away his appearance were confounded by his own hand that opened the latch on the gate, and his legs that stepped up the path to the front door. The maid put down her shopping basket and he watched himself hand her his case and his hat, which she placed on the hall table. He smelt beeswax, noticed the gleam of the staircase spindles, felt the warmth of the house envelope him – and all the while marvelled that he was not where he ought to be, striding away down the street, after a chance pause outside the gate to check the fastening of his case.
‘Would you like to wait for Mrs Constantine in here, Sir?’ the maid said, indicating a doorway. Through the doorway he saw a fire blazing, a tapestry cushion on a leather armchair, a Persian rug. He stepped into the room and was overwhelmed with the desire to stay. He sat at one end of the large sofa and felt the deep cushions mould themselves around him. The other end of the sofa was occupied by a large ginger cat that roused itself from sleep and began to purr. Mr Vaughan put out a hand to stroke it.
‘Good afternoon.’
The voice was calm and musical. Decorous. He turned to see a woman in her middle years, with greying hair pulled back from a wide, even forehead. Her dress was dark blue, which made her grey eyes almost blue, and her collar was white and quite plain. Mr Vaughan was pierced by a sudden memory of his mother, which took him by surprise, for this woman was not at all like her. His mother, when she died, had been taller, slimmer, younger, of a darker complexion and never so plainly neat.
Mr Vaughan rose and began to make his apologies. ‘You must think me an awful fool,’ he began. ‘Awfully embarrassing, and the worst of it is, I hardly know how to begin to explain it. I was outside, you see, and I had no intention of coming in – not today, at any rate, I have a train to catch … Well, what I’m not explaining very well is that I cannot abide a railway waiting room, and having some time to kill, it seemed I might as well just come and see where you were, for another time, that was my intention, except that your maid happened to open the door at that very moment and naturally she thought – I don’t blame her in the least, bad timing, that’s all, easy mistake to make …’ On and on he went. He snatched at reasons, grasped for logic, and sentence by sentence it all evaded him; he felt that with every word he was talking himself further and further away from what he meant to say.
While he spoke, her grey eyes rested patiently on his face, and though she was not smiling, he felt gentle encouragement in the lines that surrounded her eyes so expressively. At last he ran out of words.
‘I see,’ she said, nodding. ‘You didn’t mean to disturb me today, you were just passing and wanted to check the address …’
‘That’s right!’ Relieved to be so easily let off, he waited for her to initiate a farewell. Already he saw himself reclaiming his hat and case from the hall and taking his leave. He saw his feet on the chequered path to the house. He saw his hand reach for the latch on the painted gate. But then he saw the steadiness of the tranquil grey eyes.
‘Yet after all that, here you are,’ she said.
Here he was. Yes. He suddenly felt his hereness very acutely. In fact, the room seemed to pulse with it, and so did he.
‘Why don’t you sit down, Mr …?’
‘Vaughan,’ he said, and her eyes did not give away whether or not they recognized the name, but only continued their easy watchfulness. He sat.
Mrs Constantine poured some clear liquid from an etched decanter into a glass and placed it by his side; then she too sat down, in an armchair placed at an angle to the sofa. She smiled expectantly.
‘I need your help,’ he admitted. ‘It’s my wife.’
Her face softened into sad sympathy. ‘I am sorry. May I offer you my condolences?’
‘No! I don’t mean that!’
He sounded irritated. He was irritated.
‘Forgive me, Mr Vaughan. But when a stranger appears at my door, it is usually because somebody has died.’ Her expression did not change; it remained steady and was not unfriendly,