"Edmund. You're not going to send him back?"
"With that look in your eye, I don't think I'd dare. No, we're going to keep him at home for a little while longer."
"Oh, thank heavens for that. You've come to your senses. And in more ways than one, if I'm not mistaken. 1 can tell, just by the look of the pair of you." She opened her bag, took out her handkerchief, mopped her beaded forehead. "I," she announced, "have now had enough. I shall take myself home."
"But, Vi," Edmund protested, "1 haven't danced with you."
"Then you must be disappointed, because I'm on my way. I've had a splendid evening, a splendid dinner, and I've danced an eightsome reel. Done the hat trick. I'm enjoying myself thoroughly, and this is the moment to call it a day."
She was obdurate. "If you like," Edmund offered, "I'll fetch your car and bring it to the door."
"That would be kind. I'll go upstairs and rescue my coat." She kissed Virginia again. "We have so much to talk about, but this is neither the time nor the place. But I am so happy for you both. Good night, my dear. Enjoy yourselves."
"Good night, Vi."
Edmund, after some searching, finally ran Pandora to earth in the drawing-room, where a long bar had been set up down one side of the room, and sofas and chairs disposed in convenient conversational groups. Here, it was comparatively quiet, although impossible to escape totally from the pervasive beat of music from both marquee and disco. Standing in the door, he saw that a number of Verena's guests had chosen to sit out a dance or two, take a breather and have a drink. Very young girls sat on the floor… a good position for gazing up into the eyes of attendant young men. One of them had already caught Edmund's attention, for she wore the smallest black sequin dress he had ever seen in his life, its minimal skirt barely concealing her crotch. Inquiring as to her identity, he had been told she was an old school friend of Katy's, which was hard to believe. The provocative sequins and the endless black silk legs didn't seem to go with hockey sticks.
He spied Pandora at last, tucked into the corner of the sofa near the fire, and deep in conversation with some man. Edmund picked his way across the floor towards them, and she sensed his coming and turned her head at his approach.
"Edmund."
"Come and dance."
"Oh, darling, I'm exhausted. I've been leaping up and down like a yo-yo."
"The disco, then. They're playing 'Lady in Red.' "
"Heavenly tune. Edmund, you know Robert Bramwell, don't you? Yes, of course you do, because he's one of the guns in your syndicate. Silly me."
"Sorry, Robert. You don't mind if I steal her away?"
"No, of course not…"He had some difficulty in heaving himself out of the sofa, being both well-built and portly. "… Anyway, it's time I went in search of my wife. Said I'd do something called Hamilton House with her. Don't know how the hell to do it, but suppose I'd better report for duty…"
"Such a lovely drink…" Pandora thanked him vaguely.
"A pleasure."
They watched him go. Across the crowded room, out through the door. Then Edmund, shamelessly, took his place.
"Oh, darling, you are naughty. I thought you wanted to dance."
"Poor chap. It probably took much sneaky manoeuvring to get you to himself, and now I've spoilt it all."
"You haven't spoiled it for me. You haven't got a drink."
"I'm laying off for the moment. I've already consumed far too much this evening."
"Poor darling, you've had such a horrid time. How is Henry?"
"Considering what he's been through, in great shape."
"Terribly brave to run away from school. Terribly brave, actually, to run anywhere." "You did."
"Oh, darling, are we back to that? 1 thought we'd stopped talking about that."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry for talking about it?"
"No. Sorry for everything that happened. For the way I behaved. I never explained to you, and I suppose it's too late to start explaining now."
"Yes," she told him, "I think it is a little late."
"You've never forgiven me?"
"Oh, Edmund, I don't forgive people. I'm not good enough to forgive people. 'Forgive' is a non-word in my vocabulary. How could I forgive, when during the course of my life I have made so many people desperately unhappy?"
"That's not the point."
"If you want to talk about it, let's be objective. You said you would write, be in touch, love me for ever, and you didn't do any of those things. It wasn't like you to break your word, and I could never understand…"
"If I had written it would have been to tell you that my promises were empty and I was backing out. And I left it too long, and when I finally plucked up the nerve, it was too late… So I took the easy way out."
"That was the bad bit. I thought you never took the easy way out of anything. I thought I knew you so well, and that was why I loved you so much. And I couldn't believe that you didn't love me. I wanted you. So stupid. But all my life, everything I'd wanted I'd been allowed to have, I'd been given. To be denied anything I wanted was a new and cruel experience. And I wouldn't accept it. I couldn't believe that some miracle wouldn't happen, and everything that you'd done-going to London, and marrying Caroline, and having Alexa- couldn't be magically absolved, dissolved, swept under the carpet. So stupid. But then, I was only eighteen, and I never had much brain."
"I'm sorry."
She smiled at him, touched his cheek with her fingers. "Do you blame yourself for the mess I made of everything? Don't. I was born disaster material. We both know that. If it hadn't been you, it would have been somebody else. And if Harold Hogg hadn't been there, stinking-rich and panting with lust, then I'm certain I would have found some other equally impossible man to elope with. I would never have made you happy. 1 don't think Caroline made you happy. But now, I think, with Virginia, you are happy at last. So that makes me happy."
"What else makes you happy?"
"Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."
"Why did you come back to Croy?"
"Oh, a whim. An impulse. "To see you all again."
"Will you stay?"
"I think not. Too restless, darling."
"That makes me feel guilty."
"Why?"
"I don't know. We all have so much."
"Me too. But mine are different things."
"I hate you being alone."
"Better that way."
"You are part of us all. You know that?"
"Thank you. That's the nicest thing you could say to me. That's just the way I want it to be. Just the way I want it to stay." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and his senses were assaulted by her closeness, the touch of her lips, the scent of her perfume.
"Pandora…"
"And now, darling, we've sat here long enough… Don't you think we should go and find the others?"
It was past one o'clock in the morning, with festivities at their peak, when Noel Keeling, unable and unwilling to deal with the complexities of a dance called the Duke of Perth, found himself abandoned and alone, decided that he was in need of liquid refreshment, and headed for the bar. He was offered champagne, but his mouth was dry and he settled instead for a glass of ice-cold lager. He had just set the glass to his lips and taken a long and refreshing swig when, all at once, Pandora Blair appeared at his elbow.
Since the dinner party, he had scarcely seen her all evening, which was a shame, because he thought her good news, and quite the most decorative and amusing female he had met for a long time.
"Noel."
It was gratifying to be sought out. He instantly laid down his glass and made space for her, and she settled herself beside him on an empty bar-stool and, having made herself comfortable, smiled con-spiratorially into his face.
She said, "I have a favour to ask."
"But of course. Have a drink?"
She reached for a brimming glass of champagne and drank it like water.
He laughed. "Have you been on that the whole evening?"
"Of course.
"What's the favour?"