ashamed of his melodramatic fancy, he held it towards the bar of the electric fire but nothing resulted. With a sigh he tossed the programme back on to the table. But he felt justifiably annoyed. All this rigmarole, a rendezvous on a windy and rainy bridge overlooking the river! Sitting through a concert by the side of a woman of whom he yearned to ask at least a dozen questions — and at the end of it? Nothing! No further on. Still, she had met him. But why? If she didn't want to speak to him, to make further arrangements with him, why had she come at all?
His eyes passed idly across the room to his bookcase which he reserved for various thrillers, works of detective fiction and an occasional volume of science fiction; he shook his head. Fiction, he thought, was infinitely superior to real life! Dead bodies, mysterious telephone calls, beautiful foreign spies in profusion! However, this particular elusive lady might not have done with him yet. Next time, he thought, he would make some arrangements of his own. Two could play at the game that she was playing.
He pushed aside the programme and drank another cup of coffee and went to the window. He had the programme still in his hand. As he looked out towards the street below his eyes fell back again on the open programme in his hand and he hummed to himself, almost unconsciously. He had a good ear for music and he could hum the notes that were scrawled there quite easily. Vaguely they sounded familiar as he hummed them. He increased his voice a little. What was it now? Tum, tum, tum tum ti-tum. Tum. Tum. Yes, definitely familiar.
He started opening his letters.
They were mostly uninteresting. A couple of invitations, one from the American Embassy, one from Lady Athelhampton, a Charity Variety performance which Royalty would attend and for which it was suggested five guineas would not be an exorbitant fee to obtain a seat. He threw them aside lightly. He doubted very much whether he wished to accept any of them. He decided that instead of remaining in London he would without more ado go and see his Aunt Matilda, as he had promised. He was fond of his Aunt Matilda though he did not visit her very often. She lived in a rehabilitated apartment consisting of a series of rooms in one wing of a large Georgian manor house in the country which she had inherited from his grandfather. She had a large, beautifully proportioned sitting-room, a small oval dining-room, a new kitchen made from the old housekeeper's room, two bedrooms for guests, a large comfortable bedroom for herself with an adjoining bathroom, and adequate quarters for a patient companion who shared her daily life. The remains of a faithful domestic staff were well provided for and housed. The rest of the house remained under dust sheets with periodical cleaning. Stafford Nye was fond of the place, having spent holidays there as a boy. It had been a gay house then. His eldest uncle had lived there with his wife and their two children. Yes, it had been pleasant there then. There had been money and a sufficient staff to run it. He had not specially noticed in those days the portraits and pictures. There had been large-sized examples of Victorian art occupying pride of place — overcrowding the walls, but there had been other masters of an older age. Yes, there had been some good portraits there. A Raeburn, two Lawrences, a Gainsborough, a Lely, two rather dubious Vandykes. A couple of Turners, too. Some of them had had to be sold to provide the family with money. He still enjoyed when visiting there strolling about and studying the family pictures.
His Aunt Matilda was a great chatterbox but she always enjoyed his visits. He was fond of her in a desultory way, but he was not quite sure why it was that he had suddenly wanted to visit her now. And what it was that had brought family portraits into his mind? Could it have been because there was a portrait of his sister Pamela by one of the leading artists of the day twenty years ago. He would like to see that portrait of Pamela and look at it more closely. See how close the resemblance had been between the stranger who had disrupted his life in this really outrageous fashion an his sister.
He picked up the Festival Hall programme again with some irritation and began to hum the pencilled notes. Tum tum, ti tum —
Then it came to him and he knew what it was — it was the Siegfried motif. Siegfried's Horn. The young Siegfried motif. That was what the woman had said last night Not apparently to him, not apparently to anybody. But it had been the message, a message that would have mean nothing to anyone around since it would have seemed to refer to the music that had just been played. And the motif had been written on his programme also in musical terms.
The Young Siegfried. It must have meant something. Well, perhaps further enlightenment would come. The Young Siegfried. What the hell did that mean? Why and how and when and what? Ridiculous! All those questioning words. He rang the telephone and obtained Aunt Matilda's number.
'But of course, Staffy dear, it will be lovely to have you. Take the four-thirty train, it still runs, you know, but it gets here an hour and a half later. And it leaves Paddington later — five-fifteen. That's what they mean by improving the railways, I suppose. Stops at several most absurd stations on the way. All right. Horace will meet you at King's Marston.'
'He's still there then?'
'Of course he's still there.'
'I suppose he is,' said Sir Stafford Nye.
Horace, once a groom, then a coachman, had survived as a chauffeur, and apparently was still surviving. 'He must be at least eighty,' said Sir Stafford. He smiled to himself.
Chapter 6
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
'You look very nice and brown, dear,' said Aunt Matilda surveying him appreciatively. 'That's Malaya , I suppose. It was Malaya you went to? Or was it Siam or Thailand ? They change the names of all these places and really it makes it very difficult. Anyway, it wasn't Vietnam , was it? You know, I don't like the sound of Vietnam at all. It's all very confusing. North Vietnam and South Vietnam and the Viet-Cong and the Viet — whatever the other thing is — and all wanting to fight each other and nobody wanting to stop. They won't go to Paris or wherever it is and sit round tables and talk sensibly. Don't you think really, dear –
'I've been thinking it over and I thought it would be a very nice solution — couldn't you make a lot of football fields and then they could all go and fight each other there, but with less lethal weapons. Not that nasty palm burning stuff. You know. Just hit each other and punch each other and all that. They'd enjoy it, everyone would enjoy it and you could charge admission for people to go and see them do it. I do think really that we don't understand giving people the things they really want.'
'I think it's a very fine idea of yours, Aunt Matilda,' said Sir Stafford Nye as he kissed a pleasantly perfumed, pale pink wrinkled cheek. 'And how are you, my dear?'
'Well, I'm old,' said Lady Matilda Cleckheaton. 'Yes, I'm old. Of course you don't know what it is to be old. If it isn't one thing it's another. Rheumatism or arthritis or a nasty bit of asthma or a sore throat or an ankle you've turned.
'Always something, you know. Nothing very important. But there it is. Why have you come to see me, dear?'
Sir Stafford was slightly taken aback by the directness of the query.
'I usually come and see you when I return from a trip abroad.'
'You'll have to come one chair nearer,' said Aunt Matilda. 'I'm just that bit deafer since you saw me last. You look different… Why do you look different?'
'Because I'm more sunburnt. You said so.'
'Nonsense, that's not what I mean at all. Don't tell me it's a girl at last.'
'A girl?'
'Well, I've always felt it might be one some day. The trouble is you've got too much sense of humour.'
'Now why should you think that?'
'Well, it's what people do think about you. Oh yes, they do. Your sense of humour is in the way of your career, too. You know, you're all mixed up with all these people. Diplomatic and political. What they call younger statesmen and elder statesmen and middle statesmen too. And all those different Parties. Really I think it's too silly to have too many Parties. First of all those awful, awful Labour people.' She raised her Conservative nose into the air. 'Why, when I was a girl there wasn't such a thing as a Labour Party. Nobody would have known what you meant by it. They'd have said 'nonsense'. Pity it wasn't nonsense, too. And then there's the Liberals, of course, but they're terribly wet. And then there are the Tories, or the Conservatives as they call themselves again now.'
