I sat down on the sofa. Georgie turned from looking out of the window and came towards me. The untidy bundle of her hair was contained in the upturned collar of her coat and she kept her hands deep in her pockets as for some time she stared down at me with a look of almost hostile tenderness. She said at last, 'Do you hate seeing me here?'
I said, 'No. I can't tell you how entirely good for me it is to see you here. But there's such pain too.'
'I know,' she said, her voice deep, weighted with understanding. 'Don't be angry with me because of the pain.'
'I am far from that. I feel more like kissing your feet. You've put up with so much from me.' As I spoke these words I felt myself, obscurely yet positively, upon the road towards making Georgie my wife. I had told her once that secrecy was essential to our love. Seeing her in this room, and thus joining the two halves of my life, seemed to prove me wrong and her right. The lies should indeed be done away with: and so far from breaking the texture of my love for Georgie this would set it free to be something stronger and purer than anything I had yet known. Gratitude to her, gratitude for her loyalty, her reason, her sheer kindness to me, possessed my heart.
'Ah, you're hating me!' said Georgie. She was still staring down at me intently, as if to wrest the thoughts out of my head.
'If you only knew how wrong you are!' I said. I gave her back a steady unsmiling stare, and felt pleasure at the idea of surprising her, rewarding her, with my better love. God knows she deserved it.
I got up and began to collect the Christmas cards from the piano. Beneath them it was thick with dust. The business of clearing up had begun.
'It's so strange and moving to be here!' said Georgie. She had begun to roam about the room again. 'I can't think what it's like. It's like possessing you retrospectively. No, not quite. But you've no idea how completely I assumed that I would never sec this place. I will now come to believe, and this will be better, so much better, that in the past, all that time that you were away from me, you really went on existing. It was too painful to believe at the time. But I knew that not to believe it was a failure of love. Now, with your help, I can put that right. I shall love you better, much better, Martin, in the future.'
She came to a standstill in front of me. I was deeply affected by the way in which her words echoed my thought. I sought for, but could not yet find, some eloquence by which to draw her closer in a preliminary exchange of vows.
I threw the pile of Christmas cards on the floor and led Georgie with me towards the mantelpiece. I said, 'I want you to touch everything. I want you to touch all these things.'
She hesitated. 'It would be sacrilege. I should suffer for it!'
'No,' I said. 'It will be good sacrilege. You bring me closer to reality. You have always done that for me.'
I took her hand and laid it on the Meissen cockatoo. We held each other's eyes. Georgie drew her hand back. Then after a moment she rapidly touched all the other objects on the mantelpiece. I took her hand again. It was marked with dust. I kissed it in the palm and raised my eyes to her again. I could see she was on the point of tears. I began to take her in my arms.
At that moment I heard a sound which made my heart violent with fear even before my mind had understood it. It was the familiar sound of a key turning in the front door. Georgie heard it too and her eyes became wide and hard. We stood thus for a second, paralysed. Then I pulled myself roughly out of the embrace.
It could only be Antonia. She had changed her mind about going to the country, and had decided to come and look the furniture over before our interview tomorrow. In another moment she would come straight into the drawing-room and find me with Georgie. I could not bear it.
I acted quickly. I took Georgie's wrist and pulled her over to the french windows. I opened them and then drew her into the garden and round a little to the side of the house so that we should be invisible from the room. I whispered to her, 'Go out of that little gate and you can get back into the square. Then go straight home and I'll join you.' .
'No!' said Georgie, speaking softly but not whispering, 'No!
Panic possessed me. I had to get her away. I felt horror and nausea at the idea of an encounter between Antonia and Georgie at Hereford Square: there was something here horrible, almost obscene. I put all my will into my voice. 'Go at once, damn you.'
'I don't want to,' said Georgie, in the same tone. She glared at me. Our heads were close together. 'Let me meet your wife now. I won't be made to run away!'
'Do as 1 tell you,' I said. I took her arm and applied a pressure until she winced.
She pulled her arm away and turned. 'I haven't any money.'
I gave her a pound quickly from my wallet, made a violent gesture of dismissal, and went back into the drawing-room. To my relief the room was still empty. I closed the doors quickly. I did not look back to the garden.
I waited a moment. There was a profound silence. What could Antonia be doing? I wondered if I perhaps had been mistaken after all. I walked across the room and out into the hall. Honor Klein was standing just inside the door.
The appearance, so unexpectedly, of this absolutely immobile figure had something of the uncanny, and she had for a moment the snapshot presence of a ghost. We stared at each other. She was hunched up inside her overcoat and her troll-like face was still moist with the raw air outside. She did not smile or speak, but regarded me with a steady tense meditative gaze. I felt, at seeing her, relief mingled with a profound dismay and a certain deep unreasoning fear. I felt her dangerous. I said, 'May I help you?'
She threw her head back, pulling her coat open at the neck. 'You mean, Mr Lynch-Gibbon, why the hell am I here.'
'Precisely,' I said. I never seemed destined to achieve politeness with Palmer's sister.
She said, 'The explanation is this. Your wife told me that you would be away today. I needed to have a certain key to a bureau. This key is in my brother's wallet. This wallet he lent to your wife for the paying of some bill. She put it into a basket which she accidentally left here when she called in yesterday. As my need was urgent, and as you and she were both to be away, she lent me your front-door key. So here I am. And there is the basket.'
She indicated a basket standing under the hall table. On the hall table I saw Georgie's handbag and two books on economics. I picked up the basket and handed it to her.
'Thank you,' she said. 'I am sorry I disturbed you.' Her gaze seemed to pass slowly over Georgie's bag.'
'Not at all,' I said. I experienced a sudden fierce desire to detain her. I wanted to know what she was thinking. But I could not find the words. I felt lame and foolish before her. She too seemed for a moment to want to stay. But as neither of us could find the means to prolong the situation she turned about and I opened the door. As she passed me I bowed.
I went back into the drawing-room. The garden was empty. I slipped the copy of Napier into my pocket. I found I was breathless. I leaned on the mantelpiece and began to stroke one of the cockatoos. The gritty dust came off on my hand.
Eleven
The next thing was that Georgie was not at her place. I had gone straight there by car after I had recovered my wits, and banged on the door, but there seemed to be no one in. I went to her room at the school, but she was not there and had not been there. I rushed back to her lodgings. There was still no reply. I went back to the school again and wasted time asking people. I felt both upset and offended, and after a while I returned to Hereford Square and spent the rest of the evening making a list of furniture, and telephoning Georgie, without result, at intervals. I did not seriously think she had been kidnapped or run over. I imagined that she must have been affronted by the way in which I pushed her off. I hated this idea: but felt confident of bringing her round fairly easily. It was not a pleasant evening, however. I drank a great deal of whisky, and went to bed.