She put up a hand and pulled at his sleeve.
“Here’s the place Mrs. Welby said, where she has her hair done. I’ll be an hour, if you can put in the time. Sure you can?”
He said, “Oh, yes,” in an indifferent tone.
“All right. And then we’ll have tea. So long.”
He watched her go with a curious feeling of relief. There was going to be a whole hour in which nothing would be expected of him. He needn’t talk, make love, or abstain from making love. His feeling was very much like that with which one sometimes sees one’s guests depart. Their presence may have been welcome, their company enjoyed, but there is something about having your house to yourself again. Only when he did have it to himself there was always the possibility that the welcome solitude would be invaded by an unlaid ghost-Marjory’s step on the stair… her laughter, and her tears… her failing voice: “No-no-I’ll never tell you his name. I don’t want you to kill him. No, Carr-no!”
A real voice broke in upon his mood. He glanced up with the quick nervous frown so like Rietta’s and saw Mr. Holderness looking benevolent. One of his earliest recollections was the benevolence of Mr. Holderness accompanied by a half-crown tip. As far as Carr could see, he hadn’t changed a bit-dignified presence, florid complexion, kindly gaze, and rich rolling voice-general slight flavour of the eighteenth century from which his office with its Georgian panelling had never emerged. The firm had ranked as old-fashioned county solicitors then, and the tradition had been maintained ever since. He clapped Carr on the shoulder and enquired whether he was down for long.
“Rietta will be glad to have you. How is she? Not working too hard, I hope. Last time I saw her I thought she was looking as if she had been overdoing it, and she told me she couldn’t get any help in the garden.”
“No, she’s had to give up the vegetables. She hasn’t much help in the house either-only Mrs. Fallow for a couple of hours twice a week. I think she does do too much.”
“Take care of her, my boy, take care of her. Good people are scarce, and she won’t look after herself-women never will. Between ourselves, they’ve every virtue except common sense. But don’t say I said so. No witnesses, you know, and I shall deny it-I shall deny it!” He let out a fine reverberant laugh. “Well, well, I mustn’t stay gossiping. I’ve been in court all day, and I must get on to the office. By the way, I hear James Lessiter is back. Have you seen him at all?”
Carr’s lips twitched into a smile as quick and nervous as his frown.
“I’ve never seen him in my life. He was off the map before I fetched up in Melling.”
“Yes, yes-of course-so he was. And now he’s come back a rich man. Pleasant to come across a success story once in a way-very pleasant indeed. You haven’t seen him since he got back?”
“I don’t think anyone has. As a matter of fact I believe he only arrived last night. Mrs. Fallow has been up there helping the Mayhews.”
“Ah, yes-Mrs. Lessiter’s cook and butler-very worthy people. Mayhew calls in at the office every week for their wages. That is how I knew that James was expected. He’ll be ringing me up, I expect. It’s made a lot of work, his being out of the country when his mother died. Well, goodbye, my boy. I’m glad to have seen you.”
He passed on. Carr watched him go, and felt his mood changed by the encounter. There had been a time before the world was shattered. Old Holderness belonged to that time, he might even be said to typify it. Life was secure, its circumstances stable. You had the friends you had grown up with, the friends you made at school and college. Term followed term throughout the year, with bright intervals of vacation. Half-crown tips mounted to ten shillings, to a pound. Henry Ainger had given him a fiver on his eighteenth birthday. Elizabeth Moore had given him an odd old picture of a ship. He had felt romantic about it from the first moment he saw it hanging in a dark corner of her uncle’s antique shop. Odd how a little paint and canvas can become a magic casement. He had seen himself sailing out into life on an enchanted tide-
On a sudden impulse he walked down the street, turned to the left, and stood looking in at Jonathan Moore’s shop window. There was a fine set of red and white ivory chessmen in Manchu and Chinese dress-war formalized into a game. He watched the pieces, admiring the exquisite precision of the carving, angry underneath. Then all at once he straightened up, pushed open the door, and went in. A bell tinkled, Elizabeth came to meet him. The anger dropped out of him and was gone.
She said, “Carr!” and they stood looking at one another.
It was only for a moment that he was able to look at her as if she were a stranger, because though it was nearly five years since they had met, he had known her all his life. But for just that one moment he did see her as if it was the first time-the tall light figure, the clear windblown look she had, brown hair ruffled back from the forehead, bright eager eyes, and a quick tremulous smile. He got the impression of something startled into joy, ready to take flight, to escape, to become unobtainable-the whole thing much too fleeting to pass into conscious thought. She spoke first, in the voice which he had always liked-a pretty, clear voice full of gravity and sweetness.
“Carr-how nice! It’s been such a long time, hasn’t it?”
He said, “A million years,” and then wondered why he had said it. Only it didn’t matter what you said to Elizabeth – it never had.
She put out a hand, but not to touch him. It was an old remembered gesture.
“As long as that? My poor dear! Come along through and let’s talk. Uncle Jonathan is out at a sale.”
He followed her into the little sitting-room behind the shop-shabby comfortable chairs, old-fashioned plush curtains, Jonathan Moore’s untidy desk. Elizabeth shut the door. They might have been back in the past before the deluge. She opened a cupboard, rummaged, and produced a bag of caramels.
“Do you still like them? I think you do. If you really like something you go on liking it, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do-I’m quite sure.” She laughed a little. “Whatever happens or doesn’t happen, I shall always have a passion for caramels. I’ve never stopped being thankful that I can eat them without putting on an ounce. Look here, there’s the bag between us, and we can both dip in like we used to.”
He laughed too, all the tension in him relaxed. To come back to Elizabeth was to slip into a place so accustomed, so comfortable, that you didn’t even have to think about it. An old coat, old shoes, an old friend-unromantic, undemanding, utterly restful.
She said, “Is it too early for tea? I’ll make some-” and saw him frown again.
“No. I’ve got Fancy with me-Frances Bell. We’re staying with Rietta. She’s gone in to Hardy’s to have her hair done, and she will want tea when she comes out.”