"And what does that mean exactly?"
"Just that—well, it was ridiculous ever to imagine we could be married, you and I."
"You and I? What about all the others who'll come along and fancy you? Are you going to go through the same melodrama with them or d'you think you'll weaken when the thirties rear their ugly heads?"
She winced at that. Archery thought Charles had almost forgotten they were not alone. He pushed her into the back seat of the car and banged the door. "I'm curious, you see," Charles went on, bitterly sarcastic. "I'd just like to know if you've taken a vow of perpetual chastity. O God, it's like a feature in the Sunday Planet—Condemned to lonely spinsterhood for father's crime! Just for the record, since I'm supposed to be so far above you morally, I'd like to know the qualifications the lucky man has to have. Give me a specification, will you?"
Her mother had built up her faith, but the Archery family with their doubts had knocked it down; still it had lived until Wexford had killed it. Her eyes were fixed on Kershaw who had given her reality. Archery was not surprised when she said hysterically: "I suppose he'd have to have a murderer for a father." She gasped, for she was admitting it to herself for the first time. "Like me!"
Charles tapped Archery's back. "Just nip out and knock someone off," he said outrageously.
"Oh, shut up," said Kershaw. "Give it a rest, Charlie, will you?"
Archery touched his arm. "I think I'll get out, if you don't mind. I need some air."
"Me too," said Tess. "I can't stand being boxed up in here any longer and I've got a ghastly head. I want some aspirins."
"Can't park here."
"We'll walk back to the hotel, Daddy. If I don't get out I'll pass out."
Then they were all three on the pavement, Charles's face as black as thunder. Tess swayed a little and Archery caught her arm to steady her. Several passersby gave them curious looks.
"You said you wanted aspirins," said Charles.
It was only a few yards to the nearest chemist's, but Tess was shivering in her thin clothes. The air was heavy and cloying. Archery noticed that all the shopkeepers had furled their sunblinds.
Charles seemed about to begin again but she gave him a pleading look, "Don't let's talk about it any more. We've said it all. I needn't see you again till October, not then if we're careful..."
He frowned silently, made a little gesture of repudiation. Archery held the shop door open for Tess to pass through.
There was no one inside but the assistant and Elizabeth Crilling.
She did not appear to be buying anything, just waiting and gossiping with the shopgirl. It was the middle of a weekday afternoon and here she was shopping. What had become of the job in the "ladies' wear establishment"? Archery wondered if she would recognise him and how he could avoid this happening, for he did not want to have to introduce her to Tess. It gave him a little thrill of awe when he realised what was happening in this small town shop, a meeting after sixteen years of the child who was Painter's daughter and the child who had discovered Painter's crime.
While he hovered near the door. Tess went up to the counter. They were so close together that they were almost touching. Then Tess reached across in front of Liz Crilling to select one of the aspirin bottles, and in doing so brushed her sleeve.
"I beg your pardon."
"That's O.K."
Archery could see Tess had nothing smaller than a ten shilling note. His trepidation, his fears for the effect of illumination on Tess at this moment were so great, that he almost cried aloud, 'Never mind. Leave it! Only, please God, let us all get away and hide ourselves!'
"Haven't you anything smaller?"
"I'm sorry."
"I'll just go and see if we've got any change."
The two young women stood side by side in silence. Tess stared straight in front of her, but Liz Crilling was playing nervously with two little scent bottles displayed on a glass shelf, moving them about as if they were chessmen.
Then the pharmacist in his white coat came out from the back. "Is there a Miss Crilling waiting for a prescription?"
Tess turned, her face flooded with colour.
"This is a repeat prescription, but I'm afraid it's no longer valid..."
"What d'you mean, no longer valid?"
"I mean that it can only be used six times. I can't let you have any more of these tablets without a fresh prescription. If your mother..."
"The old cow," said Liz Crilling slowly.
The swift animation on Tess's face died as if she had been struck. Without opening her purse she tumbled the change loose into her handbag and hurried out of the shop.
The old cow. It was her fault, everything bad that had ever happened to you was her fault—beginning with the beautiful pink dress.
She was making it for you and she worked at the sewing machine all day that cold wet Sunday. When it was finished you put it on and Mummy brushed your hair and put a ribbon in it.
"I'll just pop over and show you off to Granny Rose," Mummy said and she popped over, but when she came back she was cross because Granny Rose was asleep and hadn't heard when she'd tapped on the window.
"Give it half an hour," Daddy said, "and maybe she'll be awake then." He was half asleep himself, lying in bed, white and thin on the pillows. So Mummy had stayed upstairs with him, giving him his medicine and reading to him because he was too weak to hold a book.
"You stay in the sitting room, Baby, and mind you don't get that frock dirty."
You had done as you were told but it made you cry just the same. Of course you didn't care about not seeing Granny Rose, but you knew that while she talking to Mummy you could have slipped out into the passage and down the garden to show it to Tessie, now, while it was brand-new.
Well, why not? Why not put on a coat and run across the road? Mummy wouldn't come down for half an hour. But you would have to hurry, for Tessie always went to bed at half-past six. Auntie Rene was strict about that. "Respectable working class," Mummy said, whatever that meant, and although she might let you into Tessie's bedroom she wouldn't let you wake her up.
But why, why, why had you gone?
Elizabeth Crilling came out of the shop and walked blindly towards the Glebe Road turning, bumping into shoppers as she went. Such a long way to go, past the hateful little sand houses that were like desert tombs in this spectral form light, such a long long way ... And there was only one thing left to do when you got to the end of the road.
14
It is lawful for Christian men ... to wear weapons and serve in the wars.
The letter with the Kendal postmark was awaiting Archery on the hall table when they got back to the Olive and Dove. He glanced at it uncomprehendingly, then remembered. Colonel Cosmo Plashet, Painter's commanding officer.
"What now?" he said to Charles when Tess had gone upstairs to lie down.
"I don't know. They're going back to Purley tonight."
"Do we go back to Thringford tonight?"
"I don't know, Father. I tell you I don't know." He paused, irritable, pink in the face, a lost child. "I'll have to go and apologise to Primero," he said, the child remembering its manners. "It was a bloody awful way to behave to him."
Archery said it instinctively, without thinking. "I'll do that, if you like. I'll ring them."
"Thanks. If he insists on seeing me I'll go. You've talked to her before, haven't you? I gathered from something Wexford said."