I wouldn’t bother.

It was hot walking in the park so I sat down on the grass under some trees. Heloïse rolled and then enticed me with waving paws to tickle her; but I was too lazy to make a good job of it so she turned over and went to sleep. I leaned back against a tree-trunk and gazed around me.

It struck me that this was the first time I had ever been on my own in London. Normally, I should have enjoyed getting the ‘feel’ of it – you never quite do until you have been alone in a place – and even in my anxious state of mind it was pleasant sitting there quietly, looking at the distant scarlet buses, the old cream-painted houses in Park Lane and the great new block of flats with their striped sun-blinds. And the feel of the park itself was most strange and interesting – what I noticed most was its separateness; it seemed to be smiling and amiable, but somehow aloof from the miles and miles of London all around. At first I thought this was because it belonged to an older London – Victorian, eighteenth century, earlier than that. And then, as I watched the sheep peacefully nibbling the grass, it came to me that Hyde Park has never belonged to any London – that it has always been, in spirit, a stretch of the countryside; and that it thus links the Londons of all periods together most magically – by remaining for ever unchanged at the heart of the ever-changing town.

After I heard a clock strike quarter-past one, I went out to Oxford Street and found a nice open taxi. It was Heloïse’s first drive through London and she barked almost continuously – the driver said it saved blowing his horn.

I had never been to St John’s Wood before; it is a fascinating place with quiet, tree-lined roads and secret-looking houses, most of them old – so that the Fox-Cottons’ scarlet front door seemed startling.

Aubrey Fox-Cotton came out into the hall to meet me.

‘Leda’s still busy,’ he said, in his beautiful affected voice. By daylight his narrow face looked even greyer than it did that night at Scoatney. He is a most shadowy person and yet there is something unforgettable about his dim elegance. Heloïse took rather a fancy to him, but he just said, ‘Comic creature,’ and waved a vague hand at her.

He gave me some sherry and talked politely, but without really noticing me, until it was well after two. At last he said we would ‘drift over’ and rout the others out.

We went through the back garden to a building that looked as if it had originally been a stable. Once inside, we were faced with a black velvet curtain stretching right across. There was a little spiral staircase in one corner.

‘Go on up,’ he whispered, ‘and keep quiet in case it’s a psychological moment.’

At the top of the staircase was a gallery from which we could look down into the studio. It was brilliantly lit, with all the lights focused on a platform at the far end. Stephen was standing there, in a Greek tunic, against a painted background of a ruined temple. He looked quite wonderful. I couldn’t see Leda Fox-Cotton anywhere but I could hear her.

‘Your mouth’s too rigid,’ she called out. ‘Moisten your lips, then don’t quite close them. And look up a fraction.’

Stephen did as she said, and then his head jerked and he went bright scarlet.

‘What the hell—’ began Leda Fox-Cotton – then she realized he had seen someone in the gallery, and went and stood where she could see us herself. ‘Well, that’s that,’ she remarked. ‘I shan’t get anything more out of him now. He’s been self-conscious all morning – I suppose it’s that tunic. Go and change, Stephen.’

She was all in black – black trousers, black shirt – and very hot and greasy, but there was a hardworking look about her which made the greasiness less unpleasant than it had seemed at Scoatney. While we were waiting for Stephen, I asked if I could see some of her work and she took me through into what must have been the stable of the next-door house. It was furnished as a sitting-room, with great divans piled with cushions. Everything was black or white. On the walls were enlargements of photographs she had taken, including one of a magnificent, quite naked Negro, much larger than life. It reached from the floor up to the high ceiling and was terrifying.

There was a huge framed head of Stephen waiting to be put up. I admired it and said how beautifully he photographed.

‘He’s the only boy I ever had the chance to do who was beautiful without looking effeminate,’ she said. ‘And his physique’s as good as his head. I wish the silly child would strip for me – I’d like to put him up beside my Negro.’

Then she handed me a whole sheaf of Stephen’s photographs, all wonderful. The queer thing was that they were exactly like him and yet he seemed quite a different person in them – much more definite, forceful, intelligent. Not one of them had that look of his that I used to call ‘daft’. While we were lunching (on a mirror-topped table) I wondered if it hadn’t perhaps gone in real life. He was certainly much more grown-up, and surprisingly at ease with the Fox-Cottons. But he still wasn’t – well, so much of a person as in the photographs.

The food was lovely – so was everything in the place, for that matter, in an ultra-modern way.

‘All wrong for this old house,’ said Aubrey (they told me to call them by their Christian names), after I had been admiring the furniture. ‘But I prefer modern furniture in London and Leda won’t leave her studios and take a flat. Modernity in London, antiquity in the country – that’s what I like. How I wish Simon would let me rent Scoatney!’

‘Perhaps Rose will fall in love with New York when they go there for their honeymoon,’ said Leda.

‘Are they going?’ I asked, as casually as I could.

‘Oh, Rose was talking about it,’ said Leda vaguely. ‘It would be a nice time to go, if they get married in September. New York’s lovely in the autumn.’

The most awful wave of depression hit me. I suddenly knew that nothing would stop the wedding, that I had come up to London on a wild-goose chase; I think I had begun to know it when I saw Simon’s roses in the flat. I longed to be back at the castle so that I could crawl into the four-poster and cry.

Leda was talking to Stephen about posing for her again the next morning.

‘But we’ve got to go home tonight,’ I said quickly.

‘Oh, nonsense – you can sleep at the flat,’ said Leda.

‘There isn’t room,’ I said. ‘And, anyway, I must get back.’

‘But Stephen needn’t surely? You can go by yourself.’

‘No, she can’t – not late at night,’ said Stephen. ‘Of course I’ll take you if you want to go, Cassandra.’

Leda gave him the swiftest, shrewdest look – it was as if she had suddenly sized up how he felt about me, wasn’t pleased about it, but wasn’t going to argue with him.

‘Well, that’s a bore,’ she said, then turned to me again. ‘I’m sure they can fix you up at the flat somehow or other. Why can’t you stay?’

I longed to tell her to mind her own business. But as she was my hostess, I just said politely that Father and Thomas needed me.

‘But, good lord,’ she began – then took in my determined expression, shrugged her shoulders and said: ‘Well, if you change your mind, ring up.’

Luncheon was over then. As we walked across the hall, Heloïse was lying on the black marble floor, very full of food. Leda stopped and looked at her.

