Blott walked down the hill from Wilfrid’s Castle. For a week he had been avoiding the Royal George in Guildstead Carbonell and Mrs Wynn’s favours. He had taken to going over to a small pub on the lane leading from the church to the Ottertown Road. It wasn’t up to the standard of the Royal George, merely a room with benches round the walls and a barrel of Handyman beer in one corner, but its dismal atmosphere suited Blott’s mood. By the time he had silently consumed eight pints he was ready for bed. He wobbled up the hill past the church and stood gazing down at the Hall in amazement. The great ballroom lights were on. Blott couldn’t remember when he had last seen them on, certainly not since Lady Maud’s marriage. They cast yellow rectangles on to the lawn, and the conservatory which opened out of the ballroom glowed green with ferns and palms. He stumbled down the path and across the bridge into the pinetum. Here it was pitch-dark but Blott knew his way instinctively. He came out at the gate and crossed the lawn to the terrace. Music, old-fashioned music, floated out towards him. Blott went round the corner and peered through the window.
Inside Lady Maud was dancing. Or learning to dance. Or teaching someone to dance. Blott found difficulty in making up his mind. Under the great chandeliers she moved with a tender gracelessness that took his breath away. Up and down, round and about, in great sweeps and double turns she went, the floor moving visibly beneath her, and in her arms she held a small thin man with an expression of intense concentration on his face. Blott recognized him. He was the man from the Ministry who had stayed to lunch the previous week. Blott hadn’t liked the look of him then and he liked it even less now. And Sir Giles was away. Sick with disgust Blott blundered off the flower bed and away from the window. He had half a mind to go in and say what he thought. It wouldn’t do any good. He walked unsteadily round the front of the house. There was a car standing there. He peered at it. The man’s car. Serve him right if he had to walk home, the bastard. Blott knelt by the front tyre and undid the valve. Then he went round to the boot and let the air out of the spare tyre. That would teach the swine to come messing about with other people’s wives. Blott staggered off down the drive to the Lodge and climbed into bed. Through the circular window he could see the lights of the Hall. They were still on when he fell asleep and through the night air there came the faint sound of trombones.
Chapter 15
What drinks, dinner and Lady Maud’s assiduous coquetry had done for Dundridge, dancing had undone. In particular her interpretation of the hesitation waltz – Dundridge considered the probability of a slipped disc – while her tango had threatened hernia. All his attempts to get her to do something a little less complicated had been ignored.
“You’re doing splendidly,” she said treading on his toes. “All you need is a little practice.”
“What about something modern?” said Dundridge.
“Modern dancing is so unromantic,” said Maud, changing the record to a quickstep. “There’s no intimacy in it.”
Intimacy was not what Dundridge had in mind. “I think I’ll sit this one out,” he said limping to a chair. But Lady Maud wouldn’t hear of it. She whirled him on to the floor and strode off through a series of half-turns clasping him to her bosom with a grip that brooked no argument. When the record stopped Dundridge put his foot down politely.
“I really think it is time I was off,” he said.
“What? So early? Just one more teeny weeny glass of champers,” said Lady Maud, relapsing rather prematurely into the language of the nursery.
“Oh all right,” said Dundridge choosing the devil of drink to the deep blue sea of the dance floor. They took their glasses through to the conservatory and stood for a moment among the ferns.
“What a wonderful night. Let’s go out on the terrace,” said Lady Maud and took his arm. They leant on the stone balustrade and looked into the darkness of the pinetum.
“All we need now is a lovers’ moon,” Lady Maud murmured and turned to face him. Dundridge looked up into the night sky. It was long past his bedtime and besides not even the champagne could disguise the fact that he was in an ambiguous situation. He had had enough of ambiguous situations lately to last him a lifetime and he certainly didn’t relish the thought of Sir Giles returning home unexpectedly to find him on the terrace drinking champagne with his wife at one o’clock in the morning.
“It looks as if it’s going to rain,” he said to change the topic from lovers’ moons.
“Silly boy,” cooed Lady Maud. “It’s a lovely starlit night.”
“Yes. Well, I really do think I must be getting along,” Dundridge insisted. “It’s been a lovely evening.”
“Oh well if you must go…” They went indoors again.
“Just one more glass…?” Lady Maud said but Dundridge shook his head and limped on down the passage.
“You must look me up again,” said Lady Maud as he climbed into his car. “The sooner the better. It’s been ages since I had so much fun.” She waved goodbye and Dundridge drove off down the drive. He didn’t get very far. There was something dreadfully wrong with the steering. The car seemed to veer to the left all the time and there was a thumping sound. Dundridge stopped and got out and went round to the front.
“Damn,” said Dundridge feeling the flat tyre. He went to the boot and got the jack out. By the time he had jacked the car up and taken the left front wheel off, the lights in the Hall had gone out. He fetched the spare wheel from the boot and bolted it into place. He let the jack down and stowed it away. Then he got back into the car and started the engine and drove off. There was a thumping noise and the car pulled to the left. Dundridge stopped with a curse.
“I must have put the flat tyre on again,” he muttered and got out the jack.
In the Hall Lady Maud switched off the ballroom lights sadly. She had enjoyed the evening and was sorry it had ended so tamely. There had been a moment earlier in the evening when she had thought Dundridge was going to prove amenable to her few charms.
“Men,” she said contemptuously as she undressed and stood looking at herself dispassionately in the mirror. She was not, and she was the first to admit it, a beautiful woman by contemporary standards of beauty but then she didn’t pay much heed to contemporary standards of any sort. The world she lived for had admired substantial things, large women, heavy furniture, healthy appetites and strong feelings. She had no time for the present with its talk of sex, its girlish men and boyish women, and its reducing diets. She longed to be swept off her feet by a strong man who knew the value of bed, board and babies. She wasn’t going to find him in Dundridge. “Silly little goose doesn’t know what he’s missing,” she said, and climbed into bed.
Outside the silly little goose knew only too well what he was missing. An inflated tyre. He had changed the wheel again and had let down the jack only to find that his spare tyre had been flat after all. He got back into the car and tried to think what to do. Nearby something moved heavily through the grass and a night bird called. Dundridge shut the door. He couldn’t sit there all night. He got out of the car and trudged back up the drive to the house and rang the doorbell.