It was clever, if obvious, to describe him to Maud as "not in your class." Even if she noticed the transparency of this device, the label would stick. And she knew Roland was not in her class. She should have been less ungracious. He was a gentle and unthreatening being. Meek, she thought drowsily, turning out the light. Meek.
The next day, when she drove out towards Seal Court, the wolds were blanched with snow. It was not snowing, though the sky was heavy with it, an even pewter, weighing on the airy white hills that rolled up to meet it, so that the world seemed reversed here too, dark water above circling cloud. Sir George's trees were all fantastically hung with ice and furbelows. She parked just outside the stable yard on an impulse and decided to walk to the winter garden, built for Sophie Bailey and much loved by Christabel LaMotte. She would see it as it had been meant to be seen, and store the memory to be shared with Leonora. She trod crunchingly around the kitchen-garden wall and up a yew alley, festooned with snow, to where the overlapping, thick evergreens-holly, rhododendron, bay-enclosed a kind of trefoil-shaped space at the heart of which was the pool where Christabel had seen the frozen gold and silver fish, put there to provide flashes of colour in the gloom-the darting genii of theplace, Christabel had said. There was a stone seat, with its rounded snow-cushion which she did not disturb. The quiet was absolute. It was beginning to snow again. Maud bowed her head with the self-consciousness of such a gesture, and thought of Christabel, standing here, looking at this frozen surface, darkly glowing under blown traces of snow.
And in the pool two fishes play
Argent and gules they shine alway
Against the green against the grey
They flash upon a summer's day
And in the depth of wintry night
They slumber open-eyed and bright
Silver and red, a shadowed light
Ice-veiled and steadily upright
A paradox of chilly fire
Of life in death, of quenched desire
That has no force, e'en to respire
Suspended until frost retire-
Were there fish? Maud crouched on the rim of the pool, her briefcase standing in snow beside her, and scraped with an elegant gloved hand at the snow on the ice. The ice was ridged and bubbly and impure. Whatever was beneath it could not be seen. She moved her hand in little circles, polishing, and saw, ghostly and pale in the metal-dark surface a woman's face, her own, barred like the moon under mackerel clouds, wavering up at her. Were there fish? She leaned forward. A figure loomed black on the white, a hand touched her arm with a huge banging, an unexpected electric shock. It was meek Roland. Maud screamed. And screamed a second time, and scrambled to her feet, furious.
They glared at each other.I m sorry-I m sorry-
"I thought you were overbalancing-"I didn't know anyone was there."I shocked you."I embarrassed you-"It doesn't matter-"It doesn't matter-"I followed your footsteps."I came to look at the winter garden."Lady Bailey was worried you might have had an accident."The snow wasn't that deep."
It s still snowing."Shall we go in?"I didn't want to disturb you."It doesn't matter."Are there fish?"All you can see is imperfections and reflections."
The work time that followed was a taciturn time. They bent their heads diligently-what they read will be discovered later-and looked up at each other almost sullenly. Snow fell. And fell. The white lawn rose to meet the library window. Lady Bailey came with coffee, silently rolling, into a room still with cold and full of a kind of grey clarity.
Lunch was sausages and mashed potatoes and buttery peppery mashed turnips. It was eaten round the blazing log-fire, on knees, backs to the slatey white-flecked window. Sir George said, "Hadn't you better be getting back to Lincoln, Miss B.? You don't have snow-chains, I suppose. The English don't. Anyone'd think the English'd never seen snow, the way they go on when it comes down."
"I think Dr Bailey should stay here, George," said his wife. "I don't think it's safe for her to go even trying to thread her way through the wolds, in this. We can make her bed up in Mildred's old nursery. I can lend her some things. I think we should get the bed made up and get some hot water bottles in it now. Don't you think so, Dr Bailey?"
Maud said she couldn't and Lady Bailey said she must, and Maud said she shouldn't have set out and Lady Bailey said nonsense, and Maud said it was an imposition and Sir George said that whatever the rights and wrongs of it, Joanie was right and he would go up and see to Mildred's bed. Roland said he would help, and Maud said by no means, and Sir George and Maud went away upstairs to find sheets, whilst Lady Bailey filled a kettle. She had taken to Roland, whom she addressed as Roland, whilst she still addressed Maud as Dr Bailey. She looked up at him on the way across the kitchen, the brown coins on her face intensified by the fire.
"I hope that pleases you. I hope you'll be pleased to have her here. I hope you haven't had some tiff, or something."
"Tiff?"
"You and your young woman. Girl friend. Whatever."
"Oh no. That is, no tiff, and she isn't-"
Isnt?
"My-girl friend. I hardly know her. It was-is-purely profes sional. Because of Ash and LaMotte. I've got a girl friend in London. Her name's Val."
Lady Bailey showed no interest in Val.
"She's a beautiful girl, Dr Bailey. Stand-offish or shy, maybe both. What my mother used to call a chilly mortal. She was a Yorkshirewoman, my mother. Not County. Not a lady." Roland smiled at her.
"I used to share a governess with some cousins of George's. To be company for them. I used to exercise their ponies, whilst they were away at school. Rosemary and Marigold Bailey. Not unlike your Maud. That's how I met George, who decided to marry me. George gets what he's set his mind on, as you see. That's how I took to hunting too. And ended up under a horse under a hedge when I was thirty-five and now as you see."
"I see. Romantic. And terrible. I'm sorry."
"I don't do too badly. George is a miracle. Hand me those bottles. Thank you."
She filled them with a steady hand. Everything was designed for her ease: the kettle, the kettle-rest, the place to park and steady the chair.
"I want you both to be comfortable. George is so ashamed of the way we live-skimping and saving-the house and grounds eat money, just preventing deterioration and decay. He doesn't like people to come and see how things are. But I do love having someone to talk to. I like to see you working away in there. I hope it's proving useful. You don't say much about it. I hope you aren't frozen in that great draughty room…"
"A little bit. But I love it, it's a lovely room… But it would be worth it if it was twice as cold. It doesn't seem possible to say anything about the work yet. Later. I shall never forget reading these letters in that lovely room…"
Maud's bedroom-Mildred's old nursery-was at the opposite end of the long corridor that housed Roland's little guest bedroom and a majestic Gothic bathroom. No one explained who Mildred was or had been; her nursery had a beautifully carved stone fireplace, and deeply recessed windows in the same style. There was a high wooden bed with a rather bulky mattress of horsehair and ticking: Roland, coming in with his arms full of hot water bottles, was reminded as once before of the Real Princess and the pea. Sir George appeared with one of those circular copper dishes that contain a fat stamen of an electric fire, which he directed at the bed. Locked cupboards revealed blankets and a heap of 1930s children's dishes and toys, oilskin mats with Old King Cole on them, a nightlight with a butterfly, a heavy dish with an image of the Tower of London and a faded beefeater. Another cupboard revealed a library of Charlotte M. Yonge and Angela Brazil. Sir George, embarrassed, reappeared with a sugar-pink winceyette nightdress and a rather splendid peacock-blue kimono embroidered with a Chinese dragon and a flock of butterflies in silver and gold.