Moonshine. Victoria Clayton

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СКАЧАТЬ spends a lot of time in Provence. She has a mas there with a few acres of vines. She likes heat.’

      ‘Does she make the wine herself?’

      ‘No. She has someone to do it for her. She prefers to read and sunbathe and sleep. Sometimes she goes for walks or entertains. Anna is not an enthusiast.’

      ‘It sounds a charmed life.’ I wanted to ask more about her but was afraid of sounding inquisitive.

      He turned his head away to examine a handsome old house as we flew past. ‘I suppose it is. Are you married?’

      ‘Not even engaged. I once was for a week, then thought better of it. The awfulness of breaking it off and hurting someone I was fond of taught me a lesson: not to go into these things without being one hundred per cent certain. But as one can’t ever be that I may never get married. It seems such a terrible risk.’

      ‘That’s not the enthusiast talking. What about your parents?’

      ‘What about them?’

      ‘Happy marriage?’

      ‘No.’

      Burgo refrained from drawing the obvious conclusion, for which I was grateful. He continued to look out of the window. Trees overhung the road. Occasionally a flash of fire from the setting sun shot between the leaves and stung my eyes. I closed them to prevent them watering. A minute went by without either of us saying anything. The silence felt comfortable now, as though we had reached some sort of understanding. Perversely, this feeling of intimacy, as though the usual social rules need not apply, made me determined to break it.

      ‘It’s so kind of you to take me out and give me this treat. But you must let me pay my share.’

      He continued to look out of the window. ‘Are you afraid I shall call in the debt by demanding sexual favours?’

      I kept my voice detached, though I was disconcerted. ‘Not in the least. A man intent on paying for such things with dinner doesn’t talk about his wife, unless of her imperfections.’

      ‘So you’re quite confident that what I want is your companionship for what would otherwise have been a lonely evening?’

      ‘Perfectly confident. Isn’t it possible for men and women to enjoy friendship with nothing else involved?’

      Burgo did not reply but turned his head to look at me. It was not a flirtatious look. He did not smile or smoulder. There was no tenderness, no particular friendliness even. It was a look of simple interrogation, as though he wondered whether I meant him to give me a serious answer. I felt compelled to drop my eyes, conscious of a sudden acceleration of the heart.

      ‘Here we are,’ he said as Simon braked sharply and swung the car between a pair of iron gates.

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Ladyfield.’

      An immaculately maintained drive was bordered on each side by a double row of limes. Beyond were park-like grounds dotted with stately trees.

      ‘Is it a private house?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Will there be other guests?’

      ‘Eight more, I believe.’

      I was almost annoyed to discover that we would be so well chaperoned. I had come near to making a fool of myself, thinking, as he had perhaps intended me to think because it amused him, that we would be having a cosy dinner à deux with the potential for advance and retreat that this implied. I caught his eye. He was smiling.

      ‘Won’t the people there think it odd? Thrusting a perfectly strange woman on them at the last minute, I mean?’

      ‘You don’t seem particularly strange to me.’

      ‘You know what I mean.’

      ‘Fleur won’t mind at all. I ought to say she’ll be delighted but that would be stretching it. I don’t know that she’s ever really delighted by people. She much prefers animals. This is where I stay when I’m in Sussex. When one of her guests rang to say she was ill, I told Fleur I’d invite you.’

      ‘Is it her house?’

      ‘Strictly speaking it’s Dickie’s. He’s her husband. It’s been in his family for a couple of generations.’

      ‘They seem to have prospered.’ I could not help comparing the grounds of Ladyfield with Cutham Hall, to the latter’s disadvantage.

      The lights of the house appeared through the trees. The drive curved round in a circle to end before an early Georgian house of soft red brick. Ladyfield must have been built at roughly the same time as Cutham Hall but had escaped Victorian revision. The light was fading but I could see a well-proportioned façade with a pedimented portico, pilasters and a balustrade at roof level ornamented with urns. The half-glazed front door stood open.

      ‘Well?’ Burgo asked as we stood on the drive after Simon had driven the car away. ‘Like it?’

      ‘It’s enchanting!’

      ‘Let’s go in.’

      The hall was painted a marvellous rich red, the perfect background for what seemed at a cursory glance to be good paintings. A cantilevered staircase curled round at the far end beneath a Venetian window. It was all quite grand but untidy. On the lovely, worn limestone floor a pair of gumboots stood beside a bowl containing pieces of meat. Beneath a side table was a dog basket from which trailed a filthy old blanket. A halter and a Newmarket rug were thrown over a chair. Burgo examined a pile of letters on the table. He picked up one and read it quickly, then threw it aside.

      ‘Nothing that can’t wait. Let’s get a drink. Then I’ll run up and change.’

      We went into the drawing room. The walls were buff coloured and looked superb with the plasterwork, which was of a high quality and painted, in the correct manner, several shades of greyish-white. Burgo appeared at my side with a glass of something that fizzed.

      ‘What are you looking at so intently?’

      ‘Plasterwork’s a particular weakness of mine.’

      ‘Perhaps, after all, you are a strange woman.’

      I stared at the painting above the fireplace. ‘Isn’t that a Turner?’

      ‘Is it?’

      ‘It’s an early one. Before he was bitten by cosmic mysticism. But you can see the hand of the master.’

      ‘You may be able to. I don’t know enough about it.’

      ‘Oh, I’m a novice myself when it comes to painting. That takes years and years of just looking.’

      ‘You beast!’ said a voice behind us. ‘I’ve been waiting and waiting for you. And then you choose just the moment I dash out to the stable to arrive.’

      A girl, younger than me, I guessed, had come into the drawing СКАЧАТЬ