from your enjoyment of the little things, that today was quite ordinary for you. And your hands look as if you do more than go to parties. So does your hair. And nursing is the kind of thing a girl like you might do. Even though you like diamond bracelets as well. Or perhaps because of that?’
His finger on the truth reminded her of Helen. The memory pained her, as always.
Abruptly Amy said, ‘I work at the Royal Lambeth. I am home for my two weeks’ leave.’
They reached the foot of the stairs and crossed the marble floor to the front door. At once a footman materialized, holding the visitor’s hat. Jack took it, and waited until they were alone again.
‘Two weeks,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That doesn’t give us very long, does it?’
Amy said nothing. She had the sudden feeling that she was holding a conch shell to her ear, listening to the sea surging within the pearly folds.
‘May I telephone you?’
Amy looked directly at him now. There were darker flecks in the bright blue irises. ‘I don’t think so.’
Jack Roper smiled. ‘Your mother and I understand each other. Ask her, if you don’t believe me.’ She opened her mouth to say something that would imply she didn’t understand, and then she thought better of it. She realized that Jack Roper habitually left out the intervening, polite sentences that ordinary people might have mouthed for form’s sake.
‘I don’t want to hurt her,’ Amy said clearly. ‘I don’t know quite what happened this afternoon …
He interrupted her. ‘Oh, I think you do. You should talk to Adeline about it. She has an unusual capacity for friendship. Particularly, I would think, with her own children.’ They stood for a moment looking at one another. Then, in quite a different voice, he said, ‘Diamonds suit you. With a neck as beautiful as yours you should be wearing diamond earrings. Long, extravagant ones that glitter as you dance. I know that it was your twenty-first birthday a month ago, because I remember the day you were born.’
Suddenly, the deep-sea roaring in Amy’s ears threatened to deafen her. The blood pounded like Atlantic surf in her head.
‘I shall buy you a birthday pair, and I will present them to you over dinner the day after tomorrow.’
‘No …’ Amy said weakly, and he raised one eyebrow as he laughed at her.
‘Amy, where do you imagine all your mother’s jewels in their chic Cartier settings came from? Those diamond handcuffs, for example? They’re not musty old Lovell heirlooms, are they, not like those monumental family rubies that look like drops of bullock’s blood?’
Amy was too afraid of the new, terrifying idea that had swept down on her even to speak. Jack Roper went on: ‘They were given to her. By men who loved and admired her. You should be prepared to accept tributes in the same way, Amy.’
He turned his hat in his fingers, preparing to put it on. ‘Until the day after tomorrow.’ Then Jack Roper opened the door and strode down the steps, settling his hat on his silver-fair hair. Amy had a last glimpse of him walking purposefully away towards Bond Street before she closed the door and leant briefly against the safe barrier of it.
It was a long moment before she walked back up the stairs to the drawing room. Adeline and Richard were sitting on the sofa. Richard’s arm was round his mother’s shoulders and their heads were close together. As soon as Amy came in they looked up, their expressions changing. Amy saw that her mother had been crying. One of Richard’s schoolboy handkerchiefs was crumpled in her fingers.
How close they are to each other, she thought, with a little shock. Much closer than I am to either of them. How alike, too. I’ve never noticed that before.
‘Thank you, darling,’ Adeline said. ‘That wasn’t such a brilliant luncheon, was it? I love Jack dearly. I always have. But seeing him after so long made me realize that I’m old. I’ve always hated old age. Ugliness. Being alone …’ She faltered, and then her face crumpled once more. Richard drew her close again and murmured against her hair as Amy stood helplessly by.
‘You are just forty-two years old. You will never be ugly. And people will always love you, because you are you.’
After a moment Adeline sniffed self-derisively. She blew her nose on Richard’s handkerchief and stood up, frowning at the creases in her silk dress. ‘I think I will go upstairs and have a tiny nap. Quite probably everything will look different afterwards. One shouldn’t drink immoderately, at my age.’
They watched her to the door, and then turned to each other. Richard pursed his lips in a long, slow whistle.
‘So what did you think of him?’
‘Mr Roper?’
‘Who else, darling?’
‘I thought he was … impressive. And attractive, I suppose.’
‘So did I.’ He smiled his wry smile as Amy tried to put aside the fear that had closed round her in the hallway.
‘Did you mean what you said, about not going back to Eton?’ she asked, to distract them both. ‘And being a man of letters?’
‘Yes,’ Richard said airily. ‘Eton and I hold nothing for each other now. I would prefer to leave before they ask me to. And I’ve written a novel that’s going to make me rich and infamous. Tony Hardy says it needs completely rewriting, and it will take me a year, but it will do in the end. Hasn’t he told you?’
‘I don’t see much of Tony nowadays.’
It was a mark of their closer relationship since the orangery that he acknowledged her friendship with Tony. But they had never spoken about what had happened there.
‘Too busy bandaging?’ he asked.
‘Something like that,’ Amy responded with equal lightness. ‘You know, I think I might follow Mama’s example and lie down this afternoon. I’m not very used to wine in the daytime.’
But although she lay on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, sleep didn’t come. She was thinking, instead, a knotted and insistent tangle of thoughts that coiled around the reality of Jack Roper.
Adeline was out to dinner that evening, and absent from the house all the following day. Amy found her at last at seven o’clock, in her room changing for another evening.
‘Come in, dear heart,’ Adeline called out in response to her knock. ‘See? Do you think this will make me look too much en fête? Too tinselly?’ She held up a short slip of pearly-grey dress and the straight, silver-sequinned jacket that went over it.
‘Like the fairy on the tree? Why not? No, I don’t think so, anyway.’ Amy put her head on one side to consider it, but Adeline had already hung the dress up.
‘Jack said that. Rather romantic, for someone who claims to be so hardboiled. D’you think he meant it?’ She laughed, not waiting for an answer. ‘Did you like him?’
‘Yes.’ Amy was hesitant, now that the moment had come. ‘I wanted to talk to you about him. He said I should. I thought…’
Adeline
