It was Saturday night, late, dark. Alex had just come out of the drawing-room to find Ruby standing at the top of the stairs. The house was silent. Alex felt frightened.
‘What are you doing? Why are you standing there?’
Ruby said nothing. She stared at Alex with a frown, biting her lip. Her face expressed anguish.
‘Is anything the matter?’
Ruby shook her head.
‘Have you locked all the doors?’
Ruby nodded.
When George had gone away Alex had finished the bottle of whisky and fallen asleep. Then she had eaten some of the supper which Ruby had set out as usual for her in the dining-room. Then she had come upstairs again and drunk some more and fallen asleep again. Now she felt giddy, dislocated in time and space. She had, at some stage, she could not remember when, taken off her dress and put on her dressing-gown. So she would live in a Spanish village with George and Diane? Would that be?
Ruby kept on staring. Alex thought, does she want me to do something? To ask her into the drawing-room and pet her? Does she want me to … to kiss her …? These were such odd things to think that Alex felt that Ruby must have actually put them into her mind. Nothing stopped her from taking Ruby’s hand and saying, Ruby, dear, we’ve been together a long time, ever since we were children really, and now we are old. Come in and sit with me. Do not be afraid. Are you afraid? I will care for you, I will look after you. Then Alex wondered, does she know I’m going away? She has second sight or something. Perhaps she knows? Nothing stopped Alex from speaking those comforting words to Ruby and questioning her gently, except that all the years which should have made it possible had made it impossible, and Alex felt so sick and so frightened and so confused and so tired.
She said impatiently, ‘Don’t stand there. Go to bed. It’s past your bedtime. Go on.’
Ruby did not move. She stood like a heavy large wooden figure, larger than life, at the top of the stairs.
Alex said, ‘You talked about us. You gave away things about us at the Baths. You did it on purpose. Didn’t you talk?’
Ruby’s face changed, expressing distress. She said, ‘I told the boy. I only told the boy.’
‘What boy?’
The boy in question was Mike Seanu, the ‘little scamp’ of a reporter on the Gazette. What had happened was this. When John Robert had made his first visit to the Slipper House to apprise Hattie of his ‘plan’, Ruby had followed him down the garden, primed with jealousy and curiosity, and had eventually posted herself close enough to the sitting-room window to overhear some of what was said. From this she gathered that Rozanov had arranged for Hattie to marry Tom. She carried this interesting information away but, being more given to silence on family matters than Alex gave her credit for, did nothing with it. Young Seanu had not been present at the ‘riot’. He was ‘covering’ the masque for the Gazette and had come on as far as the Green Man, but had been too shy to stay long and returned to his local, the Ferret, on the wasteland where he lived. (A pub where drugs used to change hands, now an innocent enough little hole where Sikhs and gipsies amicably rub shoulders.) He was filled with chagrin on the next day to hear that he had missed so much newsworthy fun, but consoled by being given some immediate detective work to do. Someone (it was never clear who) had indeed (as they surmised) overheard some of Tom and Emma’s drunken conversation about John Robert and Hattie. This titbit, as it reached the ears of Gavin Oare, did not however amount to more than amused and unserious guesswork. Gavin promptly (on Sunday) sent Mike Seanu out to discover more, suggesting in particular that he should visit Ruby. The ‘young scamp’ was a gipsy and in fact (as Oare knew) related to Ruby, and the old servant, who would not have talked to anyone else, talked to this boy, of whom she was fond. Seanu, coached by his editor, put his question in terms of ‘so it is true, is it, what everyone says that’ (and so on), to which in good faith Ruby replied yes, she believed that John Robert had arranged for Tom to marry Hattie. This was enough for Gavin Oare. The further speculations were his work. (I am told that Mike Seanu was very upset and disgusted by the resultant article and considered resigning, but sensibly did not.) This was the way in which the rumour, which had so many consequences, gained currency in Ennistone.
However, Alex never received an answer to her question, not because Ruby was ashamed to give it (though the matter did trouble her) but because at that moment Ruby’s poor head was entirely filled up with something else.
She moved back a step, away from the stairhead, and said to Alex, ‘The foxes — ’
‘What about the foxes?’
‘They are evil, evil things, bad spirits. They bring bad luck. They make bad things to happen.’
‘Don’t be silly. That’s stupid superstitious gipsy nonsense. Don’t talk like that to me. Go away, go to bed.’
‘They are dead.’
‘What?’
‘The foxes - they are dead. The men came and killed them - here in the garden - I showed them where.’
Alex screamed out, her lips wet with a foam of rage - ‘You what, you let them do it? You showed them? You devil - without telling me - you let them kill the foxes - oh I could kill you for this - how could you do it - let them kill my foxes - why didn’t you tell me—?’
‘You were asleep, you were drunk, the man came with the gas, all the foxes are dead.’
‘You hateful vile wicked thing, get out of this house forever, I never want to see you again!’ Alex moved fiercely, raising her hand as if to strike Ruby. Ruby pushed her away.
In a moment Alex was tumbling headlong down the stairs. She rolled to the landing, then all the way down to the hall where she lay curled and motionless.
Wailing, Ruby ran down after her. She pulled at her mistress, trying to lift her head, weeping. Then withdrawing her hands Ruby began to howl like a dog. Alex lay still.
‘You can’t say it’s over when it’s just beginning.’
‘It’s over, it’s ended, better so.’
‘But why, and what’s over? It can’t all be spoilt, it’s you that are spoiling it! I don’t even understand.’
‘It’s not necessary for you to understand.’
‘Well, of course, I do understand, but — ’
‘Let’s stop talking.’
‘You know that’s impossible.’
‘We shall have to stop soon. We ought to stop.’
‘You started talking.’
‘I know.’
‘If only you hadn’t - you didn’t have to say anything - you didn’t have to say what you said — ’
‘I know, I know, I know — ’
‘You could have drawn us gradually together, it would have been so easy — ’
‘Please, Hattie.’
‘You’re supposed to be so terribly clever, why didn’t you think how to do it?’
‘I’ve thought too much.’
‘Why didn’t you keep quiet and just let me learn.’
‘Don’t torment me with that.’
‘I’m grown up now, I could have learnt, without your making it into a sort of tragedy!’
‘Don’t torment me!’
‘You torment me! You’ve broken everything up into horrible jagged pieces, you’ve disturbed and changed my heart, and now you talk of ending and parting.’
‘It must be so.’
‘But I love you — ’
‘You are mistaken.’
‘I do, we can manage this, we can manage.’
‘You might, I cannot.’
‘What about my wishes?’