Immediately afterwards, he went. He declined Auntie Loo’s invitation to stay to tea; he was too angry, too ruffled, to endure half an hour more in that black and crimson room, surrounded by Garden faces and listening to Garden comments while he ate toast and strawberry jam. Better, far better, to miss tea and speed back to Brixton, to an early supper, to the yet unread Observer and the sympathetic voice and eyes of his dear wife.

Sometimes vivid pictures haunted his imagination.

On his way home in the Tube one came; he saw the black and crimson room in winter, dimmed with greenish fog, the doctor scribbling the will under the eyes of the red-haired woman and Strang (playing cards with a railway porter – no, it was impossible! Mr Marriot had never seen the fellow in the flesh, and he simply could not visualize Strang at all), the little dispenser bending over the table to sign; and the pale, thin young Francis, scornful and yet honoured by the responsibility, carefully folding the leaf from the prescription pad and putting it away in his pocket.

He saw it all; he had had glimpses of Mrs North and Bailey and other parasites of the family from time to time, in his legal dealings with them; and the picture was real to him as a page from Dickens, whose books he loved.

That’s it, he thought, forgetting his anger for a second in pleasure at having made a discovery. They are not like real people at all; they are like people out of a book. A mad, twisted book.

CHAPTER VI

The door closed on Mr Marriot.

Instantly Aunt Maxine turned to Francis—

‘Well! You’re a sly one, I must say! Carrying it about all those months and never saying a word to anyone …’

‘Now, now, Maxine; remember it was Hartley’s wish, it was our brother’s wish that no one should be told. It is hard, I must say; it is rather hard that Hartley should have shown such mistrust of everyone. And why, why’ (lamented Uncle Preston in a loud whisper, with a tactful glance in the direction of Harry, who was gloomily slapping his pockets and staring round the room in search of a match, with a cigarette cocked between his lips), ‘why leave it all to Harry? Most unfortunate … most unjust. Francis, my dear boy, why did you not confide in me or in one of your aunts? Why did you wait until today, and then bring it out in such an odd, such an abrupt way? It has been a great shock to us all …’

‘Tea will be here in a minute, dear,’ said Auntie Loo, over her shoulder; she had turned her back on the room and was drawing the heavy crimson curtains to shut out the lowering evening.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Francis, not looking at all sorry, but sulky and bored.

‘It was so selfish, Francis,’ said Aunt Grace, plunging in with a voluptuous splash. ‘So selfish. Such a shock for us all; so unexpected. It was not a manly thing to do. I am sure none of the fellows in your form at school would have done such a thing. I don’t know what Angela will say when I tell her. She will be so disappointed and hurt—’