At a sound outside he lowered the light down to almost nothing and tweaked aside the curtain. Someone was down there on the path. It was Alice, returned late. As he watched she stopped, seemed to stumble and crouched down, her hands on the ground, her head lowered. What was she doing? Was the girl ill? He stepped back from the window and replaced the curtain before she saw him.

He crouched again before the fire. He had wished this fire to be his alone and no one else’s so that he could feed it with his memories, dead memories, memories that might cost him dearly, cost his reputation, his career, his marriage, his freedom even, but he had found nothing to burn. All the memories were here in his head and in his heart and he could not burn them. He had no wish to burn them. He did not want to abandon her.

Even though she had taken their child.

CHAPTER TWENTY: THE LETHARGY OF INDIFFERENCE

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE LETHARGY OF INDIFFERENCE

Two mornings later the first post brought a note from Marian Dempsey proposing Eleanor accompany her to the anti-bill demonstration arranged by the Women’s Suffrage League at Darlington town hall that evening and at which Miss Dempsey’s brother was to speak.

‘How extraordinary!’ said Eleanor, frowning over the note. ‘Surely Marian Dempsey understands you are an ardent supporter of the Federation, Alasdair? And yet she would invite me to an anti-bill demonstration.’

And she passed the note to him, offered with it her brightest smile, yet her words sounded brittle even to her own ears, and the smile froze a little on her face. They had spoken on a handful of occasions since Wednesday evening and on each occasion her words had been thus, brittle, unnatural, and her husband’s replies terse, his fury suppressed. Though it was herself, surely, who ought to be furious?

Why was it always herself brokering the truce, placating?

Alasdair did not take the note. He did not look up from the morning newspaper.

‘Perhaps she believes you do not share my views,’ he said.

‘I have never said as much.’

‘And do you?’ He lowered his newspaper paper and regarded her. ‘Share my views?’ There was something rather cold in his question, and in his eyes.

‘Naturally. I am your wife.’

After a moment’s silence he went back to his newspaper.

Alice came in then, going to the fire and stoking it with a poker. It was the first morning they had had the fire lit over breakfast and Alice seemed unable to judge its efficacy as she returned continually to refuel it and nurse it. The girl gave a violent shiver that was excessive, or seemed so to her mistress, for really the morning was quite mild. The flames leaped up now and Alice moved a firescreen before it.

And Alasdair did not stir, studying the newspaper as though it were a sacred text.