‘Nice – her reflection in the marble,’ she said. ‘I wonder if I’ll photograph her? No – there isn’t time to rig up the lights in here.’

She didn’t give a flicker of a smile when Heloïse thumped her tail. It struck me that I never had seen her smile.

While she was dressing to take Stephen to the film studios, I felt it would be polite to talk to Aubrey about his work and ask to see pictures of it. Of course I don’t know anything about modern architecture, but it looked very good to me. It is odd that such a desiccated man should be so clever – and odd that anyone who sounds as silly as Leda does can take such magnificent photographs. When she came downstairs she was wearing a beautiful black dress and hat, with dark red gloves and an antique ruby necklace; but she still looked quite a bit greasy.

I had decided to go back to the flat in case Rose came home earlier than the maid expected, so Leda dropped me there on their way to the film studios. Stephen arranged to call for me at half-past eight.

Leda had one last nag at me. ‘You are a trying child, making him take you home tonight. He’ll have to come straight back to London if he lands this job.’

‘He doesn’t have to go with me unless he wants to.’ I don’t think I said it rudely. ‘Anyway, good luck with the job, Stephen.’

As they drove off I started to walk Heloïse round the block of flats, but I hadn’t got far before the car stopped and Stephen came running back to me.

‘Are you sure you want me to take this job if I can get it?’ he asked.

I said of course I was, and that we should all be very proud of him.

‘All right – if you’re sure—’

As I watched him racing back to the car I had a wrongful feeling of pride – not so much because he was devoted to me as at the thought of Leda having to realize it.

I spent the afternoon in the drawing-room of the flat. I read a little – there were some very serious American magazines, not a bit like the ones Miss Marcy had. But most of the time, I just thought. And what I thought about most was luxury. I had never realized before that it is more than just having things; it makes the very air feel different. And I felt different, breathing that air: relaxed, lazy, still sad but with the edge taken off the sadness. Perhaps the effect wears off in time, or perhaps you don’t notice it if you are born to it, but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow.

And though I cannot honestly say I would ever turn my back on any luxury I could come by, I do feel there is something a bit wrong in it. Perhaps that makes it all the more enjoyable.

At five o’clock the kind maid brought iced tea and cucumber sandwiches. After that, I fell asleep on the sofa.

And suddenly they were all back – the room was full of them, laughing and talking. All three of them were in black – apparently most smart London women wear black in hot weather; it does seem unsuitable, but they looked very nice in it. And they were so pleased to see me – Rose simply hugged me. Everyone was determined that I should stay for the weekend. Rose insisted her bed was big enough for two and when I said we should kick each other she said:

‘All right – I’ll sleep on the floor but stay you must.’

‘Yes, do, dear,’ said Mrs Cotton. ‘And then we can see about your bridesmaid’s dress on Monday morning.’

‘If only I’d known you were here. I’d have rushed home,’ cried Rose. ‘We’ve been to the dullest matinée.’

She was fanning herself with the programme. Three months ago no matinée in the world would have been dull to her.

Topaz urged me to stay, but in the same breath asked if Father would be all right without me. I told her exactly what food I had left for him and Thomas.

‘We’ll call up Scoatney and have a cold roast of beef sent over,’ said Mrs Cotton. ‘They can eat their way through that.’

Then Simon came in and just to see him again was so wonderful that I suddenly felt quite happy.

‘Yes, of course she must stay,’ he said, ‘and come out with us tonight.’

Rose said she could lend me a dress. ‘And you telephone Neil, Simon, and say he’s to come and dance with her. You shall have a bath in my bathroom, Cassandra.’

She put her arm round me and walked me along to her bedroom. The quiet flat had come to life. Doors and windows were open, the maid was drawing up the sun-blinds, a cool breeze was blowing in from the park, smelling of dry grass and petrol – a most exciting, Londony smell which mixed with a glorious smell of the dinner cooking.

‘The kitchen door must have been left open,’ said Mrs Cotton to the maid, quite crossly. As if anyone could mind the smell of a really good dinner!

While I was in the bath, Rose telephoned the Fox-Cottons’ house for me – I was afraid Leda would answer and I didn’t fancy telling her myself that I had changed my mind. Then I felt it would be most unkind not to ask Stephen how his interview had gone, so I yelled to Rose that I would like to talk to him.

‘He’s in the studio with Leda,’ Rose called back. ‘Aubrey says he’ll ask him to telephone you later.’

After she had hung up she told me that Stephen had got the film job. ‘Aubrey says Leda’s terribly excited about it – Stephen’s to have ten pounds a day for at least five days. He doesn’t have to say anything – just keep wandering about with some goats. It’s symbolic or something.’

‘Gracious, fancy Stephen earning fifty pounds!’

‘He’ll earn more than that before Leda’s finished with him,’ said Rose. ‘She’s crazy about him.’

When I came back from the bath there was an evening dress laid out for me – again, the fashionable black! Though it turned out that Rose had only chosen that dress for me because it was her shortest. It fitted me very well, just clearing the ground, and was utterly luxurious – though Rose said: ‘Oh, it’s only one of the ready-made ones, bought to tide me over.’

As I finished dressing, I heard Neil’s voice in the hall.

‘You’re complimented,’ said Rose, ‘he hasn’t been near us for weeks. Dear me, I hope he won’t put poison in my soup.’

I said it was a pity they didn’t get on with each other.

‘Well, it’s not my fault,’ said Rose. ‘I’m perfectly willing to be friends with him – for Simon’s sake. I’ve tried again and again, and I’ll try tonight, just to show you. But it won’t be any good.’

When she said ‘for Simon’s sake’ I thought: ‘Of course she loves him. I was an idiot to believe Thomas.’ Yet I went on feeling happy. I kept saying to myself: ‘I’ve seen him – in a minute I shall see him again. That’s almost enough.’

Neil knocked on the bedroom door and called: ‘Where’s my friend Cassandra?’

Rose wasn’t quite ready so I went out to him alone. I had forgotten how very nice he is. We went into the drawing-room and Simon said: ‘Why, she’s grown up!’

‘And grown up very prettily,’ said Mrs Cotton. ‘We must go shopping next week, my dear.’

I think I did look reasonably nice in Rose’s dress.

Everyone was wonderfully kind to me – perhaps they felt that I had been a bit neglected. When Rose came in she put her arm through mine and said: ‘She must stay a long, long time, mustn’t she? Father will just have to look after himself.’

