Henry had his back to her. He did not turn round. He was saying a beautiful piece which he had memorized with great care from one of his godfather’s books on ceramics. It was calculated to impress anyone except a real collector, who would probably recognise the passage and suspect that it had been learnt by heart.
When he had finished the paragraph, Bertie Everton said, ‘Oh, quite,’ and took a step towards the door, whereupon Henry turned round and saw Hilary. After which he sped the departing Bertie with an almost indecent haste. The door closed. The red-haired young man covered his red hair with a soft black hat, looked over his shoulder once at the girl who appeared to be admiring that remarkably fine set of ivory chessmen, and passed out of sight.
With a long striding step Henry arrived at the other side of the inlaid table which supported the chessmen. He said ‘Hilary!’ in a loud shaken voice, and Hilary dropped the white queen and backed into a grandfather clock, which rocked dangerously. There was a pause.
Emotion affects people in different ways. It induced in Henry a stare of frowning intensity, and in Hilary an inability to meet that stare. If she did she would either laugh or cry, and she didn’t want to do either. She wanted to be cool, calm, detached, and coldly polite. She wanted to display tact, poise, and savoir faire. And here she was, dropping chessmen and backing into grandfather clocks. And both she and Henry were in full view of everyone who happened to be walking down that part of the Fulham Road. Her cheeks were burning like fire, and if Henry was going to go on standing there and saying nothing for another five seconds, she would simply have to do something, she wasn’t sure what.
Henry broke the silence by saying in a tone of gloomy politeness,
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
Rubbish for Henry to talk like that. She looked up with a bright sparkle in her eyes and said,
‘Don’t be silly, Henry – of course there is!’
Henry’s eyebrows rose. A most annoying trick.
‘Well?’
‘I want to talk to you. We can’t talk here. Let’s go through to the Den.’
Hilary was feeling better. Her knees were still wobbling, and she wasn’t being properly aloof and cold, but she had at least got herself and Henry away from the window, where they must have been presenting a convincing tableau of The Shoplifter Detected.
Without further speech they passed round the screen and along a bit of dark passage to the Den, which had been the office of old Mr. Henry Eustatius. It was of course Captain Henry Cunningham’s office now, and it was a good deal tidier than it had been in his godfather’s day. Henry Eustatius had corresponded voluminously with collectors in every part of the world. Their letters to him lay about all over the table, all over the chairs, and all over the floor, and his replies, written in a minute spidery hand, were often very much delayed because they were apt to get engulfed in the general muddle. They probably arrived in the end, because the woman who did for Henry Eustatius was quite clever at recognising his writing. She never interfered with any of the other papers, but whenever she saw one covered with that spidery handwriting she would pick it up and put it right in front of the table where it could not help being seen. Henry Cunningham’s correspondence was not so large. He kept unanswered letters in one basket and answered letters in another, and when he wrote a letter he took it to the post at once.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hilary sat down on the arm of a large leather-covered chair. She was glad to sit down, but it put her at a disadvantage, because Henry remained standing. He leaned against the mantelpiece and gazed silently over the top of her head. Enraging. Because if you wanted to stop Henry talking you couldn’t – he merely raised his voice and continued to air his views. And now, when you wanted him to talk, he went all strong and silent and looked over the top of your head. She said, in rather a breathless voice,
‘Don’t do that!’
Henry looked at her, and immediately looked away again. ‘As if I was a black beetle!’ said Hilary to herself.
He said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ and Hilary forgot about her knees wobbling and jumped up.
‘Henry, I really won’t be spoken to like that! I wanted to talk to you, but if you’re going to be a perfectly polite stranger, I’m off!’
Henry continued to avert his gaze. She understood him to say in a muffled tone that he wasn’t being a polite stranger, and inside herself Hilary grinned and heard a little jigging rhyme which said,
‘Henry is never very polite,
But when he is he’s a perfect fright.’
She emerged, to hear him enquire what he could do for her, and all at once her eyes stung, and she heard herself say,
‘Nothing. I’m going.’
Henry got to the door first. He put his back against it and said,
‘You can’t go.’
‘I don’t want to go – I want to talk. But I can’t unless you’ll be rational.’
‘I’m perfectly rational,’ said Henry.
Then come and sit down. I really do want to talk, and I can’t whilst you go on being about eleven feet high.’
He subsided into a second leather chair. They were so close that if she had been sitting in the chair instead of on the arm, their knees would have touched. She had now a slight adyantage, as from this position it was she who looked down on him whilst he looked up to her. She thought it an entirely suitable arrangement, but had serious doubts as to its ever becoming permanent. Even now Henry wasn’t looking at her. Suppose he wasn’t just putting it on – suppose he really didn’t want to look at her any more… It was a most unnerving thought.
Quite suddenly she began to wish that she hadn’t come. And just at that moment Henry said rather gruffly,
‘Is anything the matter?’
A new, warm feeling rushed over Hilary. Henry only spoke like that when he really minded, and if he really minded, it was going to be all right. She nodded and said,
That’s what I want to talk to you about. Things have been happening, and I can’t talk to Marion because it upsets her, and I feel as if I must talk to someone, because of course it’s very, very, very important, so I thought we – we -well, we were friends -and I thought if I talked to you, you’d tell me what I ought to do next.’
There! Henry ought to adore that -he liked them meek and feminine. At least he did in theory, but in practice he might get bored.
‘Henry would like his wife to be meek
If he had a new one once a week.’
Henry brightened a little.
‘You’d better tell me all about it. What have you been doing?’
‘Nothing.’ Hilary shook a mournful head. ‘At least I only got into a wrong train by mistake – and that wasn’t my fault. I – I just saw someone who – who frightened me, so I got into a Ledlington train by mistake and didn’t find it out for ages.’
‘Someone frightened you? How?’
‘By glaring. It’s very unnerving for a sensitive young girl to be glared at on a public platform.’
Henry looked at her with suspicion.
‘What are you getting at?’