I began eating some breakfast, and said: “Well, I shall revive soon. What did you get me out of bed for, Rosalind?”
She shook her head. “Nothing very special. I only arrived yesterday and I’m going back tonight, and I shouldn’t have liked to miss you altogether.”
I looked at her. The clear eyes were guileless. She glanced round the room.
“I wish you’d let me do this place up for you,” she said. “It would look lovely with just a bit of care. I could make you so comfortable you wouldn’t credit it, you know.”
I was prepared to believe that she was right. The bedroom was a monk’s cell, but this sitting-room was a large and splendid medieval chamber. I knew that, given a week and a chequebook, she would transform it. She was kind and active, she took pleasure from making one comfortable. But I did not think that she had come that morning to tell me so.
While I went on eating, she stood by the wall and examined the panelling. She asked how old it was, and I told her sixteenth century. Then, over her shoulder, she said: “Did you notice that Roy left the dinner party early last night?”
I said yes.
“Did you know what for?”
I said no.
Still over her shoulder, in a tone with a dying fall, she said: “I’m afraid it was to come and see me.”
It was prim, it was suggestive, shameless and boasting. I burst into laughter, and she turned and looked at me with a lurking, satisfied, triumphant smile.
In a moment Bidwell came in, quiet footed, to clear up. When he had left again, she said: “Your servant has got a very sweet face, hasn’t he?”
“I’m rather fond of him.”
“I’m sure you are.” Her eyes were shrewd. “I must say, I wish you and Roy didn’t leave so much to him. I hope you don’t let him do your ordering.”
I did not mind Bidwell taking a percentage, I said, if it avoided fuss. She frowned, she did not want to let it pass: but there was still something on her mind. It was not only to confess or boast that she had come to see me.
“Did you know,” she said, “that Roy is having Lord and Lady Boscastle to lunch?”
“I heard him invite them.”
“I’m making him have me too. I’m terrified. Are they dreadfully frightening?”
“What did Roy say about that?”
“He said Lord Boscastle’s bark was worse than his bite. And that Lady Boscastle was the stronger of the two.”
“I think that’s true,” I said.
“But what am I going to say to them?” she said. She was genuinely nervous. “I’ve never met people like this before. I haven’t any idea what to say.”
“Don’t worry. And make love to Lord B. as lavishly as you like,” I said.
It was sound advice, for Lord Boscastle’s social standards were drastically reduced in the presence of attractive young women who seemed to enjoy his company.
She smiled absently for a second, then cried again: “I don’t know anything about people like this. I don’t even know what to call an earl. Lewis, what do I call them?”
I told her. I believed this was a reason for her visit. She would rather ask that question of me than of Roy.
“I’m glad I remembered to ask you,” she said disingenuously, her eyes open and clear. “That’s a relief. But I am terrified,” she added.
“Why did you work it then?” I said.
“I was dreadfully silly,” she said. “I thought I should like to see a bit of high life.”
That may have been true, but I was sure there was a wise intuitive purpose behind it. With her recklessness, with the earthy realism that lived behind the prudish speech, she could live as though each day were sufficient to itself: so she had thrown herself at Roy, took what she could get, put up with what she called his “moods”, went to bed with him when she could, schemed no more than a month or two ahead.
But, deep in her fibres, there was another realism, another wisdom, another purpose. Her whole nature was set on marrying him. It did not need thought or calculation, it just took all of herself — though on the way to her end she would think and calculate with every scrap of wits she had. She was nervous, kind, sensitive in her fashion, tender with the good nature of one who is happy with instinctive life: she was also hard, ruthless, determined, singleminded and unscrupulous: or rather she could act as though scruples did not exist. She meant to marry him.
So she knew that she must get on with the Boscastles. Roy was not a snob, no man was less so: but he gave himself to everyone who took his fancy, whether they came from the ill-fated and lost, or from the lucky. Usually they were the world’s derelicts, for I often grumbled that he treated badly any acquaintance who might be of practical use: but if by chance he liked someone eminent, then he was theirs as deeply as though they were humble. He felt no barriers except what his affections told him. Rosalind knew this, and knew that she must acquire the same ease. Hence she had driven herself, despite her diffidence, into this luncheon party.
Hence too, I was nearly certain, she decided she must know me well. So far as anyone had influence over Roy, I had. She must make me into an ally if she could. She must charm me, she must see that I was friendly, she must take a part in my life, even if it only meant decorating my rooms. She had come that morning to ask me how to address an earclass="underline" but she would have found another reason, if that had not existed. I strongly suspected that she had bribed Bidwell to wake me up before my time.
Roy brought Rosalind back to my rooms after lunch.
“I hear you met this morning,” said Roy.
“Can you bear the sight of me again?” Rosalind said.
“He’ll pretend to,” said Roy. “He’s famous for his self-control.”
She made a face at him, half-plaintive, half-comic, and said: “I couldn’t stay and see Roy’s tables all littered with plates. I should want to do something about it.” She was talkative and elated, like someone released from strain.
“How did it go?” I said.
“I tried to find a corner to hide in. But it’s not very easy when there are only four.”
“You got a small prize,” Roy said to her. “Not the first prize. Only the second. You did very nicely.”
I guessed that she had been diffident, had not taken much part. But it was not as bad as she feared, and with her indomitable resolve she would try again. Roy was smiling at her, amused, stirred to tenderness because she made such heavy weather of what would, at any age, have been his own native air.
He said to me: “By the way, old boy, you’ve made a great hit with Lady B. I’m extremely jealous.”
“She wanted to know all about you,” said Rosalind.
“I think she likes very weighty men.” Roy chuckled. “Old Lewis is remarkably good at persuading them that he’s extremely weighty.”
He went on to tease Rosalind about Lord Boscastle’s compliments. I noticed that Roy and Rosalind were very easy with each other, light with the innocence that may visit a happy physical love.
The telephone bell rang: it was for Roy, and as he answered he exclaimed with enthusiasm — “excellent”, “of course”, “I’m sure he would”, “I’ll answer for him”, “come straight up”.
“You see, you’ve got to be civil now,” said Roy. “It’s Ralph Udal. He’s just back from Italy. It’s time you met him.”
Roy added, with a secret smile: “Now, I wonder what he wants.”
Udal himself came in as Roy finished speaking. I had found out something about him since the episode of the bookshops: now I saw him in the flesh, I was surprised. I had not expected that he should have such natural and pleasant manners. For the stories I had heard were somewhat odd. He was an exact contemporary of Roy’s at the college, and they had known each other well, though they were never intimate friends. Udal came from a professional family, but he was a poor man, and he and Roy moved in different circles. They had known each other as academic rivals, for Udal had had a brilliant undergraduate career. Then his life became very strange. He spent a year among the seedy figures of Soho — not to indulge himself, not to do good works, but just to “let the wind of God blow through him”. Then he had served another year in a church settlement in Poplar. Afterwards, he had, passively so it seemed, become ordained. But he had not taken a curacy or any kind of job; he had written his little book on Heppenstall, and had gone off to Italy for six months.