and Greta interpreted her silence as condemnation.
A conversation at the dinner table one evening the following January brought matters to a head. Greta sat equidistant between Sir Peter and his wife at the long dining-room table. The central heating had overcompensated for the inclement weather, and the room was hot and stuffy. The three diners were struggling to make their way through a dessert of cherry pie and custard.
Anne had been talking about a rich northern industrialist called Corbett who had bought himself a stretch of coastline on the other side of Flyte. He had made a fortune manufacturing paper clips and was now building himself a mansion overlooking the sea. More than one of the Robinsons’ neighbours had remarked in recent months on the similarity of this edifice to the House of the Four Winds, although it was clearly on a much larger scale.
‘I expect they’ll be sending their butler round to take photographs of the garden soon,’ said Anne. ‘Watch out for men in morning coats with stepladders and telephoto lenses,’ said Anne.
‘Oh, Anne, I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ said Sir Peter. ‘You shouldn’t be so sensitive.’ He had become increasingly impatient with his wife’s preoccupation with this subject during dinner.
‘I’m not being sensitive. It’s the principle of the thing that’s distasteful. People should be what they are. They shouldn’t try to wear other people’s things.’
‘Especially when they come from the north,’ said Greta, suddenly joining in the conversation.
‘No, wherever they come from.’ Anne stopped, realizing what she’d said. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I meant at all.’
‘It’s not your fault. You’re a lady and I’m not. People need to know their place. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?’
‘No. No, I’m not. I’m saying that people should be themselves and not try to be other people. That’s got nothing to do with knowing your place.’
‘Well, if I’d stayed being myself, I’d probably have ended up working in a paper-clip factory,’ said Greta in a rush.
‘My dear, I don’t know why you’re getting so agitated. I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about this man, Corbett. You shouldn’t be so quick to take offence.’
Greta said nothing but put her napkin up over her face. A series of visible shudders passed through her upper body, bearing witness to her distress.
Part of Anne wanted to get up and put an arm around the girl. She was clearly upset, and it was rare for her to lose her self-control. But another, stronger part felt repelled. Greta seemed to cause nothing but trouble. It was Greta, after all, who had gone into her bedroom as a trespasser and put on her clothes like they were her own. It was Greta who had got Thomas so upset. Greta was the one who should be apologizing.
‘Look, who’s the injured party here?’ said Anne, unconsciously transferring her attention to her husband, who was moving about uncomfortably in his seat at the other end of the table. ‘I didn’t go and try on her clothes, did I?’
‘No, of course you didn’t. She’s got none for you to try on. That’s the whole bloody point, can’t you see that?’
‘Yes, I do see that,’ said Anne, getting up from the table. ‘I see it only too well. I’m going to bed. I think I’ve got a headache coming on. This home isn’t London, you know, Peter. I’m not here to have political debates with you. Greta may be, but I’m not.’
Anne closed the door before Sir Peter could reply. Greta’s face remained hidden by her napkin, but her shaking shoulders showed that she was in even greater distress than before. Sir Peter wound his own napkin into a ball and tried unsuccessfully to think of something to say to comfort her.
Eventually he got awkwardly to his feet and went over to stand behind Greta’s chair. He shifted his weight irresolutely from one foot to the other and then put out his hand tentatively so that it came to rest on her shoulder.
‘Please, Greta. Don’t cry. She didn’t mean it. She just got upset, that’s all.’
A few strands of black hair had fallen across Greta’s face as she bent over the table, and Sir Peter pulled them gently back over her ear, stroking the side of her head as he did so.
Greta looked up at him smiling through her tears, and he found himself staring down at the swell of her breasts beneath her simple white blouse. He felt a surge of sexual excitement.
‘Thank you, Peter. I’m sorry I was so silly. You’re so—’
But Greta didn’t finish her sentence. Sir Peter pulled himself away quite violently and stood half swaying by the wall. Across the room a portrait of his wife’s father looked down at him with an expression of aristocratic contempt. It was a bad picture but a good likeness, painted in an era when family portraits were no longer in fashion. The artist had caught the aristocratic curl of his sitter’s lip and the distant look in the half-closed eyes. Sir Peter remembered the old man’s cool disapproval when he had come asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
‘Going places, Anne says. But which ones? That’s the question, isn’t it, young man? Which ones?’
‘All right, you old bastard,’ Sir Peter whispered to himself as he stared up at the portrait. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘What did you say, Peter?’ asked Greta.
‘Nothing. Nothing except that you’re not the only one who’s felt out of place in this damned house. I’ve got to go now. See if Anne’s all right. You understand.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Greta, wiping her eyes with her napkin.
CHAPTER 4
Peter took the stairs two at a time but at the top he found his bedroom door locked. There was no reply when he knocked and called out his wife’s name.
After a minute or two he walked despondently down the corridor to an infrequently used spare bedroom. The still heavy air of the evening persisted into the night, making it hard to sleep. Peter stripped himself naked, but still he felt his skin prickling and his heart beating too fast.
Getting up, he opened the old leaded windows as wide as they would go. Outside, the six thin yew trees at the front of the house stood completely still. Black clouds scurried across the sky, shutting out the pale crescent moon, and in the north over towards Carmouth jagged white lines of lightning rent the sky and were gone. There was a distant sound of thunder but no rain.
Peter remembered staying in this room when he and Anne had come to visit her father before their marriage. He’d lain on this bed listening to the sea, feeling the same anxiety mixed up with sexual frustration. Down the hall Sir Edward had lain snoring. Anne was in her room across the corridor, shut in with the stuffed bears and embroidery of her childhood.
‘Got everything you want, young man?’ had been his host’s last words before they went upstairs. Said in a tone that implied he wasn’t going to get anything more – like Sir Edward’s daughter, for instance. But he had. And now the old bastard was under the sod up in Flyte churchyard and Peter was the knight of the house.
He was a knight because of what he’d done in his
