Stone's Fall

'I only saw him briefly, for a few hours when he came back, and we didn't have time to talk very much. I was away for the weekend. At the Rothschilds' at Waddesdon. Charming people. Do you know them? They were not John's bankers, but they are such congenial company. You'd like them.'

She'd done it again. As fast as I settled into talking to one person, she shifted and became someone else. From the grieving widow, bored with English mores, to the critical, snobbish woman who had been so cruel to Mrs Vincotti, to Jenny the anarchist, to the lustful woman who had driven me to a pitch of frustration, and now to the society gadabout. Do you know Natty Rothschild, darling? Such a sweet man . . . Of course I didn't know the Rothschilds, and I was sure I wouldn't find them charming at all. I felt as though I was talking to an actress, who was playing several roles at the same time, all from different plays.

I glared at her; it was the best I could manage, as an explanation for the feelings behind it would have taken too long, and said too much. Besides, I'm sure she knew exactly what I was feeling.

'I think the obvious thing to do is to go to Northumberland myself and see if I can discover what he did. I will go tomorrow. It is something I can do well, and it will be pleasant to feel competent for once.'

'Do you want me to come as well?' she asked.

Great fantasies swept through my mind at the very idea and, for the first time, I was ready for them. I shook my head. 'No. Absolutely not.'

CHAPTER 22

I went the next evening, on the night sleeper to Newcastle, leaving from King's Cross at ten fifteen. I had never been on a sleeper before, and I found myself childishly excited by the adventure. Not only that, I went first class; money was no object so I thought I would indulge myself. My expenses were being met, and I now had (so the bank had informed me in a hand-written letter) £36 14s 6d in my account. I was tired, which perversely spoiled the occasion; I would gladly have stayed up all night in the crisp linen sheets, listening to the rattle of the wheels and seeing the sparks from the chimney fly past the window in the darkness like a private firework display. It was a two-berth compartment – I was not sufficiently used to my new status to buy myself a single – and my travelling companion was a solicitor from Berwick, a middle-aged man with a wife and four children, whose father, and father's father, had been solicitors in Berwick before him. We talked over the brandy that the Great Northern provided before bedtime, served on a mahogany tray brought round by the porter, and I found his conversation soothing and congenial.

He was a happy man, was Mr Jordan, who had created an entire universe of society in his little town on the edge of the country. On other occasions I might have found him dull, I suppose; his life of bridge and supper parties would never have suited me. But I took comfort in the fact that he liked it; and found my liking was tinged with longing. I feared for Mr Jordan; I felt that the anarchists and the Ravenscliffs would succeed in sweeping all away, sooner or later, and the world would be the poorer for its loss. And then I slept, the sort of sleep which is entirely perfect. It was glorious and I remember thinking as I was in the deepest part of my unconsciousness that if death bore any resemblance to this, then there was nothing to fear at all.

When I woke up, the sun was shining weakly, and the porter of the night before – freshly shaved and tidy – was gently prodding me. 'Morning tea, sir? Toast? Your newspaper? Hot water is on the shelf waiting for you. There's no hurry at all, sir, but if you could be up and about in an hour . . .'

My travelling companion had already gone, so I had the compartment to myself, and I made best use of it. The sleeping car had been uncoupled and pushed into a siding, where it was quiet except for the twittering of the birds and the occasional noise of a steam train passing. It was a lovely day, all the better for the fact that what I was doing there stayed out of my mind completely as I drank my tea, read the newspaper, shaved and dressed in the leisurely fashion I decided that men of means must always employ.