as anyone else in the world, outside his family. Richard had cultivated his flair for the ridiculous to the point where he was an invariably amusing companion, the expected life and soul of any of the unconventional gatherings he chose to frequent. He was determinedly cheerful, and seemed dedicated only to enjoying himself. In that respect he was like his mother. But Tony knew that behind his half-closed eyes Richard hid a much more complex nature. He was adept at disguising himself. Even his age was difficult to guess at. With his cultivatedly weary, cynical or occasionally puckish manner Richard, at nineteen, might have been taken for anything between twenty and thirty.
And now there was his extraordinary, risky, pyrotechnic novel. Thousands of copies of it, delivered this morning to the Randle & Cates warehouse from the carefully indemnified printers.
‘Well?’ Richard prompted. ‘Do I?’
‘No,’ Tony said. ‘I don’t think you’re too fragile to cope with whatever they fling at you. What about your family?’
‘Amy already knows that I have written a novel. I don’t think, given what she knows about you and me, that she will be shocked into insensibility. Adeline loves me to the point of idolatry and would continue to do so even if she heard I was a mass-murderer. I don’t think poor Bel is in a position to care.’
The omission was all too clear.
‘And Lord Lovell?’
Unusually for Richard there were two or three seconds of silence before he answered. And then his voice was measured, without the light sparkle of flippancy. ‘I hate everything that my father stands for. I don’t hate him, although I easily could. I can’t take any responsibility for what Gerald might feel.’
Tony replaced the new book on the pile.
‘And the other risks?’
Richard was growing impatient. ‘It’s rather late, isn’t it, to be beating our breasts about all this? If you mean the gendarmes, I don’t intend to hang about for long enough to be clapped in the cells. And I’m still a minor, remember, and so the innocent party. Your own lawyers have assured us that I have been as discreet as fiction demands about the less innocent. Enough.’
Tony was putting on his tweed jacket that had been hanging on the back of his office chair, and glanced at Richard’s turnout as he did so.
‘You don’t exactly dress discreetly.’
‘Oh dear.’ Richard fluffed out his pink tie. ‘I am in the kennel today. And I thought we were supposed to be celebrating. I shall pretty myself up as much as I please. It’s one of life’s least damaging pleasures, and one that you, in those frightful tweeds, clearly don’t take enough account of. Tony, you know that you are my dearest friend, and I am grateful unto death for what you’re doing. But just sometimes you can be just a little too much the old maid. Now, let’s go and have this famous publisher’s lunch. I’ve struck everything else out of the diary for the rest of the day.’
‘God help us,’ Tony murmured, as they went down the stairs together.
In the restaurant Richard ordered champagne ‘to begin with’. He watched the waiter pouring it and then leant back, stroking the side of his glass.
‘Are the review copies out?’
‘Of course. Two hundred of them. I’ve tried to make sure that enough have gone to people likely to be sympathetic.’
‘The old queers’ network? I don’t want sympathy.’
‘Don’t be a fool. You want good reviews.’
‘And the bookshops?’
‘Are taking copies in cautious quantities. Waiting for publication and the reviewers’ reactions.’
Richard lifted his glass. ‘One more thing. You’ve never really admitted it. Is it a good book?’
Tony smiled and picked up his own glass. ‘It’s a brilliant book. It’ll probably land us both in gaol, even so.’
‘Thank you. Here’s to publication day, then.’
‘To next week,’ Tony said, and they drank together.
Gerald was reading the newspaper on the shady side of the long terrace at Chance. His leg was propped stiffly on a footstool in front of him. Amy sat down close to him on the stone balustrade, feeling the warmth of the pitted stone under her fingers and the tiny, crumbly yellow lichens.
‘Is your leg bad today?’ she asked.
Gerald rustled his paper. ‘The same.’ He was curt in discussing what he regarded as physical weaknesses.
Amy tried again. ‘Is it well enough for us to have a walk together after lunch?’
He put the newspaper down and folded it up with an air of patience in the face of constant interruption. ‘A walk? A walk to where?’
‘Just across the park. Over the ridge, if you felt like it.’
‘Felled a lot of oaks, over the other side. Sign of the times.’ Gerald sighed gloomily and took his watch suspended on a gold chain out of his waistcoat pocket. ‘Time for luncheon. I’ll see how much I’ve got to do afterwards.’ But when he had heaved himself upright he offered his arm companionably to Amy and they strolled back into the house together.
The route to the dining room took them through the long, brown-leather and faded gilt expanse of the library. Amy glanced up at the heights of shelving and the thousands of books in their locked cases.
‘Papa, where are the botany books? The ones Great-grandfather collected? I remember we used to look at the paintings of orchids when we were children.’
‘End bay, on the right, I believe. Why do you ask?’
She thought quickly, and decided on the truth. ‘One of the gardeners is working in the orangery, and wanted to read some more about the plants. The orchids, in particular. I thought they might help him.’
‘Don’t go lending the books to the damned gardeners. They can’t read, half of them, anyway.’
‘Oh, this one can,’ Amy said.
After his lunch Gerald demanded abruptly, ‘What are you sitting about for? Let’s have this walk, if we’re going.’
He took his stick, but he made a point of only using it to swish at the grass as they walked. Amy was quickly out of breath, and so their slow pace was perfectly matched. In the sunshine they climbed the gently rising parkland to the crest of the ridge. When they reached it Amy and her father stood still, arm in arm. On one side of them was the dappled green patchwork of woodland, and on the other the grassy slope dipped down to the great grey house set amongst its terraces and flowers. In the distance was the sweep of high wall that enclosed the park, and the domestic huddle of houses at the village gates. The sky was a perfect, impervious blue, and under it the countless shades of green and gold shimmered in the haze of heat.
Amy blinked at the tears in her eyes, and then they came rolling down her cheeks. Since her illness she had cried easily, sometimes inexplicably. But today it came with the unexpected wave of love for the acres of Chance, pulling inside
