‘You’ve travelled a great deal,’ Mrs Lysarth said. ‘So Dorothea says.’
‘Yes, I have.’
I didn’t say I’d been an only child. I didn’t mention the seaside town where I’d spent my childhood, or reveal that we’d lived in a kind of disgrace really, that my father worked ignominiously in the offices of the trawling business which the family had once owned. Our name remained on the warehouses and the fish-boxes, a daily reminder that we’d slipped down in the world. I’d told Dorothea, but I didn’t really think all that would interest the other Lysarths.
‘Fascinating, to travel so,’ Mrs Lysarth remarked, politely smiling.
After dinner Dr Lysarth and I were left alone in the dining-room. We drank port in a manner which suggested that had I not been present Dr Lysarth would have sat there drinking it alone. He talked about a Roman pavement, twenty feet below the surface somewhere. Quite suddenly he said:
‘Dorothea wants to marry you.’
‘We both actually –’
‘Yes, so she’s told us.’
I hesitated. I said:
‘I’m – I’m closer to your age, in a way, than to hers.’
‘Yes, you probably are. I’m glad you like her.’
‘I love her.’
‘Of course.’
‘I hope,’ I began.
‘My dear fellow, we’re delighted.’
‘I’m a correspondent, Dr Lysarth, as Dorothea, I think, has told you. I move about a bit, but for the next two years I’ll be in Scandinavia.’
‘Ah, yes.’ He pushed the decanter towards me. ‘She’s a special girl, you know.’
‘Yes, I do know, Dr Lysarth.’
‘We’re awfully fond of her. We’re a tightly bound family – well, you may have noticed. We’re very
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘But of course we’ve always known that Dorothea would one day wish to marry.’
‘I know I’m not what you must have imagined, Dr Lysarth, when you thought of Dorothea’s husband. I assure you I’m aware of that.’
‘It’s just that she’s more vulnerable than she seems to be: I just want to say that. She’s really a very vulnerable girl.’
The decanter was again moved in my direction. The tone of voice closed the subject of Dr Lysarth’s daughter. We returned to archaeological matters.
I spent that night at Wistaria Lodge and noticed at breakfast-time how right Dr Lysarth had been when he’d said that the family was a tightly bound one. Conversation drifted from one Lysarth to the next in a way that was almost artificial, as though the domestic scenes I witnessed belonged in the theatre. I formed the impression that the Lysarths invariably knew what was coming next, as though their lines had been learnt. My presence was accommodated through a telepathy that was certainly as impressive, another piece of practised theatre.
‘Yes, we’re like that,’ Dorothea said in the garden after breakfast. ‘We never seem to quarrel.’
She taught me how to play croquet and when we’d finished one game we were joined by her brothers. Adam was the best of the three and he, partnering Dorothea, easily beat Jonathan and myself. Mrs Lysarth brought a tray of drinks to a white table beside the lawn and we sat and sipped in the sunshine, while I was told of other games of croquet there had been, famous occasions when the tempers of visitors had become a little ragged.
‘It’s a perfect training for life,’ Mrs Lysarth said, ‘the game of croquet.’
‘Cunning pays,’ Adam continued. ‘Generosity must know its place.’
‘Not that we are against generosity, Terris,’ Adam said. ‘Not that we’re on the side of cunning.’
‘What a family poor Terris is marrying into!’ Dorothea cried, and on cue her mother smiled and added:
‘Terris is a natural croquet-player. He will one day put you all to shame.’
‘I doubt that very much.’ And as I spoke I felt I said precisely what was expected of me.
‘You must teach the Scandinavians, Dorothea,’ Adam said. ‘Whatever else, you must flatten out a lawn in your little Scandinavian garden.’
‘Oh yes, of course we shall. So there.’
After lunch Dorothea and I went for a walk. We had to say goodbye because the next day I was to go away; when I returned it would almost be the day we’d set for our wedding. We walked slowly through the village and out into the country. We left the road and passed along a track by the side of a cornfield. We rested by a stream which Dorothea had often told me about, a place she’d come to with her brothers as a child. We sat there, our backs against the same ivy-covered tree-stump. We talked about being married, of beginning our life together in Copenhagen. I made love to Dorothea by her stream, and it was afterwards that she told me the story of Agnes Kemp. She began it as we lay there, and continued while we washed and tidied ourselves and began the journey back to Wistaria Lodge.
‘She was twelve at the time, staying with us while her parents were abroad. She fell from the beech tree. Her
