Read Bleeding Heart Square Online
Authors: Andrew Taylor
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Historical, #General
Bleeding Heart Square (14 page)
Saturday, 8 March 1930
Well, I've done it! I took Joseph to meet John and Agnes. It was fortunate that Fenella was there, which made things a little easier than they might have been, but it was pretty ghastly. I must admit I'd been dreading this, and I was right. It's one thing Joseph coming to the Rushmere, where frankly anyone in trousers is likely to be lionized, but it's quite another to take him to Cornwallis Grove. My brother is such an awful snob! Not that he's got very much to be snobbish about, if the truth were known. And I've always felt that he begrudged Aunt's money coming to me, though heaven knows there was no reason why any of it should have gone to him. She was MY father's sister, not his. He wasn't even related to her.
Agnes wrote and asked me to tea, which was the first I had heard from them since Christmas. I know one shouldn't think badly of people but I can't help suspecting that John put her up to writing to me for mercenary reasons. (Even as a little boy, he was very greedy.) I asked if I might bring a friend, and you should have seen their faces when they opened the door and realized that I meant a man friend!
I had warned Joseph they might be a little stuffy, which turned out to be just as well. They had got out the silver tea service and the Crown Derby. Old Mary, who has never been more than a maid of all work and not a very good one at that, had been forced to come in on Saturday afternoon and drilled so hard in the duties of a parlormaid that she didn't know whether she was coming or going. John took one look at Joseph, and clearly decided that he wasn't enough of a gentleman for him, though anyone can see that Joseph's more of a man than John could ever be.
Anyway, John, who can talk the hind leg off a donkey, went on and on about this and that, trying to make Joseph look small. At one point he asked him what he thought of young John Gielgud's Hamlet and later he pretended to be very surprised when he learned that Joseph had not been to a public school. I was never so ashamed of my relations in my life, but dear Joseph rose above it splendidly. He spent a lot of time talking very nicely to Agnes about her work with the Girl Guides and to dear little Fenella, asking her about her studies and so forth and what she plans to do with her life. She's such a sweet little thing--she takes after my side of the family. I told her I had been using the diary she gave me at Christmas.
And then we had the row!! Beforehand, I had thought about telling John and Agnes about our engagement while we were there--not the full story, of course, because that concerns only Joseph and me--but decided it might be better to break the news when we next met. But John was so beastly I changed my mind. I slipped out of the room, put on my engagement ring and went back and said, cool as can be, "By the way, Joseph and I have some news."
Well, you should have seen their faces drop. John began to splutter--he was so angry and surprised he could hardly get his words out. If looks could kill!! At least Agnes and Fenella managed to congratulate us. I couldn't wait to get away. I made our excuses as soon as I decently could.
We walked to the Tube station. I was still seething with indignation on Joseph's behalf. But he said that it was quite all right and he understood why they had been like that.
"I know I'm a bit rough round the edges, my darling," he said. "But the heart's as true as oak, I promise you that. And you were so brave in there. Like a lioness."
I suppose that was what made me do it--not John and Agnes's despicable behavior but Joseph's truly manly generosity and the loving tone of his voice to me despite the insults he had received. I told him that I felt we were now married in the eyes of God. I was trembling in every limb. "I want to be your wife in every way, dearest." I repeated it: "In
every
way, Joseph. Do you understand?"
Philippa Penhow saw a chance of happiness and she took it. She gave more than she took. You have to admire that, don't you?
His wife had taken to sleeping in the kitchen. At bedtime Narton watched her pulling the mattress out from the scullery and un-rolling it in the corner by the range, which had been banked up for the night. Margaret lived in the kitchen, which made sense in this weather because it was the warmest room. If you were going to spend your days there, Narton supposed, you might as well spend your nights there too.
Margaret had once been house-proud to the point of mania. She had kept the floor so clean you could eat off it, and she used to give the Vicar tea with newly baked scones in the parlor. On more than one occasion, Mrs. Alforde herself had come with him.
