Guilty Thing Surprised Read Free

peacemaker. He smiled kindly at Georgina as the women left the room. ‘Talking of dedications,’ he said to his brother-in-law, ‘will you write in the book for me?’
    Using a broken old ballpoint, Denys Villiers wrote on the flyleaf:
    The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction …
    Quentin read it and a faint flush of pleasure coloured his cheeks. He laid his hand on Villiers’ shoulder. ‘Now write your name,’ he said.
    So Villiers wrote beneath the quotation:
Your brother, Denys Villiers.
    ‘It’s not like you to be inaccurate. It ought to be “brother-in-law”.’
    ‘There’s no need,’ said Villiers sharply, shaking off the hand, ‘for too much bloody accuracy.’
    The women came back, Georgina fastening her large handbag.
    ‘Thanks very much for letting me have this, Elizabeth,’ said Georgina. ‘It’s awfully good of you.’
    ‘You’re more than welcome, my dear. I shall never use it again.’ And Elizabeth kissed her affectionately.
    ‘When you’ve finished billing and cooing,’ said Denys Villiers unpleasantly, ‘perhaps we can get a move on.’
    *  *  *
    ‘I think I’ll go straight to bed,’ said Quentin. ‘I can’t wait to start the new book. Are you going to sit up a bit longer?’
    ‘It’s such a fine evening,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I may have a walk in the grounds before I go to bed.’
    ‘Wrap up warm, darling. I’ll say good night, then.’
    ‘Good night, darling.’
    Elizabeth fetched herself a coat, a soft lightweight thing of deep green angora. In the moonlight it was the same colour as the cypresses that grew in the Italian garden. Late blooming roses, pink, apricot, lemon, all looked white tonight. She walked across the turf between the rosebeds, hexagonal, semicircular, rhomboid, then by the paved path between yew hedges to a door in the red brick wall. The smoke from Will’s fire rose in a thin grey column.
    Elizabeth unlocked the gate and let herself out on to the grass verge which, overhung by the Manor beeches, separated the wall from the Pomfret Road. As car headlights flared, flowed past, she stepped back for a moment into the shadows of the garden. Katje in the Mini, coming home from Kingsmarkham. Once more the road was empty, lighted only by the moon. Elizabeth closed the gate behind her, crossed the road and began to walk away from it by a sandy path that led into Cheriton Forest.
    When she was out of sight of the road she sat down on a log, waiting. Presently she lit a cigarette, the third of the five she would smoke that day.
    The Nightingales slept in separate bedrooms on the first floor of Myfleet Manor and at the front of the house. Quentin undressed and got into bed quickly. He switched on his bedlamp and opened
Wordsworth in Love.
    First, as was his custom with Villiers’ books, he studied with pride and pleasure the publisher’s eulogy of the author and his works, and scrutinised his brother-in-law’s portrait on the back of the jacket. Next he looked at all the illustrations in turn, the photographed paintings of Wordsworth, of his sister Dorothy, and of the ‘mazy Forth’ as seen from Stirling Castle. Then, finally, he began to read.
    Quentin read like a scholar, religiously looking up every bibliographical reference and reading each footnote. He had just come to the poet’s meeting with his French sweetheart when he hear footsteps on the stairs. Elizabeth in from her walk? But no …
    The footsteps went on, up and up, until they sounded faintly above his head. Not Elizabeth, then, but Katje who slept on the top floor.
    It was eleven-thirty and growing chilly. He had said earlier that there was a nip in the air. Elizabeth would be cold out there in the garden. The sashes in his own windows and the casements up above rattled as the wind rose. Quentin laid aside his book, got up and looked out of the window.
    The moon had disappeared behind a bank of cloud. He put on his dressing gown, opened the bedroom door and