looked up with some slight surprise.
‘Anything you want, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘If anyone said Hungerford Bridge to you, where would you go?’
‘Where should I go?’ Mrs Worrit considered. ‘You mean if I wanted to go, do you?’
‘We can proceed on that assumption.’
‘Well, then, I suppose I’d go to Hungerford Bridge, wouldn’t I?’
‘You mean you would go to Hungerford in Berkshire?’
‘Where is that?’ said Mrs Worrit.
‘Eight miles beyond Newbury.’
‘I’ve heard of Newbury. My old man backed a horse there last year. Did well, too.’
‘So you’d go to Hungerford near Newbury?’
‘No, of course I wouldn’t,’ said Mrs Worrit. ‘Go all that way—what for? I’d go to Hungerford Bridge, of course.’
‘You mean—?’
‘Well, it’s near Charing Cross. You know where it is. Over the Thames.’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘Yes, I do know where it is quite well. Thank you, Mrs Worrit.’
It had been, he felt, rather like tossing a penny heads or tails. An advertisement in a morning paper in London meant Hungerford Railway Bridge in London. Presumably therefore that is what the advertiser meant, although about this particular advertiser Sir Stafford Nye was not at all sure. Her ideas, from the brief experience he had had of her, were original ideas. They were not the normal responses to be expected. But still, what else could one do. Besides, there were probably other Hungerfords, and possibly they would also have bridges, in various parts of England. But today, well, today he would see.
It was a cold windy evening with occasional bursts of thin misty rain. Sir Stafford Nye turned up the collar of his mackintosh and plodded on. It was not the first time he had gone across Hungerford Bridge, but it had never seemed to him a walk to take for pleasure. Beneath him was the river and crossing the bridge were large quantities of hurrying figures like himself. Their mackintoshes pulled round them, their hats pulled down and on the part of one and all of them an earnest desire to get home and out of the wind and rain as soon as possible. It would be, thought Sir Stafford Nye, very difficult to recognize anybody in this scurrying crowd. 7.20. Not a good moment to choose for a rendezvous of any kind. Perhaps it was Hungerford Bridge in Berkshire. Anyway, it seemed very odd.
He plodded on. He kept an even pace, not overtaking those ahead of him, pushing past those coming the opposite way. He went fast enough not to be overtaken by the others behind him, though it would be possible for them to do so if they wanted to. A joke, perhaps, thought Stafford Nye. Not quite his kind of joke, but someone else’s.
And yet—not her brand of humour either, he would have thought. Hurrying figures passed him again, pushing him slightly aside. A woman in a mackintosh was coming along, walking heavily. She collided with him, slipped, dropped to her knees. He assisted her up.
‘All right?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
She hurried on, but as she passed him, her wet hand, by which he had held her as he pulled her to her feet, slipped something into the palm of his hand, closing the fingers over it. Then she was gone, vanishing behind him, mingling with the crowd. Stafford Nye went on. He couldn’t overtake her. She did not wish to be overtaken, either. He hurried on and his hand held something firmly. And so, at long last it seemed, he came to the end of the bridge on the Surrey side.
A few minutes later he had turned into a small café and sat there behind a table, ordering coffee. Then he looked at what was in his hand. It was a very thin oilskin envelope. Inside it was a cheap quality white envelope. That too he opened. What was inside surprised him. It was a ticket.
A ticket for the Festival Hall for the following evening.
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