Without looking at him, Margaret made the bed with blankets from the dresser drawer. Narton wondered whether he should stay with her in the kitchen, but only for a second. Anyway it was only a little single mattress of lumpy horsehair. It had gone on the bed they had given Amy when she was ten years old. All in all, he preferred to lie upstairs in the big double bedstead that sagged in the middle, turning restlessly to and fro between the dirty sheets, weighed down by too many memories and a mound of frowsty bedding.
He drifted into unconsciousness at about five o'clock in the morning. The bang of the back door roused him abruptly from a deep sleep at a quarter past seven. His limbs were aching and his mind was as misty and full of foulness as a London fog. Margaret had gone to work. He rolled slowly out of bed and painfully forced his body back to life. It was still almost dark outside. He had slept in shirt and underclothes. He urinated in the pot and pulled on his trousers and socks, noticing without much interest that the hole in one of the sock heels seemed to have grown larger overnight. He stumbled down the narrow stairs into the kitchen. As he had feared, the range was out. Margaret would get a cup of tea and perhaps a slice of toast at the Hall. She worked there for the loonies, whose souls were far above such mundane matters as keeping the kitchen clean.
It took him well over an hour to light the range, boil a kettle, shave and make tea. Afterward he put on his overcoat and walked into the village. It was a gray morning, raining slightly, and he met no one until he was nearing the shop by the church. Robbie Proctor was standing under the lych gate, with his mouth open as usual and his nose in need of wiping. Had a screw loose, that one. When the boy saw Narton, he turned tail and ran off among the gravestones.
Things weren't much more welcoming in the village shop. Rebecca, the Vicarage parlormaid, was there, and a couple of laborers' wives from Home Farm. They nodded a greeting but sidled away from him, re-forming in a whispering huddle on the other side of the shop. What were they afraid of? That he'd contaminate them like a cloud of poison gas?
He bought five gaspers and a loaf of bread. No one wished him goodbye. He knew that as soon as the door closed behind him the conversation would begin again. Margaret told him that everyone in the village thought he was mad. Perhaps they weren't so far wrong.
At the cottage, he put the kettle on again and ate some of the bread. Afterward he lit one of the cigarettes and wandered from room to room. It already had the feeling of an abandoned house. He came to a halt at last in the parlor, where he studied the cupboard beside the fireplace. He threw the butt of the cigarette into the empty grate and fished out a key from his waistcoat pocket. The door creaked as he opened it. There were three shelves. The upper two held toys, one or two books, some clothes. On the bottom one was a flat, soft parcel loosely wrapped in brown paper. Narton took articles at random from the top two shelves--a copy of
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, a woolly hat with a bobble on the top, a tiny china pony that he had won for Amy with an air rifle at a fairground stall in Saffron Walden.
There was a hammering on the back door. Narton closed the cupboard, locked it and went unhurriedly back to the kitchen. The knocking continued. He opened the door and found Joseph Serridge standing outside and leaning on a stick. He wore a heavy raincoat and galoshes thick with mud.
"I reckon it's about time you and I had a man-to-man chat," Serridge said in a flat voice.
"I thought you were in London."
"You going to let me in?"
"No point. You won't be here long."
Serridge came a few inches closer. He towered over Narton, even though the latter was standing on the doorstep. "Suit yourself. I think this fun and games has gone on a bit too long. Don't you?"
"Fun and games? Is that what you call it?"
"You can call it whatever you want," Serridge said. "But it's going to stop. You are making a laughing stock of yourself. And I'm getting tired of having you hanging around."
Narton said nothing.
"I could write to the Chief Constable. Or I could try something more straightforward."
Serridge's right hand shot out and caught Narton by the throat. Narton's head slammed into the doorpost. Serridge tightened the grip round Narton's neck. Narton tried to pull Serridge's arm away. Serridge was too strong. He tried to kick Serridge's shins. He couldn't reach them. When Narton realized there was nothing he could do, he did nothing. He stared at Serridge, and Serridge stared back.
