shroud like a cold, wet cloth across the face.
There were disappointing days in the summer when one longed for warmth and brilliance, and yet it persistently rained, and the chill east wind came in off the sea, raising goose pimples on the flesh.
But there were also the days of glory when the sun shone in a perfect sky, great trees a hundred, two hundred feet high soared into the air in a million rustling leaves, elms, whispering poplars, silver-stemmed birches and the great beeches she loved most of all.
The land was always green; the depth of summer or the bleakest winter did not parch or freeze it. And the abundance of flowers must surely be unique. She could have named a hundred varieties without having to resort to a book. Now as she stood in the afternoon sunlight looking down her long, shaven velvet lawn to the cedar, and the elms beyond, an Albertine rose in a wild profusion of sprays was spilling over the old stone wall, uncountable buds ready to open into a foam of coral and pink blossom. The spires of delphiniums rose in front of it, ready to bloom in royal and indigo, and bloodred peonies were fattening to flower. The may blossom perfumed the air, as did pink and purple lilac.
On a day like this the empire builders were welcome to Africa, India, the Pacific or the Spice Islands, or even the Indies.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
She turned, startled out of her reverie. Her maid was standing looking at her with a surprised expression.
“Yes, Martha?”
“Please ma’am, there’s a Mrs. Chancellor ‘as called to see you. A Mrs. Linus Chancellor. She’s very …”
“Yes?”
“Oh, I think you’d better come, ma’am. Shall I say as you’ll receive her?”
Nobby contained her amusement, and not inconsiderable surprise. What on earth was Susannah Chancellor doing paying an afternoon call here? Nobby was hardly in her social or her political sphere.
“Certainly tell her so,” she replied. “And show her out onto the terrace.”
Martha bobbed something like half a curtsy and hurried with insufficient dignity back across the grass and up the steps to discharge her errand.
A moment later Susannah emerged from the French doors, by which time Nobby was coming up the shallow stone steps from the lawn, her skirt brushing against the urns with scarlet and vermilion nasturtiums spilling out of them, almost luminous in their brilliance.
Susannah was dressed very formally in white, trimmed with pale pink and a thread of carmine-shaded ribbon. White lace foamed at her throat and wrists and her parasol was trimmed with ribbon and a blush pink rose. She looked exquisite, and unhappy.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Chancellor,” Nobby said formally. This was an extremely formal time of the afternoon to call. “How very pleasant of you to come.”
“Good afternoon, Miss Gunne,” Susannah replied with less than her usual assurance. She looked beyond Nobby to the garden as if seeking someone else. “Have I interrupted you with … with other visitors?” She forced a smile.
“No, I am quite alone,” Nobby replied, wondering what so troubled the younger woman. “I was simply enjoying the perfect weather and thinking what a delight it is to have a garden.”
“Yes, isn’t it,” Susannah agreed, stepping farther across the terrace and starting down the steps to the lawn. “Yours is particularly beautiful. Would you think me discourteous to ask if you would show me ’round it? It is too much to take in at a glance. And it looks as if there is more of it yet, beyond that stone wall and the archway. Is that so?”
“Yes, I am very fortunate in its size,” Nobby agreed. “Of course I should be delighted to show you.” It was far too early to offer refreshment, and anyway that was not customary during the first hour of time appropriate for receiving. Although, of course, some fifteen minutes was all one stayed; it was also not done to walk around the garden, which would take half an hour at the very least.
Nobby was now quite concerned as to why Susannah had come. It was impossible to imagine it was a simple call for the usual social purposes. Leaving her card would have been quite adequate, in fact the proper thing, since they were not in any real sense acquainted.
They walked very gently, Susannah stopping every few yards to admire something or other. Often she appeared not to know its name, simply to like its color, form, or its position complementing something else. They passed the gardener weeding around the antirrhinums and pulling a few long spears of grass from the mass of the blue salvia.
“Of course, as close to Westminster as we live,” Susannah went on, “we do not have room for a garden such as this. It is one of the things I most miss. We do go down to the country when my husband can arrange it, but that is not so very often. His position is most demanding.”
“I can imagine that it would be,” Nobby murmured.
A brief smile touched Susannah’s face and immediately vanished again. A curious expression followed, a softness in her eyes, at once pleasure and pain, yet her lips were pulled tight with some underlying anxiety which would not let her relax. She said the words “my husband” with the pride of a woman in love. Yet her hands fiddled incessantly with the ribbons on her parasol, her fingers stiff, as if she did not care if she broke the threads.
There was nothing Nobby could do but wait.
Susannah turned and began walking towards the great cedar and the white garden seat under its shade. The grass was thin where the needles had shed on it until the ground became bare altogether near the trunk, the roots having taken all the nourishment from the earth.
“You must have seen a great many wonderful things, Miss Gunne.” Susannah did not look at her but through the stone archway beneath the roses. “Sometimes I envy you your travels. Then of course there are other times- most of them, I admit-when I am too fond of the comforts of England.” She looked at Nobby beside her. “Would it bore you to tell me something of your adventures?”
“Not at all, if that is really what you wish? But I assure you, you have no need of it in order to be polite.”
“Polite?” Susannah was surprised, this time stopping to face Nobby. “Is that what you think?”
“A great many have thought it was the proper thing to do,” Nobby replied with amusement and a flood of memory, much of it painful at the time, but merely absurd now.
“Oh, not at all,” Susannah assured her. They were still in the shade of the cedar, and considerably cooler. “I find Africa fascinating. My husband has a great deal to do with it, you know?”
“Yes, yes I know who he is.” Nobby was not sure what else to say. The more she knew of Linus Chancellor’s backing of Cecil Rhodes, the less happy she was about it. The whole question of the settlement of Zambezia had troubled her ever since she had met Peter Kreisler. The thought of him brought a smile to her lips, in spite of the questions and the anxiety.
Susannah caught the intonation; at least it seemed as if she did. She looked around quickly, and was about to say something, then changed her mind and turned back to the garden again. She had been there ten minutes already. For a strictly formal call, she should now be taking her leave.
“I suppose you know Africa quite well-the people, I mean?” she said thoughtfully.
“I am familiar with them in certain areas,” Nobby replied honestly. “But it is an inconceivably enormous country, in fact an entire continent of distances we Europeans can scarcely imagine. It would be ridiculous to say I know more than a fraction. Of course, if you are interested, there are people in London who know far more than I do and who have been there more recently. I believe you have already met Mr. Kreisler, for example?” She found herself oddly self-conscious as she spoke his name. That was foolish. She was not forcing him into the conversation, as a young woman does when in love, introducing a man’s name into every possible subject. This was most natural; in fact it would have been unnatural not to have spoken of him.
“Yes.” Susannah looked away from the arch and the roses and back down the lawn towards the house. “Yes, I have met him. A most interesting man, with vigorous views. What is your opinion of him, Miss Gunne?” She swiveled back again, her face earnest. “Do you mind my asking you? I don’t know who else’s opinion would be of the least worth, compared with yours.”
“I think perhaps you overrate me.” Nobby felt herself blushing, which made it even worse. “But of course what little I know you are most welcome to hear.”
Susannah seemed to be most relieved, as if this were the real purpose of her visit.
