She stared at me like somebody trying to make out the features of another person in a dim-lit hallway. I moved towards her. My mind was numb with the horror of her visit, but my dutiful body knew what to do—get hold of her, prevent her falling, put the dressing-gown round her shoulders, lead her back to bed. Her face changed as though the movement had brought me into the light. Recognition flooded into her eyes.
‘Darling Janey,’ she said. ‘You’re the one I can trust.’
‘Of course you can, darling,’ I said.
Her mouth drooped open. She let me cover her up and lead her back downstairs.
II
Mark had not been home for the weekend before my appointment with Ronnie—Saturday had been his fortnightly constituency visit and presumably he’d spent Sunday in Wiltshire with his Julia. I knew what his letter would say before I opened it, but it still came as a shock. Not of betrayal, not—or so I persuaded myself—of sexual jealousy, but of passing a milestone, a whole stage in one’s life officially being declared over. Knowing that he would screw himself up to a divorce fairly soon, now that his political career was at best in abeyance for the next few years, I had already decided to make things as simple as possible, though there would be no getting out of the public fuss over the divorce of an ex-minister and a best-selling novelist, with Cheadle itself as the stage. It is in my nature to prefer to get unpleasant things dealt with as quickly as possible, so the letter should have come as a relief. I was not mentally prepared for the feeling of a great door swinging shut, its key grinding in the lock, of the corridor still stretching in front of me but opening into rooms that might in themselves look pleasant enough but would become steadily smaller and barer, and be imbued with a sense of having already been abandoned by the inhabitants I should have liked to meet in them.
I read Mark’s letter twice and put it in the pile for immediate answer. The rest of the envelopes looked routine, but one contained an enormous goody, also vaguely expected but still a surprise when it actually happened. Then, Monday being the day to which everything gets put off because in theory I shall have time for it then, I was too busy to pine or rejoice and certainly had no leisure to fret about Ronnie’s visit.
He was waiting for me in the Satin Room, a stooped and somehow wavery silhouette standing at the window. He turned as I closed the door and came towards me with uncertain steps. The lenses of his spectacles were as thick as bottle-glass and his walking-stick was painted white. In other respects he had aged heavily too. I imagined he was a bit over sixty-five but he looked nearer eighty. Despite that, I felt an extraordinary flush of delight at meeting him. Nervousness too, not about what he was going to ask me or anything rational, more a superstitious knowledge that I was doomed to say or do something that would burst the bubble. He took my hand and held it like a long-forsaken lover. He peered.
‘Less changed than you sound on the telephone,’ he said.
‘I have to be a dragon in working hours, but this is time off. Sorry I’m late. Did you have any trouble getting here?’
‘Fred drove me. I have a sort of arrangement with him so that I can get about at all. He’s gone on to visit some cousins in Nottingham.’
‘Nottingham seems to be entirely inhabited by Indians these days.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Oh, Ronnie, you’ve brought the champagne after all! I should have realised . . . you see, if you aren’t having any and I’ve got to work this afternoon . . .’
With a trembling hand he took from his pocket a brass gadget on which a rubber washer nestled between two flanges.
‘June suns, you cannot store them to warm December’s cold,’ he said. ‘But Cyril Ray tells me that with this device you can.’
‘What’s happened to Tom?’ I said, following a natural train of thought from the quotation. ‘He wasn’t on the mast-head last time I saw a copy.’
Ronnie put the bottle on the table and answered in jerks as he unwired it. I could see that he was already used to doing such tasks by feel rather than eyesight.
‘Not very good. Stuck Naylor for twenty years. Does the odd piece still. Bit of book-reviewing here and there. Lives with a sister in Kent. Goes around wearing an old tweed coat and skirt of hers. A peculiarly dislikable woman. Shouts at him as if he were deaf. But she sees he doesn’t starve.’
‘How dreadful. And Naylor is still editor. Who could have believed it, that evening we first met him?’
Ronnie grunted, working his thumbs round the cork to ease it up. I knew it wouldn’t do to offer to help. The pop came at last. I held my glass for him as he poured with a quivering hand. He took only a mouthful for himself, then clipped his gadget on to the bottle to seal the pressure in.
‘Cyril tells me it will keep a fortnight in the refrigerator,’ he said. ‘You can have a glass whenever the necessity strikes you.’
It was Krug, and somehow he had managed to keep it cold on the journey. I was absurdly moved that he should have understood that it would have such meaning for me.
‘Sealed in blood,’ I said as I lowered my glass.
‘You will have to explain.’
‘I nearly put you off at least three times. I’m not sure what it’s going to do to me, bringing up those old days. But I couldn’t. So much of me was longing to see you.’
‘My dear Mabs . . .’
‘I’m a bit hysterical this morning. I got a letter from my husband saying he wanted a divorce.’
‘Did you now?’
He managed to make his voice condole, but the near-blind eyes were still able to gleam.
‘No nice scandal, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘He’s just found a pleasanter woman to live with. I’ve known it was coming for ages. But that’s not all, Ronnie. I’ve had a piece of terrific financial news.’
‘Enough to cure heartache, by the sound of it.’
‘Almost. You won’t have read a book of mine called The Gamekeeper’s Daughter.’
‘I don’t think so. But I assure you I have read some of the others. You must give a lot of people pleasure, Mabs.’
‘A tactful way to put it.’
‘Not intended as such. I count myself among them. But that one, I take it, came just after the Chatterley trial.’
‘Palest of pale blue by today’s standards. It’s being made into a film.’
‘Congratulations. But I was under the impression you’d had several.’
‘Five. This one is going to be a big one. Top stars and so on. But that isn’t the point. I’ve been fighting for years to get some of the running expenses of Cheadle allowed against my income from writing for tax purposes. The tax people have always said they were two separate businesses, but I maintain that they aren’t. They depend on each other. I integrate them as much as possible. I keep Cheadle exactly in the period I write about. Visitors who come to see it see a great Edwardian house being got ready for a big house party, and so on, but the tax people have always said I can only claim the proportion I actually use for writing, which is a couple of rooms. They think they’re being generous allowing me two per cent. My own accountants have been perfectly infuriating too. They keep saying I’ll never get away with it.’