"So," Serridge said at last, as though the silence had been filled with a conversation and he were now summing up its conclusion. "You're too much of a fool even to be frightened. I wonder if your wife feels the same."
Narton tried to speak but Serridge's hand over his throat wouldn't let him.
"Yes," Serridge said thoughtfully. "Your dear lady wife, Margaret. Skivvying up at the Hall. Works all hours, I'm told. No choice, eh? This time of year, she must be walking there and back in the dark. Not like London here, is it? Night really means something. Easy to trip over something in the dark, you know. Might have a nasty fall one day if she's not careful. Or she might bump into some tramp or other. There's a lot of funny customers around, you know--you know that better than I do. Too lazy to get a job. Work-shy. Call themselves ex-servicemen but if you ask me most of them are blackguards who'd cut their grandmothers' throats for sixpence. Or maybe there might be a fire while you're up in the Smoke making a bloody ass of yourself. Easy to knock over a candle, ain't it? An old place like this would burn like a torch." The hand tightened, and Narton gargled deep in his throat. "Yes, old man. If I were you I'd be worried about your Margaret."
Serridge's hand released its grip. Narton stayed where he was, rubbing his neck. Serridge took a step back and smiled.
"No one knows I'm here," he went on. "That's the beauty of a motor car. You're free as air, aren't you? I parked up a lane the other side of Mavering and walked over the fields. So it's just you and me, old man."
"You can bugger off. That's what you can do."
Serridge didn't move. "How's Margaret, by the way? Still like to ride on top? Used to be quite a goer in the old days. And the way she squeals, eh? Like a stuck pig, she was. Had to cover her mouth. But maybe she's a bit quieter now."
Narton said nothing.
"Been nice to have a chat," Serridge said. "But all good things must end." He was still smiling.
There was another parcel for Mr. Serridge in the afternoon post. But this one was different. It was oblong in shape and about the size of a shoebox. It was wrapped as usual in brown paper and fastened with string. The name and address were printed.
When Lydia came back from work, she found Mrs. Renton examining the parcel.
"It's bigger." Frowning, she picked it up and shook it gently. "But lighter."
"Do you think it's from the same person?" Lydia asked in not much more than a whisper.
"How do I know?" She put it down on the hall table. "You look like you need a tonic. Are you eating properly?"
"Yes. It's this beastly weather. It's enough to make anyone feel a little blue round the edges."
Mrs. Renton sniffed. "Your father's upstairs. Mr. Fimberry's with him. They were in the Crozier at dinnertime."
"I didn't think that was really Mr. Fimberry's sort of thing."
Mrs. Renton lowered her voice. "He can be sly, that one."
"What do you mean?"
"Ask me no questions, dear, and I'll tell you no lies." The old woman shuffled down the hallway to the door of her own room. "Men, eh? You watch out."
Lydia went upstairs to her bedroom, where she took off her hat and coat. If only it were Rory Wentwood with her father, not Malcolm Fimberry. In the sitting room she found the two men sitting by the fire. Her father was sprawling like a discarded rug over the sofa, snoring quietly. Glass in hand, Fimberry leaped out of his chair as soon as he saw her, his pince-nez tumbling from his nose. Drops of beer spattered the arm of his chair. A smile like a nervous twitch cut his pink face in two.
Oh dear God, Lydia thought, I do believe the blasted man's in love with me.
"Mrs. Langstone!" he exclaimed. "I just popped in. I remembered your father saying that you found the nights a little cold. I--I have a spare hot-water bottle, and I wondered whether you might find it useful." He gestured toward the table where six empty pale ale bottles stood in a row. Beside them was a hot-water bottle made of stoneware. "Old-fashioned, I know. But so much safer than rubber."
"I'm sure it is. But I couldn't possibly--"
"It's no trouble, really. As I said, I've got two."
"In that case, thank you, Mr. Fimberry. I had one of those when I was a child. My nurse used to call it a stone pig."
