and followed her with speed down two flights of stairs and along a corridor. She threw open a door and beckoned him in with agitated gestures.
‘Shove it under there,’ she commanded, pointing under a huge, mahogany bed. Ralph did so, glancing round the room. Everything was dark wood, sombre colours, dark velvet curtains.
‘Quickly!’ she urged.
He followed her out, padding silently along behind her. He hauled down two suitcases, another larger chest and a stack of books on painting and sculpture and photography. And all the time he noticed a sense of growing urgency in his employer’s manner. As soon as they had finished he put the lamp out, stood on the chair, pushed up the stepladder and replaced the trapdoor.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘you’d better collect your wet clothes from the bathroom and take them downstairs for Queenie to dry. I’ll call you when I need you. Oh, and Hollis, I wouldn’t mention our little venture to her.’
Ralph nipped down and had just taken his clothes out of the bathroom and on to the landing when he froze. From the hallway he could hear Queenie using the telephone, but in such a secretive manner that he knew she wasn’t meant to be. Intrigued, he sat on the stairway and eavesdropped.
‘Just now,’ she said, ‘I heard them.’ Pause. ‘She’s got this new gardener’s boy and she asked him to go upstairs. And he’s wearing some of Mr Egerton-Smythe senior’s clothes because his got wet.’ Pause. ‘That’s what I thought.’ Pause. ‘I can’t but I can have a look in her room when I dust up there.’
Ralph was horrified. It sounded as if Queenie was conspiring with someone to steal.
‘Not at all, sir. It’s my pleasure,’ she said, sycophantically. ‘So you’ll be calling tonight, sir.’ Pause. ‘Oh no, I won’t breathe a word, sir.’ Pause. ‘Well, I had to do what’s right, sir. I knew you’d want to know.’
Ralph sneaked quickly back to the lavatory next to the bathroom, pulled the chain and made his way noisily down the stairs. He heard a muffled whisper and the light clunk of the receiver being replaced on its cradle.
By the time he reached the kitchen, the door was closed. He knocked.
Queenie opened it and glanced disapprovingly down at the bundle in his arms and up at the clothes he was wearing. ‘Mrs Egerton-Smythe said I was to ask you to dry these.’
She grunted and snatched the clothes. ‘Wangled your way into those clothes again I see,’ she said. The bell rang. ‘That’ll be for you, I s’pose. That’s the study.’
He knocked at the door. When he entered, his second impression of the room was similar to the first. Cold masculinity, but not a masculinity he could identify with. When he looked at the endless shelves of glassed-in books he was surprised to find they were all law books.
‘My husband was a KC,’ she commented and her voice took on a lifeless quality. ‘Law students come here to read them. They’ll be popping in and out next week. It’s their half-term at the moment. Now, these books look far more interesting.’
On a small table in front of him were some of the books from the loft. ‘Pick what you want. Do you have a saddle-bag?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Good. Take them home. Peruse and digest.’
‘Thank you.’
There was a creak outside the door. Ralph looked up at Mrs Egerton-Smythe but she hadn’t noticed. It was probably nobody. Just the house shrinking with cold. There was still no fire in the grate. She caught him glancing at it.
‘I only keep it going for the students. When it’s half-term I don’t because . . .’ She paused. ‘Actually that’s my business, Hollis.’
After lunch it stopped raining. It was too soggy to work on the lawn so he decided to dig over the earth in the borders. At the end of the day, the bell was rung, and his dry clothes were handed to him. He changed in the bathroom, left Mrs Egerton-Smythe’s clothes folded neatly on the chair, as he had been instructed, and then returned to the study to collect his first pay packet. It was in an envelope on top of the gardening books he had selected.
‘Well, Hollis, you’ve almost impressed me. Better keep it up, though.’
‘Yes, Mrs Egerton-Smythe.’
‘What are you going to do with your new-found wealth then?’
He was about to say ‘That’s my business’ when she gave one of her slight smiles again.
‘It’s all right, you’re not obliged to tell me.’
‘French Without Tears ’, he blurted out and then wished he hadn’t.
‘The Terence Rattigan play?’
He beamed. ‘Yes, do you know it?’
‘I saw it once, years ago, with my eldest son. Off you go. I’ll see you on Monday morning.’
As he approached the door he heard footsteps in the hall outside. He swung it open only to catch the kitchen door just closing. Enough was enough, he thought. Swiftly he shut it again.
‘What now?’ she asked impatiently.
‘Madam, there’s something I must tell you. It’s about Queenie.’
She didn’t speak for some time. She stared for what seemed an eternity at the bookcases and then said very quietly, ‘Thank you, Hollis.’
Ralph felt awkward. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being a sneak,’ he stammered.
She looked at him in surprise as if she had forgotten he was there. ‘I expect you know which side your bread’s buttered on.’
Ralph flushed with anger. ‘It wasn’t that at all!’ he exclaimed.
For a fraction of a second her face softened and then she quickly frowned and the old angry look returned. ‘No, that was rude of me. I apologise. You’d better go now.’
Ralph gave a nod. He was just about to open the door when she suddenly said, ‘Enjoy the Rattigan.’
Up in the gallery, listening to the Billy Dixon Trio in the pit, he mulled over her words. He had the strange feeling that she would have liked to have come too but he couldn’t have asked her even if he had wanted to.
He longed to know what the surprise visit was all about and if Mr Egerton-Smythe was the other son she had mentioned. Whoever he was, Mrs Egerton-Smythe would not be able to move those trunks by herself if she wanted to hide them.
The auditorium grew dark. The music died down. The curtains rose to a living room in France with its walls of sea green, and pink and white striped accessories. The sun was flooding through the French windows. The table was laid for breakfast and there in the centre of the alcove on one of the shelves was a row of white books with his italic writing and fleur-de-lis design on them. Somewhere hidden from the audience were Isla’s chalk marks. She would probably be watching from one of the wings now. The thought of her produced a glorious ache which suffused his entire body.
A young man appeared through the French windows, gazing in despair at a textbook. The play had begun and Ralph felt himself being drawn into another world where men wore white flannels and blazers, fell in and out of love, had civilised arguments and everything came all right in the end.
When the play was over he made his way back to the stage door and hovered for a moment as if hoping to catch some drift of conversation coming from a dressing room window somewhere. He had broken his usual Friday habit. Instead of going to the second show after having supper at home he felt it would be wiser to go to the first show before his entire pay packet had been removed from him by his father.
Suddenly he decided to return