her agreeably wherever she went.
But this morning she was not in the mood for Bach or Mozart. She continued to sit as her husband had left her, saying to herself that she must come to terms with what had happened. She had raised her voice but no one had cared to listen to it. Only Golkorn had listened, his great tightly cropped head slowly nodding, his eyes occasionally piercing hers. At the meeting her voice had faltered; her cheeks had warmed; nothing had come out as she’d meant it to.
It worried him that she’d been so upset. He hadn’t known what to say, or to do, when she’d stood up suddenly at the meeting to make her unsuccessful speech. He’d felt himself embarrassed, in sympathy or shame, he couldn’t tell which. He hadn’t been quite able to agree with her and had been surprised when she’d stood up because it wasn’t like her to do anything in public, even though she’d been saying she was unhappy about the thing for months. But then she was so unemphatic as a person that quite often it was hard to guess when she felt strongly.
With other suited men, some carrying as he did a briefcase and a newspaper, he stepped from the train at Waterloo. He strode along the platform with them, one in an army, it often seemed. In spite of how she felt, he really couldn’t help believing that the village had been saved. Their own house and garden, and the glades of silver birches, would in no way suffer. The value of the house would continue to rise with inflation instead of quite sharply declining. There would be calm again in the village instead of angry voices and personal remarks, instead of Colin I hodes saying to Golkorn’s face that he was a foreigner. Thank God it was all over.
‘There’s been a telex,’ Miss Owen informed him in his office. ‘That place in Gibraltar.’
In the breakfast-room Emily’s thoughts had spread out, from her dream of butterflies and the meeting there had been the night before. She saw images of women as they might have been, skulking in the woods near the village, two of them sitting on the stone seat beside the horse-trough on the green, another in a lane with ragwort in her hand. They were harmless women, as Golkorn had kept insisting. It was just that their faces were strange and their movements not properly articulated; nothing, of course, that they said made sense. ‘Anywhere but here,’ snapped the voice of Colin Rhodes, as vividly she recalled the meeting. ‘My God, you’ve got the world to choose from, Golkorn.’
Golkorn had smiled. Their village was beautiful, he had irritatingly stated, as if in reply. Repeatedly it had been said at the meeting last night, and at previous meetings, that the village was special because it Was among the most beautiful in England. The Manor dated back to Saxon times, it had been said, and the cottages round the green were almost unique. But it was that very beauty, and the very peacefulness of the lanes and woods, that Golkorn had claimed would be a paradise for his afflicted women. It was why he had chosen Luffnell Lodge when it went up for sale. Luffnell Lodge was less impressive than the Manor, and certainly nothing like as old. It was larger and less convenient, colder and in worse repair, yet ideal apparently for Golkorn’s purpose. In her dream Emily had been walking with him in a field and he had pointed at what at first she’d taken to be flowers but had turned out to be butterflies. ‘You’ve never seen that before,’ he’d said. ‘Butterflies in mourning, Mrs Mansor.’ They flew away as he spoke, a whole swarm of them, busily flapping their black wings.
She rose and cleared away the breakfast things. She carried them on a tray through the hall and into the kitchen. Her dog, an old Sealyham called. Spratts, wagged his tail without getting out of his basket. On the window-sill in front of the sink, hot with morning sunshine, a butterfly was poised and she thought at once that that was a coincidence. Its wings were tightly closed; it might have been dead but she knew it wasn’t, and when she touched it and the wings opened they were not sinister.
Of course it had been for the best when the Allenbys had realized that to sell Luffnell Lodge to Golkorn would have caused havoc: dealing with the telex about the place in Gibraltar, Hugh found himself yet again thinking that. Golkorn was a frightful person; it was Golkorn’s presence rather than his sick women that one might reasonably object to. Luffnell Lodge would put the village on the map, Golkorn had confidently promised, once it was full of his patients: in medical terms he was making a breakthrough. And Hugh knew that what he had offered the Allenbys was more than they’d get otherwise. You couldn’t blame them, elderly and wanting to get rid of what they’d come to think of as a white elephant, for listening to Golkorn’s adroit arguments. The Allenbys had done nothing wrong and in the end had made the sacrifice. They’d sell the Lodge eventually, it stood to reason, even if they had to wait a bit. ‘You see, we don’t particularly want to wait,’ old Mr Allenby had said. ‘That’s just the trouble. We’ve waited two years as it is.’ The Allenbys had asked Hugh’s advice because they thought that being in the international property market he might know a little more than Musgrove and Carter, who after all were only country estate agents. ‘Dr Golkorn is offering you a most attractive proposition,’ he’d had to admit, no way around that. ‘It could be a while before anyone matched it.’ Mr Allenby had asked if he’d care to handle the sale, in conjunction with Musgrove and Carter, but Hugh had had to explain that property in England was outside his firm’s particular field. ‘Oh, dear, it’s all so difficult,’ Mrs Allenby had disconsolately murmured, clearly most unhappy at the prospect of having to hang on in the Lodge for another couple of years. Hugh had always liked the Allenbys. In many ways, as a friend and as an expert, he should have told them to accept immediately Golkorn’s offer. But he hadn’t and that was that; it was all now best forgotten.
For Hugh that day passed as days did at the office. He dictated letters and received telephone calls. He lunched with a client in the Isola Bella, quite often he thought about his wife. Emily was unhappy because of everything that had happened. She felt, but had not said so, that he had let the Allenbys down. She felt that she herself had let the inmates of Golkorn’s home down. Hugh tried not to think about it; but in his mind’s eye he kept seeing her again, standing up at the meeting and saying that afflicted women have to live somewhere Like mongol children, she had said, stammering; or the blind. ‘That’s quite appreciated, Mrs Mansor,’ the Reverend Feare had murmured, and as if to come to her assistance Golkorn had asked if he might address the meeting. He had nodded his heavy razored head at Emily; he had repeated what she’d said, that afflicted women, like mongol children and the blind, have to go somewhere. He had smiled and spread his hands out, impatient with those who were protesting and yet oilily endeavouring to hide it. A woman present, he’d even suggested, might one day need the home he proposed for Luffnell Lodge. Hugh sighed, remembering it too clearly. He would take Emily out to dinner, to the Rowan House Hotel. He was about to pick up the telephone in order to ask to be put through to her when it rang. Odd, he thought as he picked up the receiver, that she had dreamed so strangely of butterflies.
‘It’s a Dr Golkorn,’ his secretary’s voice said. ‘On the other line, Mr Mansor.’
He hesitated. There was no point in speaking to Golkorn; at half past ten last night Golkorn had lost his case; the matter was closed. Yet something – perhaps just politeness, he afterwards thought – made him pick up the other telephone. ‘Yes?’ he said.
‘It’s Golkorn,’ Golkorn said. ‘Look, Mr Mansor, could we talk?’
‘About the Lodge? But that’s all over, Dr Golkorn. The Allenbys –’
‘Sir, they agreed beneath all this pressure not to let me have the house. But with respect, is that just, sir? At least agree to exchange another word or two with me, Mr Mansor.’
‘It would be useless, I’m afraid.’
‘Mr Mansor, do me a favour.’