"Stone as in stoneware, of course," he said eagerly. "Pig in the sense of an oblong mass of something, I suppose. It's a difficult word to get hold of."
"Do sit down, Mr. Fimberry." She wondered how much beer he had managed to consume.
He smiled at her again, and dabbed his face with a handkerchief. "Don't mind me, Mrs. Langstone."
"Actually, there are one or two things I need to do."
He sat down rather suddenly in his chair. "You carry on. I'll be perfectly all right. I just need to catch my breath if you don't mind."
"Would you like some tea?"
"Eh? No, thank you."
Fimberry was still there, still nursing his beer, when Lydia returned a quarter of an hour later with a cup of tea. He started up again like a jack-in-the-box when he saw her. She told him to sit down. No sooner had she herself sat down at the table, than he leaped up again to offer her a cigarette. Meanwhile Captain Ingleby-Lewis continued to doze, his snoring modulating to a noisy breathing with a squeak in it that reminded Lydia of the creaking stable weathervane at Monkshill.
Without much enthusiasm, she tried to turn her mind toward the subject of what she should cook for supper. Her mind, on the other hand, seemed to have a will of its own: it wanted to think about that hateful scene at Frogmore Place yesterday or, failing that, to wonder whether Rory Wentwood was upstairs and to speculate about what he had been doing during the day. She heard Mr. Fimberry laboriously clearing his throat.
"I--I did enjoy our conversation the other day, Mrs. Langstone, about the old legends. You remember? The ambassador's dance and all those Catholics who are secretly buried here. Of course that story about the devil must be a folk tale of some sort. But it got me thinking about where the name might have come from. Bleeding Heart Square, I mean. I've done a little research. There was a story in the last century that the square took its name from the bishop's slaughterhouse on this site."
"It doesn't sound very romantic."
"No. But there are other possibilities. In the old days there were a number of public houses called the Bleeding Heart. So is the name a medieval survival? Perhaps it was originally attached to pilgrim stories, and the heart in question was the bleeding heart of Jesus."
"Or I suppose they might have got the spelling wrong," Lydia said. "They weren't very good at spelling in the old days, were they? Even Shakespeare couldn't spell his own name."
Fimberry blinked but a moment later he followed her train of thought. "Yes. I see what you mean. Hart meaning a stag." He frowned. "A hart is an immature stag, I fancy, to be absolutely precise. Let me see--a hart of grease meant a fat hart and a hart royal of course signified a hart that had been chased by a king. So perhaps a bleeding hart would be a hart that had been run down by the hounds, and torn apart." He leaned forward, his face pinker than ever, and the muscles of his mouth working as though endowed with independent life. "And perhaps the heart of the hart was bleeding, if you see what I mean...It all comes back to the bleeding heart, Mrs. Langstone. I saw a bleeding heart once." He stared blankly at Lydia. "Did you know that?"
"Really?" Lydia kept her voice calm and quiet, sensing that the conversation had shifted abruptly into another direction.
"A man's heart, that is."
"How interesting, Mr. Fimberry. And where was that?"
"In France," he said, as though stating the obvious.
"In the army?"
He nodded. "I still dream about it, you know. Not just the heart, all of it." His eyes were imploring, asking for something that it was not in anyone's power to give. "I was only out there for three months. Passchendaele. They sent me home after that. Invalided out. My nerves have never been quite right since then."
Lydia said that she was sorry to hear that too. It was a shockingly inadequate thing to say but it seemed to satisfy Mr. Fimberry, who nodded and smiled greedily at her, which made her feel even worse. It was almost with relief that she heard a car drawing up outside the house.
"I wonder if that's Mr. Serridge," she said.
"I shouldn't be surprised," Fimberry said in a normal tone of voice as though nothing had happened. "He spends a lot of time driving about, doesn't he?"
Neither of them spoke. They listened to the sighing and whistling of Ingleby-Lewis's breathing, to the slam of the front door and to movements in the house below. Lydia finished her tea.