Topaz would never have passed that, but she had gone out with Aubrey Fox-Cotton.

After dinner (four courses; the jellied soup was marvellous), they decided where we should dance. Mrs Cotton wouldn’t come – she said she was going to stay home and re-read Proust.

‘I started last night,’ she told Simon, ‘and I’m longing to get back to him. This time I’m taking notes – trying to keep track of my favourite paragraphs, as you did.’

They then began a conversation about Proust that I longed to listen to, but Rose swept me out to her bedroom to get ready.

‘The way those two talk about books!’ she said. ‘And without ever mentioning an author I’ve read a line of.’

It was fascinating strolling along Park Lane to the hotel where the dance was, with the sky deep blue beyond the street lamps. But after the first steps I realized that I was in for trouble with Rose’s satin shoes – they had seemed to fit quite well when I put them on, but I found that they slipped off when I walked unless I held my feet stiffly. Dancing proved to be worse than walking – after one turn around the room I knew it was hopeless.

‘I shall just have to watch,’ I told Neil.

He said, ‘Not on your life,’ and then led me to a deserted corridor just off the ballroom. It must have been intended as a sitting-out place – there were little alcoves let into the pink brocaded walls – but Neil said people hardly ever came there.

‘Now take those darn shoes off,’ he told me, ‘and I’ll take mine off, too, in case I step on you.’

It was the queerest feeling, dancing on the thick carpet, but I quite enjoyed it. When the music stopped, we sat in one of the alcoves and talked.

‘I’m glad you came to London,’ he said. ‘If you hadn’t, I might not have seen you again. I’m going back home a week today.’

I was most astonished. ‘You mean California? Aren’t you going to stay for the wedding? I thought you were to be best man.’

‘Simon will have to get someone else. I can’t miss this chance. I’ve been offered a partnership in a ranch – got the cable today. They need me at once.’

Just then we saw Rose and Simon coming out of the ballroom, obviously looking for us. ‘Don’t mention it, will you?’ said Neil, quickly. ‘I want to break it to Mother before I tell the others. She isn’t going to be pleased.’

The music started again soon after Rose and Simon joined us. She turned to Neil and said in a really nice voice: ‘Will you dance this with me?’

I saw then that she had been right in thinking it was hopeless to be friends with him – for a moment I thought he would actually refuse to dance. But in the end he just said, ‘Sure, if you want me to,’ quite politely but without a flicker of a smile, and they went off together, leaving me alone with Simon.

We talked first about Rose; he was worried in case so much shopping had tired her.

‘I wish we could be married at once and get out of London,’ he said. ‘But both she and Mother insist on waiting for the trousseau.’

I had thought myself that Rose seemed a little less alive than usual, but nothing like so tired as he, himself, did. He was paler than usual and his manner was so quiet. It made me care for him more than ever – I wanted so terribly to be good to him.

After we had taken a great interest in Rose for a very long time, he asked about Father and we discussed the possibility that he was doing some work and keeping it quiet.

‘He was most odd when he stayed in the flat a few weeks ago,’ said Simon. ‘Mother told me he went into the kitchen and borrowed all the cookery books.’

I began to have a desperate feeling that time was rushing by and we weren’t talking about anything I could treasure for the future – he was being charming and kind, as he always is, but he hardly seemed to notice me as a person. I longed to say something amusing but couldn’t think of anything, so I tried to be intelligent.

‘Do you think I ought to read Proust?’ I asked.

Apparently that was more amusing than it was intelligent, because it made him laugh. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say it was a duty,’ he said, ‘but you could have a shot at it. I’ll send you Swann’s Way.’

Then I talked about his birthday present to me, and he said what a nice letter I had written to thank him.

‘I hope you’re borrowing all the records you want from Scoatney,’ he told me.

When he said that, I suddenly saw the pavilion, lit by moonlight and candlelight – and then, by the most cruel coincidence, the band, which had been playing a medley of tunes, began ‘Lover’. I felt myself blushing violently – never have I known such embarrassment. I sprang up and ran towards a mirror, some way along the corridor.

‘What’s the matter?’ Simon called after me.

‘An eyelash in my eye,’ I called back.

He asked if he could help but I said I could manage, and fidgeted with my handkerchief until the blush died down – I don’t believe he ever noticed it. As I walked back to him he said:

‘It’s odd how that dress changes you. I don’t know that I approve of you growing up. Oh, I shall get used to it.’ He smiled at me. ‘But you were perfect as you were.’

It was the funny little girl he had liked – the comic child playing at Midsummer rites; she was the one he kissed. Though I don’t think I shall ever quite know why he did it.

After that I talked easily enough, making him laugh quite a bit – I could see he was liking me again. But it wasn’t my present self talking at all; I was giving an imitation of myself as I used to be. I was very ‘consciously naïve’. Never, never was I that with him before; however I may have sounded, I always felt perfectly natural. But I knew, as I sat there amusing him while the band played ‘Lover’, that many things which had felt natural to me before I first heard it would never feel natural again. It wasn’t only the black dress that had made me grow up.

Rose and Neil came back when the music stopped; then Neil went off to order some drinks.

‘That was a good tune that last one,’ she remarked. ‘What’s it called?’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t notice it,’ said Simon.

‘Nor I,’ I said.

Rose sat down in the opposite alcove and put her feet up.

‘Tired?’ Simon asked, going over to her.

She said: ‘Yes, very,’ and didn’t offer to make room for him; so he sat on the floor beside her. ‘Would you like me to take you home as soon as we’ve had our drinks?’ he asked, and she said she would.

Neil would have stayed on with me, but I said we couldn’t keep dancing without shoes in that corridor.

‘It does begin to feel like a padded cell,’ he admitted.

I shall never forget it – the thick carpet, the brocade-covered walls, the bright lights staring back from the gilt mirrors, everything was so luxurious – and so meaningless, so lifeless.

When we reached the entrance to the flats Neil said he wouldn’t come up, but he walked along to the lift with us and managed so that he and I were well behind the others.

‘This looks like being goodbye for us,’ he said.

I felt a sadness quite separate from my personal ton of misery. ‘But we’ll meet again some day, won’t we?’

‘Why, surely. You must come to America.’

‘Won’t you ever come back here?’

He said he doubted it – then laughed and added: ‘Well, maybe I will, when I’m a rich old man.’

‘Why do you dislike us so, Neil?’

