Now, at Ty Gwyn, she refused to think about what would happen next. She was living from day to day, walking on air, smiling at nothing. She got an anxious letter from her mother in Buffalo, worrying about her health and her state of mind after the miscarriage, and she sent back a reassuring reply. Olga included titbits of news: Dave Rouzrokh had died in Palm Beach; Muffie Dixon had married Philip Renshaw; Senator Dewar’s wife, Rosa, had written a bestseller called
She felt sad only when she thought of the baby she had lost. The pain had gone immediately, and the bleeding had stopped after a week, but the loss grieved her. She no longer cried about it, but occasionally she found herself staring into empty space, thinking about whether it would have been a girl or a boy, and what it would have looked like; and then realized with a shock that she had not moved for an hour.
Spring had come, and she walked on the windy mountainside, in waterproof boots and a raincoat. Sometimes, when she was sure there was no one to hear but the sheep, she shouted at the top of her voice: ‘I love him!’
She worried about his reaction to her questions about his parentage. Perhaps she had done wrong to raise the issue: it had only made him unhappy. Yet her excuse had been valid: sooner or later the truth would probably come out, and it was better to hear such things from someone who loved you. His pained bafflement touched her heart, and made her love him even more.
Then he told her he had arranged leave. He was going to a south coast resort called Bournemouth for the Labour Party’s annual conference on the second weekend in May, which was a British holiday called Whitsun.
His mother would also be at Bournemouth, he said, so he would have a chance to question her about his parentage; and Daisy thought he looked eager and afraid at the same time.
Lowther would certainly have refused to let him go, but Lloyd had spoken to Colonel Ellis-Jones back in March, when he had been assigned to this course, and the colonel either liked Lloyd or sympathized with the party, or both, and gave him permission which Lowther could not countermand. Of course, if the Germans invaded France, then nobody would be able to take leave.
Daisy was strangely frightened by the prospect of Lloyd’s leaving Aberowen without knowing that she loved him. She was not sure why, but she had to tell him before he went.
Lloyd was to leave on Wednesday and return six days later. By coincidence, Boy had announced he would come to visit, arriving on Wednesday evening. Daisy was glad, for reasons she could not quite figure out, that the two men would not be there at the same time.
She decided to make her confession to Lloyd on Tuesday, the day before he left. She had no idea what she was going to say to her husband a day later.
Imagining the conversation she would have with Lloyd, she realized that he would surely kiss her, and when they kissed they would be overwhelmed by their feelings, and they would make love. And then they would lie all night in each other’s arms.
At this point in her thinking, the need for discretion intruded into her daydream. Lloyd must not be seen emerging from her quarters in the morning, for both their sakes. Lowthie already had his suspicions: she could tell by his attitude towards her, which was both disapproving and roguish, almost as if he felt that he rather than Lloyd should be the one she should fall for.
How much better it would be if she and Lloyd could meet somewhere else for their fateful conversation. She thought of the unused bedrooms in the west wing, and she felt breathless. He could leave at dawn, and if anyone saw him they would not know he had been with her. She could emerge later, fully dressed, and pretend to be looking for some lost piece of family property, a painting perhaps. In fact, she thought, elaborating on the lie she would tell if necessary, she could take some object from the junk room and place it in the bedroom in advance, ready to be used as concrete evidence of her story.
At nine o’clock on Tuesday, when the students were all in classes, she walked along the upper floor, carrying a set of perfume vials with tarnished silver tops and a matching hand mirror. She felt guilty already. The carpet had been taken up, and her footsteps rang loud on the floorboards, as if announcing the approach of a scarlet woman. Fortunately, there was no one in the bedrooms.
She went to the Gardenia Suite, which she vaguely thought was being used for storage of bed linen. There was no one in the corridor as she stepped inside. She closed the door quickly behind her. She was panting. I haven’t done anything yet, she told herself.
She had remembered aright: all around the room, piled up against the gardenia-printed wallpaper, were neat stacks of sheets and blankets and pillows, wrapped in covers of coarse cotton and tied with string like large parcels.
The room smelled musty, and she opened a window. The original furniture was still here: a bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a writing table, and a kidney-shaped dressing table with three mirrors. She put the perfume vials on the dressing table, then she made the bed up with some of the stored linen. The sheets were cold to her touch.
Now I’ve done something, she thought. I’ve made a bed for my lover and me.
She looked at the white pillows and the pink blankets with their satin edging, and she saw herself and Lloyd, locked in a clinging embrace, kissing with mad desperation. The thought aroused her so much that she felt faint.
She heard footsteps outside, ringing on the floorboards as hers had. Who could that be? Morrison, perhaps, the old footman, on his way to look at a leaking gutter or a cracked windowpane. She waited, heart pounding with guilt, as the footsteps came nearer then receded.
The scare calmed her excitement and cooled the heat she felt inside. She took one last look around the scene and left.
There was no one in the corridor.
She walked along, her shoes heralding her progress; but she looked perfectly innocent now, she told herself. She could go anywhere she wanted; she had more right to be here than anyone else; she was at home; her husband was heir to the whole place.
