knotted at her neck. They were, Dauntsey remembered, the same clothes she had worn at her father’s cremation, a contemporary understated mourning, nicely holding the balance between ostentation and a decent respect. The combination of grey and black in its sombre simplicity made her look very young and emphasized what he most liked in her, a gentle old-fashioned formality which reminded him of the young women of his youth. She sat distanced and very still, but her hands were restless. He knew that the ring she wore on the third finger of her right hand had been her mother’s engagement ring and he watched while she twisted it obsessively under the black suede of her glove. He wondered for amoment whether to reach out and silently take her hand, but resisted the impulse to a gesture which he told himself might only embarrass them both. He could hardly keep holding her hand all the way back to Innocent Walk.
They were fond of each other; he was, he knew, the one person at Innocent House in whom she felt she could occasionally confide; but neither was demonstrative. They lived a short staircase apart but visited each other only by invitation, each anxious not to intrude or impose on the other, or to initiate an intimacy which the other might find unwelcome or come to regret. As a result, liking each other, enjoying each other’s company, they saw less of each other than if they had lived miles apart. When they were together they spoke chiefly of books, poetry, plays they had seen, programmes on the television, seldom of people. Frances was too fastidious to gossip and he was equally reluctant to get drawn into controversy about the new regime. He had his job, his flat on the bottom two floors of number 12 Innocent Walk. Neither might be his much longer, but he was seventy-six, too old to fight. He knew that her flat above his had an attraction for him which it was prudent to resist. Sitting in the high-backed chair, with the curtains drawn against the gentle half-imagined sighing of the river, stretching out his legs before the open fire after one of their rare dinners together when she had left him to make coffee, he would hear her quietly moving about the kitchen and would feel a seductive peace and contentment stealing over him which it would be only too easy to make a regular part of his life.
Her sitting room stretched the whole length of the house. Everything in it was attractive; the elegant proportions of the original marble fireplace, the oil of an eighteenth-century Peverell with his wife and children above the mantelshelf, the small Queen Anne bureau, the mahogany bookcases on eachside of the fire, topped with a pediment and with two fine Parian heads of a veiled bride, the Regency dining table and six chairs, the subtle colours of the rugs glowing against the gold of the polished floor. How simple, now, to establish an intimacy which would open to him this gentle feminine comfort so different from his own bleak and underfurnished rooms below. Sometimes, if she telephoned with an invitation to dinner, he would invent a prior engagement and take himself out to a local pub, filling the long hours in the smoke and clatter, anxious not to return too early since his front door in Innocent Lane lay directly under her kitchen windows.
This evening he felt that she might welcome his company but was unwilling to ask for it. He wasn’t sorry. The cremation had been depressing enough without having to discuss its banalities; he had had enough of death for one day. When the taxi drew up in Innocent Walk and she said an almost hurried goodbye and unlocked her front door without once looking back, he felt a sense of relief. But two hours later, after he had finished his soup and the scrambled eggs and smoked salmon which was his favourite evening meal and which he prepared, as always, with care, keeping the gas low, drawing the mixture lovingly from the sides of the pan, adding a final spoonful of cream, he pictured her
They were fond of each other; he was, he knew, the one person at Innocent House in whom she felt she could occasionally confide; but neither was demonstrative. They lived a short staircase apart but visited each other only by invitation, each anxious not to intrude or impose on the other, or to initiate an intimacy which the other might find unwelcome or come to regret. As a result, liking each other, enjoying each other’s company, they saw less of each other than if they had lived miles apart. When they were together they spoke chiefly of books, poetry, plays they had seen, programmes on the television, seldom of people. Frances was too fastidious to gossip and he was equally reluctant to get drawn into controversy about the new regime. He had his job, his flat on the bottom two floors of number 12 Innocent Walk. Neither might be his much longer, but he was seventy-six, too old to fight. He knew that her flat above his had an attraction for him which it was prudent to resist. Sitting in the high-backed chair, with the curtains drawn against the gentle half-imagined sighing of the river, stretching out his legs before the open fire after one of their rare dinners together when she had left him to make coffee, he would hear her quietly moving about the kitchen and would feel a seductive peace and contentment stealing over him which it would be only too easy to make a regular part of his life.
Her sitting room stretched the whole length of the house. Everything in it was attractive; the elegant proportions of the original marble fireplace, the oil of an eighteenth-century Peverell with his wife and children above the mantelshelf, the small Queen Anne bureau, the mahogany bookcases on eachside of the fire, topped with a pediment and with two fine Parian heads of a veiled bride, the Regency dining table and six chairs, the subtle colours of the rugs glowing against the gold of the polished floor. How simple, now, to establish an intimacy which would open to him this gentle feminine comfort so different from his own bleak and underfurnished rooms below. Sometimes, if she telephoned with an invitation to dinner, he would invent a prior engagement and take himself out to a local pub, filling the long hours in the smoke and clatter, anxious not to return too early since his front door in Innocent Lane lay directly under her kitchen windows.
This evening he felt that she might welcome his company but was unwilling to ask for it. He wasn’t sorry. The cremation had been depressing enough without having to discuss its banalities; he had had enough of death for one day. When the taxi drew up in Innocent Walk and she said an almost hurried goodbye and unlocked her front door without once looking back, he felt a sense of relief. But two hours later, after he had finished his soup and the scrambled eggs and smoked salmon which was his favourite evening meal and which he prepared, as always, with care, keeping the gas low, drawing the mixture lovingly from the sides of the pan, adding a final spoonful of cream, he pictured her
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