Above the throb and tapping of the engine and the rain, he heard her, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Do you really think, Laurence, that the coincidence of the crest on Eleanor’s cigarette case with the one on Mrs Hogg’s hairbrushes is plausible?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I didn’t invent the coincidence. There it was.
‘Quite,’ she said.
They were losing on the Sunbeam Alpine. Laurence put on speed, so that the noise of the engine made conversation impossible. But when he had regained his ground, doing an easy fifty over the bright wet road, she asked him, ‘Do you want to understand my point of view, Laurence?’
‘Yes, darling, I do. Try to be reasonable.’
‘It’s a question of what you choose,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t been on the look-out for some connexion between the Hogarths and poor Mrs Hogg you wouldn’t have lit on that crest. And you wouldn’t have been looking for it if you hadn’t been influenced in that direction. I nearly fell for the trick myself, that night I stayed with the Baron. He happened to let fall a remark; it seemed to point to the suspicion that he’d been seeing your grandmother secretively during the past year, and quite often. But personally, I reject the suspicion — I refuse to have my thoughts and actions controlled by some unknown, possibly sinister being. I intend to subject him to reason. I happen to be a Christian. I happen —’
‘You think the Baron’s been seeing Grandmother?’ Laurence pressed her. ‘How did you come to think that? It’s very important, dear, do tell me.’
The Sunbeam Alpine was still ahead of them. The girl at the wheel said something to her companion, who looked round. They obviously expected a race. Laurence accelerated.
‘No,’ Caroline said. ‘That’s just the point. I won’t be involved in this fictional plot if I can help it. In fact, I’d like to spoil it. If I had my way I’d hold up the action of the novel. It’s a duty.’
‘Do tell me what the Baron said about my grandmother,’ Laurence said. ‘That would be the reasonable thing, my dear.’
‘No, it would involve me. I intend to stand aside and see if the novel has any real form apart from this artificial plot. I happen to be a Christian.’
She said a good deal more against the plot. Laurence thought in his misery, ‘She really is mad, after all. There’s no help for it, Caroline is mad.’ And he thought of the possibility of the long months and perhaps years ahead in which he might have to endure the sight of Caroline, his love, a mental chaos, perhaps in an asylum for months, years.
She said a great deal more about the artificial plot. Once she broke off to warn him.
‘Laurence, don’t try to chase those girls. They’ve got a supercharger.’
But he took no notice, and she continued to assure him of her resolution not to be involved in any man’s story.
It was all very well for Caroline to hold out for what she wanted and what she didn’t want in the way of a plot. All very well for her to resolve upon holding up the action. Easy enough for her to criticize. Laurence speeded up and touched seventy before they skidded and crashed. The Sunbeam Alpine slowed down and turned back. Laurence was still conscious, though the pain in his chest was fierce, when he saw the girls get out of their shiny racer and come towards his, where he lay entangled in his wreckage.
He saw Caroline too, her face covered with blood beside him, one of her legs bent back beneath her body most unnaturally, a sight not to be endured after he had noted her one faint moan and one twist.
PART TWO
SIX
A woman came in three days a week to do housework for Louisa Jepp. It was on one of these days that Mrs Hogg called at the cottage.
Mrs Jepp, keeping her on the doorstep, said, ‘I cannot ask you to come inside, Mrs Hogg. My woman is all over the floors. Is it anything in particular?’
‘Perhaps this afternoon,’ Mrs Hogg said, and she was looking over Louisa’s shoulder into the interior, right through to the green back garden.
‘No. This afternoon I’m going to see my grandson in hospital. Master Laurence has had an accident. Is it anything in particular, Mrs Hogg?’
‘I would like to inquire for Laurence.’
‘That’s kind of you. Master Laurence is progressing
‘I have a message for Laurence. That’s why I came personally.’ ‘All the way from the North of England,’ stated Louisa. Mrs Hogg said, ‘I’m here for the day. From London.’ ‘Come round to the back and we shall sit in the garden.’ It was a day of mild November light and sun. Louisa led the way among her pigeons across the small green patch to the bench in front of her loganberry bush.
Mrs Hogg sat down beside her, fished into her carrier bag, and pulled out an old yellow fox cape which she arranged and patted on her shoulders.
‘This time of year,’ she said.
Louisa thought, ‘My charwoman is turned out more ladylike, and yet this woman is of good family.’ She said, ‘Is it anything special, your message for Master Laurence?’ And while there was time she added on second thoughts, ‘He is quite able to read although not sitting up yet, if you would care to write a note.’
‘Oh no,’ said Mrs Hogg.
Louisa thought, ‘I thought not.’
