Absurd. Yes, absurd. That night Mrs Mortlock realized her condition was easily curable. As conviction set in her mind, she might have found herself walking through the house, throwing open doors to rooms she would not need. She could not remain there; that was as clear as banging doors.

Shortly after, Mrs Mortlock made two telephone calls, the second of them to her mother.

‘Yes, darling. It is,’ she said. ‘Are you well?’ she asked, as though she had been wondering. ‘Perhaps it is the weather ... Livery weather. I have just booked my seat, dear, in tomorrow morning’s plane. I shall be with you for lunch.... No darling, a salad will do. Listen, I have decided,’ she said, ‘I have decided not to let Miss Mortlock have her way. I don’t see why she should keep the money....The money!’ she shouted across the distance.

Once she had been diffident even of mentioning a word which had such a sound metallic ring.

19

After that, a very short time after her return from the Island, Mrs Mortlock flew east, and was not seen for how many months people did not bother to count; they were dealing with lives of their own. Mrs Scudamore might have resented her acquaintances’ indifference if she had had less to announce.

‘It has been decided, and quite rightly, in my daughter’s favour,’ she was able to mention, and murmur in discreeter key: ‘I would not know how much, but it will leave her, well, comfortably off.’

To her daughter she said as they lingered re-united over that first, delicious cup of tea: ‘I have never known you paint your nails. Do you think, Anthea, such a vivid red is in the best of taste?’

Mrs Mortlock glanced down, at her lovely, dripping nails.

‘People,’ she said, ‘will learn to accept what they are expected to.’ Then she looked up, because she had developed a habit of delivering the ping-pong balls of words pat at the opposite wall. ‘And why should one go on doing what one has always done?’

Mrs Scudamore went, and stooped, to pick up the swath of silver-foxes which had slipped off the arm of an empty chair.

‘What will you do, Anthea, now?’

‘I expect I shall travel.’

‘Where, dear?’ Mrs Scudamore did not protest.

‘Perhaps everywhere. I haven’t thought. Provided I travel.’

Mrs Scudamore, who might have resented an answer on a smaller scale, was full of admiration for such an expensive decision.

‘I think you are very wise,’ she said.

20

So Mrs Mortlock, it was learnt from the Press, began to travel. If the details of her voyages were not recorded, it is because the details are never of importance, not even always to the traveller. Except that Mrs Mortlock stayed in many, and the best, hotels, glanced into the windows of the most exclusive shops, bought expensive objects for which she had no need, often abandoning them afterwards because of their excessive weight. Incidentally, she crossed oceans, climbed mountains, was carried down great rivers, and considered remaining for ever on a Greek island, only the haphazard plumbing put her off. In the course of her travels, naturally, she received several proposals of marriage, and even more indecent propositions, but was always prudent enough to lock her door on retiring.