generous, intelligent but without imagination.’
Chilled by the rounded knell of the falling phrases, Tom said: ‘It sounds like an epitaph.’
‘It turned out to be an epitaph,’ said George, ‘only not hers.’
Miles and Dominic came, brought him fruit and cigarettes and dutiful greetings from their parents, and sat by his bed making somewhat constrained conversation for half an hour. They told him the ordinary things, scraps of news from school and the harmless social calendar of the village. They were punctilious in addressing him as ‘sir,’ and retaining, with an effort they hid, on the whole, very well, traces of the schoolboy in their own phraseology. He understood, as once he would not have understood, that this was a delicate device on their part to restore the distance between them that would make life easier for him.
And he played their services back to them neatly, and was grateful, as once he would not have been grateful.
The Becks came, side by side in tacit truce, united by the catastrophe that had overtaken them. Whether Mrs Beck had lied or told the truth, for all practical purposes Annet belonged to both of them, and for her sake they were compelled to draw together. They explained to him that they planned to give her and themselves a fresh start by moving south to a new home. They had found a small house in a village near Cambridge, which was Mrs Beck’s native district. There’d be a job for Annet there, within easy reach, and new friends, new scenes, a new life would soon set her up again. But of course he must come back to them when he came out of hospital, next week; they would still be at Fairford for several weeks yet, and he would need time to look round and find fresh lodgings.
He breathed the more easily for knowing that they were leaving. But for that he would have had to hand in his resignation and get away to fresh fields himself. It would be impossible to live in daily contact with her now, having witnessed what he had witnessed. There are things that should not be seen.
He asked after her; it was like devouring his own heart. He didn’t, after all, need their answers, he could see her plainly enough moving through her sunless days, the shell of Annet, silent, secluded, drained deep in unhappiness, surviving her loss because she must. Life can’t just stop. Their version softened the picture, made it more encouraging. They offered him a sad little greeting from her; he did not believe in it, but he could not imagine why they should make it up.
Only after they had left did it occur to him that they regarded him as blessedly safe, as one who would be good for her, as the means of turning their perilous liability into a tamed, respected, domesticated schoolmaster’s wife. They wanted him to take her off their hands, and provide her with the halo of a real wedding ring.
Oh, no, he thought, not me. I’ve drawn back into my depth. I’ve given up. I know when I’m licked. On Annet’s plane of love there are precious few of us can operate with dignity, and, God help me, I’m not one.
And Jane came. Jane came oftenest. She was as off-hand as ever, didn’t make any great fuss of him, didn’t try to tell him he’d done anything heroic when he knew he’d done something stupid and short-sighted, of which he was ashamed. She told him that Regina, shocked beyond words in her respectability, but surely in her heart, too – for there was a heart somewhere under all the crust of offices – had taken up her roots for a while and gone abroad.
‘And the Becks have got a cottage somewhere down south – Cambridgeshire, I think. They hope to be in before Christmas.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘they told me. It’s the best thing they could do, for Annet and themselves.’ He hesitated over what he wanted most to ask, but it came out of itself before he was aware: ‘Have you seen Annet?’
‘Yes,’ said Jane, giving him one of those slightly disconcerting looks that had once made him speculate on whether she had designs on him, but now only warned him that she was probably making allowances for him.
‘She’ll live,’ she said shortly, before he could feel himself forced to ask. And as quickly she looked up again, herself startled by the brusque sound of it. ‘Not being flippant about it,’ she said crossly. ‘I meant it literally. She
He didn’t say that he agreed with her, or that he had already withdrawn from the field and acknowledged defeat. He didn’t say that he was just becoming reconciled to the idea of setting his sights, some day, on a less impossible target. There was only one Annet, now and forever out of reach; but in his new humility he was prepared to listen respectfully to the small, dry voice deep within him, assuring him that he could think himself damned lucky if some day he was able to settle for someone like Jane.
When he came out of hospital and returned to Fairford it was already November. The Hallowmount withdrew itself at morning and evening into mist, shrouding the Altar and its ring of decrepit trees. He wondered if the small, unaccountable ground-wind had abandoned, until next spring, its nightly ascent by the old paths to the old places where Annet had vanished for a while into her secret world, and whether the reverberations of her tragedy had already seeped away like spilt blood into that already saturated soil.
He had found new lodgings in Comerford, and he began to assemble his belongings in preparation for the move. He was in the hall one evening, digging out his windjacket and climbing boots from the cupboard, when the knocker rapped gently to announce a visitor.
Tom dropped his boots and went to open the door. Miles Mallindine looked at him across the threshold, composed, dogged, dignified, with a handful of late roses. In the sheltered garden close to the river they bloomed until Christmas unless discouraged.
Not everyone knows when he’s beaten. Not everyone can recognise when he’s out of his class. There was – wasn’t there? – an obligation. In pure kindness someone ought to warn him.
‘May I come in? Mrs Beck said I could drop round tonight.’
He was in already. He had a very unobtrusive way of moving, that took him where he wanted to go, even against opposition, without actually looking aggressive or even noticeably determined. And he held the roses as one neither embarrassed nor ashamed at displaying his intentions. He wasn’t smiling; sieges like the one he was contemplating are no joke.
‘Oh, of course! Annet’s in the study, doing some typing for her father, I think.’ Never had she been so gentle with his pretensions, or so willingly segregated herself behind the clacking of the keys, over his interminable notes.
