“Do you know, Henry, I don’t even know what your aunt’s name is?”
“Don’t you?” said Henry, surprised.
“Is it Glyn-Edwards?”
“No. It’s Fairborough. Lady Muriel Fairborough. She’s not bad really. Doesn’t mind how you come and go. And always very decent at stumping up in a crisis.”
“That’s a very depressed-looking horse,” said Shirley, looking at Number Nineteen. She was nerving herself to say something quite different.
“Wretched brute,” agreed Henry. “One of Tommy Twisdon’s worst. Come down over the first hurdle, I should think.”
Two more horses were brought into the ring, and more people arrived to lean over the rails.
“What’s this? Third race?” Henry consulted his card. “Are the numbers up yet? Is Number Eighteen running?”
Shirley glanced up at the board behind her.
“Yes.”
“We might have a bit on that, if the price is all right.”
“You know a lot about horses, don’t you, Henry? Were you-were you brought up with horses?”
“My experience has mostly been with bookmakers.”
Shirley nerved herself to ask what she had been wanting to ask.
“It’s funny, isn’t it, how little I really know about you? Have you got a father or mother, or are you an orphan, like me?”
“Oh! My father and mother were killed in the Blitz. They were in the Caf? de Paris.”
“Oh! Henry-how awful!”
“Yes, wasn’t it?” agreed Henry, without, however, displaying undue emotion. He seemed to feel this himself, for he added: “Of course it’s over four years ago now. I was quite fond of them and all that, but one can’t go on remembering things, can one?”
“I suppose not,” said Shirley doubtfully.
“Why all this thirst for information?” asked Henry.
“Well-one likes to know about people,” Shirley spoke almost apologetically.
“Does one?” Henry seemed genuinely surprised.
“Anyway,” he decided, “you’d better come and meet my aunt. Put it all on a proper footing with Laura.”
“Laura?”
“Well, Laura’s the conventional type, isn’t she? Satisfy her that I’m respectable and all that.”
And very shortly afterwards, a polite note arrived from Lady Muriel, inviting Shirley to lunch, and saying Henry would call for her in the car.
2
Henry’s aunt bore a strong resemblance to the White Queen. Her costume was a jumble of different and brightly-coloured wool garments, she knitted assiduously, and she had a bun of faded-brown hair, streaked with grey, from which untidy wisps descended in all directions.
She managed to combine the qualities of briskness and vagueness.
“So nice you could come, my dear,” she said warmly, shaking Shirley by the hand and dropping a ball of wool. “Pick it up, Henry, there’s a good boy. Now tell me, when were you born?”
Shirley said that she was born on September 18th, 1928.
“Ah yes. Virgo-I thought so. And the time?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know.”
“Tck! How annoying! You must find out and let me know. It’s most important. Where are my other needles-the number eights? I’m knitting for the Navy-a pullover with a high neck.”
She held out the garment.
“It will have to be for a very large sailor,” said Henry.
“Well, I expect they have all sizes in the Navy,” said Lady Muriel comfortably. “And in the Army, too,” she added inconsequently. “I remember Major Tug Murray-sixteen stone-special polo ponies to be up to his weight-and when he rode anyone off there was nothing they could do about it. Broke his neck when he was out with the Pytchley,” she added cheerfully.
A very old and shaky butler opened the door and announced that luncheon was served.
They went into the dining-room. The meal was an indifferent one, and the table silver was tarnished.
“Poor old Melsham,” said Lady Muriel when the butler was out of the room. “He really can’t see at all. And he shakes so when he hands things, that I’m never sure if he’ll get round the table safely. I’ve told him again and again to put things on the sideboard, but he won’t. And he won’t let any of the silver be put away, though of course he can’t see to clean it. And he quarrels with all the queer girls which are all one gets nowadays-not what he’s been accustomed to, he says. Well, I mean, what is? With the war and all.”