had not come. And poor Fanny had been moved to London before they came. Perhaps he ought to have lied to her about the swallows.
The relaxation of the dying hand. He jumped to feel Ann's clasp upon his Ann. She had been saying something to him. It was all over. He had seen the coffin awkwardly descend into the watery pit and heard the earth fall upon it. It was allover. He turned stiffly about and let Ann lead him slowly into the quietly shifting crowd. The priest who had performed the ceremony murmured something inaudible to him. Douglas Swann came up beside him and took his other Ann. He was an old man being led away. This was what was conveyed to him by Ann's gentle pressure, by the bowing, melting, solicitous, curious crowd. He shuffled along, seeing in front of him now the gate of the cemetery, the rows of cars outside in the road. Douglas Swann was putting up an umbrella over him and making some remark. about the rain. In another moment or two he would be out again in the ordinary world.
He turned round to know if Randall and the children were following, and saw like a shaft of light through a cloud a momentarily opened vista between the rows of dark figures. Something at the far end of that vista arrested his attention for a second before the opening was closed again by the movement of people towards the gate. Two women he had seen like bats clinging together, their glasses glinting under the black canopy, two women facing him in grotesque stillness down the rainswept vista. One of them was Emma. Hugh stopped. The vision had gone, but as if to confirm its reality he caught sight of the intent averted face of his son, and his son's hand descending after a gesture of greeting. Hugh stood still for another moment. Then he set his feet in motion.
He passed slowly along the line of cars. He passed Randall's Vauxxhall and Felix Meecham's very dark blue Mercedes. Here at last was his own clumsy capacious Standard Vanguard.
Hugh staggered slightly as he came towards the car. Ann was still tugging his arm and insisting that she should be allowed to come with him and drive the Vanguard. Close behind them Clare Swann was absently humming
Chapter two
'I THOUGHT this lot for the refugees, said Ann, and these perhaps I might offer to Nancy Bowshott. What do you think?
They were sorting out Fanny's things. Ann had been very firm that they should do it at once and 'get it over, and Hugh supposed she was right; though when it came to it he could hardly bear it. At the funeral he had felt unreal and detached while Ann sobbed. Now when he wished to give himself up to a small frenzy of grief Ann was being calm and busy and practical. That was just like a woman. All the same he was deeply grateful to Ann, grateful to her for having insisted on having Fanny at Grayhallock, for having insisted on nursing Fanny. Without Ann the last six months would have been for him an almost unendurable torment.
It was Sunday morning and they had all been back at Grayhallock for three days. Some pale sunshine made the soaked garden glitter and the steaming spongy lawn warm to the touch. More distantly, between the beech trees, the bleak lines of spiky rose bushes could be seen, sloping away below the house, scattered with a confetti of multicoloured points; and below and beyond there stretched towards the invisible sea the flat pale green expanse of Romney Marsh, crossed with reedy dykes and dotted with distant sheep and presenting to the, eye towards a bluer horizon a remarkable number of tree-shielded and variously shaped church towers. It was still early in the month of June.
'And I thought we might give some little thing to Clare as a memento, said Ann. 'She was so terribly good to Fanny.
'Whatever you think best, said Hugh. 'But what about you and Miranda?
'Somehow, I'd rather not, said Ann, 'for myself I thought perhaps Miranda might have some of the cheaper bits of jewellery, if you didn't mind? I remember a painted bead necklace —’
'Why ever should I mind? said Hugh irritably. 'Everything belongs to the family. Naturally I assumed you'd have all the jewellery. There's no point in sending it out to Sarah.
'But some of it's valuable —’
'Oh, for God's sake, Ann, said Hugh, 'don't make a fuss! Everything to do with money and possessions was so depressing. He knew Ann was incapable of resentment, but how tactless she was all the same. This was no moment for scrupulous counting.
He sat down on the bed. It had been odd, coming back into this so familiar room in which he had seen the season change from winter to spring, and now finding the bed all folded and flattened. There had been the mornings when he came in fearing to find Fanny dead. And there was Fanny's poor old dressing-gown still hanging on the door. Ann had given her another one for going to London. Of course he had loved his wife. Any idea he might have had to the contrary was romantic and irresponsible and absurd. That was what was hollow. His marriage, whatever its shortcomings, had been a real living thing and not an empty shell. He had imagined that now, when it was all over, he might have felt, all the same, a sort of relief. But what came to him instead was a quite new sorrow, a dreadful sense of her absence. He kept missing her, searching for her. But she was nowhere now.
Ann kept turning over the heaps of clothing and going through the pockets. The action had an air of thieving absurdly at odds with the plain humble expression of face which she had put on for the sad little scene. There was not much to find. There had not been much to find in the desk either. Poor Fanny had had no secrets. She had been woman without mystery. There had been no darkness in her. And Hugh, as he looked at intent Ann, pale shabby Ann with her short lank ginger hair pushed back behind her ears, reflected that she was, after all, in this way, not unlike Fanny. Both he and his son had married women without darkness.
'I hope Randall won't mind our deciding things without him, said Ann.
'He'd better not mind!
On their return to Grayhallock Randall had retired to his room and had stayed there in a sort of voluntary state of siege. Nancy Bowshott, the head gardener's wife, brought him up his meals; and Miranda reported that he emerged each day at dawn, armed with secateurs, cut the newly opened bourbons and gallicas. Ann had apparently not set eyes on him. Hugh, who had seen his son's mйnage under strain before, had refrained from comment.
'I suppose he hasn't changed his view about coming to Seton Blaise? said Hugh.
Seton Blaise was the Finch's house, some ten miles distant from Grayhallock. Mildred Finch had rung up on the previous day to invite them allover to dinner on the Sunday evening. Randall had refused to have anything to do with the invitation and was reported by a giggling Nancy Bowshott as saying that he had no desire to be patronized by that horse in human form. He thus designated Colonel Meecham. Ann had then told Mildred that they could not come to dinner; but Mildred in turn had made her promise at least to bring her depleted party over for drinks at six o'clock.
'No, said Ann. She hitched up her skirt and began folding the clothes. She added, 'I'm so glad Penny will have a chance to see Seton Blaise. He ought to see a real English country house. It's a pity Mildred and Humphrey weren't here earlier on. It would have been a nice change for him after the chaos here.
'Our chaos is ceremony to him, said Hugh. 'And you know he thinks Grayhallock is terribly romantic!
What a mess they'd all between them made of Penn's visit. He was to have spent a term at an English school, but they had bungled the arrangements and then it was too late to get him in; so that since his arrival in April he had been simply hanging round the house, helping Ann with the washing up; running errands for whoever was looking after Fanny, and generally acting as a rather bedraggled page to the long sad event which had lately proceeded to its end.
'It's true that he sees no evil, said Ann.
She sighed while Hugh attended for a moment to the more sinister aspects of the chaos to which she had referred.
She stopped her folding and went on, 'Poor boy. You know, I hope he doesn't feel that all the time we're comparing him unfavourably with Steve —’
Hugh got up. He was always pained and amazed at the free way in which Ann was able to refer to Steve. 'I don't see why he should feel that. No one has particularly talked to him about Steve, so far as I know. There was no
