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“Just wondered who she was,” said Dundridge and went back to his office to draw up plans for the opening ceremony to mark the start of the construction of the motorway. It was going to be a grand affair, he had decided.
So had Lady Maud, though the affair she had in mind was of quite a different sort. She waited until Sir Giles said he was going to spend a fortnight in London before inviting Dundridge to di
Dundridge hired a di
“I’m so glad you could come,” she said taking his arm almost as soon as he had entered the front door. “I’m afraid my husband has had to go to London on business. I hope you don’t mind having to put up with me.”
“Not at all,” said Dundridge, conscious once again of that weakness in his legs that Lady Maud’s presence seemed to induce in him. They went into the drawing-room and Lady Maud mixed drinks. “I did think of inviting General Burnett and the Bullett-Finches but the General does tend to monopolize the conversation and Ivy Bullett-Finch is a bit of a wet blanket.”
Dundridge sipped his drink and wondered what the hell she had put into it. It looked i
“How do you like your new flat?” she asked, sitting down beside him with a squeak of pre-stressed silk.
“Flat?” said Dundridge momentarily unable to make the transition between adjective and noun. “Oh, flat. Yes. Very pleasant.”
“You must let me come up and see it some time,” said Lady Maud. “Unless you feel I might be compromising you.” She sighed, and her great bosom heaved like an approaching breaker.
“Compromising?” said Dundridge, who couldn’t imagine that he was likely to be compromised by being alone in his flat with her any more than he was already by those beastly photographs. “I’d be delighted to have you.”
Lady Maud tittered coyly. “I’m afraid you’re going to miss the excitement of life in London,” she murmured. “We must do what we can to see that you don’t get bored.”
It seemed a remote prospect to Dundridge. He sat rigid on the sofa and tried to keep his eyes averted from the incomprehensible fascinations of her body.
“Let me get you another drink,” she breathed softly, and once again he was conscious of a feeling of being overcome. It was partly the drink, partly the waft of perfume, but it was mostly the strength of her self-assurance that held him fascinated. In spite of her size, in spite of her assertiveness, in spite of everything about her that conflicted with his idea of a beautiful woman, Lady Maud was wholly confident. And Dundridge, who wasn’t (or at best only partially and whose completeness, depending on achievement and money, lay in the future) was intoxicated by her presence. If the past could confer such assurance there was more to be said for it than Dundridge had previously admitted. Dundridge sipped his drink and smiled at her. Lady Maud smiled back.
By the time they went in to di
Blott walked down the hill from Wilfrid’s Castle. For a week he had been avoiding the Royal George in Guildstead Carbonell and Mrs Wy
Inside Lady Maud was dancing. Or learning to dance. Or teaching someone to dance. Blott found difficulty in making up his mind. Under the great chandeliers she moved with a tender gracelessness that took his breath away. Up and down, round and about, in great sweeps and double turns she went, the floor moving visibly beneath her, and in her arms she held a small thin man with an expression of intense concentration on his face. Blott recognized him. He was the man from the Ministry who had stayed to lunch the previous week. Blott hadn’t liked the look of him then and he liked it even less now. And Sir Giles was away. Sick with disgust Blott blundered off the flower bed and away from the window. He had half a mind to go in and say what he thought. It wouldn’t do any good. He walked unsteadily round the front of the house. There was a car standing there. He peered at it. The man’s car. Serve him right if he had to walk home, the bastard. Blott knelt by the front tyre and undid the valve. Then he went round to the boot and let the air out of the spare tyre. That would teach the swine to come messing about with other people’s wives. Blott staggered off down the drive to the Lodge and climbed into bed. Through the circular window he could see the lights of the Hall. They were still on when he fell asleep and through the night air there came the faint sound of trombones.