sorry, don’t look so awful.”
”I know you’re only waiting for me to be gone, you’re only waiting-“
”Bruno, stop it! Look, I’ll search the landing and the stairs, all the way down to my room. It may have got dropped somewhere on the way. Do try to compose yourself. You haven’t even opened your
”I want that stamp-“
”Don’t be so childish. I’ll go on looking. You just read the paper for Christ’s sake. Read about the Thames flood menace. That’ll take your mind off stamps.”
Danby came out, followed by Nigel, and shut the door. As he began examining the linoleum on the landing he felt a soft touch on his shoulder.
”Oh clear off, Nigel. This is one of your dream days.”
”Could I talk to you a moment?”
”No.”
”It’s about the stamp.”
Danby straightened up. Nigel had moved on into his own room and Danby followed him.
Nigel’s room presented a stripped and drear appearance. All the furniture had been pushed back against the walls and the dressing table had been banished onto the landing. The centre light showed a square of shabby brown carpet in the middle of the room, a surrounding section of unstained boards, and a further section of much worn cheaply stained wood floor. Some Indian painted wooden animals stood on the chest of drawers together with two jam jars containing anemones and narcissus. The narcissus had faded to the colour and texture of old thin paper. Nigel stood on one leg in the centre of the carpet stroking down his long lank side-locks of dark hair so that they met under his chin. He motioned Danby to shut the door.
”What do you do in here?” said Danby. “Dance?”
”I know where that stamp is.”
”Oh. Where is it?”
”What will you do for me if I tell you?”
”Nothing.”
”You’ll owe me something.”
”Stop babbling, Nigel. Where’s the stamp?”
”Adelaide took it.”
”Adelaide?”
”Yes.”
”That can’t be true,” said Danby. “You’re romancing, you’ve had too much of whatever bloody stuff it is you take.”
”Truly. She didn’t take it for herself. She took it for Will Boase. It was his idea.”
”For Will Boase? Why on earth-?”
”He wanted a camera.”
”Christ. But why should Adelaide do that for Will Boase?”
”Better ask her.”
”Nigel, is this true?”
”Yes, yes, yes. Cross my heart.”
Danby left the room and bounded down the stairs. “Adelaide!”
Adelaide was in her room sitting on her bed staring in front of her. She looked as if she had been crying.
”Adelaide, Nigel says you took that stamp, but this is ridiculous-“
”It’s true.”
Danby sat down on the bed beside her. “He says you took it for Will Boase.”
”Yes.”
”But why?” Adelaide shook her head slowly from side to side and tears began to course down her cheeks. She still stared, not looking at Danby. She said nothing.
”Well,” said Danby after a moment, “whatever the reason you can bloody well get it back again, and if your worthless thieving cousin has sold it he can bloody well give us the money or see the police. I’ll write him a letter and you can take it over straightaway. Bruno wants that stamp. I’ll tell him we found it somewhere. How could you be so unkind to the old man?”
Adelaide began to sob. “Oh stop it, Adelaide. I’ve had enough today. Sorry I was rough, but it’s all a bit much.”
Adelaide began to scream. Sitting stiffly and still staring at the door she uttered a series of low piercing bubbling screams which crowded in her throat as they fought for utterance. Saliva foamed down onto her chin.
Danby turned her round towards him and slapped her face.
The screams stopped, but the next moment Danby felt himself gripped by the shoulders and almost hurled off the bed. Punching, kicking, biting, Adelaide had attached herself to the whole length of his body. Caught off his balance he could not get his hands between them. He felt her teeth at his neck. The next moment they had both fallen heavily onto the floor.
Danby pulled himself up. Adelaide lay where she had fallen, leaning on one elbow, her hair rolling about her, looking up at him with a contorted face.
”Adelaide-please-what is it-you’ve gone mad-“
”You despise me,” she said. “You regard me as a servant. You treat me as a slave. You wouldn’t dream of marrying me, oh no. I’m cheap trash. I’m just good to go to bed with for a while. I’m convenient, easy. You don’t really care about me at all.
Danby was trembling. “Adelaide, please don’t speak like that. Don’t worry about the stamp. We’ll deal with it tomorrow. Better get yourself to bed. Shall I bring you a hot drink, some aspirins or something?”
He hesitated at the door. Then he went out closing it behind him. He went straight up into the hall and out of the house into a dark continuum of light driving rain.
Adelaide got up from her bed. She felt bruised and stiff and her face ached with crying. She thought, I’ll kill myself. She looked in the mirror and the sight of her terrible face brought on more tears. She leaned against the wall gasping with sobs.
It was nearly three o’clock in the morning and Danby had not come back. Or perhaps he had come back and gone out again. During the first two or three hours after his departure Adelaide had been crying too frenziedly into her pillow to be at all conscious of her surroundings. Later she thought that she heard Bruno calling. Now there was only the rain.
She could not yet understand what had happened or why it had happened. She had been mad to take the stamp. She had known that even before she gave it to Will. She had gone over to Camden Town with the stamp in her handbag, still un decided about whether to give it to him or to return it. After Auntie had gone to bed they had started quarrelling as usual. Adelaide had made some sarcastic remarks about Will’s flirtation with Mrs. Greensleave. The memory of this scene had begun to torment Adelaide. She particularly resented the ease with which Mrs. Greensleave had got into conversation with Will. For Adelaide to converse with Will was difficult, even flirting with Will was awkward, inarticulate, perilous. Mrs. Greensleave had seemed to find it all very easy. Adelaide told Will he had behaved like a flattered servant and simpered like a petted boy. Will had been extremely angry. Adelaide declared that if Will telephoned Mrs. Greensleave she would not see him again. Will professed himself quite unmoved by this threat and announced his intention of telephoning Mrs. Greensleave forthwith. Reduced at last to tears of rage and helpless misery Adelaide had thrown the stamp onto the table. The scene had ended with Will delighted, attentive, loving, promising never to communicate with Mrs. Greensleave again.
It was all unworthy, horrible, muddled, nasty to look back upon. Oh she had cried so much in these last days. And it had ended in this insanity, which must have broken Danby’s love for her forever. Even if he was kind to her now he must regard her as a mad person. He would always be nervous of her, watching for a recurrence of that awful fury. Indeed she had frightened herself. Yet Adelaide knew that she was not mad, she was just driven somehow beyond the bounds of her en durance.
She opened the door of her room. Danby’s door opposite was still open and the room was dark. She walked across and turned the light on. The bed was still made up, not slept in, the curtains were not drawn across the
