It was late on Thursday evening and she had just observed from an upper window, by the light of the street lamps in Forum Way, the unmistakable bulk of John Robert coming along the path from the back gate.
Although the girls had been expecting him and were hourly ‘ready’ for him, his actual appearance produced surprise and shock. Their ‘readiness’ had consisted in the cleanness and tidiness of the house, the availability of suitable things to eat and drink, and the adoption of appropriate clothes and (in Hattie’s case) hair-style. Pearl had wavered between donning her operatic maid’s uniform and boldly wearing a flowery summer dress which would not distinguish her sartorially from her mistress. Hattie wore her more soberly youthful garments, one of her school ‘Sunday’ dresses, pretty not smart, and kept her hair in plaits. In fact when Pearl spotted John Robert she had just taken off her flowery dress, about to take a bath, imagining it was too late for the philosopher to come that day. In panic, rumpling her dark straight neat hair, she dragged the dress on again and hurried down the stairs, buttoning it up as she ran. Hattie, who was reading I Promessi Sposi in the sitting-room with her slippers off and one plait undone, leapt up and began to adjust her hair while trying to lodge one bare foot inside a slipper, the other slipper having disappeared.
Pearl opened the door as John Robert approached it, and he entered, passing her with a slight frown, and went at once into the sitting-room where Hattie was stooping to rescue her second slipper from under a chair. She hopped, pulling it on, then stood, holding one plait in her hand.
John Robert stared at her as if she were an amazing apparition, then said, ‘Don’t look so frightened.’ Pearl closed the sitting-room door and glued herself to the outside of it.
John Robert had intended to delay his visit to the Slipper House until his agitation had subsided and his mind had cleared. However, when his agitation did not subside and his mind did not clear, he decided he must see Hattie. As soon as he decided this he became conscious of an unprecedentedly strong desire to be with her. He felt angry with the girls for having somehow ‘let it all happen’, but, obsessed with George, he had not reflected on exactly what they were supposed to have done, nor had he planned how to question them. The idea of simply being with Hattie had seemed far more important than ‘demanding explanations’ or ‘taking steps’. And now he was more disturbed even than he had expected by the sight of the girl who, although she had tried semi-consciously to look younger, could not help looking radiantly older.
‘I’m not frightened,’ said Hattie, and she threw her plait back over one shoulder and then her semi-plaited hair back over the other. She was frightened of course, but she felt, confronted so abruptly by her grandfather, a quick surge of annoyed independence which made her little cry not entirely specious.
John Robert sat down on one of the sturdier chairs, avoiding the bamboo armchair. Hattie did not sit, but leaned against the mantelpiece, holding her skirt away from the gas fire which she had put on since the late evening was chilly.
John Robert said, ‘Be careful, you’ll burn your dress. Anyway you don’t need the fire, do you, at this time of year?’ As he said this he heard the voice of his father speaking.
Hattie leaned down and turned the fire off with a jerk and resumed her pose.
John Robert felt suddenly tired and even closed his eyes.
Hattie said, ‘Would you like something to eat, or some lemonade or coffee or something?’
‘No thank you. Hattie — ’
‘Yes?’
There was a moment, a micro-second, in which they both felt that something impossible might happen, such as Hattie running into his arms, crying out and weeping, and his stroking her hair and babbling with tenderness; but of course it was impossible.
John Robert collected himself and said, ‘Look, what happened here the other night? There was a very disagreeable notice in the Gazette. I hope you didn’t see it.’
‘We did,’ said Hattie.
‘And what did you do about it?’
‘Nothing. What did you expect us to do? We’ve been waiting for days to see you!’
John Robert had not meant ‘what did you do?’ and could not think why he had said it. His need to ‘interrogate’ the girls had slightly diminished even within the last hours as he began a little to feel that he had ‘done with’ George and Tom, as if he had killed them both; and he had arrived with no clear idea of ‘instituting an inquiry’, only now of course he saw that he must do so, and the old unappeased anger began to come back.
He said, ‘I mean - what you read in the paper - was it true?’
‘No, of course not! It was horrible spiteful journalism - it upset us very much!’
‘So George McCaffrey was not in this house?’
‘Well, he was, but — ’
‘So it was true, anyway some of it was true?’
‘Yes, but — ’
‘Did you see the other article, the one in The Swimmer?’
‘No.’
‘Did you invite George and Tom McCaffrey to this house?’
‘No!’
‘Then how was George here?’
‘I don’t know — ’
‘Did Pearl let him in?’
‘No - Pearl had gone out but locked the door, all the doors were locked.’
‘Pearl had gone out, leaving you alone?’
‘No, I mean yes, I asked her to go out — ’
‘Why?’
‘To look for Tom McCaffrey.’
‘You sent Pearl to look for Tom McCaffrey? So you did invite him here?’
‘No, not like that - I mean - I wanted - I didn’t believe he had done it all to - to make a mock of us — ’
‘He had done it all to make a mock of you?’
‘No, I say he hadn’t —’
‘So Pearl did let George in and then went to find Tom too?’
‘No, no - I don’t know how George got in, the door was locked — ’
‘It can’t have been. When George was here - were you alone with him?’
‘Yes, but only — ’
‘Did - did anything - happen?’
Hattie flushed crimson. ‘No! Nothing happened! He came in and I opened the shutters at once so that the others could see — ’
‘The others? Your friends outside? Tom McCaffrey?’
‘Well, anybody - I thought — ’
‘You opened the shutters to display yourself with George?’
‘No, not - display - I thought he’d go away then - and he did - and Tom was looking in and - then they all started singing — ’
‘Hattie,’ said John Robert, ‘were you drunk?’
‘No!’ Hattie stamped her foot. She turned away, turned around, helpless, then stood behind a chair staring at the philosopher with her face burning, near to tears.
John Robert looked at Hattie with a frowning intensity. He said, ‘How did those newspapers come to find out - that I wanted you to get to know Tom McCaffrey?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘You must have told somebody.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I didn’t say it was a secret, but I have always trusted your ability to distinguish between public and private, and I did not expect you to gossip — ’
‘ I didn’t!’
‘Did you tell Pearl?’
‘Well, yes but — ’
‘Then you told somebody.’
‘Yes, but that was different, and she knew anyway, and — ’
‘How did she know anyway? Unless she was listening at the door.’ John Robert got up and opened the sitting-room door abruptly. Pearl was discovered standing an inch away. He said, ‘You’d better come in.’
Pearl came in, turning her face away from Hattie. She went and stood by the shuttered window, keeping her head high and smoothing down her hair and gazing unseeingly across the room.
John Robert, standing now in the centre and addressing Pearl, said, ‘Do you realize how much damage you’ve done? You have both contrived to make me ridiculous in this town, this place which I love and to which I trustfully brought you. And you have damaged Hattie’s reputation probably beyond repair. Were you drunk?’