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Chapter Twenty-five
ANN looked, for the twentieth time, out of the window, and her heart staggered as she saw, at last, the very dark blue Mercedes coming through the gate.
Randall had now been gone a week, rather more than a week. It seemed to her a century of experience. She had been amazed, frightened, at the intensity of her pain. Envisaging beforehand the situation she was now in, A
She missed him hideously, and yearned for him with a violent fruitless yearning which was a kind of maimed falling in love. His absence had not so much mattered, had not so much been felt, before. I h d not been real absence. But now the house gaped and rattled with it. She began to be afraid of the house, especially at night. It was as if its old indifference, now that Randall's protection was removed, had begun to reveal itself as something more sinister. She felt, upon dark stairways and in quiet empty rooms, a brooding hostility. She wished she could leave it.
Mildred Finch, who with a rather sham-faced Felix had in fact still been waiting around when A
A
She was sorry that, on the first day, she had made that distracted telephone call to Douglas. He meant well, but his sentimental sympathy had been irritating, unwelcome, almost degrading. And then the arrival of all those inquisitive people had made such a rowdy undignified scene. She ought, at that time, to have made sure that she had her grief to herself. A fuss and a drama had been made, and Miranda; who at breakfast time had been fairly calm, had become quite hysterical later in the morning. She was rather sorry too that Felix had come.
A
She had told him that she would ring him, but she had not done so. 'When it came to it, the action seemed a little too significant, and she had put it off. It was better to leave things. Then she had received a rather formal little note from Felix saying that he was going back to London, but that he would be returning to Seton Blaise, after dining nearby, on a certain evening, and might he drop in briefly on the way to take a cup of coffee and inquire how she was? A
It was late evening and the sky was an intense blue from which the radiance had been gradually withdrawn. The colours in the garden had risen to their last peak of shimmering brightness and now faded quietly like a descending hand. Murky purples and browns thickened in the distance. It was a very quiet evening. The church bells had been ringing for a practice, a sad sound, but they were silent now. As she went to the door A
'Come in, Felix, come into the drawing-room. How very nice to see you. Would you like the electric fire? It's getting rather chilly now. I've got some brandy for you, I hope it's the right kind. You have dined, haven't you?
Felix came stooping through the doorway. He looked, she thought, terribly respectable in his dark suit and outrageously immaculate shirt and narrow tie. A
Felix accepted the electric fire and the brandy, said he had dined, and answered questions about Mildred's welfare. Then silence fell between them.
They were sitting in armchairs on either side of the fireplace. The electric fire sat a little forlornly in the big grate. Aim could feel him looking at her and tried quickly to think of something to' say. It struck her suddenly as extraordinary that she should be sitting here so late at night alone with Felix: extraordinary and pleasant and alarming. Then she was amazed to find herself feeling tearful. She said quickly the first thing that came into her head. 'Oh, everything is such a mess here. I do wish I could catch up. I just get into more and more of a muddle. I still haven't sent out those catalogues.’ Felix said, 'I wish you'd let me help you. Couldn't I do the catalogues?