‘I don’t dislike you,’ he said quickly. ‘Oh, I don’t dislike anything. But I’m just all wrong over here.’

Then the others called that the lift was waiting for me, so we shook hands quickly. I hated to think it might be years and years before I saw him again.

There was a message from Stephen for me at the flat – I had quite forgotten that he was going to telephone me. Rose read aloud: ‘For Miss C. Mortmain from Mr S. Colly. The gentleman asked to say that he was completely at your service if required.’

‘I do call that a nice message,’ said Simon. ‘Hadn’t you better call him back?’

‘Oh, leave it till the morning,’ said Rose, ‘and let’s go to bed. I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to you yet.’

Just then Topaz came out of her bedroom and said she wanted to speak to me.

‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’ asked Rose.

Topaz said she didn’t see why she should. ‘It’s only half-past ten and I came back early on purpose.’

‘Well, hurry up, anyway,’ said Rose.

Topaz took me up to the roof-garden. ‘You never know if you’re going to be overheard in that flat,’ she said. It was nice on the roof, there were lots of little trees in tubs, and some pretty garden furniture. No one but us was about. We sat down on a large swinging seat and I waited for her to say something important; but, as I might have guessed, she only wanted to talk about Father.

‘I hardly had a minute with him when he stayed here,’ she said. ‘My room’s too small to share. And Mrs Cotton kept him up talking very late both nights.’

I asked if she was still worried about them.

‘Oh, not in the way I was. Anyway, there’s certainly nothing on her side. I see now it’s not the man she’s interested in, but the famous man – if he’ll oblige her by being one again. She hopes he will and she wants to have a hand in it. So does Simon.’

‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ I said. ‘You know they mean it kindly.’

‘Simon does, he’s interested in Mortmain’s work for its own sake – and for Mortmain’s sake. But I think Mrs Cotton’s just a celebrity collector – she even values me now that she’s seen some of the paintings of me.’

‘She asked you to stay with her before she saw them,’ I said. I like Mrs Cotton, and her kindness to our family has been little short of fabulous.

‘Go on – tell me I’m unjust.’ Topaz heaved one of her groaning sighs, then added: ‘I know I am, really. But she gets on my nerves until I could scream. Why doesn’t she get on Mortmain’s? It’s a mystery to me. Talk, talk, talk – and never did I see such vitality. I don’t believe it’s normal for a woman of her age to be so healthy. If you ask me, it’s glandular.’

I began to laugh, then saw she was perfectly serious; ‘glandular’ has always been a popular word with Topaz. ‘Well, come back to the castle and take a rest,’ I suggested.

‘That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Has Mortmain showed the slightest sign of needing me?’

I tried to think of a tactful way to say, ‘No.’ Fortunately, she went straight on: ‘I’ve got to be needed, Cassandra – I always have been. Men have either painted me, or been in love with me, or just plain ill-treated me – some men have to do a lot of ill-treating, you know, it’s good for their work; but one way or another, I’ve always been needed. I’ve got to inspire people, Cassandra – it’s my job in life.’

I told her then that I had a faint hope that Father was working.

‘Do you mean I’ve inspired him just by keeping away from him?’

We both roared with laughter. Topaz’s sense of humour is intermittent, but good when it turns up. When we had calmed down, she said:

‘What do you think of Aubrey Fox-Cotton?’

‘Not much,’ I said. ‘Does he need inspiring? He seems to be doing pretty well as it is.’

‘He could do greater work. He feels he could.’

‘You mean, if you both got divorces and married each other?’

‘Well, not exactly,’ said Topaz.

I suddenly felt it was an important moment and wondered what on earth I could say to influence her. It was no use pretending that Father needed her, because I knew she would find out he didn’t before she had been home half an hour. At last I said:

‘I suppose it wouldn’t be enough that Thomas and I need you?’

She looked pleased – then came out with a dreadful Topazism: ‘Oh, darling! But can’t you see that art comes before the individual?’

Inspiration came to me.

‘Then you can’t leave Father,’ I said. ‘Oh, Topaz – don’t you see that whether he missed you or not, a shock like that might wreck him completely? Just imagine his biographer writing: “Mortmain was about to start on the second phase of his career, when the faithlessness of his artist-model wife shattered the fabric of his life. We shall never know what was lost to the world through the worthless young woman—” and you never would know, Topaz, because if Father never wrote another line after you left him, you’d always feel it might be your fault.’

She was staring at me – I could see I was making a magnificent impression. Luckily it hadn’t struck her that no one will write Father’s biography unless he does do some more work.

‘Can’t see how posterity would misjudge you?’ I piled it on. ‘While if you stick to him, you may be “this girl, beautiful as a Blake angel, who sacrificed her own varied talents to ensure Mortmain’s renaissance”.’ I stopped, fearing I had overdone it, but she swallowed it all.

‘Oh, darling – you ought to write the biography yourself,’ she gasped.

‘I will, I will,’ I assured her, and wondered if she would consider staying on to inspire me; but I think she only sees herself as an inspirer of men. Anyway, I didn’t need to worry, because she said in her most double-bass tones:

‘Cassandra, you have saved me from a dreadful mistake. Thank you, thank you.’

Then she collapsed on my shoulders with such force that I shot off the swinging seat.

Oh, darling Topaz! She calls Mrs Cotton’s interest in Father celebrity collecting, and never sees that her own desire to inspire men is just another form of it – and a far less sincere one. For Mrs Cotton’s main interests really are intellectual – well, social-intellectual – while my dear beautiful stepmother’s intellectualism is very, very bogus. The real Topaz is the one who cooks and scrubs and sews for us all. How mixed people are – how mixed and nice!

As we went down from the roof she said she would come home in ten days or a fortnight – just as soon as Macmorris finished his new portrait of her. I said how very glad I was, though it suddenly struck me how hard it would be to hide my troubles from her. Talking to her had taken my mind off them, but as we went into the flat it was just as if they were waiting for me there.

Everyone had gone to bed. There was a line of light under Simon’s door. I thought how close to me he would be sleeping and, for some reason, that made me more unhappy than ever. And the prospect of seeing him again in the morning held no comfort for me; I had found out in that glittering corridor off the ballroom that being with him could be more painful than being away from him.

Rose was sitting up in bed waiting for me. I remember noticing how pretty her bright hair looked against the white velvet headboard.

She said: ‘I’ve put out one of my trousseau nightgowns for you.’

