She did not speak on the way to her flat. She sat beside Jock as he drove, looking straight ahead. When they arrived she unlocked her door and led him in. The room was extremely empty of furniture. She sat down in the only chair. “There's plenty of time really. Tell me exactly what happened.”
Jock told her.
“Poor little boy,” she said. “Poor little boy.”
Then she opened her cupboard and began to put a few things into a suitcase; she went in and out from the bathroom once or twice. “That's everything,” she said. “There's still too much time.”
“Would you like anything to eat?”
“Oh no, nothing to eat.” She sat down again and looked at herself in the glass. She did not attempt to do anything to her face. “When you first told me,” she said, “I didn't understand. I didn't know what I was saying.”
“I know.”
“I didn't say anything, did I?”
“You know what you said.”
“Yes, I know … I didn't mean … I don't think it's any good trying to explain.”
Jock said, “Are you sure you've got everything?”
“Yes, that's everything,” she nodded towards the little case on the bed. She looked quite hopeless.
“Well, we'd better go to the station.”
“All right. It's early. But it doesn't matter.”
Jock took her to the train. As it was Wednesday the carriages were full of women returning after their day's shopping.
“Why not go first class?”
“No, no. I always go third.”
She sat in the middle of a row. The women on either side looked at her curiously wondering if she were ill.
“Don't you want anything to read?”
“Nothing to read.”
“Or eat?”
“Or eat.”
“Then I'll say goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Another woman pushed past Jock into the carriage, laden with light parcels.
When the news became known Marjorie said to Allan, “Well, anyway, this will mean the end of Mr. Beaver.” But Polly Cockpurse said to Veronica, “That's the end of Tony so far as Brenda is concerned.”
The impoverished Lasts were stunned by the telegram. They lived on an extensive but unprofitable chicken farm near Great Missenden. It did not enter the heads of any of them that now, if anything happened, they were the heirs to Hetton. Had it done so, their grief would have been just as keen.
Jock drove from Paddington to Brat's. One of the men by the bar said, “Ghastly thing about Tony Last's boy.”
“Yes, I was there.”
“No, were you? What a ghastly thing.”
Later a telephone message came: “Princess Abdul Akbar wishes to know whether you are in the club.”
“No, no, tell her I'm not here,” said Jock.
Seven
The inquest was held at eleven o'clock next morning; it was soon over. The doctor, the bus-driver, Ben and Miss Ripon gave evidence. Miss Ripon was allowed to remain seated. She was very white and spoke in a trembling voice; her father glared at her from a near-by seat; under her hat was a small bare patch, where they had shaved off the hair to clean her cut. In his summary the coroner remarked that it was clear from the evidence that nobody was in any way to blame for the misadventure; it only remained to express the deep sympathy of the court to Mr. Last and Lady Brenda in their terrible loss. The people fell back to allow Tony and Brenda to reach their car. Colonel Inch and the hunt secretary were both present. Everything was done with delicacy and to show respect for their sorrow.
Brenda said, “Wait a minute. I must just speak to that poor Ripon girl.”
She did it charmingly. When they were in the car, Tony said, “I wish you had been here yesterday. There were so many people about and I didn't know what to say to them.”
“What did you do all day?”
“There was the shameless blonde … we played animal snap some of the time.”
“Animal snap? Was that any good?”
“Not much … It's odd to think that yesterday this time it hadn't happened.”
“Poor little boy,” said Brenda.
They had scarcely spoken to each other since Brenda's arrival. Tony had driven to the station to meet her; by the time they reached the house Mrs. Rattery had gone to bed; that morning she left in her aeroplane without seeing either of them. They heard the machine pass over the house, Brenda in her bath, Tony downstairs in his study attending to the correspondence that had become necessary.
A day of fitful sunshine and blustering wind: white and grey clouds were scarcely moving, high overhead, but the bare trees round the house swayed and shook and there were swift whirlpools of straw in the stable yard. Ben changed from the Sunday suit he had worn at the inquest and went about his duties. Thunderclap, too, had been kicked yesterday and was very slightly lame in the off fore.
Brenda took off her hat and threw it down on a chair in the hall. “Nothing to say, is there?”
“There's no need to talk.”
“No. I suppose there'll have to be a funeral.”
“Well, of course.”
“Yes; tomorrow?”
She looked into the morning room. “They've done quite a lot, haven't they?”
All Brenda's movements were slower than usual and her voice was flat and expressionless. She sank down into one of the armchairs in the centre of the hall, which nobody ever used. She sat there doing nothing. Tony put his hand on her shoulder but she said “Don't,” not impatiently or nervously but without any expression. Tony said, “I'll go and finish those letters.”
“Yes.”
“See you at luncheon.”
“Yes.”
She rose, looked round listlessly for her hat, found it and went very slowly upstairs, the sunlight through the stained glass windows glowing and sparkling all about her.
In her room she sat on the window seat, looking out across the meadows and dun ploughland, the naked tossing trees, the church towers, the maelstroms of dust and leaf which eddied about the terrace below; she still held her hat and fidgeted with her fingers on the brooch which was clipped to one side of it.
Nanny knocked at the door and came in, red eyed. “If you please, my lady, I've been going through John's things. There's this handkerchief doesn't belong to him.”
The heavy scent and crowned cypher at its corner proclaimed its origin.
“I know whose it is. I'll send it back to her.”
“Can't think how it came to be there,” said nanny.
“Poor little boy. Poor little boy,” said Brenda to herself, when nanny had left her, and gazed out across the troubled landscape.
“I was thinking about the pony, sir.”
“Oh yes, Ben.”
“Will you want to be keeping her now?”
“I hadn't thought … no, I suppose not.”
“Mr. Westmacott over at Restall was asking about her. He thought she might do for his little girl.”
“Yes.”
“How much shall we be asking?”
“Oh, I don't know … whatever you think is right. “She's a good little pony and she's always been treated well. I don't think she ought to go under twenty-five quid, sir.”
“All right, Ben, you see about it.”
“I'll ask thirty, shall I, sir, and come down a bit.”
“Do just what you think best.”
“Very good, sir.”
At luncheon Tony said, “Jock rang up. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do.”
“How sweet of him. Why don't you have him down for the week-end?”
“Would you like that?”
“I shan't be here. I'm going to Veronica's.”
“You're going to Veronica's?”
“Yes, don't you remember?”