'You've imagined this scene? said Randall, gratified. 'A thousand times.
He was delighted and yet terrified, and as they reached the door of her bedroom he had a certain foreboding.
Lindsay pulled the curtain and turned the light on. She undid her bed. The room in the red glow from the reading-lamp seemed suddenly small and desperate. A line of strange daylight showed beyond through a chink in the curtain. Randall closed the door and leaned against it. He felt exhausted.
Lindsay turned to face him, twisting her hair together and throwing it back over her shoulder. With a half-shadowed face she looked like a figure on a playing card. She said in a cold murmur, 'Just one last thing, Randall. I may have changed the order of the programme, but I haven't changed the items. Don't forget your practical thinking.
'No dough, no go. She began to take off her dress.
Christ, what a girl, thought Randall. He worshipped her. At the same time he felt paralysed with fear. He wondered now whether his crazy imaginings about Emma's complicity had not perhaps been devices designed by himself precisely to prevent his ever arriving at this moment. He watched her.
Lindsay pulled the brown dress over her head and shook her hair, free of it. She was wearing a very brief petticoat underneath. She put the dress aside and stood now looking at him, gathering her hair once more with a hand that shook slightly.
'Oh God, Lindsay —’ said Randall. She looked so strangely pathetic, yet why was he so strangely afraid? She looked like a poor condemned whore taken to execution in' her shift. Yet his knees trembled.
'Come, come, she said very softly.
'Come, Randall. She bent and began to take off her stockings.
Randall fumbled with his tie. He seemed to be tightening the knot rather than loosening it.
Lindsay had removed other undergarments but not yet the petticoat. She came to him now and began to help him with the tie, murmuring 'Dear, dear, dear. He felt the warmth of her Anns. He got the tie off and took off his jacket and waistcoat and put them on the chair. He kicked off his shoes. Then he leaned back against the door panting for breath. By now he could hardly recognize Lindsay.
She regarded him with a tender irony. 'Would you like to go home now?
'Oh God, Lindsay, said Randall again, and he fell on his knees, grasping her about the legs. Her legs were infinitely warm and soft. As she began to pull the petticoat off he laid his head against her thigh. He could feel her trembling violently. He gave long sighs.
'Now, now, now —’ said Lindsay. She was kneeling beside him and unbuttoning his shirt. He touched her breasts. He remembered her breasts. Then his searching hand was jerked upwards by Lindsay pulling his shirt and vest over his head. And now she was unbuttoning his trousers.
'All right, all right, said Randall. 'I'll do it. He sat on the floor and took off the rest of his clothes.
Lindsay was lying full length on the undone bed. Randall knelt and looked. Then he looked into her face. It was as if their eyes had become huge and luminous so that when they gazed they were together in a great cavern. Slowly he pulled himself up to sit upon the edge of the bed. Then he turned away from her and hid his face in his hands.
'What is it, dear, dear? murmured Lindsay. She caressed his back.
'I'm not going to be any good, said Randall. 'God! I was afraid of this.
'It doesn't matter. Embrace me.
He stretched himself out almost stiffly and buried his face against her. His Anns pinioned her with violence.
After a little while she said again, 'There. Relax. It doesn't matter.
'It does. I wish I hadn't talked so much about Emma. I'm poisoned.
'Emma's not important here. She's not important any more.
'Ah — not important anymore. You know, Lindsay, I don't think I really like Emma.
'I don't think I like her either. In fact I think I dislike her.
'I dislike her too.
'In fact I think I detest her.
'And I detest her. Oh Lindsay —’
It was a few minutes later that he said, 'Do you know, I think it's going to be all right after all.
Chapter Sixteen
'SOME more coffee? Another biscuit? said Ann. 'Thank you, my dear, said Emma.
It was nearly lunch-time, but she was still at it. She seemed to have been eating ever since she arrived, as if she had been starved before. Or as if, it occurred to Ann, she wanted to eat up the whole scene.
Ann had been surprised, even shocked, when Hugh had announced that he was going to bring Emma Sands to Grayhallock. It seemed a little soon after Fanny's death. However, her sense of the visit as improper soon merged into her sense of it as a perfect nuisance. Nancy Bowshott was ill, or pretending to be, and Miranda, in quarantine for German measles, was at home the whole week. It was as much as Ann could do to keep her outfit going at all, without having to cope with state visits. The house had become dusty and untidy and it had taken her several days of getting up half an hour earlier to put it into tolerable order. She refused Clare Swann's offer to do the flowers for her, and then regretted it. By the time her guests actually arrived she was in a state of irritated exhaustion.
Emma too had behaved in an odd and not very reassuring way. Instead of wandering about with Hugh, leaving Ann free to deal with the lunch, she had attached herself to Ann. She had installed herself in the drawing-room, beside the window, smoking innumerable Gauloises and eating cakes at the same time, and had there positively summoned for interview all the available inhabitants of Grayhallock, not even excluding Bowshott. She devoted particular time and attention to the children. During the actual interviews Ann had absented herself to put in some feverish work in the kitchen, only to be summoned from there by the outgoing interviewee. It was like having a government inspector in the house.
The only person banished from her presence was Hugh. This unfortunate was to be seen outside on the sunny lawn, walking up and down in front of the beech trees, biting his nails and casting aggrieved glances at the windows; while like personages in a play the other members of the household came and went at the double on errands connected with Emma. Miranda at this moment was crossing the lawn in a series of leaps, armed with secateurs, dispatched to the rose slopes to cut a bunch of gallicas for the distinguished visitor. Penn ran along, behind her like a starling after a blackbird.
Ann was walking up and down the room in the haze of Gauloise smoke. Emma affected her strangely, with a sort of easy restlessness. She had felt previously no particular hostility towards her father-in-law's mistress, merely a certain curiosity; and she had expected the day to be for herself a tiresome and un-noteworthy business of rushing about in the background. She was surprised to find that, on the contrary, she was to occupy the centre of the stage. She was even more surprised to find herself invigorated by, positively enjoying, the atmosphere of relaxed drama which surrounded Emma. It was as if Emma made her exist more, and cast upon her, out of her own more vivid personality, a certain light and colour.
The appearance of the well-known authoress had been at first sight disappointing. Ann had vaguely expected something more dashing; and there was at first something almost pathetic in this slow crumpled elderly person, with her air of a determined valetudinarian, seeming older than her years could possibly warrant. Yet the face was clever. The face was also in some curious way alarming. Ann had not shaken off the alarm; but she had not been long in company with Emma before she found herself cheered by her guest's intelligent friendly curiosity, and made to talk as she had not talked in years. She felt herself relax, as in a warm salty bath. She had an agreeable sense almost of being seduced.