I thanked her and hoped I wouldn’t tear it – it seemed very fragile. She said there were plenty more, anyway.

‘Well, now we can talk,’ I said, brightly – meaning ‘you can’. I no longer had any intention of questioning her about her feelings for Simon – of course she loved him, of course nothing would stop the marriage, my coming to London had been an idiotic mistake.

‘I don’t think I want to tonight,’ she said.

This surprised me – she had seemed so keen on talking – but I just said: ‘Well, there’ll be plenty of time tomorrow.’

She said she supposed so, hardly sounding enthusiastic; then asked me to put the roses in the bathroom for the night. As I went to get them, she looked down at Simon’s card on the bedside table and said: ‘Chuck that in the wastepaper-basket, will you?’

She didn’t say it casually, but with a sort of scornful resentment. My resolution not to speak just faded away and I said:

‘Rose, you don’t love him.’

She gave me a little ironic smile and said: ‘No. Isn’t it a pity?’

There it was – the thing I had hoped for! But instead of feeling glad, instead of feeling any flicker of hope, I felt angry – so angry that I didn’t dare to let myself speak. I just stood staring at her until she said:

‘Well! Say something.’

I managed to speak calmly. ‘Why did you lie to me that night you got engaged!’

‘I didn’t. I really thought I was in love. When he kissed me— Oh, you wouldn’t understand – you’re too young.’

I understood, all right. If Stephen had kissed me before I knew that I loved Simon, I might have made the same mistake – particularly if I had wanted to make it, as Rose did. But I went on feeling angry.

‘How long have you known!’ I demanded.

‘Weeks and weeks, now – I found out soon after we came to London; Simon’s with me so much more here. Oh, if only he wasn’t so in love with me! Can you understand what I mean? It isn’t only that he wants to make love to me – every minute we’re together I can feel him asking for love. He somehow links it with everything – if it’s a particularly lovely day, if we see anything beautiful or listen to music together. It makes me want to scream. Oh, God! – I didn’t mean to tell you. I longed to – I knew it would be a relief; but I made up my mind not to, only a few minutes ago, because I knew it would be selfish. I’m sorry you got it out of me. I can see it’s upset you dreadfully.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘Would you like me to tell him for you?’

‘Tell him?’ She stared at me. ‘Oh, no wonder you’re upset! Don’t worry, darling – I’m still going to marry him.’

‘No, you’re not,’ I told her. ‘You’re not going to do anything so wicked.’

‘Why is it suddenly wicked? You always knew I’d marry him whether I loved him or not – and you helped me all you could, without even being sure I was in love with him.’

‘I didn’t understand – it was just fun, like something in a book. It wasn’t real.’ But I knew in my heart that my conscience had always felt uneasy and I hadn’t listened to it. All my unhappiness had been a judgement on me.

‘Well, it’s real enough now,’ said Rose grimly.

My own guilt made me feel less angry with her. I went and sat on the bed and tried to speak reasonably. ‘You can’t do it, you know, Rose – just for clothes and jewellery, and bathrooms—’

‘You talk as if I were doing it all for myself,’ she broke in on me. ‘Do you know what my last thoughts have been, lying here night after night? “Well, at least they’ve had enough to eat at the castle today” – why, even Heloïse is putting on weight! And I’ve thought of you more than anyone – of all the things I can do for you when I’m married—’

‘Then you can stop thinking, because I won’t take anything from you—’ Suddenly my anger came rushing back and words started to pour out of me. ‘And you can stop pretending that you’re doing it for us all – it’s simply to please yourself, because you can’t face poverty. You’re going to wreck Simon’s life because you’re greedy and cowardly—’ I went on and on, in a sort of screaming whisper – all the time I was conscious that I might be overheard and managed to stop myself shouting, but I lost all control of what I said; I can’t even remember most of it. Rose never once tried to interrupt – she just sat there staring at me. Suddenly a light of understanding dawned in her eyes. I stopped dead.

‘You’re in love with him yourself,’ she said. ‘It only needed that.’ And then she burst into choking sobs and buried her head in a pillow to stifle the noise.

‘Oh, shut up,’ I said.

After a minute or two, she stopped roaring into the pillow and began to fish round for her handkerchief. You can’t see a person do that without helping, however angry you are, so I gave it to her – it had fallen on the floor. She mopped up a bit, then said:

‘Cassandra, I swear by everything I hold sacred that I’d give him up if I thought he’d marry you instead. Why, I’d jump at it – we’d still have money in the family, and I wouldn’t have to have him as a husband. I don’t want Scoatney – I don’t want a lot of luxury. All I ask is, not to go back to quite such hideous poverty – I won’t do that, I won’t, I won’t! And I’d have to, if I gave him up, because I know he wouldn’t fall in love with you. He just thinks of you as a little girl.’

‘What he thinks of me has nothing to do with it,’ I said. ‘It’s him I’m thinking of now, not me. You’re not going to marry him without loving him.’

She said: ‘Don’t you know he’d rather have me that way than not at all?’

I had never thought of that; but when she said it I saw that it was true. It made me hate her more than ever. I started to tear the black dress off. ‘That’s right – come to bed,’ she said. ‘Let’s put the light out and talk things over quietly. Perhaps you only fancy you’re in love with him – couldn’t it be what’s called “calf love”, darling? You can’t really know if you’re in love until you’ve been made love to. Anyway, you’ll get over it when you meet other men – and I’ll see that you do. Let’s talk – let’s try to help each other. Come to bed.’

‘I’m not coming to bed,’ I said, kicking the dress away. ‘I’m going home.’

‘But you can’t – not tonight! There are no trains.’

‘Then I’ll sit in the station waiting-room till the morning.’

‘But why—?’

‘I’m not going to lie down beside you.’

I was struggling into my green dress. She sprang out of bed and tried to stop me.

‘Cassandra, please listen—’

I told her to shut up or she would rouse the flat.

‘And I warn you that if you try to stop me going, I’ll rouse it – and tell them everything. Then you’ll have to break your engagement.’

‘Oh, no, I won’t—’ It was the first time she had sounded angry. ‘I’ll tell them you’re lying because you’re in love with Simon.’

‘One way and another, we’d better not rouse the flat.’

I was hunting everywhere for my shoes which the maid had put away. Rose followed me round, half angry, half pleading.

‘But what am I to tell them, if you leave tonight?’ she asked.

