‘Geoffrey’s mouth is open.’
‘Oh yes. Still I don’t want to waste it.’
‘Let me try.’ Griselda was beginning to worry lest Kynaston have concussion, whatever that might be.
‘Careful.’
Griselda poured about half a tablespoonful of brandy into the glass and released it drop by drop down Kynaston’s throat.
‘Careful.’
When the glass was nearly empty, Kynaston seemed to have a violent spasm. He curled up instantaneously, like a caterpillar which has taken alarm. His mouth closed sharply and a curious rattle came from somewhere inside him. It frightened Griselda so much that she swallowed what remained in the glass.
‘Of course.’ she said, ‘he’s been having very little to eat.’
Lotus stared at her dreamily; again half-filling the glass.
‘Don’t forget your promise,’ she said, drinking.
‘What promise?’
‘You may not think you’ll marry Geoffrey. But he’ll marry you. You won’t be able to resist him: and he’ll make marriage his price.’ She had unbuttoned Kynaston’s shirt and was running her free hand over the upper part of his body. ‘Or part of his price.’
‘Shall we call a doctor?’
‘How innocent you are, Griselda!’
Suddenly Lotus had cast the tumbler into a corner of the room, where it shattered with rather too much noise and into rather too many pieces; had thrown herself upon the half-naked Kynaston: and was frenziedly kissing his mouth. Instantly Kynaston sat up.
‘Beloved,’ he said, clasping Lotus in his arms. Then, seeing Griselda, he gave a groan of shock and disgust, and was on his feet, buttoning his shirt.
Lotus lay on the floor. She appeared to be looking round for another glass. As with the locked door, she seemed to find difficulty, Griselda thought, in sustaining her romantic emphases.
‘Come away at once,’ said Kynaston, apparently none the worse. ‘We shall have to live elsewhere.’ The knock-out seemed to have awakened in him a slightly hysterical dignity.
‘No need at all,’ replied Lotus from the floor. ‘Griselda and I are on the best of terms. We are going to be great friends.’
‘I didn’t know,’ said Kynaston. ‘Griselda needs some friends.’
‘We’ve made a bargain.’
‘What bargain?’
Lotus smiled her lovely smile. ‘Geoffrey,’ she said, ‘do organize a picnic for next Sunday.’
‘All right, Lotus.’
‘We’ll all come. It’ll be like old times.’
‘So long as no one crosses me about the arrangements.’
‘Who would?’
He smiled back at her.
‘Griselda hasn’t seen you at your wonderful best until she’s been on one of your wonderful wonderful picnics.’
Now Griselda smiled also.
Kynaston was at the door.
‘It’s locked.’
All three were still smilling.
‘Where’s the key?’
Lotus knelt, sitting back upon her ankles, and, her hands clasped behind her, extended her plump black-corsetted bosom towards him.
‘Reach for it.’
The key being extracted, and the door opened, they left Lotus, the search for another glass abandoned, imbibing direct from the bottle.
‘Marry-in-haste,’ she said between gulps.
‘I never shall,’ said Griselda still smiling.
XXII
Through his door on the ground floor, Barney could be clearly heard grinding his teeth and his colours.
As Griselda and Kynaston passed into the summer night, the clock on the local Crematorium struck midnight, an intimation repeated a few minutes later by the doubtless more accurate clock at the Palace of Westminster.
‘I should have told you about Lotus.’
‘She’s no affair of mine.’
‘I never expected to see her again. It’s Monica Paget-Barlow’s fault. She misled me.’
‘I see.’
‘All the same she’s rather splendid.’
‘Miss Paget-Barlow?’
‘But I’m quite finished with her none the less. She lacks your glorious independence.’
‘I’ve lost the thread.’
‘You’ll come on the picnic?’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘Don’t be jealous. It’s absurd of you. Really it is.’
‘I’m not jealous. I have another engagement.’
‘What?’
Without particularly thinking. Griselda answered the truth. ‘I’m spending the day with my friend Peggy Potter.’
‘Where are you going?’
Regrettably, Peggy, with her passion for the provisional, always, when possible, refused to agree upon a plan in advance.
‘Does that matter?’
‘Bring her with you. There’ll be a crowd. She’ll pass unnoticed.’
‘No, thank you. She’d hate that.’
They were walking southwards down Tottenham Court Road, as Griselda did not care to risk the passage of the back streets at midnight. Outside Goodge Street Station, Kynaston stopped, again took hold of Griselda’s elbows, and said: ‘Griselda, I love you with all my heart.’ He seemed to mean it. But as he spoke a lift arrived, and they were pushed about by a load of tired revellen and resentful night workers.
Absurd though the declaration was, Griselda had too soft a heart to feel unmoved. ‘Where will you go tonight?’ She asked sympathetically.
‘I’ve made arrangements . . . Please marry me.’
‘No, Geoffrey. It’s impossible . . . You’ll be all right?’
‘I’ll be far from all right if you won’t marry me. Besides I’ve got a slight headache.’
‘When do you take up your job?’
‘On Liberation Day. Next Wednesday. It’s a job for a D.Litt. There’s very little money in it.’
‘Poor Geoffrey! I really must go. I shall miss the last tube.’ Griselda had previously intended to walk.
‘You won’t need an address for me as I shall look in the shop every day.’
‘No please, Geoffrey, I’m sure there’ll be trouble with Mr Tamburlane.’
‘Yes. I suppose there may.’
‘I wonder if Mr Tamburlane’s still alive? Poor Mr Tamburlane.’
‘Promise to come on the picnic and we’ll leave it at that for the moment. I’ve got a lot of things to do anyway before I’m tied by the leg on Liberation Day. Promise, Griselda.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Ten o’clock next Sunday at Juvenal Court. Bring your own lunch. Tell your friend to bring enough for the two of you.’
‘Good night, Geoffrey.’
‘May I kiss you?’
‘No.’
He kissed her. Although it was Goodge Street Station and another lift had come up, Griselda realized that Kynaston really had feelings. It was most surprising.
Despite her efforts, he felt her respond.
‘Griselda darling . . .’
But Griselda had been swept away by a flood of sad ineluctable memories and a posse of half-drunken suburbans on their way to Hendon, Edgware, and Trinity Road, Tooting Bec.
The tide of grief because Louise had been lost was so overwhelming, and the prospect of Sunday spent alone with Peggy so depressing (fond of Peggy though she was), that when she arrived back at Greenwood Tree House, Griselda, though it was late by Peggy’s standards, knocked at her friend’s door. With so many weightier cares to keep her from sleep, Griselda knew that she would lie awake all night unless she settled the matter of the picnic before the retired.
‘What is it?’
‘It is I. Griselda. Please let me in.’ Peggy always locked her door.
There was a curious sound of shuffling and putting away, which continued for an unexplained time. Then the key was turned and Peggy stood in the doorway.
‘Come in Griselda,’ she said quite pleasantly.
‘You needn’t have bothered to put on your dressing-gown.’
Peggy said nothing.
‘Do get into bed again. I can quite easily talk to you in bed.’
‘I’d rather not. Sit down.’