"But, Noel, I thought we were going to have a drink."
"We will in a moment."
"You're taking me to the Ladies'."
"No, I'm not."
On the half landing it was quiet, and softly lit. He sat on the wide, Turkey-carpeted stair and drew her down beside him, and took her head between his hands and kissed her warm, flushed cheeks, and her brow, and her eyes, and then her sweet and open mouth, thus stilling her laughing protests.
It took a long time. They drew apart at last. After a bit, he said, "I watched you dancing, yet that was all I wanted to do."
"I don't understand, Noel."
He smiled. "Nor do I."
"What has happened?"
"I took Pandora home to Croy."
"I didn't know where you'd gone."
"I love you."
"I looked for you, but…"
"I want you for always."
"You have me."
"Till death us do part."
She looked, quite suddenly, almost frightened. "Oh, Noel…"
"Please."
"But that's for ever."
He thought of the old couple, arm-in-arm, setting off in the darkness for home. Together. "I know." He had never felt so confident, so unafraid, so certain in the whole of his life. "You see, my darling Alexa, 1 am asking you to marry me."
Pandora shut the door behind her. Inside the house, with curtains drawn and doors closed, it was very dark, the great hall illuminated only by the glow of red ashes from the dying fire. She was alone. It was the first time in her life that she had had Croy to herself. Always, there had been others around the place. Archie, Isobel, Lucilla, Conrad, Jeff. And long before them, her parents, their servants, the constant stream of visitors and friends; always somebody, coming or going. Distant voices, distant laughter.
She switched on the light and went upstairs, down the upper passage to her room. She found it all just as she had left it, flung with clothes, the bed crumpled, the empty whisky glass still on the bedside table, along with her radio and a dog-eared paperback. The dressing-table was littered with bottles and jars, dusted with spilled face-powder; the wardrobe door hung open, and random shoes lay about the floor.
She tossed her bag onto the bed, and went over to the bombe desk. Here lay the letter that she had been writing before succumbing to exhaustion and taking to her bed to have one of her little toes-ups. She picked it up and read it through. It did not take very long. She folded it and put it into an envelope and licked the flap and pressed it down. She left the envelope on the blotter.
She went into the bathroom. This, too, was in its habitual state of disorder, with damp bath-mat and towels on the floor, and the soap lying, forgotten and soggy, in the bottom of the bath. At the basin, she filled a glass with water and drank it down, watching her own reflection in the tall plate-glass mirror. Her jars of pills stood on the shelf below this, and she reached for one of them, but clumsily, or perhaps her hand was shaking, because, inadvertently, she knocked over the bottle of Poison that stood alongside. It tipped and fell, and she watched this happen, and it all seemed to happen quite gradually, like watching a slow-motion film. It wasn't until it hit the basin and had smashed into smithereens that she put out her hand as though to save it.
Too late. All gone. The basin filled with shards of glass, and she herself, almost anaesthetized by the concentrated scent of the precious golden perfume…
Bugger.
No matter. No good trying to clean it up, because she'd only cut her fingers to ribbons. Isobel would deal with it. In the morning. Tomorrow morning, Isobel would deal with it.
She stowed the jar of pills safely away, deep into the pocket of her mink coat, and then, carefully switching off all the lights, and closing her bedroom door, went back downstairs and into the drawing-room. She turned on the main switch, and the huge chandelier, suspended from the centre of the ceiling, sprang into a thousand facets of glittering crystal light. Here again, the fire was nearly dead, but the room was still warm and comfortingly shabby and familiar with its crimson damask walls hung with the old portraits and oil-paintings that Pandora had known all her life. It was all so dear. The battered armchairs and sofas, the mismatched cushions, the little green velvet footstool where she had sat, as a child, while her father read aloud to her before she went to bed. And the piano. Mamma used to play the piano in the evenings, and Pandora and Archie would sing the old songs. Scottish songs. Songs of loyalty and love and death… nearly all of them quite dreadfully sad.
Ye banks and braes of bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair…
How lovely to be able to play as Mamma had. But then, being given lessons, the young Pandora had swiftly tired of them, and her gentle mother, as always, had allowed her to have her own way. And so she had never learned.
Another regret to add to all the others. Another missed opportunity of joy.
She went to the piano and lifted the lid and haltingly picked out the notes with a single finger.
It's a long long time From May to December But the days grow short…
Wrong note, try again.
… short When you reach September.
Not much of a performance.
She shut the piano lid, went out of the room, across the hall and into the dining-room. Here, more detritus. The table uncleared, empty coffee-cups, port glasses, crumpled napkins, chocolate wrappings, the scent of cigar smoke. The sideboard was laden with decanters, and she found an open bottle of champagne, still three-quarters full, which Archie had capped for future consumption with some patent stopper. Carrying this, she went back across the hall and out through the front door.
Archie's Land Rover waited for her. She climbed up behind the wheel, into its smelly and battered interior. She had never driven it before, and it took a moment or two to work out the complexities of ignition, gear, and lights. But finally, she got the hang of them. With only sidelights burning, the old engine chuntered into life, and she was off.
Down the drive between the dark masses of the rhododendrons, across the cattle-grid, up to the right, headed for the hills. She drove very slowly, with immense care, feeling her way by the dim lights, as though she walked on tiptoe. Past the farmhouse, through the steadings. And then, Gordon Gillock's house. She had been afraid that the sound of the car engine would disturb Gordon's dogs, and they would start raging and barking and waking their master. But this did not happen.
Now she switched on the full beam of the headlights and was able to pick up a little speed. The road wound and twisted, but she knew every inch of the way. After a bit she reached the deer-fence with its tall gates. The last obstacle. She drew to a halt, pulled on the handbrake, and, leaving the engine throbbing, climbed down and went to open the gates. The bolt was rusted and awkward to pull free, but she finally achieved this, and the gates, weighted, swung open of their own accord. Back into the Land Rover, through the gap in the fence, and then the whole procedure all over again-pulling the gates shut, and bolting them closed behind her.
Free. Now she was free. Nothing more to be afraid of. Nothing more to worry about. Lurching and bumping, the Land Rover crawled its way up the unmade track, headlights pointing to the sky, and the sweet damp air pouring through the ill-fitting windows cool upon her cheeks.
Behind, the world dropped away, became smaller, infinitesimal, unimportant. The hills closed ranks, drew her close, like comforting arms. This was Pandora's country. She had carried it all through the wasted years in her heart, and now she was back for good. This was reality. The darkness, the feeling of belonging. Warm and safe and comforting as the womb.
You are my womb, she told the hills. I am returning to the womb. She began to sing.