She folded pillowcases. They had only another twenty-four hours. All through the weekend she had resolutely put his inevitable departure out of her mind; pretended to herself that Tuesday was never going to happen. Henry, she guessed, had done the same, and her heart bled for his innocence. Last night, saying good night to him, she had steeled herself for a dam-burst of tears and lamentations. The weekend's over. Our last weekend. I don't want to go to school. I don't want to leave you. But Henry had simply told her that he'd quite liked playing with Hamish, he'd hung by one leg from Hamish's trapeze; and then, worn out by the day's activity, had fallen almost instantly asleep.
She spread crisp, ironed sheets. I'll get through today and make it fun for him, she told herself. And then, somehow, I'll get through tomorrow. After Edmund has taken Henry, after they've driven away and I can't hear the car any longer, I'll think of something diverting or industrious to do. I'll go and see Dermot Honeycombe and spend hours looking for a present for Katy Steynton. A bit of china, or an antique lamp, or perhaps a little piece of Georgian silver. I'll write a long letter to Gramps and Grandma. I'll turn out the linen cupboard, sew buttons on Edmund's shirts… And then Edmund will come home, and after that the worst will be over, and I can start counting the days until Henry's first weekend home.
She bundled up the soiled sheets and flung them out onto the landing, then put away a few random clothes and shoes, straightened a cushion. The telephone rang. She went to answer it, sitting on the edge of the freshly made bed.
"Balnaid."
"Virginia." It was Edmund. At a quarter past nine in the morning?
"Are you in the office?"
"Yes. Got here ten minutes ago. Virginia. Look. I have to go to New York."
She was not particularly perturbed. His flying off to New York was a regular occurrence.
"When?"
"Now. Today. I'm catching the first shuttle down to London. Flying out of Heathrow this afternoon."
"But-"
"I'll be back at Balnaid on Friday in time for the party. Probably about six in the evening. Earlier if I can make it."
"You mean…"It was difficult actually to take in what he was telling her. "You mean you'll be away all week?"
"That's right."
"But… packing… clothes…" Which was ridiculous because she knew that he kept a duplicate wardrobe in the flat at Moray Place, with suits, shirts, and underclothes suitable for any capital and any climate.
"I'll do that here."
"But…" The implication, the truth of what he was saying, broke at last. He can't do this to me. The bedroom window was open and the air that flowed through it was not cold, but Virginia, hunched over the telephone, shivered. She saw the knuckles of her hand, clenched around the receiver, grow white. "Tomorrow," she said. "Tuesday. You're taking Henry to Templehall."
"I can't do that."
"You promised."
"I have to go to New York."
"Somebody else can go. Not you."
"There's nobody else who can. There's a panic on and it has to be me."
"But you promised. You said that you would take Henry. I told you that it was the one thing that I wouldn't do. It was my condition and you accepted it."
"I know, and I'm sorry. But what's happened is beyond my control."
"Send somebody else to New York. You're the boss. Send some underling."
"It's because I am who I am that I have to go."
"You are who you are!" She heard her own voice, shrill with scathing. "Edmund Aird. You think of nobody but yourself and nothing but your hateful job. Sanford Cubben. I hate Sanford Cubben. I realize I come fairly low on your priority list, but I thought Henry rated a little higher. You didn't only promise me, you promised Henry. Does that mean nothing to you?"
"I didn't promise anything. I just said that I'd take him, and now I can't."
"I call that a commitment. If you made such a commitment in business, you'd kill yourself to see it through."
"Virginia, be reasonable."
"I will not be reasonable! I will not sit here and listen to you and be told to be reasonable. And I will not deliver my child to a boarding-school that I never wanted him to go to in the first place. It's like asking me to take one of the dogs to the vet to be put down. I won't do it!"
By now she was sounding like a fishwife, and did not care. But Edmund's voice remained, as always, infuriatingly cool and dispassionate.
"In that case, I suggest that you call Isobel Balmerino and ask her to take Henry. She's driving Hamish. She'll have plenty of space for Henry."
"If you think I'm going to palm Henry off onto Isobel-"
"Then you'll have to take him yourself."
"You're a bastard, Edmund. You know that, don't you? You're behaving like a selfish bastard."
"Where is Henry? I'd like to speak to him before I go."
"He's not here," Virginia told him with a certain malicious satisfaction. "He's buying his sweets from Mrs. Ishak."
"Well, when he comes home, tell him to ring me at the office."
"You can ring him yourself." And on this biting exit line, she slammed down the receiver and put an end to the miserable exchange.
Her raised voice had penetrated to the kitchen.
"What was that all about?" Edie asked, turning from the sink as Virginia stormed in with a face like thunder, and arms filled with rumpled linen, to stride across the kitchen towards the open door of the utility room and hurl her burden in the general direction of the washing-machine.
"Is something wrong?"
"Everything." Virginia pulled out a chair and sat, her arms folded and her expression mutinous. "That was Edmund, and he's going to New York today. Now. And he's going to be away a week, and he promised me… he promised, Edie… that he'd drive Henry to school tomorrow. I told him that it was the one thing I wouldn't do. I've hated the whole idea of Templehall from the very beginning, and the only reason I finally relented was because Edmund promised that he would take Henry tomorrow."
Edie knew a nasty temper when she saw one. She said reasonably, "Well, I suppose if you're an important business man these things are bound to happen."
"Only to Edmund. Other men manage their lives without being so bloody selfish."
"Yju don't want to take Henry yourself?"
"No, I do not. It's the last thing in the world I want to do. It's inhuman of Edmund to expect it of me."
Edie, wringing out her dishcloth, considered the problem.
"Could you not ask Lady Balmerino to take him with Hamish?"
Virginia did not let on that Edmund had already made this sensible suggestion and got an earful for his pains.
"I don't know." She thought about it. "I suppose I could," she admitted sulkily.
"Isobel's very understanding. And she's been through it herself."
"No, she hasn't." It was obvious to Edie that she could say nothing right. "Hamish was never like Henry. You could send Hamish to the moon, and all he'd worry about would be when he was going to get his next meal."