The Uckfields asked us in for a drink when we arrived at Broughton. I think they might have preferred us just to head for home but we accepted, partly out of politeness but also from that ghoulish sense that we all feel when we suspect an evening is not yet quite over. We were (or rather I was) still curious as to whether Charles really had gone to bed, how long it would take Simon and Edith to get home, how Lady Uckfield would behave — any number, in fact, of the different aspects of the case still to be revealed.
Charles was in the drawing room. He had hardly touched the whisky on the table beside his chair and was, I suspect, staring into mid-air until he heard our step. At any rate he seemed to be very puzzled by the women's magazine he had snatched up as we came in. He fetched Scotches for his father and me and some water for Adela (her customary, somewhat lacklustre late-night refreshment) and we all sat down. We had not been there long before the unmistakable sounds of Eric on the staircase told us that the Range Rover at least was back. The four of them came into the room.
'Where's Edith?' said Eric brightly, happy of course to see that she was not back and that therefore he might score some points off her.
'I hope they haven't broken down,' said Adela firmly.
'Oh dear. Might they have?' said Lady Uckfield.
Under silent instruction from Adela, I nodded. 'Simon's car is the most frightful wreck. I do hope not.'
Lady Uckfield recognised instantly that this was a life raft that she could rope to her decks in case of future need. She was not exactly grateful. For her to register gratitude she would have had first to admit to herself that there was anything wrong.
But she was noticeably warm as she joined Adela on the sofa and started to question her about her aunt.
Eric had another try. 'They took forever before they even started the car,' he said. 'We were loaded up and out of the gates before I heard the engine.' But the initiative had slipped from him. The later the errant couple were, the more the family could hide behind fear of a break-down or an accident. All other possible reasons for lateness had by this means been painlessly obviated.
As the conversation became more general and people flopped down into the various chairs and sofas around the room, Charles came up and asked me if I would join him in his office. I forget his excuse, some book or picture he had been meaning to show me, the usual sort of thing, but we both knew that he simply wanted to talk to me alone. I nodded and followed him out, uncomfortably aware of Chase's slightly quizzical smile, and we started down a corridor to the left. I wasn't looking forward to the interview as I had begun to feel responsible for the mayhem that even then I was only just starting to admit might be looming. I had after all been the one to introduce Simon to them. Had I not been in the film I am quite sure he would never have penetrated the charmed circle of the family.
Charles's office, its door sporting one of those 'private' notices that give one such pleasure to set aside, was a smallish corner room some distance away from the drawing and dining rooms used by the family. It was an extension of the main library, still on the principal floor, and so had handsome cornices and door cases and, by day, a fine view across the park from both of its tall windows. A pair of double doors would have connected it to the larger room if they were opened, which, as the library was one of the rooms on the public tour, they seldom if ever were. The fireplace was a delicate one of some kind of pinkish marble and the walls themselves had been covered with crimson damask that stretched from dado to ceiling.
Against it stood high, glazed bookcases that looked as if they had been made for the room. A portrait of some female forebear, painted in a costume for a fancy-dress ball, hung over the chimneypiece, the gilded frame and the marble shelf below stuffed with a mass of invitations, snapshots, notes, postcards — the usual paper chaos with which the upper classes demonstrate their ease with their elegant surroundings.
'This is very nice,' I said. 'Where's Edith's sitting room? Is it next door?'
Charles shook his head. 'Upstairs,' he muttered. 'Quite near our bedroom.'
He stared at me mutely and rather than return his anguished glance, I started to peer at the spines of the books in the cases round the room.
'What do you think?' I heard him say and for a moment I wondered if I was being asked my opinion of some unusual book but catching sight of Charles's face, I thought this was probably not the case. Just to be safe I answered with a question:
'What do you mean?'
'What are they up to?'
He was gruff and tweedy in his manner and I realised that we were embarking on what is called a 'man-to- man' talk. I shuddered at the prospect. Apart from anything else I am a firm believer in the 'least said soonest mended' school of marital harmony — a belief incidentally quite unshaken by marriage itself.
'Oh, Charles, come on,' I said warmly, implying that they couldn't possibly be 'up to' anything. I am not sure whether I was being dishonest in taking this tack. I rather think not. It seems naive but although, looking back, it is clear that Edith and Simon were drawn to each other from the second day, I don't know that their mutual attraction had really impinged itself on me much before that evening.
'You come on,' said Charles, more sharply than usual.
'Look,' I was very conciliatory, 'if you're asking me if I know anything, I don't. If you're asking if I think anything, I don't either. Much. I think they like each other, that's all. Is that so terrible? Haven't you ever wanted to flirt with anyone since you were married?'
'No,' said Charles, slumping into a Chippendale chair, and resting his elbows on a charming and untidy partner's desk. He let his head fall forward into his hands as he spoke and started to push his fingers through his hair. He was posing for a statue of misery. I felt wrong-footed in that I had judged badly to think that warm reassurance would do the trick and yet I didn't want to lead the way into a different level of intimacy, which Charles, whom after all I did not even then know well, might regard as an impertinence. I felt sorry for the fellow and wished to find a way to lighten rather than increase his load. My detached ruminations were interrupted by a sigh from the desk.
'She doesn't love me, you see.' He spoke to a pile of papers beneath his face but since the remark was presumably addressed to me, I tried to assess the correct level of response.
