Book by book, reading with unswerving, unsmiling attention, Mr Bateman traversed the High Hope bookshelves. He 124read The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Green Hat and The Blue Lagoon and The Lilac Sunbonnet, and The Revised Prayerbook of 1927 and Lassie and Rin-tin-tin and The Memoirs of Marie of Roumania and The Story of San Michele. He read the works of Barrie and Milne, and old copies of Vogue and Good Housekeeping, and bound volumes of The Girl’s Own Paper, and Gone with the Wind, and The White Cliffs of Dover. Roused to helpfulness by news of his burned house, or possibly aware of the increased sales value of anyone publicly pitiable, editors wrote and asked him when they might have another article, even if they had never had one, and publishers suggested that he should write introductions to their reprints of lesser classics. These letters, having typed envelopes, were opened by Loveday Patterson, who was pleased to see them. Mr Bateman’s finances had suffered by the ebb-tide which catches all writers who have become well known without ever having been popular. Keeping her voice suitably impartial, she read them aloud. But barely raising his eyes from The Intimate Life of the Tzarina or Opening a Chestnut Burr, Mr Bateman asked her to write to the fellow and say he’d think about it.

He’s relaxing, she thought; and having found this benign explanation, settled down to do a little reading and make herself some new clothes; for her possessions, naturally, had been burned with his. As secretary to a distinguished man of letters, Loveday made a point of reading high-class books, and got them from a lending library. She could only afford the cheap subscription, so by the time she got them they were a year or so out of date, but they were still high-class.125

He read, she read and knitted. And then, with laceration, like one startled from a deep dream, Matthew discovered that he had read every book in the house. Awakening with a sigh, he looked round on his new surroundings. There, exhaling in a long perspective, was the landscape of yet another autumn; and here, so close at hand as to be almost perspectiveless, was Loveday Patterson, growing old in his service, but still fresh-coloured, prompt and trim.

‘Loveday, who was the fellow who wanted an introduction to Peter Wilkins?’

‘To Peter Wilkins, Mr Bateman? I think it was Butler and Bugler.’

‘Tell him I’ll do it.’

For Peter Wilkins, creature of an eighteenth-century romancer who wrote but this one book, being shipwrecked on a desert island, wooed a feathered mistress, half woman, half bird; and having mastered his first mistrust of such a being, got children on her and put her into European dress. Just so, thought Matthew, writers substantiate their first amours with poetry, and make novels, and publish them. All this is a parable, and should be written down. But as usual the first impetus was caught and strangled in thickets of analogies and qualifications. Poor Loveday typed and retyped, and each revision was a stage further away from his intention. The Introduction to Peter Wilkins was limping towards its final stage of completion and nausea when the postman brought a registered packet. The Maidstone exhibition had closed, and Mrs White returned his three manuscripts together with a 126letter aptly hoping that he was at work on another of his delightful books.