Miss Tuffley squealed with laughter. Mr Smethwick looked up, clearly wondering whether he was being mocked. Mr Reynolds clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth but said nothing.
Lydia lowered her voice. ‘You don’t happen to know if there’s a typewriter I could use over the weekend?’
‘Here? They wouldn’t let you into the office. Mr Shires is ever so strict because of the files.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But there’s my old machine in the walk-in cupboard on the landing. It’s just sitting there gathering dust.’
‘Would they mind if I borrowed it?’
‘You couldn’t take it home, dear. Not by yourself. The nasty thing weighs a ton. You’d need about five of them Blackshirts to lift it.’
‘Could I get into the house?’
Miss Tuffley glanced at Mr Reynolds, who was hunched over his ledger. She pulled out the drawer underneath the telephone switchboard. Among the scraps of paper and stubs of pencil was a Yale key with a pink ribbon tied to it. She looked at Lydia, making sure she had seen it.
‘Perhaps you happened to be looking for a rubber or something and you saw that,’ she said softly. ‘Perhaps it happened to fit the street door.’ She closed the drawer. ‘But don’t come when it’s dark if you can help it because Howlett or the caretaker might see the lights, and remember the cleaners get here at seven thirty on Monday. The other offices are the same — there’s usually no one here at the weekend.’
‘What about the cupboard?’
‘There’s a spare key on the ledge over the door — just run your hand along and you’ll feel it. You’ll either have to lift the typewriter down to the floor if you can, or stand up and use it on the shelf. Are you really sure you want to be bothered?’
‘Yes, quite possibly,’ Lydia said. ‘And thank you.’
Miss Tuffley put her head on one side. ‘Well! I must say you’re full of surprises.’
Mr Shires was as good as his word. Shortly after midday, he emerged from his room with a large brown envelope in his hand. ‘Mrs Langstone, would you take this to the Inner Temple for me? I want you to deliver it by hand and right away. Mr Reynolds has given you your wages, I take it? Good. In that case you might as well leave now. I don’t think there’s any point in your coming back to the office afterwards.’
The errand was genuine, and it was nearly one o’clock by the time Lydia reached Bleeding Heart Square. She avoided Rosington Place and walked round to the Charleston Street entrance by the Crozier. The van with the loudspeaker was still doing its work. ‘Find out what British Fascism can do for the British businessman. God save the King!’
She let herself into the house. No one was in the hall. She looked through the little pile of letters on the table. There was one for her father. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, though it looked faintly familiar, as did the envelope itself. She took it upstairs.
There were voices in the sitting room and she heard her father’s hoarse, croaking laugh. The old man had extraordinary powers of recuperation. She pushed open the door. He was standing astride the hearthrug, cigarette in hand — Turkish, judging by the smell in the air — shaved, combed, wearing his one good suit and his regimental tie, and looking every inch like an elderly but well-preserved gentleman with four thousand a year to live on and not a stain on his conscience.
He looked up as Lydia came into the room. ‘My dear. Ah! There you are!’
‘There’s a letter for you, Father.’ She put it on the table.
He dismissed it from his mind with a lordly wave of the cigarette. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had such a charming sister?’
The back of the sofa had concealed Pamela. She scrambled up and fluttered towards Lydia, arms outstretched. ‘Darling! You look so frightfully businesslike. Your father says you’ve been working all morning.’ She swept Lydia into a soft, perfumed embrace and drew her over to the sofa to sit beside her. ‘Isn’t this nice? Your father and I have been getting along splendidly. We were just saying how strange it is we haven’t met before. After all, there’s no reason not to, not nowadays, when almost everyone one knows has these complicated families. Anyway, how are you? I must say you’re looking wonderfully well. Anyone would think you’d been to a health farm or something.’
‘And what about you?’ Lydia asked. ‘Is everything all right? How’s Mother?’
‘Oh you know — much the same as ever. Life just seems to bounce off her like water off a duck’s back.’ Pamela seized Lydia’s hand. ‘I expect you are dying to know why I’ve come.’
Lydia banished the unworthy hope that Pamela had come to ask her out to lunch. ‘I expect you’re going to tell me.’
‘I’m engaged! Well and truly. Absolutely sign here on the dotted line and then love, honour and obey. It’s going to be in the papers next week, but I wanted to tell you first.’
‘Oh darling,’ Lydia said. ‘I hope you’ll be very happy.’
‘Of course we shall.’ Pamela smiled at Captain Ingleby-Lewis. ‘And it’s only fair you should know before it’s announced too — after all, aren’t you my stepfather or something?’
He took both her hands in his and stared down at her, just as a proud and happy stepfather or something should do. ‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy, my dear. You certainly deserve to be. And who is the lucky chap?’
‘Rex Fisher. He’s a friend of Marcus’s, actually.’
‘If you ask me,’ Captain Ingleby-Lewis said, ‘this calls for a celebration.’
Simultaneously Lydia said, ‘Rex’s here today — at the meeting in Rosington Place.’
Pamela glanced up, bright-eyed and as quick as a bird. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘What?’ Ingleby-Lewis said. ‘At that Fascist affair? They’ve had that wretched loudhailer blaring away all morning. Woke me up.’
‘He’s the main speaker, actually. Rex is their Deputy Director of Economic thingummy.’
‘I remember. Saw the name on the posters. Isn’t he a bart?’
‘Yes.’ Pamela stubbed out her cigarette. ‘And it’s just as well he’s not a viscount or something because then I’d take precedence over Mother, which would absolutely infuriate her.’
‘Are you going to the meeting?’ Lydia asked.
‘No — Tony Ruispidge is home on leave and I promised Sophie I’d have lunch with them. To be honest, it’s not really my thing.’
Somewhere a clock struck the half-hour.
‘Good Lord,’ Ingleby-Lewis said. ‘Is that the time? I’m afraid I shall have to dash. Got an appointment.’
‘It’s been lovely to meet you,’ Pamela said, holding out her hand.
‘My dear, the pleasure has been all mine. And I hope I shall be able to renew the pleasure very shortly. Goodbye, Miss Cassington.’
‘You must call me Pammy. Everyone else does.’
‘Pammy then. I’m not sure what you should call me. Uncle William, perhaps.’ He took her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘Or plain, homely William, even? Until we meet again.’
He swept his overcoat off its hook, seized his letter from the table, set his hat on his head at a jaunty angle, and left the room. They listened to his footsteps going downstairs. The front door slammed.
‘I am so, so sorry,’ Lydia said.
Pamela patted her hand. ‘You don’t need to be. He’s a pet.’
‘No, he’s not. He’s an awful man. He sponges off everyone, he’s an old soak, and he’s my father.’
‘All I can say is that he was very nice to me.’
‘He can put on an act for five minutes but that’s all it is. An act. He’s probably hoping you’ll persuade Mother to ask him to the wedding so he can get sozzled on Fin’s champagne.’ Lydia was suddenly aware that tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘Oh damn and blast it.’
Pamela, nothing if not practical, opened her handbag and produced a freshly ironed handkerchief smelling of musk and flowers, Jean Patou’s Sublime. Lydia dabbed her eyes. Pamela kept hold of Lydia with one hand and opened the platinum cigarette case with the other.
‘There, that’s better. Try one of these. I’m not sure I like them very much but they’re meant to be frightfully good. Rex has a little man who makes them up for him.’
Automatically Lydia took a cigarette. ‘To be fair, he’s given me a home.’ She remembered yesterday evening, when she had settled him down for the night. ‘And he can be very sweet sometimes.’
