‘I like your shop. I used to know Mr Tamburlane quite well. I shall hope to visit you again. May I?’ It was if he were a caller rather than a customer.
‘As soon as possible,’ said Lena.
‘Lena writes.’
‘Of course. Her three books are by my bed, and I admire them more at every reading.’
Lena went slightly pink and looked charming.
‘Good-bye then, Miss de Reptonville.’
Griselda took his hand. It was firm and dry and cool.
She looked him in the eyes. ‘There’s no news?’
‘No news.’ He still held her hand. ‘I hope I need not say I should have told you?’
‘No . . . I couldn’t help asking.’
He said nothing for a moment; then silently released her hand. All the while he was returning her gaze. Lena was looking on flushed and fascinated.
‘All packed up, sir,’ said the footman from the exactly right distance between the group of them and the shop door.
‘I’m coming. You can tell Staggers to get back on his box.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Their visitor put on his cloak. He had reached a decision. ‘I propose,’ he said, ‘to ask you to come and stay with me. Both of you.’ He seemed to speak with hesitation. ‘But naturally only if you wish to do so. Please say nothing now. There will be a formal invitation; which if you wish to decline or ignore I shall entirely understand.’
At this moment Griselda recalled old Zec’s curious behaviour at the All Party Ball when Hugo Raunds was mentioned.
‘We’d love to come,’ said Lena casually.
He made no reply, but bowing slightly and saying ‘Your servant, ladies,’ departed into the London snow.
Griselda and Lena followed him to the door. His carriage was an immense affair, with the familiar crest upon the door and at the base of the massive brightly polished lamps. Drawn by two proportionately immense black horses, with wild eyes, nostrils steaming like volcanoes, waving manes, and long undocked tails, it was governed by an immense coachman, so rugged and round and red as to overawe all possible comment. His red hair stuck out horizontally from beneath his huge tilted beaver. His red beard was snowy as Father Christmas’s. His red ear was curiously round, like the top of a red toadstool.
As the equipage drove away into the thickly drifting snow, Griselda and Lena perceived that on the opposite pavement, previously obscured from them by the bulk of the carriage itself, had accumulated, even in the teeth of the weather, a small cluster of passing Londoners. Rage and contempt were in every face and posture. Griselda had seldom seen any gathering of people so much under the influence of their emotions.
XXXV
Griselda had told Lena about Louise and said that she had mentioned the family which dwelt in the house they had entered on the day of Kynaston’s final picnic. Now she told her about Zec and his wife, whom for a long time she had forgotten; and of Louise’s words ‘Hugo is a very secret man.’
‘You mean,’ said Lena, ‘that after Mr Tamburlane you’ve had enough of secret men?’
‘Not altogether that. I don’t think Hugo Raunds is like Mr Tamburlane, do you, Lena?’
‘Not altogether, I should say.’
‘I just thought that if we’re going to stay with him – are we, by the way?’
‘It’ll mean coffins for beds and tooth mugs in gold plate.’
‘If we are going to stay, perhaps we could find out just why people don’t seem to like him.’
‘I don’t know that that’s any great mystery,’ said Lena. ‘If you think what people are like. Still I agree we might dig about.’
But it was hard to know which piece of ground to turn first; so that by the time the invitation arrived, they had discovered nothing more about their host whatever.
They were invited to visit a house which seemed to be in the Welsh Marches; and no term was set to their stay. The brief letter ended with the words ‘Come and see for yourselves. Then please yourselves.’
‘Hell of a journey in February,’ remarked Lena, ‘and, I should say, doubtfully worth the expense seeing that we can’t both leave the shop for more than a day or two. Still, better than that mausoleum in Essex doubtless. I suppose I shall have to freeze in a skirt all the time as it’s a country family?’
‘Louise said that Hugo Raunds lived entirely for clothes.’
‘I can imagine what that means. Brittle women in models.’
‘Surely not in Montgomeryshire?’
‘Unlike us they travel wrapped in mink in centrally heated Rolls-Royces.’
‘Shall we not go?’
Lena thought for a moment. Then she said gently ‘You go, Griselda. They’d only eye me.’
‘I won’t go without you.’
‘It’s much the best thing. You could do with a holiday, and I could look after the shop. Stay a long time if you find you like it. As long as you want to. You’re beautiful and it’s a kind of thing you need. One kind of thing. Sometimes, anyway. So, please.’
‘You need a holiday too.’
‘Less than you.’
Griselda put her arm round Lena’s shoulders.
‘You’re good to me, Lena, I’m grateful.’
‘You gave me half a shop. I’m grateful. I’ll look you up a train to Montgomeryshire.’
Of course Griselda had to change at Shrewsbury, but she had never expected to have to change at Welshpool as well.
Darkness had descended long before she arrived. The minute but not inelegant Welsh station seemed high among the mountains. A small but bitter wind crept murderously along the single platform. There was one oil lamp, and otherwise not a light to be seen anywhere. Griselda was the only passenger, but two figures awaited her on the platform.
One was clearly the station factotum, though his aspect, demeanour, and even uniform seemed of an antique type. He came forward, touched his cap, and, though able to speak little but Welsh, bade Griselda Good evening, and took her bag. After a wait of only some seconds, the engine whistled, and the train drew out as if glad to be away.
The second figure was a woman. She was closely muffled in a hood and wore some long garment reaching to the ground. Her perfume hung on the cold air. She extended her gloved hand and, having confirmed Griselda’s identity, said ‘My name is Esemplarita. I look after things at the Castle. Hugo asked me to apologize for being unable to meet you himself. He turned his ankle yesterday fencing.’ When Griselda had greeted her and expressed her regret about her host’s misadventure, the woman continued ‘We have to go down a narrow path to the lane, where the carriage is waiting. But Abersoch will go first with the lamp.’
Abersoch lifted the single lamp from its bracket and led the way.
‘You go next,’ said Esemplarita to Griselda.
They descended a cinder way which zig-zagged down a high bank to a tiny sunken lane below. At the bottom of the path Abersoch’s lamp fell upon a small black cabriolet with a gleaming horse.
‘Good evening, miss,’ said another Welsh voice from the box.
Abersoch opened the door and handed up Griselda’s luggage, which the coachman placed in a high-sided cage on the roof.
‘Your ticket if you please, miss.’
Griselda had to grope by the light of Abersoch’s lamp, but in the end she found it and delivered it up.
‘Not all of it, miss,’ said Abersoch. He bisected the ticket and gave her half of it. ‘You may be wanting to go back.’
‘Thank you,’ said Griselda smiling: ‘So I shall.’
‘It’s entirely up to you, miss.’
Griselda stepped into the carriage. The interior was pitch black and filled with Esemplarita’s scent. Esemplarita followed her in. There was scarcely room for two on the seat. Abersoch shut the door and again touched his cap, the light falling on his face as in an old-fashioned coloured drawing. The carriage began to move.