'You do understand, don't you? I want to feel settled down and happy and safe. I shall with you. I'm so sick of being in love. It always goes wrong somehow and ends in a mess. I like you, George. You're nice and funny and sweet and you think I'm wonderful. That's what I want.'
He had answered rather incoherently: 'Steady does it. We'll be as happy as kings.'
Well, that hadn't been far wrong. They had been happy. He'd always felt humble in his own mind. He'd always told himself that there were bound to be snags. Rosemary wasn't going to be satisfied with a dull kind of chap like himself. There would be incidents! He'd schooled himself to accept – incidents!
He would hold firm to the belief that they wouldn't be lasting! Rosemary would always come back to him. Once let him accept that view and all would be well.
For she was fond of him. Her affection for him was constant and unvarying. It existed quite apart from her flirtations and her love affairs.
He had schooled himself to accept those. He had told himself that they were inevitable with someone of Rosemary's susceptible temperament and her unusual beauty. What he had not bargained for were his own reactions.
Flirtations with this young man and that were nothing, but when he first got an inkling of a serious affair –
He'd known quick enough, sensed the difference in her. The rising excitement, the added beauty, the whole glowing radiance. And then what his instinct told him was confirmed by ugly concrete facts.
There was that day when he'd come into her sitting-room and she had instinctively covered with her hand the page of the letter she was writing. He'd known then. She was writing to her lover.
Presently, when she went out of the room, he went across to the blotter. She had taken the letter with her, but the blotting sheet was nearly fresh. He'd taken it across the room and held it up to the glass – seen the words in Rosemary's dashing script, 'My own beloved darling…'
His blood had sung in his ears. He understood in that moment just what Othello had felt. Wise resolutions? Pah! Only the natural man counted. He'd like to choke the life out of her! He'd like to murder the fellow in cold blood. Who was it? That fellow Browne? Or that stick Stephen Farraday? They'd both of them been making sheep's eyes at her.
He caught sight of his face in the glass. His eyes were suffused with blood. He looked as though he were going to have a fit.
As he remembered that moment, George Barton let his glass fall from his hand. Once again he felt the choking sensation, the beating blood in his ears. Even now – With an effort he pushed remembrance away. Mustn't go over that again. It was past – done with. He wouldn't ever suffer like that again. Rosemary was dead. And at peace. And he was at peace too. No more suffering…
Funny to think that that was what her death had meant to him. Peace…
He'd never told even Ruth that. Good girl, Ruth. A good head-piece on her. Really, he didn't know what he would do without her.
The way she helped. The way she always sympathised. And never a hint of sex. Not man mad like Rosemary…
Rosemary… Rosemary sitting at the round table in the restaurant. A little thin in the face after 'flu – a little pulled down – but lovely, so lovely. And only an hour later – No, he wouldn't think of that. Not just now. His plan. He would think of The Plan.
He'd speak to Race first. He'd show Race the letters. What would Race make of these letters? Iris had been dumbfounded. She evidently hadn't had the slightest idea. Well, he was in charge of the situation now. He'd got it all taped.
The Plan. All worked out. The date. The place.
Nov. 2nd. All Souls' Day. That was a good touch. The Luxembourg , of course. He'd try to get the same table.
And the same guests. Anthony Browne, Stephen Farraday, Sandra Farraday. Then, of course, Ruth and Iris and himself. And as the odd, the seventh guest, he'd get Race. Race who was originally to have been at the dinner. And there would be one empty place. It would be splendid!
Dramatic!
A repetition of the crime.
Well, not quite a repetition…
His mind went back…
Rosemary's birthday…
Rosemary, sprawled forward on that table – dead…
Book II – ALL SAINT'S DAY
'Here is the rosemary, which brings remembrance'
Chapter 1
Lucilla Drake was twittering. That was the term always used in the family and it was really a very apt description of the sounds that issued from Lucilla's kindly lips.
She was concerned on this particular morning with many things – so many that she found it hard to pin her attention down to one at a time. There was the imminence of the move back to town and the household problems involved in that move. Servants, housekeeping, winter storage, a thousand minor details – all these contended with a concern over Iris's looks.
'Really, dear, I feel quite anxious about you – you look so white and washed out – as though you hadn't slept – did you sleep? If not, there's that nice sleeping preparation of Dr Wylie's or was it Dr Gaskell's? – which reminds me – I shall have to go and speak to the grocer myself – either the maids have been ordering in things on their own, or else it's deliberate swindling on his part. Packets and packets of soap flakes – and I never allow more than three a week. But perhaps a tonic would be better? Baton's syrup, they used to give when I was a girl. And spinach, of course. I'll tell cook to have spinach for lunch today.'
Iris was too languid and too used to Mrs Drake's discursive style to inquire why the mention of Dr Gaskell should have reminded her aunt of the local grocer, though had she done so, she would have received the immediate response: 'Because the grocer's name is Cranford, my dear.' Aunt Lucilla's reasoning was always crystal clear to herself.
Iris merely said with what energy she could command, 'I'm perfectly well, Aunt Lucilla.'
'Black under the eyes,' said Mrs Drake. 'You've been doing too much.'
'I've done nothing at all – for weeks.'
'So you think, dear. But too much tennis is overtiring for young girls. And I think the air down here is inclined to be enervating. This place is in a hollow. If George had consulted me instead of that girl.'
'Girl?'
'That Miss Lessing he thinks so much of. All very well in the office, I daresay – but a great mistake to take her out of her place. Encourage her to think herself one of the family. Not that she needs much encouragement, I should say.'
'Oh, well, Aunt Lucilla, Ruth is practically one of the family.'
Mrs Drake sniffed. 'She means to be – that's quite clear. Poor George – really an infant in arms where women are concerned. But it won't do, Iris. George must be protected from himself and if I were you I should make
