to be coming along very nicely. He’s a little tired at the moment – we had a rather long talk, but he wasn’t distressed in any way. I don’t think he’s expecting you.’
‘No, but I was passing on my way home for lunch. I’ve some new tablets, I’d like him to try them, I think they might be useful.’
They had moved together into the centre of the spacious hall. A chilly room, in spite of the logs burning in the grate. Always a chilly room, Kenneth remembered, even when I was a lad it struck cold into my bones, even in the height of summer. He glanced at Burnett and saw that his eyes were resting on the gilt-framed portrait over the fireplace. Kenneth looked up at his mother, at her calm, sad, disciplined face turned a little to one side, her hands folded together in resignation on the dark blue silk of her skirt.
He had a sudden impulse to speak of her to someone, to this doctor perhaps, standing beside him. He wanted to pluck her back for a moment from that shadowy land in which, impossibly, she could no longer experience sadness or resignation, pain or heartbreak.
‘You never knew her, did you?’ he said in a low voice. Dr Burnett had left Rockley for some teeming grimy city in the north before Henry Mallinson brought home his bride. ‘You came back to Rockley after she …’ He found himself totally unable to utter the bleak finality of that word, died.
‘A beautiful face,’ Burnett said in a voice with overtones that Kenneth couldn’t quite identify. ‘In spite of the unhappiness, a face of great beauty.’
So you see it too, Kenneth thought, it isn’t just to my eyes, the eyes of love and knowledge, that her unhappiness still speaks from the careful oils. It is clear after all these years to a stranger who never knew her, never saw her.
‘You didn’t come to the wedding?’ he asked suddenly, surprisingly. They had been boyhood friends, the doctor and his father, one would have expected him to leave that grimy city and take a train south to stand beside his old friend on that special day.
Burnett shook his head. ‘I couldn’t get away, I was single-handed at the time.’ His voice remembered the driving work of those days, the brief hours of sleep, the endless, appalling fatigue. ‘It was a hard life.’ He gave a little sigh and returned to the present with a movement of his shoulders.
‘You’ll be staying here?’ he asked. ‘For a few days, I imagine?’
‘For a few days at least. But not in the house. I’m going along to the Swan now to get a room. I don’t imagine there’ll be any difficulty.’ Never more than two or three guests at a time in the Swan, for what was there to attract a horde of visitors to a little village like this? ‘I thought I’d spare the servants here the trouble—’
‘I could give you lunch,’ Burnett said. ‘If you’d care to wait till I’ve seen your father. It won’t be anything very fancy but it might be better than the Swan.’ Hardly noted for its fine cuisine, the village pub. He was surprised at Kenneth wanting to stay there. Plenty of servants at Whitegates. What else were they paid for but to look after the family? All those bedrooms, half of them never used from one year’s end to another nowadays.
‘It’s very kind of you, but I think I’ll go along right away and see about booking a room. And I’ve some business matters to attend to.’ Kenneth smiled a little. ‘You know how it is. I’ve left my junior partner in charge, he isn’t quite as experienced as I am. One has to keep in touch.’
Burnett turned towards the stairs. ‘I’ll be seeing you again, of course. We’ll both be in and out of Whitegates. Perhaps we can take a meal together another time.’
‘Father is all right?’ Kenneth asked suddenly. ‘I mean he is going to—’
‘To recover?’ The doctor gave him a shrewd look. ‘I see no reason why not. He isn’t all that old.’ He smiled. ‘That is to say, he’s exactly the same age as I am. I suppose to you that seems a very great age indeed but here in the country—’ he spread the fingers of one hand – ‘it’s no very great age as they reckon things here. I think you can set your mind at rest.’
At rest, Kenneth thought, letting himself out of the front door a few moments later. A strange word to express the present state of his mind. Behind him the door opened and the maid came running out.
‘Oh – Mr Kenneth – aren’t you going to stay for lunch? Cook is expecting you – and your room, it’s all ready for you!’
Kenneth turned. ‘No, I’m not staying in the house. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you thought I was. I’m staying at the Swan.’ The girl looked disappointed. They would welcome a visitor or two, he saw suddenly. It must be dull for the staff in the half-empty house. He gestured towards his car drawn up a few yards away. ‘I’m taking my things along there now. I’ll be back, of course.’ He gave her a cheerful smile. ‘I’ll be popping in and out all the time.’
As he headed the car towards the tall iron gates he saw a girl walking along the little path leading through the shrubbery. She raised a hand to part the overhanging branches and stepped fully into view. He slowed the car for a moment and their eyes met. He inclined his head briefly in acknowledgment and let the car glide forward again.
A pretty girl, an extremely pretty girl, pale shining hair and wide blue eyes. A slender figure, a diffident, vulnerable-looking face. His mind flicked rapidly through a catalogue of the residents and neighbours of Whitegates, striving to place her. A face too delicate and sensitive to belong to a servant, the clothes a little too tailored for a village girl.
As he drove out through the gates he remembered all at once that his father had said something about a secretary. That would be it, his father’s secretary. He considered the notion with a trace of surprise. There had been secretaries before, middle-aged women or older, lean and sinewy women, thickset, comfortable-looking women, but never one like this, never one with graceful limbs and palely-gleaming hair.
The pub came into sight. He put up a hand to his mouth and yawned, all at once extremely tired. It had been a long morning, full of surprises.
‘Very well then,’ Dr Burnett said. ‘Lunch now, a light lunch of course. Light meals only for the present. There must be no strain on the digestion. Then a nap. Afterwards, if you still feel like it, and only if you feel like it, you can sit up for half an hour this afternoon. Put on a dressing-gown and sit in that chair—’ He indicated a large upholstered chair near the window. ‘See that you’re warm, it’s most important to keep warm. Then back to bed again. And no further attempts to get up till I’ve seen you again, seen how you are. If everything goes well, we’ll think about letting you take a walk along the corridor tomorrow.’
‘Get along with you, you old fraud,’ Henry Mallinson said, grinning at him. ‘Who do you think you’re impressing with all this professional mumbo-jumbo? I’m as fit now as I was before this happened, just a little tired, that’s all. I’ll be as right as rain in a few days. I’ll see you into your grave before me. I’ll be the one who buys the wreath, not you, and well you know it.’
‘You can’t brush old age away by refusing to acknowledge it,’ Burnett said, unwilling to return the grin. ‘You’re not one of your own cars, you know, you can’t have a rebore, a new carburettor, a new engine. There’s to be no more driving on the brake and the accelerator for you from now on, you’ve got to get down to a slow steady speed.’
Henry acknowledged temporary defeat. ‘Oh, all right. Have it your own way. I’ll sit in my dressing-gown like a sick child in a nursery. Am I allowed comics? Or would the
