‘I am offended,’ said Lotus.
‘I should think so too,’ said the female stranger. ‘Dirty Yid!’
Barney, so easy and self-possessed before Lotus had joined them, flushed slightly, but said nothing. Peggy threw Griselda a glance of unsatisfactory anticipations fulfilled.
Freddy only managed to race up the torrid platform and hurl himself amongst them just as the train started. There seemed nowhere for him to sit but the floor; with which, however, he professed himself quite content.
The embarrassment, discomfort, and tension were little relieved by Lena producing a thin pocket book from one of the breast pockets of her shirt and commencing to make some small drawings.
‘Anti-semitism is so unnecessary, don’t you think?’ said Florence quietly to Griselda, as the train puffed up the incline to Bethnal Green. ‘I know it’s one of the things he feels particularly. Though he doesn’t say so, I know it.’
‘Is he a Jew?’
‘Oh no. He feels with all who suffer. The people everywhere.’
‘Look at that,’ said the male stranger, savagely indicating Bethnal Green. ‘Shocking.’ He glowered accusation at the misjudged Barney.
‘What does Lotus live on?’ asked Griselda in an undertone.
‘She’s an heiress.’
‘Then what’s she doing in Juvenal Court? I’m sure you know what I mean.
‘She likes living with artists. Also she’s in love with Geoffrey and he’s not in love with her. It’s her way of ever seeing him.’
‘Are you sure Geoffrey’s not in love with her?’ It was difficult to believe that any man could resist Lotus’s beauty, passion, imperiousness, and riches. Moreover, she was holding Geoffrey’s hand at that very moment.
‘Quite sure. You can tell because he refuses to let her keep him. That’s a sure sign with Geoffrey. Though he’s weak of course, he refuses to be kept by anyone he’s not in love with.’
‘Have you known Geoffrey for long?’
‘He lived in Juvenal Court for two years; when he was teaching the recorder you know.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘Everyone likes Geoffrey. He’s weak, but sweet.’
‘Like that nauseating tea,’ said Lena quietly.
‘Florence,’ said Guillaume across the compartment. ‘Look at the sunlight on the windows of that gasworks.’
‘Yes, darling. Beautiful.’
‘If only it could be made as sunny and glittering within.’ He seemed more troubled than ever.
‘People like you and me don’t know how the factory workers live,’ observed the male stranger, disentagling Monica’s wool from the lower part of his braces.
‘What the hell’s the good of going somewhere as lovely as Epping Forest,’ soliloquized Lena in her clear voice, ‘without a man to ravish one?’
After that the strangers fell silent until the next station, at which they alighted.
At Chingford, under Kynaston’s direction, they struck up the road to the Royal Forest Hotel, then descended to Connaught Water. Kynaston and Lotus still walked ahead, their easy efficient movements a pleasure to watch. Had she not known them, Griselda might have taken them for gods descended to Essex earth. The rest of them advanced en masse, two of the number knowing the others hardly at all, the rest knowing them perhaps too well. Peggy was conserving her energy, as if a range of mountains would have to be crossed before nightfall. Lena slouched with her hands in her pockets; but her slouch was somehow electric.
‘Do you see how the water catches the reflection of the willows?’ said Guillaume to Florence.
‘Yes, darling. Beautiful.’
Outside the Hotel were motor coach parties drinking. When they set eyes on Lotus, they whistled and catcalled because she was so beautifuclass="underline" but Lotus strode past, like a Queen on her way to execution, not increasing her pace or diminishing her poise.
‘Anyone know what that is?’ asked Peggy, taking no notice and pointing to Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge.
‘It’s one of the places where the upper classes get together to kill things,’ said Guillaume.
‘Damn good sport,’ said Freddy Fisher. ‘Done any beagling?’ he enquired of Griselda.
‘No, never,’ replied Griselda.
‘I beagled almost every day for a month last autumn. You can if you’ve got a fast car.’
‘What do you do with the rest of your time?’
‘Learn to paint. Animals and birds, you know. I’ve got to for a living, more’s the pity. Dad’s lost his last halfpenny. Horses, you know.’
‘But you’ve still got a fast car?’
‘Not any more.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘You’re terribly pretty, Griselda. I should have liked to ask you home. Mum would have taken to you no end.’
‘Perhaps I shall meet her sometime,’ said Griselda politely.
‘She’s dead. Drugs. Dad was to blame.’
‘I am sorry. But I don’t know that you should be so sure it was your Father’s fault.’
‘Of course it was Dad’s fault. He had to stop it all coming out at the inquest.’
‘Still it’s often hard to be sure.’
‘Of course I’m sure. It’s spoilt my whole life.’
‘Can we stop for a moment?’ asked Monica. ‘There’s a drawing-pin in my shoe.’
When Connaught Water came in sight, covered with boats, Florence’s sensitive face lighted up. ‘Oh I should like to go out in a boat.’
Guillaume’s brow became rigid with apprehension. ‘Hardly with so many other people, Florence. I am sure the boats must be dirty.’
Florence smiled gently and said ‘It just passed through my mind, darling.’ Married or not, Florence was suffering from that cancer of the will which Griselda had observed so often to accompany matrimony. She and Lena exchanged glances.
At the lake they left the road and entered the trees. Within five minutes the clatter had become inaudible. They passed several times from thicket to clearing, the change in temperature being each time overwhelming, and soon were among the hornbeams.
‘Everyone,’ cried Lotus over her shoulder, ‘must look for a parrot.’
Kynaston caught Griselda’s eye and looked deeply unhappy.
His distress of mind possibly accounted for the fact that within ten minutes from leaving the road, they were lost. Kynaston did not for some time admit this, but urged them on, with unnecessary expressions of confidence, along a rutty but diminishing track; they could make a right angle in any direction, but could not continue in their course.
‘I wonder which of these would be the quicker?’ soliloquized Kynaston. Clearly there should have been a path through the brambles which lay straight ahead.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Lena. ‘they go in opposite directions. You’d better choose.’
‘I wish we had a map among us.’
‘We rely on you.’
Kynaston looked wildly from left to right and back again while they waited for him to decide.
Guillaume broke the long silence. ‘Both ways look equally beautiful,’ he said helpfully.
‘Does it matter?’ cried Lotus. ‘Do we really have to get anywhere?’
Peggy’s expression changed from aloofness to horror.
‘To travel is better than to arrive,’ said Guillaume.
‘To travel hopefully,’ corrected Lena. ‘What hope have we?’
‘Surely we should enjoy ourselves?’ said Florence. ‘On such a lovely day?’
Monica had begun to knit. Freddy was brooding about his Father’s wickedness. Barney had been filling his heart with tears ever since the train.
‘The thing is, Griselda,’ said Kynaston desperately, ‘that I’m better at organizing picnics than walks.’
‘I remember,’ said Griselda, taking pity on him.