"Our common room today."
He turned to me and said: "I am glad you are so interested."
"I find it fascinating."
"So many people are enamoured of the present and never want to look back to the past. Yet it is by studying what happened then that we are often better able to deal with the events of today."
"Yes, I suppose that's true. Thank Heaven they won't come along now and demolish our school."
"I should like to see anyone try with Miss Daisy Hetherington in command."
I laughed. "She is a very fine woman."
"We'll put our heads together over this pageant and get some really authentic touches."
"I think you should consult Miss Hetherington." He looked at me in dismay and we both started to laugh again.
"It has been very illuminating," I said.
"And you are surprised that I should be interested in such a serious subject."
"I am sure you can be very serious. There must be a great deal of work on the estate."
"It needs constant attention."
"Yet you were able to leave for long stretches at a time."
"I did, didn't I. I don't often do that. I have good people ... one very good man, Gerald Coverdale. You should meet him."
"Me?"
"You would be interested to hear about the estate. It is a little community of its own, like a town ... more than that, like a kingdom."
"And you are the king."
"`Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'"
"I am sure you would never be uneasy."
"You mistake me. There is so much about me that you have to learn. You have dismissed me as frivolous, immoral, bent on pleasure. That is only a part of me. When I come to think of it, I have some very good points."
"It is said that good points should be discovered by others, not by ourselves."
"Who said so? Miss Cordelia Grant, I'll wager. It sounds like one of the homilies you declaim to your classes."
"They do say that schoolteachers are recognizable wherever they go."
"Perhaps there is something in that."
"We are inclined to be tutorial and give the impression of knowing all."
"Sometimes that can be charming."
"I can see you are determined to flatter me this afternoon. Tell me about the estate, this little kingdom with the uneasy-headed king."
"We have to keep it in working order. There are the farms and the factory."
"The factory? What factory is that?"
"The cider factory. We employ most of the people round here in some capacity or other."
"So they are dependent on you for their livelihood?"
"On the estate rather than on me. I just happen to have inherited it. The Verringers have always taken their duties to the estate seriously, and although I say it of my own family, we have been good land-lords. We have made it a duty to care for our people. That is why the cider factory was started about a hundred years ago. We'd had several bad harvests and lots of the farms were not paying their way. It looked as though there would not be enough work for a number of people. The cider factory seemed a good idea. Most of them were making it in their own homes, so we started it and we employ about a hundred people in the neighbourhood."
"You are in a way the benefactors."
"We always liked to think of ourselves as such." "The people should be grateful."
"Grateful. Only fools expect gratitude."
"I see the cynic has reappeared."
"If truth is cynicism then he is never far away. I always like to face the facts. It is a peculiar trait of human nature that people dislike those who help them."
"Oh no."
"Oh yes, my dear Cordelia. Just consider it. Who have always been the Verringers' bitterest enemies? Our own people on the estate. Who have endowed us with satanic qualities? The very same. Mind you, I am not saying that we do not possess those devilish habits, but it is our own people who are our own most vicious critics and, when our exploits are not startling enough, magnify them. The fact is, people hate feeling they owe anything to anyone, and although they take help, they hate themselves for being in a position to have to take it. As it is the hardest thing on Earth to hate oneself, that hatred is transferred to the helper."
I was silent. I thought of Mrs. Baddicombe who owed her living to the fact that she had been appointed postmistress by the Verringer estate and could not hide the venom in her voice when she discussed them.
"Perhaps you are right ... in some cases," I said. "But not all."
"No one is ever right in all cases. There must be exceptions."
We smiled at each other and I felt a glow of happiness. I was glad that the girls had gone off to try the horses and I was hoping that they would not return just yet.
"It is a pleasure to be able to talk to you reasonably .... seriously. In the past our encounters have been verbal battles. Amusing, stimulating, but this is a great pleasure to me. I want to talk to you about the estate. How I want to improve it. What plans I have for it."
"I doubt I should understand them."
"That's why I want to talk to you ... to make you understand ... and to tell you about my life and myself. Do you know, this has been one of the happiest afternoons I have ever known." I laughed. He had broken the spell. "That is going too far," I said.
"You laugh. But it is not so. I have had moments in the past when I am happy. But happiness is just moments, isn't it? From the time I came into this room and found you here, I have been happy. That must have been for twenty minutes. That's quite a stretch."
"It seems a very short time to me."
"I knew it would be good to talk to you. I knew you would understand. You make me see life differently. I wish we could meet often."
"That would not be easy. Miss Hetherington would be most disapproving."
"For Heaven's sake why?"
"I am employed by her and it would not be seemly for one of her mistresses to be too friendly with someone of the opposite sex living in the neighbourhood, particularly..."
"A man of my reputation. I doubt Mrs. Baddicombe would approve either. But then what a scoop for her!"
We were laughing again.
"Cordelia," he said seriously, "you know I am falling in love with you."
I stood up, but he was beside me. He put his arms round me and kissed me. I was trying to force myself to struggle free and not to accept the fact that I wanted to stay close to him.
"This must not be," I began.
"Why not?"
"Because I am not ..."
"I love you Cordelia. It started the moment I saw you in the driving seat with Emmet."
"I must go. Oh, where are those girls?"
As though in answer to my question I heard their voices. I withdrew myself and went to the window. I said: "They are coming."
"We'll talk more of this," he said.
I shook my head.
"Think about me," he said.
"I can scarcely avoid doing that."
"Try to understand. I want a happy family life. I have never had one. My frustrations, my disappointments have made me what I am. I want to be different." He was speaking earnestly now. "I want to live my life here, with my wife and the children we shall have. I want to make the estate the best in the country and above all I want to live at peace."
"I think your desires for these things are very natural but ..."
"Then help me to achieve them. Marry me!" "Marry you! But a short while ago you were about to marry Marcia Martindale."
"No. That was the Baddicombe version."
"You can't be serious. You are amusing yourself at my expense."
"I am serious."
"No ... not with Mrs. Martindale living so close ... I know very well that you and she ..."
The girls burst into the room.
Eugenie looked radiant. "They are superb, Uncle Jason," she cried. "I tried them both."