There were heavy footsteps on the stairs. Serridge came into the room without knocking. He was still wearing his hat and overcoat, and he had the parcel under his arm.
"When did this come?" he demanded.
"Mrs. Renton said it was this afternoon," Lydia said.
He grunted and swept off his hat. "Sorry to barge in, Mrs. Langstone. I'm just wondering if this is another of those damned pranks. Somebody's idea of a practical joke."
Ingleby-Lewis sneezed. His eyes opened and focused on Serridge. "Ah--there you are, old man. Got your parcel, I see."
"I've a good mind to throw it in the dustbin."
"Can't be sure it's one of those," Ingleby-Lewis pointed out. "No reason why it should be."
"I'll take it away." Serridge glanced at Lydia. "In case it's something not fit for a lady's eyes."
"Lydia won't mind," Ingleby-Lewis said. "Will you, my dear?"
She smiled at him. "If you say so."
"Chip off the old block, eh? Tough as old boots."
Serridge said, "If you're sure, Mrs. Langstone," and put the parcel on the table. He took out a pocket knife and cut the tightly knotted string. He tugged the paper impatiently and it glided away to the floor. Lydia, who was sitting across the table from Serridge, saw that the parcel contained a cardboard box marked
City Superfine Laundries Ltd
. He eased off the lid, revealing yellowing newspaper roughly crumpled into balls. She leaned forward. There was something white beneath the yellow. Serridge poked it gently with his forefinger.
"Christ," he muttered. "Sorry, Mrs. Langstone."
"What have you got there?" Ingleby-Lewis said, his hand groping blindly for the glass on the table beside the sofa.
"It looks like bone," Lydia said.
Serridge's hand plunged into the box. "It's a bloody goat," he said in a flat voice. "Pardon me, Mrs. Langstone. An old billy goat by the look of it. Look at that forehead. Must have been a real bruiser in its prime."
Lydia stared at the long skull with its curving horns. The lower jaw was missing. It wasn't like the head of an animal, she thought, more like a weapon. She heard the creak of Fimberry's chair and his uncertain footsteps coming toward the table.
"A goat's skull," he said. "A billy goat. Yes, most interesting. I suppose it fits perfectly, doesn't it?"
Serridge said in a very gentle voice, "What does it fit, Mr. Fimberry? Come on, tell us."
Fimberry gave a nervous little laugh. "With Bleeding Heart Square, Mr. Serridge. With the legend of the lady dancing away with the devil. The goat is a symbol of Satan."
On Tuesday morning Rory walked to Southampton Row, where a former colleague on the
South Madras Times
now had a position as a copywriter with the marketing department of a firm manufacturing sanitaryware. The colleague was unfortunately too busy to see him. Rory returned to Bleeding Heart Square, making a detour via Farringdon Road to buy tobacco.
His route took him past Howlett's lodge at the bottom of Rosington Place. The Beadle was in the act of opening the gate to let in a large silver-gray car, a Derby Bentley sports saloon with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel. The nearside window at the back of the car glided down. A man threw out a cigarette end. He had a smooth, pale face with rounded features; he was clean-shaven except for a small moustache, and his black hair was swept back from his forehead, exposing a neat little widow's peak at the center.
Rory had never seen him before. But he recognized the man sitting beyond him on the other side of the car. He had only a glimpse of the profile but it was enough. It was the younger of the two men he had seen coming out of Lord Cassington's house in Upper Mount Street. In other words, it was almost certainly Marcus Langstone.
In the few seconds that Rory was waiting on the pavement, he had time to notice that Howlett was all smiles. He actually saluted as the car slid past him into Rosington Place. The impression of a loyal retainer welcoming the young masters home was only spoiled by Nipper's behavior. The dog had been shut inside the lodge but he had scrambled up to the window ledge and was making his feelings felt with a piercing yapping.
Something to do with Lydia Langstone, Rory supposed--perhaps they were going to call on her at Shires and Trimble. The poor kid. Her family wouldn't leave her alone. Not that she was a kid, of course. She was as old as he was, and a married woman.
