‘And did you keep up a correspondence with the Schumanns during the war?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Oh, yes – well, I sent my London address to Mrs Schumann – but we did not write very often, just enough, I suppose, to keep in touch. Then, in 1943, Karen and Otto were born, and I suppose she was kept pretty busy looking after them and going to the clinic for their orange juice and cod liver oil or whatever, because for the next few years we scarcely corresponded at all. In fact, it got down to an exchange of cards at Christmas, and that was about the extent of it.’
‘But you picked up the threads later?’ suggested Dame Beatrice.
‘Oh, yes. Ten years ago, when the plan for comprehensive schools was getting under way, I applied for the post I now hold. I have never cared over-much for London and was glad to return to my old haunts.’
‘And this brings us to your second point,’ said Dame Beatrice. James dropped his eyes and fidgeted with his fingers. They were long, white and well-manicured.
‘I suppose it does,’ he said. ‘Oh, well, having said so much, I may as well give you the rest, although it shows nobody up in a particularly good light.’
‘It is connected, of course, with the virtual cessation of correspondence between yourself and the Schumanns.’
‘That is correct. Briefly – and you will understand that even the recollection of it is embarrassing to me – all I can tell you is that before the twins were born and while her husband was in the Pioneer Corps and away from home, Karla, in the plainest possible terms, made a certain suggestion to me. I was, of course, quite horrified, and she withdrew it immediately, pleading that she was lonely, that the war frightened her, that she needed support and comfort, and that she regretted making an advance which was unwelcome to me.
‘I pointed out that I had never given her the slightest reason for thinking that it could be otherwise, and she begged me, in the most abject and heartfelt way, not to allow her ill-judged suggestion to make any difference to our long friendship, but, as you will understand, things could never be the same again between us, and, as gradually as I could, not wishing either to be unkind to her or to arouse any suspicion in Heinrich’s mind that Karla was not as chaste as he would have wished, I almost ceased to correspond with them and I gave up going to see her unless I heard from Heinrich that he would be at home.
‘When he was demobilised, and when having the twin children, I felt, would have altered Karla’s feelings towards me, I picked up the acquaintanceship again. During the war there was little to do but read, so I had embarked upon a further course of study in theology, and it occurred to me that I might try for my doctorate in divinity. I will be frank about my motives in taking up with the Schumanns again. Not only had they been the closest friends I had, but I needed to pick Heinrich’s brains and borrow books from his library.’
‘Had you borrowed from his library before that?’
‘No, never. He had shown me his books, but there had never been any suggestion on the part of either of us that I should borrow them. When I did approach the matter, I found that he was a bibliophile of the type which cannot bear others to handle his collection, so I was obliged to rely upon public libraries and my own purchases for the books I needed. I could understand his attitude and sympathise with it, and I remained his friend up to the day of his death.’
‘Did that come as a shock to you?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Not a shock. I felt grief, of course, and a sense of loss, but he had been ailing with some sort of internal trouble for some time, and complained of pain and had attacks of vomiting. He had been under the doctor for some months, in fact, before he died.’
‘By that time I suppose the twins were more or less grown up,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Yes, they would have been nineteen years old at least. Karen was at the University and intended to teach, and Otto, always an undisciplined, very unsatisfactory boy, had gone to sea at the age of sixteen. Karen had attached herself to me at an early age and I regarded her, until she came out of college, as a privileged younger sister, and, indeed, I have never regarded her in any other way.’
‘Yet you became engaged to her,’ said Maisry.
‘I knew she would accept me if I asked her, and I asked her to safeguard myself, as I thought, from Karla, who, after her husband’s death, importuned me again. However, when Karen obtained a post in the same school as myself, which, it seems, was what she had set her heart on, Karla’s attitude changed. It was she who suggested that I should not come to the cottage more often than about one week-end in four, urging me to work hard for my doctorate and not allow Karen, who was a gay, fun-loving girl, to cause me to dissipate my time, and she also said that Karen was too flighty and unsettled to make a