‘Don’t tell them anything until the morning – then say I had a sudden fit of conscience about leaving Father alone and went by the early train.’ I found my shoes at last and put them on. ‘Oh, tell them what you damn well like. Anyway, I’m going.’

‘You’re failing me – and just when I need you most desperately.’

‘Yes, to listen to your woes sympathetically and pat you on the back – sorry, nothing doing!’ By then I was pulling all the drawers open, searching for my handbag. When I had unearthed it, I pushed past her.

She had one more try at getting round me: ‘Cassandra, I beg you to stay. If you knew how wretched I am—’

‘Oh, go and sit in your bathroom and count your peach-coloured towels,’ I sneered at her. ‘They’ll cheer you up – you lying, grasping, little cheat.’

Then out I went, controlling myself enough to shut the door quietly. For a second I thought she would come after me but she didn’t – I suppose she believed I really would scream out the truth; and I think I might have, I was in such a blind rage.

The only light in the hall was a glimmer round the edges of the front door, from the outside passage. I tiptoed towards it. Just as I got there, I heard a faint whimper. Heloïse! I had completely forgotten her. The next moment she was there in the dark with me, thumping her tail. I dragged her through the front door and raced to the lift – by a bit of luck it was there, waiting. Once we were going down, I sat on the floor and let her put her paws round my neck and get her ecstasy over.

She had her collar on and I used my belt as a leash – there was still too much traffic about to let her run loose, even when we turned off Park Lane into a quieter street. I was thankful to be out in the cool air, but after the first few minutes of relief my mind began to go over and over the scene with Rose – I kept thinking of worse things I might have said and imagining saying them. My eyes were still so full of the white bedroom that I scarcely noticed where I went; I just have a vague memory of going on and on past well-to-do houses. There was a dance taking place in one of them and people were strolling out on to a balcony – I dimly remember feeling sorry I was too absorbed in myself to be interested (a few months ago, it would have been splendid to imagine about). At the back of my mind I had an idea that sooner or later I should see buses or an entrance to the Underground, and then I could get back to the railway station and sit in the waiting-room. The first time I really came to earth was when I struck Regent Street.

I decided I must pull myself together – I remembered hearing things about Regent Street late at night. But I think I must have mixed it up with some other street, for nothing was in the least as I expected. I had imagined a stream of brightly dressed, painted women going along winking – and the only women I saw seemed most respectable, very smartly dressed in black and merely taking a last stroll; some of them had brought their little dogs out, which interested Heloïse. But I did notice that most of the ladies were in couples, which made me realize that I oughtn’t to be out on my own so late at night. Just after I had thought that, a man came up to me and said:

‘Excuse me, but haven’t I met your dog before?’

I took no notice, of course – but, unfortunately, Heloïse started wagging her tail. I dragged her on but he came with us, saying idiotic things like: ‘Of course she knows me – old friends, we are – met her at the Hammersmith Palais de Dance.’ Heloïse got more and more friendly. Her tail was doing an almost circular wag and I was very much afraid that at any moment she would climb up the man and kiss him. So I said sharply: ‘Hel, who’s that?’ – which is what we say if a suspicious-looking tramp comes prowling round the castle. She let off such a volley of barks that the man jumped backwards into two ladies. He didn’t try to follow us any more, but I couldn’t stop Heloïse barking – she kept it up right through Piccadilly Circus, making us terribly conspicuous.

I was thankful to see an entrance to the Underground at last – but not for long, because I found they don’t let dogs on the trains. You can take them on the tops of buses, but there seems to be very few still running; by then it was long after midnight. I was beginning to think I had better take a taxi when I remembered that there is a Corner House restaurant close to Piccadilly and that Topaz had once told me it keeps open all night. I had a great longing for tea, and I felt Heloïse could do with a drink – she had stopped barking at last and was looking rather exhausted. So along we went.

It was such a grand place that I was afraid they might not let Heloïse in, but we chose a moment when the man on the door was interested in something else. And I got a table against the wall so that she could be fairly unnoticeable under it – the waitress did spot her but only said: ‘Well, if you got her past the door – But she’ll have to keep quiet’ – which, by a miracle, she did. After I had unobstrusively slipped her three saucersfull of water she went solidly to sleep on my feet; which was very hot for them, but I didn’t dare risk waking her by moving.

The tea was a comfort – and by that time I more than needed comfort. Most of me ached with tiredness and my eyes felt as if they had been open for years; but worse than that – worse even than my misery over Simon, which I was more or less used to – was the gradual realization that I had been utterly wrong with Rose. I saw that the main reason for my outburst hadn’t been noble anxiety about Simon’s happiness but sheer, blazing jealousy. And what could be more unjust than to help her to get engaged and then turn on her for it? How right she had been in accusing me of failing her! The least I could have done would have been to talk things over quietly. What made me feel worst of all was that I knew in my heart that she was fonder of me than of anyone in the world; just as I was of her, until I fell in love with Simon.

But she shouldn’t have said that about calf love. ‘How dare she!’ I thought. ‘Who’s she to decide that what I feel is calf love, which is funny – instead of first love, which is beautiful? Why, she’s never been in love at all, herself!’

I went over and over it, while I drank cup after cup of tea – the last one was so weak that I could see the lump of sugar sitting at the bottom of it. Then the waitress came and asked if I wanted anything more. I didn’t feel like leaving so I studied the menu carefully and ordered a lamb cutlet – they take a nice long time to cook and only cost sevenpence each.

While I waited, I tried to ease my misery about Rose by thinking of my misery about Simon, but I found myself thinking of both miseries together. ‘It’s hopeless,’ I thought. ‘All three of us are going to be unhappy for the rest our lives.’ Then the lamb cutlet arrived surrounded by a sea of white plate and looking smaller than I had believed any cutlet could. I ate it as slowly as possible, I even ate the sprig of parsley they throw in for sevenpence. Then the waitress put my bill down on the table and cleared away my plate in a very final way, so after a long drink of free water I felt I had better go. I opened my bag to get out a tip for the waitress and then—

All my life I shall remember it. My purse wasn’t in my bag.

I hunted frantically, but without any hope. Because I knew that purse was still in the evening bag Rose had lent me. All I found through my search was a gritty farthing in the comb pocket.

