felt a little shiver puckering her skin. If you come from Nantlas, she thought, seeing in her mind’s eye the grey stone and black dust and the cold curtains of rain, then the flamboyance of orchids would strike your eyes like a torch in the darkness. She thought they were sinister. Her own preference was for the flowers of the cottage gardens, the grey and blue of lavender and the spikes of lupins, and the innocence of daisies and sweet peas.
‘I started reading about them. There are the records in the estates office. I went into town, to the public library. But there are only two books on orchids there, neither of them much good.’
Amy remembered that behind the metal-latticed doors of the Chance library there was almost a whole wall of botany books. ‘I think there must be some of my great-grandfather’s in the library here,’ she said. ‘I could look them out for you.’
Nick picked up his watering-can again. ‘That would be very kind,’ he said.
Don’t, Amy wanted to beg him. Don’t make me be Lady Bountiful. It doesn’t have to be like that.
‘How is your son?’ she asked.
‘Well enough, thank you. He had a kind of blood disease and we were badly worried. But he’s getting treatment and he’s almost back to normal now. He won’t ever be right, because of what happened when he was born. But it seemed hard that he should have to suffer even more than that.’
Amy thought of the Lambeth, and some of the things she had seen in the children’s long-stay wards. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly.
Nick was working, apparently eager to be alone again with his flowers. Amy only knew that she wanted to go on talking to him.
‘And your wife?’ she persisted. ‘Don’t they miss you at home?’
He jerked round so that he stood squarely in front of her. His height was suddenly threatening, with no trace of a submissive stoop left now.
‘Why do you want to know?’ he snapped. The odd greeny-grey of his eyes was hard and opaque.
‘I …’
‘My wife is well. They are both fed, thanks to you, by what I send back from here. Is that what you want, for me to say thank you? Why don’t you come right out and ask me? “I’d like you to show some gratitude, Mr Penry.” Well then, thank you. My son’s alive, my wife’s got food and clothes and a fire in the grate. All thanks to you, Miss Lovell. Will there be anything else, miss?’
Amy stepped back as if he had struck her. The air suddenly felt leaden, as if a thunderstorm quivered overhead.
‘Why do you hate me so much?’ she asked.
Nick stood for a long moment without moving, and then let the watering-can drop sharply so that the metal clanged on the marble floor.
‘Ach.’ There was despair as well as disgust in the guttural little sound. ‘I don’t hate you. I don’t care enough. It doesn’t matter, either way.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Amy said hotly. ‘Not about me, but you do care. You care about things, all right. That’s what’s the matter with you.’
Then she turned and walked away, slowly and with measured steps, denying him the satisfaction of seeing her run.
The heavy, carved doors closed firmly on the rampant jungle and Nick was left alone with the finches.
He stood in the same position, staring ahead of him. When a whirr of green wings brought another of the birds down to his crumbs, Nick wearily lifted his hand and rubbed his face.
Aloud, he said something in Welsh. Mae’n ddrwg geni. I’m sorry. And then, bending to his work again, ‘The Honourable Amalia Lovell, wasn’t it? But my friends call me Amy. I expect you’ve got plenty of those. You don’t need another.’
Amy went back along the silent corridor, faster now that he couldn’t see her, almost running until she reached her room. The nurse who had come to look after her was smoothing the white cover on the bed.
‘Miss Lovell? Are you all right? Here, sit down.’
Amy shook her head. ‘I’m just breathless. I walked too fast up the stairs. There’s no need to stay. I’ll just sit quietly for a while.’
At last, the woman went away and left her alone. Amy sat down on the seat in the deep window embrasure. The glass was cool to lean her burning face against. Beneath her the mown grass of the park rolled away to the huge cedar tree, and almost in the shade of it a man was working, raking up the folded swathes of cut grass into neat piles.
Abruptly, she turned away from the sight.
The morning’s papers and a new glossy magazine were laid out on her table. Tony Hardy had sent her a package of new novels when she was ill, and the coloured spines glowed invitingly. Amy picked one out and flipped through the pages. Nothing was right. Nick Penry’s opaque eyes stared out insultingly.
Amy stood up again. She would go and find Gerald. Since she had been at home a kind of easy companionship had developed between them. She had begun to suspect that he even enjoyed having her with him. She would look for her father. Perhaps he would come and walk with her, or ride up over the ridge and gallop down the other side into the cool wind.
*
Outside the offices of Randle & Cates at exactly one p.m. a taxicab drew up. A young man in a white linen jacket with a loosely knotted, pale pink tie sprang out, paid the driver and dashed up the steps.
Tony Hardy, watching from the window of his first-floor front office, drew back a little and frowned.
A moment later his secretary came in to announce the visitor. ‘Mr Lovell.’
Richard breezed in immediately. ‘Tony. Here I am. It looks divine, you know. I’m thrilled to death. Everyone will buy it, I’m quite certain.’
‘Everyone will talk about it. That isn’t quite the same as shelling out the necessary for a copy, I assure you.’
Tony picked up a book from a little pile of identical volumes stacked neatly on his desk. The jacket was plain pale grey, and the tide stared out in bold black type. The Innocent and the Damned. Beneath, in smaller letters, it proclaimed itself Nearly a Novel, by Richard Lovell.
Richard came to stand beside Tony, admiring the effect at arm’s length.
‘So un-innocent looking. It could so easily have looked like a cheap romance, don’t you think? And I think we were so right not to go for some fussy picture that would have lessened the impact.’
Tony sighed. ‘I’m not worried about the impact it will have.’
Richard rounded on him at once. ‘What’s the matter? Losing your nerve?’
‘Not on our behalf. It won’t be the first risk I’ve taken, nor the first succès de scandale we’ll have suffered. I was thinking more about the effect on you, as it happens.’
Richard laughed delightedly. ‘My dear, just look at me. Do I look too fragile to cope with a brickbat or two?’
Tony
