He seemed her polar opposite. He challenged, proclaimed, promised. He was an acute observer; of her, of the things around him. He kept nothing hidden. She seemed to be the first woman he had ever truly loved. She wondered, when she read his words again, whether he was the first man she had truly loved in return.
When you looked at me with those limitless, deliquescent eyes of yours, I used to wonder what it was you could possibly see in me. Now I know that is a foolish view of love. You and I could no more not love each other than the earth could stop circling the sun.
Although the letters were not always dated, it was possible to place them in some kind of chronology: this one had come soon after they had first met, another after some kind of argument, a third after a passionate reunion. He had wanted her to leave Laurence. Several of them asked her to. She had apparently resisted. Why? She thought now of the cold man in the kitchen, the oppressive silence of her home. Why did I not go?
She read the seven letters obsessively, trawling for clues, trying to work out the man’s identity. The last was dated September, a matter of weeks before her accident. Why had he not made contact? They had plainly never telephoned each other, nor had any specific meeting place. When she observed that some of the letters shared a PO box, she had gone to the post office to find out if there were any more. But the box had been reallocated, and there were no letters for her.
She became convinced that he would make himself known to her. How could the man who had written these letters, the man whose emotions were suffused with urgency, just sit and wait? She no longer believed it might be Bill; it was not that she couldn’t believe she’d had feelings for him, but the idea of deceiving Violet seemed beyond her, if not him. Which left Jack Amory and Reggie Carpenter. And Jack Amory had just announced his engagement to a Miss Victoria Nelson of Camberley, Surrey.
Mrs. Cordoza entered the room as Jennifer was finishing her hair. “Could you make sure my midnight blue silk is pressed for this evening?” she said. She held a string of diamonds against her pale neck. He loved her neck:
I have never yet been able to look at it without wanting to kiss the back of it.
“I’ve laid it out on the bed there. And would you mind fetching me a drink?”
Mrs. Cordoza walked past her to pick it up. “I’ll do it now, Mrs. Stirling,” she said.
Reggie Carpenter was flirting. There was no other word for it. Yvonne’s cousin was leaning up against Jenny’s chair, his eyes fixed on her mouth, which was twitching mischievously as if they had shared a private joke.
Yvonne watched them as she handed Francis a drink where he sat, a few feet away. She stooped to murmur into her husband’s ear, “Can’t you get Reggie over with the men? He’s been virtually sitting in Jennifer’s lap since she got here.”
“I tried, darling, but short of physically hauling him away, there wasn’t a lot I could do.”
“Then grab Maureen. She looks as if she’s going to cry.”
From the moment she had opened the door to the Stirlings—Jennifer in a mink coat and apparently already loaded, he grim-faced—her skin had prickled, as if in anticipation of something awful. There was tension between them, and then Jennifer and Reggie had latched on to each other in a way that was frankly exasperating.
“I do wish people would confine their quarrels to home,” she muttered.
“I’ll give Larry a large whiskey. He’ll warm up eventually. Probably a bad day at the office.” Francis stood up, touched her elbow, and was gone.
The cocktail sausages had hardly been tried. With a sigh, Yvonne picked up a plate of small eats and prepared to hand it around.
“Have one, Maureen.”
Reggie’s twenty-one-year-old girlfriend barely registered that she had spoken. Immaculate in her rust-colored wool dress, she was seated stiffly on a dining chair, casting dark looks at the two people to her right, both of whom seemed oblivious to her. Jennifer was leaning back in the armchair, while Reggie perched neatly on the arm. He whispered something, and they burst into peals of laughter.
“Reggie?” Maureen said. “Didn’t you say we were going into town to meet the others?”
“Oh, they can wait,” he said dismissively.
“They were going to meet us in the Green Rooms, Bear. Half past seven, you said.”
“Bear?” Jenny, her laughter silenced, was staring at Reggie.
“His nickname,” said Yvonne, offering her the plate. “He was the most ridiculously hairy baby. My aunt said at first she thought she had given birth to one.”
“Bear,” Jenny repeated.
“Yup. I’m irresistible. Soft. And never happier than when I’m tucked into bed . . .” He raised an eyebrow and leaned closer to her.
“Reggie, can I have a word?”
“Not when you wear that face, dear cousin. Yvonne thinks I’m flirting with you, Jenny.”
“Not just thinking it,” said Maureen, coldly.
“Oh, come on, Mo. Don’t be a bore.” His voice, while still joking, held a note of irritation. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Jenny for far too long. We’re just catching up.”
“Has it really been that long?” Jennifer said innocently.
“Oh, an age,” he said fervently.
Yvonne saw the girl’s face fall. “Maureen, darling, would you care to come and help me make some more drinks? Goodness only knows where my useless husband has gone.”
“He’s just there. He—”
“Come on, Maureen. Through here.”
The girl followed her into the dining room and took the bottle of crème de menthe Yvonne handed her. She radiated impotent fury. “What does that woman think she’s doing? She’s married, isn’t she?”
“Jennifer’s just . . . Oh, she doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“She’s all over him! Look at her! How would she like it if I mooned at her husband like that?”
Yvonne glanced into the living room where Larry, his face a mask of contained disapproval, was now sitting, only half listening to what Francis was saying. She probably wouldn’t notice, she thought.
“I know she’s your friend, Yvonne, but as far as I’m concerned she’s an absolute bitch.”
“Maureen, I know Reggie’s behaving badly, but you can’t speak like that about my friend. You have no idea what she’s gone through recently. Now, pass me that bottle, would you?”