I felt icy cold and sick. The lights seemed to be much more glaring, the people all around seemed suddenly noisier and yet quite unreal. A voice in my head said: ‘Keep calm, keep calm now – you can explain to the manager. Give him your name and address and offer to leave something of value.’ But I didn’t have anything of value; no watch or jewellery, my bag was almost worn out, I hadn’t even a coat or hat – for a wild minute I wondered if I could leave my shoes. ‘But he’ll see you’re a respectable person – he’ll trust you,’ I tried to reassure myself – and then I began to wonder if I looked a respectable person. My hair was untidy, my green dress was bright and cheap compared with London clothes, and Heloïse needing its belt didn’t improve matters. ‘But they can’t send for the police just for a pot of tea and one cutlet,’ I told myself. And then it dawned on me that it wasn’t only for my bill that I needed money – how was I to get to the station without a taxi? I couldn’t walk Heloïse all those miles, even if I could manage it myself. And my railway ticket—

That was in the purse, too.

‘I’ve got to get help,’ I thought, desperately.

But how? There were call-boxes in the front part of the restaurant, but apart from feeling I would rather die than telephone the flat, I knew it would involve Rose in impossible explanations. Then I suddenly remembered Stephen’s message that he was always at my service – but could I bring myself to wake the Fox-Cottons up at nearly two in the morning? I was still arguing with myself when the waitress came back and looked at me very pointedly, so I felt I had to do something.

I got up, leaving my bill lying on the table. ‘I’m waiting for someone who’s late – I’ll have to telephone,’ I said. ‘Will you please keep this place for me?’

Heloïse hated being wakened, but I didn’t dare leave her under the table. Mercifully, she was too sleepy to do any barking. I explained at the pay-desk that I was going to telephone – I noticed the girl watching to see that I did go into a call-box. It was dreadfully hot inside, particularly with Heloïse slumped against me like a fur-covered furnace. I opened the book to find the Fox-Cottons’ number—

And then I remembered. You need pennies to telephone from a public call-box.

‘You’ll laugh at this one day,’ I told myself, ‘you’ll laugh like anything.’ And then I leaned against the call-box wall and began to cry – but I soon stopped when I remembered that my handkerchief was in Rose’s evening bag. I stared at the box you put the pennies in and thought how willingly I would rob it, if I knew how. ‘Oh, please, God – do something!’ I said in my heart.

Then a person who didn’t seem to be me put my hand up very quickly and pressed Button B. When the pennies came out, my inner voice said: ‘I knew they would.’

And then, in memory, I heard the Vicar talking of prayer, faith and the slot-machine.

Can faith work backwards? Could the fact that I was going to pray have made someone forget to take their pennies back? And if it was really prayer that did it, couldn’t Button B have saved me from troubling Stephen by giving me a pound? ‘Though, of course, it would have had to be in pennies,’ I thought. I prayed again, then pressed the button, wondering how I could cope with a shower of two hundred and forty pennies – but I needn’t have worried. So I got on with telephoning the Fox-Cottons.

Leda answered – sooner than I had expected. She sounded furious. I told her I was dreadfully sorry to disturb her but that I simply couldn’t help it. Then I asked her to get Stephen.

She said: ‘Certainly not. You can’t talk to him now.’

‘But I’ve got to,’ I told her. ‘And I know he won’t mind if you wake him – he’d want you to, if he knew I was in difficulties.’

‘You can stay in difficulties until tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you bother Stephen now. It’s disgusting the way—’

She broke off, and for an awful second I thought she had hung up the receiver. Then I heard voices, though I couldn’t distinguish any words – until she suddenly yelled out: ‘Don’t you dare do that!’ Then she gave a shrill little squawk – and the next second, Stephen was speaking to me.

‘What’s happened, what’s wrong?’ he cried.

I told him as quickly as I could – leaving out the quarrel with Rose, of course. I said I had meant to go home by a late train.

‘But there isn’t any late train—’

‘Yes, there is,’ I said quickly, ‘there’s one you didn’t know about. Oh, I’ll explain it all later. All that matters now is that I’m stranded here and if you don’t come along quickly I shall get arrested.’

‘I’ll start at once—’ He sounded terribly upset. ‘Don’t be frightened. Go back to your table and order something else – that will stop them suspecting you. And don’t let any men talk to you – or any women either, especially hospital nurses.’

‘All right – but do be as quick as you can.’

Afterwards, I wished I hadn’t said that about being arrested, because I knew he would believe it – as I never quite had done myself. But being stranded like that in a London restaurant can be very panic-striking, particularly in the middle of the night, and I did want to make sure he would come. I was wringing wet when I hung the receiver up. I had to roll Heloïse off my feet and simply drag her back to my table. Her eyes were just two pink slits. She was practically sleep walking.

I told the waitress my friend would arrive very soon and ordered a chocolate ice-cream soda. Then I sat back and just wallowed in relief – it was so great that I forgot how unhappy I was and began to take an interest in my surroundings. There were some people at a nearby table who were connected with a new play – one of them was the author – and they were waiting for the morning papers with the notices of it to come out. It was funny how nice and interesting almost everyone looked once my panic was over – before there had been just a sea of noisy faces. While I was having my ice-cream soda (it was glorious), a hospital nurse came in and sat at the very next table. I almost choked through my straw – because I knew what poor Stephen had been driving at. Miss Marcy had a story that fake nurses rush about drugging girls and shipping them to the Argentine to be what she calls: ‘Well – daughters of joy, dear.’ But as I picture the Argentine, it has plenty of its own joyful daughters.

Stephen didn’t arrive until after three o’clock – he said he’d had to walk nearly a mile before finding a taxi. He had an odd, strained look which I put down to his having been so frightened about me. I made him have a long, cold lemonade.

‘Did you snatch the telephone from Leda?’ I asked. ‘It sounded like that. What luck for me that you overheard her talking! Is there a telephone on the upstairs landing or something?’

‘There’s one in the studio – we were in there,’ he said.

‘Do you mean she was still photographing you?’

He said no, it was the other studio – ‘The one where the big photographs are. We were just sitting talking.’

‘What, till two in the morning?’ Then I saw that he was avoiding my eyes, and went on quickly: ‘Well, tell me about your interview with the film people.’

He told me, but hardly a word of it sank in – I was too busy picturing him in the studio with Leda. I was sure she had been making love to him. I imagined them sitting on the divan with only one dim light burning, and the great naked Negro looking down. The thought was horrible, yet fascinating.

