‘When I look out there,’ Arthur Rubrick had said, ‘it always strikes me as being faintly comic that we should talk of “settling” on the plateau and of “bringing in new country.” All we do is to move over the surface of a few hills. There is nothing new about them. Primal, yes, and almost unblotted by such new things as men and sheep. Essentially back among the earlier unhuman ages.’ He added that perhaps this was the reason why no one had been able to write very well about this country. It had been possible, he said, to write of the human beings moving about parasitically over the skin of the country, but the edge of modern idiom was turned when it was tried against the implacable surface of the plateau. He said that some older and therefore fresher idiom was needed, ‘something that has the hard edge of a spring wind in it, something, comparable to the Elizabethan mode.’ From this conversation was born his idea of writing about the plateau in a prose that smacked of Hakluyt’s Voyages. ‘It sounds affected,’ said Terence, ‘but he only did it as a kind of game. I thought it really did give one the sensation of this country. But it was only a game.’

‘A fascinating game,’ said Alleyn. ‘What else did he write?’

Five more essays, she said, that were redrafted many times and never really completed. Very often he wasn’t up to working on them, and Flossie’s odd jobs absorbed his energy when he was well. There were many occasions when he fagged over her speeches and reports, or dragged himself to meetings and parties when he should have been resting. He had a morbid dread of admitting to his wife that he was unwell. ‘It’s so tiresome for her,’ he used to say. ‘She’s too good about it, too kind.’

‘And she was kind,’ Ursula declared. ‘She took endless trouble.’

‘It was the wrong kind of trouble,’ Fabian said. ‘She oozed long-suffering patronage.’

‘I didn’t think so. Nor did he.’

‘Did he, Terry?’ asked Fabian.

‘He was extraordinarily loyal. That’s all he ever said, “It’s too good of her, too kind.” But, of course, it wasn’t much fun being the object of that sort of compassion. And then—’ Terence paused.

‘Then what, Terry?’ said Fabian.

‘Nothing. That’s all.’

‘But it isn’t quite all, is it? Something happened, didn’t it? There was some crisis, wasn’t there? What was he worrying about that last fortnight before she died? He was worried, you know. What was it?’