I looked at her and decided on honesty. ‘You could have been happier.’

She bridled. ‘You could have made me happier.’

I nodded with almost military precision. ‘Precisely,’ I said. And with both of us feeling that her words had put us each inalienably in the right, I turned out the light and we pretended to sleep.

Joanna

NINE

It was the day after we returned from Yorkshire that I received another call from Damian. I say ‘from Damian’ but in fact Bassett’s modest, unassuming voice greeted me down the receiver. ‘Mr Baxter was wondering…’ He paused nervously and I began to wonder what Damian could be wondering that would give me such offence, but the answer, when it came, was mild, ‘if you might possibly be able to get down to see him at all soon.’

I felt I should confess my lack of progress straight away, not that it was very likely I was concealing a major find. ‘I haven’t much to report yet, I’m afraid,’ I said.

But Bassett did not seem to be expecting anything different. ‘Mr Baxter knows that, Sir. He assumed that he would have heard from you before now if there was anything to hear. But he would like to catch up with you all the same.’

Despite Bassett’s dulcet tones, there was an absolute expectation of my agreeing to this suggestion that triggered an alarm bell in my vitals. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I had somehow put myself in Damian’s power by agreeing to his request, that, in short, far from doing him a favour I had in fact been bought. I was not being paid, of course, but against my better judgement I had accepted the insulting credit card and in a way it made me an employee, which I should have spotted at the outset. I had broken my own rule, viz. that if one is bought, let it be for a high price. This is why no one should ever accept a charity lecture or brief local appearance where a fee is involved, at least in England. The sum is invariably tiny, but the organisers will most definitely feel, once they have pressed a few coins into your hand, that they own you body and soul. If you must do these things, and sometimes one must, then please do them for nothing. Do them out of the goodness of your heart. The money will make no difference to your life, but you will never have to endure the sense of being a purchased hireling, since you retain the whip hand of your generosity. Better yet, donate the fee you might have had to their cause, or to something equally worthy, and add a halo to your head for good measure. But in this instance somehow, by sleight of hand, Damian had tricked me and retained the moral high ground. I was no longer doing a good turn, I was carrying out a commission. It is quite a different matter.

Eventually the plan was settled. I had rather a heavy week coming up, so the decision was made that I would return to Surrey after lunch on the following Sunday. Accordingly, I took the train and was met once more at the station by the flawlessly uniformed chauffeur, but as we arrived at Planet Damian it came as a surprise to see what looked like a village fête going on in the gardens. The cars were parked in a field further down the road, and the booths and general activity were apparently cordoned off from the upper lawn, so the event did not really impinge on the actual house, but even so it was not very compatible with my cherished image of Mr Baxter, being altogether too philanthropic for his tastes. However, in answer to my question as I got out of the car, Bassett confirmed the situation. ‘Yes. It’s held over two days in the summer, Sir. It’s in aid of the local Catholic church, St Teresa’s. In Guildford.’

‘Is Mr Baxter a Catholic?’ The thought had never occurred to me. Not that I mind Catholics. It was just strange to think of Damian subscribing to any religion.

‘I believe so, Sir.’

‘And does he do this every year?’

‘He does, Sir. Since he first came here.’ I attempted to conceal my cynical amazement as I was shown directly to the library. When I walked into the room I realised at once why I had been sent for. Damian was dying. He had of course been dying before, when I was last there on the visit that started it all, but one may be dying without having death written all over one’s face. This time it was not so much that he had a fatal illness. Rather, at first appearance, he looked as if he were already dead.

He lay back, stretched out, on his daybed, eyes shut. Were it not for the faintest movement of his emaciated chest I would have assumed I had come too late. I suppose I must have appeared shocked, as just at this moment he opened his eyes and let out a rasping, little laugh at my expression. ‘Cheer up,’ he snorted. ‘I’m not quite as bad as I look.’

‘That’s a relief,’ I said. ‘Since you couldn’t look worse.’

Naturally this bucked him up. He rang the bell by his chair and when the ever vigilant Bassett put his head round the door suggested, in that diffident way of his, that we might have some tea. ‘Are you staying the night?’ he asked when Bassett had gone off on his commission.

‘I don’t think so. I was planning to continue the search tomorrow, and I don’t believe I should put it off.’

‘No. For pity’s sake don’t put it off, whatever you do.’ But he raised his eyebrows to make this reference to his coming demise, into a sort of joke. ‘So, how have you been getting on?’

I told him about Lucy and Dagmar. ‘They seem very fond of you.’

‘Don’t sound so surprised.’

Of course, that was the point. I was surprised. But I didn’t feel I could word this acceptably so I didn’t try. Instead, I repeated their separate messages of goodwill and felt glad I had delivered them faithfully. ‘I don’t think I was aware how well you knew them.’

‘You weren’t aware of a lot of things about me.’ He waited, perhaps for me to contradict, but I was silent. ‘Poor little Dagmar.’ He gave a semi-comic sigh, inviting me to join in his contemplation of her hopelessness, but after my recent visit I would have felt disloyal so I resisted. He continued, undeterred. ‘She should probably have been born in 1850, been married by proxy to some German grand duke, and just lived out her life observing the rituals. She would have done it very well and no doubt been much loved by all those loyal subjects who would never get near enough to find out how boring she was.’

‘She’s less boring now,’ I said. ‘Less boring, less diffident and less happy.’

He nodded, absorbing my report. ‘I was surprised when she married him. I thought she’d go for dull and respectable, and end up in a farmhouse in Devon, with a lot of huge, Royal portraits looking out of place and filling the half-timbered walls from floor to ceiling. I never expected her to go for nasty and successful, and end up back in a palace and miserable.’

‘Well, she’s got the portraits, anyway.’

‘Did she tell you she wanted to marry me?’ He must have caught my expression on hearing this, as he read it very accurately. ‘I’m past being ungallant. I’m nearly dead. At that point you truly can say what you like.’ Which, on reflection, I feel is probably true.

‘She did, actually.’

‘Really?’ I could see he was surprised.

‘She said she longed for it, but you weren’t interested. She said she had nothing to offer that you wanted or needed.’

‘That sounds rather peevish.’

‘Well, it wasn’t. She was very touching.’

He nodded at this, somehow acknowledging Dagmar’s generosity with a kinder tone than he had used before. ‘I never said she wasn’t a nice woman. I thought she was one of the nicest of all of you.’ He considered for a minute. ‘It was hard for ex-Royals.’

‘I agree.’

‘It was all right for the ones still on thrones,’ he added, thinking more on the topic. ‘After all the nonsense of the Sixties and Seventies was over, they were in an enviable position. But for the others it was hard.’