I came back to earth as Stephen was saying: ‘I’ll take you home and pack up my clothes – though Leda says I shall have to buy some better ones. And I’ll see Mr Stebbins. He said he wouldn’t stand in the way of my career.’

‘Career’ sounded a funny word for Stephen.

‘What will Ivy say?’ I asked.

‘Oh, Ivy—’ He seemed to be remembering her from a long way back. ‘She’s a good girl, is Ivy.’

Somebody brought the morning papers to the people who were waiting for them. All the notices seemed to be very bad. The poor little author kept saying again and again: ‘It isn’t that I mind for myself, of course—’ And his friends were all very indignant with the critics and said notices didn’t mean a thing, never had and never would.

‘I suppose you’ll be getting notices soon,’ I said to Stephen.

‘Well, not notices exactly, but my name’s going to be in print. There’s to be a piece about me under the photograph Leda’s getting into the papers – saying how I’m a young actor of great promise. After this one picture where I keep coming on with goats, I’m to go on a contract and be taught to act. But not too much, they say, because they don’t want to spoil me.’

There was actually a note of conceit in his voice. It was so unlike him that I stared in astonishment – and he must have guessed why I did, because he flushed and added: ‘Well, that’s what they said. And you wanted me to do it. Oh, let’s get out of this place.’

I was glad to go. My relief at being rescued had worn off; and there seemed to me a stale, weary unnatural feeling about the restaurant – the thought that it never closed made me feel exhausted for it. Most of the people now seemed tired and worried – the poor little author was just leaving, looking utterly downcast. The hospital nurse looked pretty cheerful though; she was having her second go of poached eggs.

We sat on a bench in Leicester Square for a while, with Heloïse lying across both our laps. Her elbows dug into me most painfully; and I didn’t like the feel of the square at all – it isn’t a bit like most London squares – so I said: ‘Let’s go and have a look at the Thames, now that it’s getting light.’

We asked a policeman the way. He said: ‘You don’t want to use it for jumping in, do you, miss?’ which made me laugh.

It was quite a walk – and Heloïse loathed it; but she perked up after we bought her a sausage roll from a coffee stall. We got to Westminster Bridge just as the sky was red with dawn. I thought of Wordsworth’s sonnet but it didn’t fit – the city certainly wasn’t ‘all bright and glittering in the smokeless air’; there was a lurid haze over everything. And I couldn’t get the feeling of ‘Dear God! the very houses seem asleep’ because half my mind was still in the Corner House, which never gets a sleep at all.

We stood leaning against the bridge, looking along the river. It was beautiful, even though I didn’t get any feeling of peace. A gentle little breeze blew against my face – it was like someone pitying me. Tears rolled out of my eyes.

Stephen said: ‘What is it, Cassandra? Is it – something to do with me?’

For a second I thought he was harking back to his having kissed me in the larch wood. Then I saw the ashamed expression in his eyes. I said: ‘No, of course not.’

‘I might have known that,’ he said bitterly. ‘I might have guessed that nothing I’ve done tonight could matter to you. Who are you in love with, Cassandra? Is it Neil?’

I ought to have told him he was talking nonsense, that I wasn’t in love with anyone, but I was too tired and wretched to pretend. I just said: ‘No. It isn’t Neil.’

‘Then it’s Simon. That’s bad, that is – because Rose will never let him go.’

‘But she doesn’t love him, Stephen. She admitted it—’ I found myself telling him about our dreadful quarrel in her bedroom, describing how I had crept out of the flat.

‘You and your late trains!’ he put in. ‘I knew right well there wasn’t one.’

I went on pouring it all out. When I told him I had realized how wrongly I had behaved to Rose he said:

‘Don’t worry about that. Rose is bad.’

‘Not really bad,’ I said, and began to make excuses for her, telling him she had wanted to help the family as well as herself. He cut me short by saying:

‘But she’s bad, really. Lots of women are.’

I said: ‘Sometimes we’re bad without meaning to be.’ And then I asked if he could ever forgive me for letting him kiss me, when I knew I was in love with someone else. ‘Oh, Stephen, that was bad! And I let you go on thinking I might get to love you.’

‘I only did for a day or two – I soon saw I was making a fool of myself. But I couldn’t make it out – why you ever let me, I mean. I understand now. Things like that happen when you’re in love with the wrong person. Worse things. Things you never forgive yourself for.’

He was staring straight ahead of him, looking utterly wretched. I said:

‘Are you miserable because you made love to Leda Fox-Cotton? It was her fault, wasn’t it? You don’t need to blame yourself.’

‘I’ll blame myself as long as I live,’ he said, then suddenly turned to me. ‘It’s you I love and always will. Oh, Cassandra, are you sure you couldn’t ever get to care for me? You liked it when I kissed you – well, you seemed to. If we could get married—’

The glow from the sunrise was on his face, the breeze was blowing his thick fair hair. He looked desperate and magnificent, more wonderful even than in any of Leda’s photographs of him. The vague expression had gone from his eyes – I had a feeling it had gone for ever—

‘I’d work for you, Cassandra. If I’m any good at acting perhaps we could live in London, a long way from – the others. Couldn’t I help you through, somehow – when Simon’s married to Rose?’

When he said Simon’s name, I saw Simon’s face. I saw it as it had looked in the corridor off the ballroom, tired and rather pale. I saw the black hair growing in a peak on his forehead, the eyebrows going up at the corners, the little lines at the sides of his mouth. When first he shaved his beard I thought he was quite handsome, but that was only because he looked so much younger and so much less odd; I know now that he isn’t handsome – compared with Stephen’s, his looks aren’t anything at all.

And yet as my eyes turned to Stephen facing the sunrise from Simon in the darkness of my mind, it was as if Simon had been the living face and Stephen’s the one I was imagining – or a photograph, a painting, something beautiful but not really alive for me. My whole heart was so full of Simon that even my pity for Stephen wasn’t quite real – it was only something I felt I ought to feel, more from my head than my heart. And I knew I ought to pity him all the more because I could pity him so little.

I cried out: ‘Oh, please, please stop! I’m so fond of you – and so deeply grateful. But I could never marry you. Oh, Stephen, dear – I’m so very sorry.’

‘That’s all right,’ he said, staring in front of him again.

‘Well, at least we’re companions in misfortune,’ I said.

Then Heloïse stood up and put her front paws on the parapet, between us, and my tears dropped down and made grey spots on her gleaming white head.