Black Is the Colour of My True Love's Heart

George rose from behind the desk. “Sit down, Mr. Galt. You must have made very good time. I was reckoning on this final concert being over, or nearly over, by the time you arrived.”

It was like coming into a familiar room which had been emptied of its furniture, and was no longer familiar. All the echoes were wrong, all the tones distorted so acutely that Lucien felt his balance affected, and spread his feet aggressively to grip reality more firmly. Even in the car he had this feeling of disorientation, but now it went over him as acutely as panic, and left him sick and frightened. He had made a detailed statement admitting his responsibility for the death of Arundale, why wasn’t he under arrest? Even if his escorts from London had been instructed only to deliver him safely to the man in charge, here, presumably, was the man in charge, and still nothing seemed to be about to happen. He gripped the back of the chair that was offered him, and stood taut and distrustful, his eyes roving the room.

“I don’t understand. Why did I have to come back here? Was that fair? I haven’t made any trouble for your men, I’ve co-operated as well as I can, I’m not disputing anything I’ve done. So why…?”

“Sit down,” said George.

It wasn’t worth arguing about; Lucien sat. George came round the desk and sat on the front corner, looking his capture over with interest. Black as a gypsy, strung fine as a violin, a slender, dark, wild creature, with arrogant eyes shadowed now by grief and fear, and a hypersensitive, proud mouth that was ready to curl even at this moment. Like his picture, but even more like the picture his friends and enemies had built up of him for the man who had never set eyes on him until now.

“I’ve made a statement,” said Lucien. “It should clear up everything for you. I suppose he has to transcribe it, or whatever. I don’t know what more you want.”

“Then I’ll tell you. I want another hour and a half of apparent normality here. After that we can be as businesslike as you please.” He saw the tired eyes question doubtfully, and smiled. “Mr. Galt, I believe you’ll have a certain sympathy with our concern for this place. It may not be perfect, what it does may not go very far, or be very profound. But with all that, it is a pretty remarkable institution. It brings music, and what’s more, knowledge and desire of music, to people who’ve perhaps never really experienced it before. If its appeal fell off as the result of a scandal and a notorious case, or if its enemies – oh, yes, anything that can be called cultural has always more than enough enemies – if its enemies got an effective weapon to use against it, it might be killed for good, and that would be a real loss. There’s going to be publicity, inquest and trial can’t be avoided. There’s going to be a bad period; but if we can minimise the effect as much as possible, Follymead may survive. That’s why I want to take no action whatever until this course has dispersed. The next can be called off without too much backwash. So let’s at least wait until the house is empty to-night, before we start talking in terms of guilt and arrests.”

After a brief and dubious silence Lucien said slowly: “I’m not sure what it is you want of me.”

“I want you to give me your word not to try to get away, just to wait and behave normally until the party has left.”

Lucien moistened his lips. His eyes kindled suddenly into a slightly feverish glitter. “This is a straightforward concert for the finish?”

“Yes. Until half past six. Then they all go home.”

“Is Liri taking part?”

“Yes, Liri’s taking part.”

He thought of her head bent over the guitar, the great braid of hair coiled on her neck, the suave curve of her cheek and the intent, burnished brow, and of the voice achingly pure and clear and passionate. He thought of a future blank with confinement and solitude, where the voice could not penetrate.

“If you’ll let me sit in on this concert, all right, I give you my word I won’t cause you any trouble.”

He didn’t believe there would be any response to that offer, he was sure they’d never risk him among the crowd.

But Inspector Felse had got to his feet briskly, and swept his papers into a drawer.

“Agreed, if you don’t mind my company. And in that case we’d better go in, hadn’t we? They’ll be starting any minute.”

From her place among the artists, Liri saw them come in.

The lights were already dimmed, the hum of voices was becoming muted and expectant, and it was time. There at the back of the great room people moved about gently in obscurity, settling themselves, changing their places, finding comfortable leg-room. For once Professor Penrose came a little late to his place, and in haste, having taken too long a nap after tea; but for that the programme would have begun before the padded door at the back of the room opened again, and her attention would have been on the singers, and not on the two late-comers. As it was, she was gazing beyond the last rank of chairs in the shadow, beyond even the walls of the room, when the opening of the door caused her to shorten her sights, and return to here and now. And the person who came in was Lucien.

Her heart turned in her, even before she saw George Felse follow him into the room, and edge along after him behind the audience, to a seat against the wall. So they had him, after all. He wasn’t used to running from things, and he hadn’t run fast enough, and now they had him, back here where the thing had happened that never should have happened, the wasted, meaningless thing in which she still couldn’t believe. She felt the walls closing in on her, too.

And yet if he was under arrest, what was he doing here? There seemed to be no constraint upon him, even if the inspector had come in with him, and taken a seat beside him on the elegant little gilt and velvet couch against the tapestried wall. They sat there like any other two members of the audience, she even saw them exchange a few words, with every appearance of normality. What was happening? There was something here that was not as it seemed to be, and she could not make out what it was, or whom it threatened.

She looked to the inspector for a clue, but his face was smooth and reserved and quite unreadable, there was no way of guessing what was going on in the mind behind it. If she had gone in terror of the obvious end, now she found herself equally afraid of some other eventuality beyond her grasp. Why bring a prisoner here into this room? She could understand that the police might prefer to get all these people out of here before they took decisive action, but even so, why bring Lucien to the gathering?

A hand jogged her arm. The professor’s insinuating voice begged her winningly: “Your legs are younger than mine, lass. Run and fetch my notebook for me, will you? I went and left it in the warden’s office before tea, and forgot to collect it again.”