CHAPTER ELEVEN
I
WE found out, June and I, by the sheerest accident. At the end of that week she rang me up and asked if I would care to go with her to Hindhead. Some other engagement had fallen through at the last minute, and she had an afternoon and evening unexpectedly free. "We can take the two-seater car," she said, "and we'll just stop at the hotel for tea and then come back."
We went. The sunny ride through Richmond and Guildford and over the Hog's Back (the high, windy way that June and I always preferred) was especially entrancing on that Saturday afternoon. I don't think either of us was very much surprised to find Terry out when we reached the hotel. On such a day of sunshine and cool wind there would have been something wrong with him if he'd been in. Taplow told us that he'd gone for a walk and hadn't left word when he'd return. And then, with the curious Taplow mixture of frankness and discretion, came the remark: "As a matter of fact, sir, Mrs. Severn called this morning, and they went out together."
As a matter of fact! To him, perhaps, it was only that—a fact that might possibly interest us, or possibly might not. His casualness, anyhow, helped us to curb our own astonishment. I managed to order tea, and then June and I sat together in the little window alcove of the sitting-room, each waiting for the other to express the surprise we felt. But curiously, perhaps, neither of us did. We both pretended that Helen's visit was nothing out of the ordinary; Taplow had set us the example. When he brought our tea he said: "They'll have done quite a tidy bit of walking, I daresay, sir. Lovely weather for walking—not too hot, as you might say, sir, and not too cold either."
All June said when he had gone was: "Mother hates walking."
We had tea and tried to sustain a conversation. If this manuscript were an autobiography I should devote whole pages to the thoughts and fears that invaded my mind during that meal; and yet I believe I was quite eloquent about topics that now I can't even remember. There's a sort of talk that is especially copious when one is thinking all the time about something else.
After tea I said: "Shall we wait?"—and she answered quietly: "We'll wait—for a little while." So we waited. It was already half-past six, but June was used to night-driving and there was no particular hurry. The whole year has nothing lovelier, perhaps, than those early days of May, when twilight is like the perfect curtain descending on the perfect play. And yet to me, at any rate, the passing of that afternoon seemed ominous; for we were still waiting, and each minute gave us less to talk about and more to think about. Clouds rolled up and brought the dusk suddenly, and then came heavy, beating rain. When Taplow entered to light the swinging oil-lamps the sad yellow glow peered into all the corners of the room as if to show up rather than dispel the darkness. "This ought to bring 'em back pretty quick," he said, as he closed the windows against the downpour.
Ten minutes after that they came....
II