The men stood facing each other again, on a gravel path. The voices rose and fell, but she could not hear the words. They gave an appearance of holding their ground against each other. Elizabeth had got on the horse and was cantering around the field, encouraging and calming the beast, and this sounded almost like a song, or a chant. 'There, there you are, there Beauty, now Beauty, there's my girl Beauty, there's a good girl, there's Beauty, now come on, calm down, gently there Beauty.'
The two men now took off fast into a wood and there walked around a very old oak that had a branch propped on a stick, stopped, and walked around the other way. They were disagreeing. A peaceable argument lasted for quite a time, and then they returned to the path. Now Sarah could see that the black-browed man's face was red because it was meshed with fine lines, his nose had the lumpy glare of a drinker's nose, and he seemed swollen with unhealthy blood. They stood talking. Nothing could seem more amiable than this long, leisurely chat. At last the riding whip lifted in a careless goodbye, the man nodded at Stephen, and he strode off back towards Elizabeth. At the hedge he stopped, bent to look at something on the sunny grass, and stamped once, twice, swivelling his heel on whatever it was, to make sure it was well and truly ground out of life. Then he went on, head lowered, riding crop at the ready. He vaulted heavily over the stile. Elizabeth was crooning at her horse and patting it to keep it patient. The man picked up a saddle from where he had left it in the grass to talk to Stephen, flung it on a brown horse, fastened it, climbed heavily on it, and then he and Elizabeth turned their horses' heads towards a far hedge. Stephen stood alone on the gravel path and gazed over the hedge at the scene of his wife and the neighbour talking as they rode slowly off together.
Stephen was now standing over a pile of lemon-coloured honeysuckle that was interweaved with a purple clematis. He poked his stick into the mass of bloom, and at once intense waves of scent rose to her window. He was fishing out a green rubber ball, which had a glossy look: it had not been lying there long. He threw the ball hard, for at least fifty yards, onto a lawn at the side of the house.
'Good throw,' she remarked to his head. He said, without looking up, 'I knew you were there, Sarah.' Then he did look up and gave her a warm and even tender smile. He waved a hand at her and went into the house.
She was feeling angry with herself- foolish. She had been watching this man, inside his own real life, for well over an hour. This was Stephen, this the reality of Stephen. Sarah told herself, repeated it, to make herself take it in, that Stephen the man of the theatre and Julie's besotted lover was only one aspect of Stephen. Suddenly Sarah was wondering about that black-browed red-faced man now cantering away with Elizabeth a long way off across the fields — what did he say, he and his sort, about Stephen and this hobby of his, the theatre? For after all, Stephen's visits to France, and attending rehearsals in London, and arranging the Entertainments, probably had not taken up so much time. His real life was here, on this estate.
About fifteen years ago, a conversation on these lines must have taken place in all the houses near this one:
'Elizabeth's done it. Queen's Gift will be all right.'
'Good for her. He's got money, then?'
'Yes, plenty. Stephen Ellington-Smith.'
'Gloucestershire? The Gloucestershire Ellington-Smiths aren't too well off.'
'No, Somerset. It's a branch of the Gloucestershire lot.'
'Oh, I know him, then. He was at school with my cousin.'
'Anyway, it's wonderful. Awful if she'd lost Queen's Gift.'
So they must all back Stephen, stand by him, even if they. think him eccentric. But after all, the arts were fashionable, and Queen's Gift was not the only country house round about that went in for summer festivals. Was there anyone among the people he must call his friends with whom he talked about his secret miseries? Probably he wouldn't dare, for if his confidante (bound to be a woman) was indiscreet, then he would be seen as mad, barking, round the bend, loco. Well, he was. But it was easy for her now to turn that life of his around slightly, as one turns an object to catch a different light, and all she could see was the life of a country gentleman, and Julie just a little dark blot on a sunny scene of trees and fields safely enclosing this ancient house. Just as her own life, Sarah's, which she had seen for years as a competent progression, with proportion in all its parts, could be turned around to be seen as a stoic one, ending now in old age with an ache and a hunger for love — but that is not how it would look to her, she knew, quite soon. Within weeks, probably, her present state would seem like a temporary fever. And — but this was the point: her concern for Stephen was like a kind of illness. Anxiety invaded her at the thought of him. Just as it did when she considered Joyce. What was the matter with her, Sarah? Why did she seek burdens?
Meanwhile there was breakfast, in last night's supper room. Mary Ford was there. So was Roy. Two large, com- petent, healthy people placidly consuming sensible breakfasts. The other person there was Andrew. He had no right to be there at all. Had he spent the night somewhere in the grounds? Perhaps sitting on a bench somewhere, mooning — yes, Sarah actually almost used that word — at the house where his love — herself- was lodged. He was not eating. A cup of black coffee stood in front of him. His face was as pale as a face can be that is surfaced with a tan. He stared long and deliberately at Sarah, with enough irony to shrivel her. If he was hating her, with all the fury of a despised lover, then she watched in herself that primitive reaction (had she felt it since she was pubescent?), the outraged amour propre expressed by How dare he? How old is the girl who feels this mixture of indignation and contempt because of the impertinence of an old man (probably thirty years old) who dares to think himself good enough for her? Thirteen? She poured herself coffee, her back turned, trying to recover some sense of the appropriate, let alone some humour, and heard a door slam. When she turned he had gone. She looked deliberately at Mary and Roy to see if they wanted to comment, but neither looked at her.
Then Mary said, 'I think I'll go and see if I can get some pictures. The light is good now.' And Roy said, 'Sarah, I'm going to have to take some leave. I'm due two weeks. This divorce thing is doing me in.' With this, he left.
Sarah told herself that what this good friend of hers was going through was every bit as bad as anything she was feeling, but it was no good.
Henry arrived. He looked quite awful, which Sarah felt served him right. He scattered a dozen cornflakes into a bowl and sat opposite her. They sat looking at each other. There is a stage in love when the two stare in incredulity: how is it that this quite ordinary person is causing me so much suffering?
'All right,' said Henry, in reply to a thousand silent accusations from the rhetorics of love (which there is no need to list since no one has not used them), the first of which is always the incredulous: But if you love me, how can you be [LOST!!! I clapped
on those headphones you despise and put the music on so loud I couldn't think, and when I woke this morning it was blasting into my ears. Well, all right' — for she was laughing at him — 'I did get through the night.'
'Are you expecting me to congratulate you?'
'You might as well.'
He even seemed to be waiting for her to do this, but she had to shut her eyes, for the lower half of her body had dissolved into a warm pond. He was asking, 'Are you coming to Stratford today? Did you know we are all going to Stratford?'