The appearance of the well-known authoress had been at first sight disappointing. Ann had vaguely expected something more dashing; and there was at first something almost pathetic in this slow crumpled elderly person, with her air of a determined valetudinarian, seeming older than her years could possibly warrant. Yet the face was clever. The face was also in some curious way alarming. Ann had not shaken off the alarm; but she had not been long in company with Emma before she found herself cheered by her guest's intelligent friendly curiosity, and made to talk as she had not talked in years. She felt herself relax, as in a warm salty bath. She had an agreeable sense almost of being seduced.
Yet their talk had been random, disjointed, even trivial. Emma had questioned her about the children, about the nursery, about her friends in the village, about the Bowshotts' television, and about a recipe for quince jelly which Ann promised to get for her from Clare Swann. The only subject which had not arisen was Randall.
Since Mildred Finch's momentous visit Ann had been in a state of considerable wretchedness. Mildred had given her two shocks, one concerning Randall and one concerning Felix; and these two concerns worked in her mind somewhat absurdly jumbled together. Ann had been sincere in saying that she did not want to know what Randall was up to in London. She thought it better that her imagination should not entertain images of her husband's unfaithfulness: and in a way which was obviously incredible to Mildred she had not even felt curiosity about Randall's doings when he was away from home. How true her instinct had been she had occasion to know after Mildred had suddenly crystallized the situation by mentioning a name. The knowledge of a particular named rival made her whole situation seem different and at moments intolerable; and round the object named there flickered, casting upon it a vague but lurid light, intermittent flames of anger and jealousy which had been absent before. Ann suffered. She did not ask herself whether she was still in love with Randall. Her disillusionment about her husband had been, even before Lindsay, in a sense complete. Perhaps after: so many years it hardly made sense to speak of love save as a blind yet powerful experience of their belonging irrevocably to each other. What had so grown together she had not yet in her imagination begun to set asunder.
Yet there was Felix. The extent to which there now indubitably was Felix she had also had occasion, since Mildred's visit, to observe. Ann had, and she admitted it to herself with some shame, averted her attention from what had certainly been for some time an increasing interest in Mildred's handsome brother. Ann had become aware, even years ago, that Felix was partial to her. She had accepted his exceedingly discreet homage, so discreet that it was, she was sure, invisible to all other eyes, with a warm and amused gratitude, as the sentimental foible of one who was by now a confirmed bachelor. She and Felix were, after all, dreadfully old. But she had liked it; and when, during the last year, Felix had been, when alone with her, the smallest bit more frank, as if taking for granted a hazy and never actually mentioned something between them, she had liked that too. Then there was an occasion at Seton Blaise, when they had wandered away from the others along the shore of the lake, and in a moment of silence he had taken her hand. She had let him then look at her with eloquent eyes; and although she remembered the occasion with a certain alarm she remembered it too with a certain joy. There had been, she saw to it carefully, no development or recurrence of the scene: but Felix, both pleased and penitent, had drawn a step nearer. She knew of course that it would be insane of her to fall in love with Felix. But as soon as she had got as far on as to say these words to herself her heart began to flutter. She and Felix were, after all, dreadfully young.
Yet these imaginings had often seemed, when Randall was in the house, flimsy enough. They were a foolish solace, nothing dangerous. The reality of Randall was overwhelming, and with a total grasp of his existence which was perhaps, after all, love, Ann apprehended her husband, and was grateful for the extent to which, difficult as he was, he filled the scene. A Randall intermittently and still slightly apologetically in London had kept an unslackened hold upon Grayhallock and upon her. But a Randall gone to London in anger, a Randall quite generally known to be living with another woman, might be something of a different matter. Ann had, as yet vaguely, a sense of being abandoned, and with this a sense of a vacuum created into which something else might rush. More realistic now, she simply feared this. She decided for the present not to see Felix; and conjectured, half sadly, half with relief, that he had made some corresponding decision with regard to her. For she did not believe that Felix had authorized Mildred's recent invitation.
When Emma's visit had been announced Ann's first thought had been for Fanny, and her second for herself. The connexion between Emma and Lindsay Rimmer made the presence of the former at Grayhallock particularly shocking; and for a while Ann was ready to feel herself insulted. Yet Emma herself, working hard, almost terrier-like, ever since her arrival had managed quite to dispel the suspicious stiffness with which Ann had greeted her.
Ann was still walking up and down as she talked, a thing which she rarely did, and the conversation continued to wander on fairly agreeably at random.
'What a delicious cake, said Emma. 'May I have another? Have you got a cat?
'We had a cat, said Ann, 'a sweet cat, a big grey tabby called Hatfield. He was Fanny's cat, you know. But when she died he ran wild in the fields. I've seen him once or twice in the distance, but he won't come near the house.
'Oh, said Emma. And after a pause, 'It's odd how animals know. The subject had raised a little awkwardness. To send it away Ann said, 'You so often introduce cats into your books. Are you fond of them?
'I love the creatures. But I could hardly have one in my flat. It would mean too many open doors and windows, and I'm such a malade imaginaire.
'I do enjoy your books, said Ann. 'I hope there'll be another one soon.
'I'm glad if they entertain you, said Emma, 'but of course they are trivial. I wish I could have written a real book.
'I expect you will. I mean — but I do like what you write.
'There's no time now, said Emma sombrely.
The door opened and Miranda, in a purple-and-white striped dress, skipped in with the roses. Penn hovered in the doorway, uncertain whether to follow her in. Miranda brought the big jumbled bunch, which she was holding lightly together in her hands, up to Emma, curtsied and decanted it into her lap. Then before Emma could thank her she ran back out of the door, seized Penn by the Ann and jerked him after her out of sight.
'What an amusing child, said Emma. 'She seems almost capable of irony.
'Yes, she's a clever little girl, said Ann. 'Brighter than poor Penny, I'm afraid.
'Isn't he in love with her?
'How quick of you to notice! Yes, I'm afraid so. But she's too young to take anything like that seriously and she just teases him.
'I wouldn't have thought she was too young, said Emma. 'I would guess that young lady was capable of anything. Though I can imagine young Penn is not her cup of tea. She began to examine the roses one by one. The thorns made them cling to her dress. 'Now you shall tell me the names of these.
Ann spoke their names: Agatha Incarnata, Due de Guiche, Tricolore de Flandre, Sandy de Parcere, Lauriol de Barny, Bell de Crecy, Vierge de Clery, Rosa Mundi.
'What lovely stripes, said Emma, 'just like Miranda's dress. And what names! I really must write a murder story in a nursery garden. But there, how shocking I All I can think of when I find something beautiful is how to make it an occasion for violent death. The telephone rang.