On Tuesday Lydia had a day off. She had only learned about it the previous evening. Mr. Shires was proving infuriatingly vague about when he wanted her at the office, which made it difficult to plan anything.
After breakfast she tidied away and made the beds, her father's as well as her own. He had gone out, and she was alone in the flat. She found the brown paper from Mr. Serridge's parcel under the table. She smoothed it out, folded it up and put it in the kitchen drawer. Waste not, want not, as Nanny used to say. These days she had no choice in the matter.
As she was sweeping the hearth, she heard a car drawing up outside the house. The doorbell rang. Mrs. Renton's footsteps dragged along the hall.
"Mrs. Langstone?" she called upstairs a moment later. "A visitor for you."
Lydia ripped off her apron, glanced at her reflection in the mirror by the door and went to the head of the stairs. It might be Marcus or possibly her mother, and in either case she was ready for a fight. There was no going back now in any sense, not after what she'd seen on Sunday at Frogmore Place.
"Lydia! Darling!"
Standing in the hall was her sister Pamela. As soon as she saw Lydia, she ran upstairs with her arms outstretched.
"Sweetie! So this is where you've been hiding yourself. It's lovely to see you." She flung her arms around Lydia and enfolded her in an embrace that drove the breath out of her. Pamela drew back and looked at her. "Darling--you feel so thin. Have you been on a diet?"
"No--well, yes, in a way."
"And your hands! When did you last have them manicured?"
Mrs. Renton was still looking up at them. There were voices outside, growing nearer, and one of them was Serridge's.
"You'd better come in," Lydia said, opening the door to the sitting room of the flat.
Pamela followed her in. For a moment she stood in the doorway, looking around. Her eyes lingered on the ruined armchair in the corner. "Good Lord. I say, this is jolly. So...so Bohemian."
"No, it's not," Lydia said. "There's no need to be tactful. But it'll do for the time being."
Pamela's eyes widened as they lingered on the pipe in the ashtray on the table. "Is it--is it all yours?"
"Hasn't Mother told you? This is my father's flat."
Pamela blinked. "Your father? But I thought he lived abroad."
"Not now. He came back."
"I see." Pamela smiled. "Anyway, I'm glad I'm here at last. It's been horrible without you."
Lydia turned aside to pick up yesterday's evening paper from the sofa. "Won't you sit down?"
Her sister fluttered onto the sofa, where she perched like an expensive bird. She opened her handbag and took out a cigarette case with a diamante clasp, rather dressy for a morning call.
"I'm afraid I can't offer you coffee," Lydia said. "Would you like tea instead?"
"Not for me, darling." She held out the cigarette case.
Lydia shook her head. "How did you get the address?"
"I asked Mother." Pamela lit a cigarette. "I do think you're a beast not to write."
"Sorry," Lydia said.
"Did you get my note with the invitation?"
Lydia nodded.
"I wish you'd sent me a postcard or something. Or rung me up. I've been worried about you. Why did you do a bunk?"
"Marcus and I haven't been getting on very well."
Pamela pursed her lips. "Are you sure it's not just one of those things that marriages go through? You know, one of those things they warn you about in the instruction manuals: for better or worse, richer or poorer, all that sort of thing."
Lydia shook her head.
"He's always been as nice as pie to me."
"You're not married to him, Pammy."
Her sister exhaled slowly, squinting at her through the smoke. "You've changed. I don't know, you're...You seem harder. I know it must be nice to see your father after all these years"--her tone suggested the opposite--"but it can't be much fun living like this. I mean, how do you manage with things like cooking and washing?"
"With difficulty," Lydia said. "Like most people, I suppose."
"Mother says you've got a job."
"I work in a solicitor's office."
"How amusing."
"I'm one down from the office boy. Part-time. Ten bob a day."
"But that's frightful. Do you actually need some money? It never occurred to me. But I've got--" She broke off and reached for her handbag.
