made Nick think of Mari and Dickon, alone in the damp, cheerless little house in Nantlas. He was struck with a sudden, sharp physical longing to hold them both in his arms.
Nick resumed his pacing. There were silver-backed brushes on the tallboy, and in the heavy, mirrored wardrobe there were what seemed like dozens of suits and coats and polished shoes. If Mr Richard was the frowning boy beside Amy Lovell in the silver-framed photograph on the tallboy, he was hardly more than a child. How could a child need so many clothes; own so many possessions? With a sharp clatter, Nick replaced another photograph, this one of a beautiful woman lounging in a basket chair with a spaniel on her lap.
As he stood there, Nick felt the ugly swell of anger within himself. It was a familiar feeling. He had known it since early boyhood when he had caught it from his father. Nick thought of the anger as an infection because it made him helpless while it lasted, and it clouded his thinking. It made him vicious, as he had felt on the night of the explosion long ago at Nantlas No. 1 pit, and that was of no benefit to anyone. It was better by far to be clear-headed. That was a better weapon in the battle that he had inherited from his father and mother. They had died early, of deprivation and exhaustion, but Nick knew that he had enough strength himself to last a long time yet. Nick’s father had lived by the Fed, and his son had adopted his faith. As soon as he was old enough to think for himself, Nick had gone further still. He had become a Communist because the steely principles of Marxism seemed to offer an intellectual solution beyond the capitalist tangle that bled dry the pits and the men who worked them.
But yet sometimes Nick couldn’t suppress the anger. It came when he looked at Dickon, and when he watched Mari working in the comfortless back kitchen at home. And it came to smother him now in the rich, padded opulence of Amy Lovell’s home.
Nick slowly clenched and unclenched his fists, and then shook his head from side to side as if to clear it.
First thing tomorrow, he promised himself, he would be off.
The swell of anger began to subside again, as he had learned it always did. Deliberately he began to peel off his grimy clothes.
He was here, now. There was nothing he could do here, tonight, in this particular house. He didn’t know why the girl had brought him here, but something in her ardent, sensitive face worked on his anger too, diminishing it.
He would make use of the house, Nick thought, by taking whatever was offered to him. He found a plaid robe behind the door and wrapped himself in it. He stood his lamp on the tallboy next to the silver brushes and went across to the bathroom that the footman had pointed out to him.
A deep, hot bath had already been drawn. There were piles of thick, warm towels and new cakes of green marbled soap. The brass taps gleamed and the mirrors over the mahogany panels were misted with steam. As he sank into the water and gratefully felt the heat drawing the aches out of his body, Nick was thinking about Nantlas again. In Nantlas, baths were made of tin and they were hauled in from the wash house and set in front of the fire in the back kitchen. Then a few inches of hot water were poured in from jugs. He sat up abruptly, splashing the mirrors.
How much longer could they last, these gulfs? Between the people who had things and the people who didn’t?
Not for ever, Nick promised himself. Not for ever, by any means.
When he put the plaid robe on again and padded back to the bedroom he found that his clothes had been removed. In their place was a dinner suit with a boiled shirt and a stiff collar, a butterfly tie, even a pair of patent shoes that shone like mirrors. Black silk socks. Underwear with the creases still sharp which looked as if it had just been unfolded from tissue.
‘For God’s sake,’ Nick Penry murmured.
It was exactly five minutes to eight. Someone tapped discreetly at the door. He flung it open to confront Amy.
‘Um. I thought you might be ready,’ she said. Her cheeks went faintly pink. ‘I’ll come back later.’
Nick jabbed his finger at the clothes on the bed. ‘I won’t wear this get-up. Where have my clothes gone?’
‘I expect they’ve taken them away to dry them properly for you. What’s wrong with the ones they’ve given you?’
‘Everything. D’you really think I’d put all that lot on?’
Amy’s face went a deeper pink. She pushed past him into the room. ‘I don’t give a damn what you wear. Come down to dinner in my little brother’s dressing-gown, if that’s what you feel like.’
Nick suddenly wanted to laugh. Instead he leant against the door frame and folded his arms. ‘A shirt and jersey and an ordinary pair of trousers will do nicely, thank you.’ He watched her flinging open drawers and rummaging through cupboards, suddenly noticing how pretty she was without the disfiguring beret that she had worn all afternoon. She had thick, shiny hair that was an unusual dark red, and warm, clear skin that coloured easily. Her eyes were the bluey-green colour that often went with red hair. She was wearing a creamy-coloured dress of some soft material that was slightly too fussy for her, Nick thought, but she had exceptionally pretty calves and ankles that her high-heeled, pointy-toed shoes with ankle-straps displayed to perfection.
‘Very nice,’ Nick said smoothly. She was holding out a navy-blue jersey that Richard had put away because it was too big for him. There was a plain white shirt too.
‘Leave the shirt unbuttoned if it’s much too tight,’ she said sharply. ‘I shall have to go and look for some trousers belonging to my father. Richard’s will be far too small.’
‘You’re very kind,’ Nick called after her, laughing when she could no longer see him.
A moment or two later she came back with an unexceptional pair of grey flannel trousers. Nick took them.
‘His lordship’s very own?’ he asked, grinning, and Amy snatched her hand away in case their fingers touched. Why did he find her so amusing? It annoyed her. ‘Give me two minutes to change. Unless you’d rather stay?’
‘No, thank you.’
Amy shut the door behind her a little too firmly, and stood in the corridor wondering how Nick Penry had driven her so quickly into prissy defensiveness. He came out very quickly, a tall man with his black hair smoothed down and Richard’s blue jersey tight across his shoulders. Amy had taken the time to collect herself. She was on her own ground, after all. She wouldn’t let this man make her feel like a curiosity in her own home. ‘Let’s go down to dinner,’ she said evenly. ‘You must be hungry.’
‘A little,’ he agreed. ‘It’s so hard to get a decent luncheon on the road. Today’s was bread and margarine.’
Amy stared straight ahead of her. ‘I think you’ll find that dinner will be an improvement on that.’
They went down the stairs in silence. Nick looked up at the portraits as they passed them.
The footman was waiting at the dining-room doors. He held them open as Nick and Amy passed through, and Mr Glass stood waiting behind Amy’s chair. The velvet curtains had been drawn against the cold spring evening, and in the warm glow of shaded lamps Nick saw the elaborate plaster cornice picked out in cream and gold, the cream and gold upholstered chair seats, the smooth curves of the marble fireplace and the delicate colours of Adeline’s collection of early English porcelain shelved on either side of it. A pair of branched silver-gilt candelabra stood on the table, with tall new candles all alight,
