“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Lydia said. “I want you to make sure that Marcus cooperates over the divorce.”
“But darling-”
“The man hires a prostitute, doesn’t he? They go to a hotel in Brighton or somewhere and register as man and wife, leaving a trail a mile wide. Isn’t that how it’s done?”
“I’m not sure Marcus would agree to that.”
“If he doesn’t manage it one way or the other, I shall go to the papers.”
“Don’t be childish, dear.”
Lydia sat back in her chair and said very slowly and distinctly, “If he doesn’t, I shall tell them what I saw you and Marcus doing in Frogmore Place the other Sunday.”
Her mother sat up so abruptly that she knocked both the ashtray and her notebook on to the floor. “Now that really is going too far. And it’s nonsense too. Wicked nonsense.”
“I was there. I saw you.”
Neither of them spoke. Lydia listened to the clock ticking on the mantel, a car passing down the street and the barely audible sound of her mother’s newly manicured nails scratching the eiderdown.
“And think of the effect on Pammy, on Fin, on-”
“I think you should have thought of the effect on them already,” Lydia said. “By the way, I shall want Marcus to settle an income on me. Shall we say five hundred a year? I don’t want to be greedy.”
“I’m not sure he could find that sort of money.”
“He can if he has to.”
“He won’t agree.”
“He will,” Lydia said. “You’ll make him. I’m serious about this, Mother. I’m quite prepared to go to the papers. If necessary, I’ll do everything I can to ensure that the world knows what my husband and my mother were doing together.”
Lady Cassington said in a quiet, uncertain voice, “You couldn’t prove anything.”
“That’s the point, though. I wouldn’t have to prove it: I’d just have to say it.”
“You wouldn’t get any sympathy, you know.” Her mother studied her with narrow intelligent eyes. “That’s the trouble when people start throwing mud at other people. It ends up sticking to everyone. They’d think you were mad. A wicked liar.”
“I’m quite happy to take that risk. Though if you can persuade Marcus to do the decent thing for once in his life there won’t be any need. The point is, you and Marcus have got something to lose. I haven’t. Not anymore.”
Her mother picked at the eiderdown. “You’ve become very hard-bitten. I must say I’m surprised. And hurt.”
“As somebody said to me the other day, you see things very differently when you haven’t a couple of shillings to rub together.”
“What have you told Fin?”
“Nothing. Yet.”
“I’d hate to see him worried by something like this.”
“In that case you’ll make sure he isn’t.”
“Will you stay with your father?”
Lydia stood up, walked over to the window again and looked down at the trim self-confident street below. She turned her head and stared at her mother. She felt cruelty rising inside her, a black tide. “That rather depends on who you mean by my father.”
Julian Dawlish looked as if he hadn’t slept. He arrived as arranged a little after ten o’clock. He brought with him milk, tea, bread and bacon. Rory cooked them a primitive breakfast, which they ate at the kitchen table.
Afterward, Dawlish pushed aside his plate, cleared his throat and said, “Fenella rang me up this morning. It seems that she doesn’t want the job after all. Or the flat.” He looked like a man who has seen his own ghost.
“I’m sorry,” Rory said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Of course I shall carry on with the association. It’s-it’s important, as I’m sure you agree after what we saw on Saturday. One has to start somewhere, doesn’t one? Because otherwise everything falls to pieces and one might as well just lie down and wait for the worst to happen.”
“Yes, one has to do something.” Rory wasn’t sure whether his host was talking about the state of his own emotions or Fascism’s steady invasion of European politics. “Anything’s better than nothing.”
“Precisely,” Dawlish said, looking even more hag-ridden than before. He took out his case and lit a cigarette. “I-I hope she’s all right. Fenella, I mean. She seemed a bit-well, jumpy yesterday. I don’t know whether you noticed?”
“I did notice something,” Rory admitted.
There was a pause in the conversation while Dawlish stubbed out the cigarette. Then he asked Rory how he was feeling.
“Much better, thanks. I’ll walk back to Bleeding Heart Square when we’re done here and start packing.”
“Nonsense. I’ll run you over in the car. Then I’ll take your piece over to Berkeley’s and have a word with the editor.”
“That’s awfully kind.”
Dawlish glanced at him and smiled a little awkwardly. “How long will it take you to pack your gear when you get back there?”
“I don’t know-an hour or two at most, I should think.”
Dawlish looked at his watch. “Suppose I pick you up after lunch. Half past two, say, will that suit?”
“Absolutely. Thank you.”
“You might as well have this flat for the time being. I’ll get someone in to sort out the attic.”
“We must talk about rent and so on.”
“Oh yes,” Dawlish said. “We shall. The association won’t need the whole house, after all. The ground floor and the first floor will be more than enough.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if Lydia Langstone wasn’t soon looking for somewhere to live.”
“Women are queer fish,” Dawlish went on, as if Rory had said something quite different. “That’s all there is to it. Kittle-cattle, as my father used to say. Don’t you agree?”
Lady Cassington sat at her dressing table, looking at Lydia’s reflection in the oval mirror. She was wearing a pale green wrap with lace at the sleeves and the collar. Her feet were bare and the hand holding the hairbrush was trembling slightly. The skin at the base of her neck, Lydia saw, was puffy and wrinkled.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Lady Cassington said carefully and slowly. She had just returned from a tactical retreat to her bathroom, where no doubt she had considered her possible courses of action.
“You know perfectly well,” Lydia said. “If necessary, by the way, I shall make this public too.”
“Lydia! Of all the wicked-”
“I shouldn’t have found out if it hadn’t been for you,” Lydia said. “It was you who got the Alfordes to ask me to tea. Mrs. Alforde is a nice woman. She tried so hard to do the right thing. She even asked me out for a day in the country. She had to run down to Rawling, you see. There was a funeral she had to go to-a man called Narton, the husband of an old servant.”
“My dear Lydia,” her mother said, veering on to another tack, “on reflection, I think you’re right about you and Marcus. About the divorce, I mean. Sometimes one has to draw a line under things, and make the best of a bad business. Sometimes-”
“We had lunch at the Vicarage after the funeral,” Lydia interrupted. “Mrs. Alforde and the Vicar put their heads together about the best way to help Mrs. Narton. You must have seen Mrs. Narton yourself when you went to stay at Rawling Hall. She looks about seventy now, but in fact she’s only forty-five. Did you know that?”
“Of course I didn’t,” Lady Cassington snapped. “Why on earth would I know a thing like that?”
Lydia sat down on the window seat. Her mother swiveled in her chair to keep her in sight.
“Mrs. Alforde went to see Mrs. Narton that afternoon,” Lydia said. “They had a very long chat. The funny thing was, after she’d come back from seeing Mrs. Narton, Mrs. Alforde was completely different. She acted very strangely. In fact she was almost unfriendly toward me.”