"No," Lydia said. "Thank you, but no. It's very kind of you, but I'm managing very well."
Pamela subsided. She stubbed out her cigarette and leaned forward. "Actually, it was Mother who suggested I come and see you."
Lydia said warily, "What does she want you to do?"
"Just to see if you're all right. She is awfully upset, you know."
Lydia nodded. There had never been much wrong with Lady Cassington's intelligence. Their mother had calculated not only that Lydia might refuse to see her but that she would want to see Pammy; and also that, for Pammy's sake, Lydia would keep quiet about what she had seen on Sunday morning. That, of course, assumed that Lady Cassington had realized that Lydia had seen her in flagrante with Lydia's husband.
Marcus is being very patient. But he's a man, you know, and men have needs.
"Anyway," Pamela went on, "I must tell you my news. Rex Fisher has asked me to marry him."
"Mother thought he might. Are you pleased?"
"Of course I am. I mean, it's always nice to be asked."
"And what did you say?"
"I said I needed to think about it. And talk it over with Fin and Mother, of course. It doesn't do to seem too eager, you know."
Lydia thought that her sister had a point. She herself had worn her devotion to Marcus on her sleeve. When he had asked her to marry him, he hadn't even waited for her answer. He had taken it for granted she would say yes, and so had she and everyone else.
"But I will say yes, of course. I know he's dreadfully old. I looked him up--he'll be forty-one next birthday. On the other hand, he's very well preserved, apart from the slightly gammy leg, but that's just a war wound. All his own teeth, and he doesn't look silly in a bathing suit. And on the practical side there's the money and the title. I know some people say the Fishers are trade, but that's all nonsense nowadays. It's only snobs who say that. Nobody else cares." She took out another cigarette. "He gave me this case, actually. Isn't it pretty?"
"Charming. Is it silver and enamel?"
"Platinum, darling. Did you know that Rex's almost certainly going to stand for Parliament? I do like a man who
does
something, don't you? Fin says he'll probably end up in the Cabinet. I say, wouldn't it be fun if he and Marcus were in the House together? It's perfectly possible if Mosley decides to field a few candidates in the next election. They're just the sort of men he'd want. They won't frighten the left-wingers or spit in the Lobby. And above all they're not
decrepit
." She flashed a smile at Lydia. "Anyway, it's all the more reason for you to go back to Marcus, darling. Then we can be political wives together. We can start a salon and invite lions every Tuesday evening. Think what fun we can have."
She began to giggle, and Lydia found herself first smiling and then laughing.
"That's better," Pamela said. "You've been looking ever so solemn. And hardly any make-up, either."
"Do you love him?"
"Rex? I suppose so. I like him, and he makes me laugh. He makes me feel safe too. I'm sure everything else will come naturally after we're married."
"Wouldn't it be better if you were in love with him now?"
"As you were with Marcus?"
"That wasn't love. That was idolatry. And it's all over now."
Pamela stretched out her hand and took Lydia's. "Look, Lydia. I'm twenty-one. I've been out for
years
. The only people who've wanted to marry me have been quite unsuitable. Either they hadn't got a bean or they were perfectly loathsome. And now here's Rex. He may not be absolutely perfect but he's streets ahead of the competition. The odds are, I'm not going to get a better offer. One has to face facts."
Lydia said nothing but she returned the pressure of her sister's hand.
"Incidentally, if you'd rather not bump into Marcus, I shouldn't go out this morning."
"Why? Is he outside?"
"No. Not exactly--and he's not coming here as far as I know. But he and Rex are visiting a BUF branch in Clerkenwell this morning. And Rex said they were going to call at Rosington Place because he needs to see someone who lives opposite where you work."
"Not many people live in Rosington Place. It's mainly offices now. Including mine."
"Well, that's what Rex said. They were calling on someone who lives there."
"Anyway, there isn't a house opposite our office. It's an old chapel."
"There we are then," Pamela said with another giggle. "I expect Rex and Marcus are calling on God."