“It's going to be so much worse for Brenda.
You see she's got nothing else, much, except John. I've got her, and I love the house … but with Brenda John always came first … naturally … And then you know she's seen so little of John lately.
She's been in London such a lot.
I'm afraid that's going to hurt her.”
“You can't ever tell what's going to hurt people.”
“But, you see, I know Brenda so well.”
Six
The library windows were open and the clock, striking the hour, high overhead among its crockets and finials, was clearly audible in the quiet room.
It was some time since they had spoken.
Mrs. Rattery sat with her back to Tony; she had spread out her intricate four pack patience on a card table; he was in front of the fire, in the chair he had taken after lunch.
“Only four o'clock?” he said.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“No, just thinking … Jock will be more than half way there by now, about Aylesbury or Tring.”
“It's a slow way to travel.”
“It's less than four hours ago that it happened … it's odd to think that this is the same day; that it's only five hours ago they were all here at the meet having drinks.”
There was a pause in which Mrs. Rattery swept up the cards and began to deal them again.
“It was twenty eight minutes past twelve when I heard.
I looked at my watch … It was ten to one when they brought John in … just over three hours ago … It's almost incredible, isn't it, everything becoming absolutely different, suddenly like that?”
“It's always that way,” said Mrs. Rattery.
“Brenda will hear in an hour now … if Jock finds her in.
Of course she may very likely be out.
He won't know where to find her because there's no one else in the flat.
She leaves it locked up; empty, when she goes out … and she's out half the day.
I know because I sometimes ring up and can't get an answer.
He may not find her for hours … It may be as long again as the time since it happened.
That would only make it eight o'clock.
It's quite likely she won't come in until eight … Think of it, all the time between now and when it happened, before Brenda hears.
It's scarcely credible, is it?
And then she's got to get down here.
There's a train that leaves at nine something.
She might get that.
I wonder if I ought to have gone up too … I didn't like to leave John.”
(Mrs. Rattery sat intent over her game, moving little groups of cards adroitly backward and forwards about the table like shuttles across a loom; under her fingers order grew out of chaos; she established sequence and precedence; the symbols before her became coherent, interrelated.)
“… Of course she may be at home when he arrives.
In that case she can get the evening train, she used always to come by, when she went to London for the day, before she got the flat … I'm trying to see it all, as it's going to happen, Jock coming and her surprise at seeing him, and then his telling her … It's awful for Jock … She may know at half past five or a bit earlier.”
“It's a pity you don't play patience,” said Mrs. Rattery.
“In a way I shall feel happier when she knows … it feels all wrong as it is at present, having it as a secret that Brenda doesn't know … I'm not sure how she fits in her day.
I suppose her last lecture is over at about five … I wonder if she goes home first to change if she's going out to tea or cocktails.
She can't sit about much in the flat, it's so small.”
Mrs. Rattery brooded over her chequer of cards and then drew them towards her into a heap, haphazard once more and without meaning; it had nearly come to a solution that time, but for a six of diamonds out of place, and a stubbornly congested patch at one corner, where nothing could be made to move.
“It's a heartbreaking game,” she said.
The clock struck again.
“Is that only quarter past? … You know I think I should have gone off my head if I were alone. It's nice of you to stay with me.”
“Do you play bezique?”
“I'm afraid not.”
“Or piquet?”
“No.
I've never been able to learn any card game except animal snap.”
“Pity.”
“There's Marjorie and several people I ought to wire to, but I'd better wait until I know that Jock has seen Brenda.