47
but she did not. She gathered up her wrap, moved out of
the row of chairs, and with a slightly accelerated step, moved
along with other people and disappeared in the crowd.
Stafford Nye regained his car and drove home. Arrived
there, he spread out the Festival Hall programme on his
desk and examined it carefully, after putting the coffee to
percolate.
The programme was disappointing to say the least of it.
There did not appear to be any message inside. Only on
one page above the list of the items, were the pencil marks
that he had vaguely observed. But they were not words or
letters or even figures. They appeared to be merely a musical
notation. It was as though someone had scribbled a phrase
of music with a somewhat inadequate pencil. For a moment
it occurred to Stafford Nye there might perhaps be a secret
message he could bring out by applying heat. Rather gingerly,
and in a way rather ashamed of his melodramatic fancy, he
held it towards the bar of the electric fire but nothing resulted.
With a sigh he tossed the programme back on to the table.
But he 'felt justifiably annoyed. All this rigmarole, a rendezvous
on a windy and rainy bridge overlooking the river! Sitting
through a concert by the side of a woman of whom he
yearned to ask at least a dozen questions--and at the end of
it? Nothing! No further on. Still, she had met him. But why?
If she didn't want to speak to him, to make further arrangements
with him, why had she come at all?
His eyes passed idly across the room to his bookcase
which he reserved for various thrillers, works of detective
fiction and an occasional volume of science fiction; he shook
his head. -Fiction, he thought, was infinitely superior to
real life,' Dead bodies, mysterious telephone calls, beautiful
foreign spies in profusion! However, this particular elusive
lady might not have done with him yet. Next time, he thought,
he would make some arrangements of his own. Two could
play at the game that she was playing.
He pushed aside the programme and drank another cup
of coffee and went to the window. He had the programme
still in his hand. As he looked out towards the street below
his eyes fell back again on the open programme in his hand
and he hummed to himself, almost unconsciously. He had a
good ear for music and he could hum the notes that were
scrawled there quite easily. Vaguely they sounded familiar
as he hummed them. He increased his voice a little. What was
it now? Turn, turn, turn turn ti-tum. Turn. Turn. Yes, definitely
familiar.
48
He started opening his letters.
They were mostly uninteresting. A couple of invitations,
one from the American Embassy, one from Lady Athelhampton,
a Charity Variety performance which Royalty
would attend and for which it was suggested five guineas
would not be an exorbitant fee to obtain a seat. He threw
them aside lightly. He doubted very much whether he wished
to accept any of them. He decided that instead of remaining
in London he would without more ado go and see his Aunt
Matilda, as he had promised. He was fond of his Aunt Matilda
though he did not visit her very often. She lived in a rehabilitated
apartment consisting of a series of rooms in one
wing of a large Georgian manor house in the country which
she had inherited from his grandfather. She had a large,
beautifully proportioned sitting-room, a small oval diningroom,
a new kitchen made from the old housekeeper's room,
two bedrooms for guests, a large comfortable bedroom for
herself with an adjoining bathroom, and adequate quarters
for a patient companion who shared her daily life. The remains
of a faithful domestic staff were well provided for and housed.
The rest of the house remained under dust sheets with periodical
cleaning. Stafford Nye was fond of the place, having spent
holidays there as a boy. It had been a gay house then. His
eldest uncle had lived there with his wife and their two
children. Yes, it had been pleasant there then. There had been
money and a sufficient staff to run it. He had not specially
noticed in those days the portraits and pictures. There had
been large-sized examples of Victorian art occupying pride of
place--overcrowding the walls, but there had been other
masters of an older age. Yes, "there had been some good
portraits there. A Raebum, two Lawrences, a Gainsborough,
a Leiy, two rather dubious Vandykes. A couple of Turners,
too. Some of them had had to be sold to provide the family
with money. He still enjoyed when visiting there strolling about
and studying the family pictures.
His Aunt Matilda was a great chatterbox but she always
enjoyed his visits. He was fond of her in a desultory way,
but he was not quite sure why it was that he had suddenly
wanted to visit her now. And what it was that had brought
family portraits into his mind? Could it have been because
there was a portrait of his sister Pamela by one of the leading artists of the day twenty years ago. He would like to see "lat portrait of Pamela and look at it more closely. See how
close the resemblance had been between the stranger who
49
had disrupted his life in this really outrageous fashion an
his sister.
He picked up the Festival Hall programme again wi* some irritation and began to hum the pencilled notes. Tui
turn, ti turn--Then it came to him and he knew what it was It was the Siegfried motif. Siegfried's Horn. The youi
Siegfried motif. That was what the woman had said last nigh
Not apparently to him, not apparently to anybody. But :
had been the message, a message that would have mean nothing to anyone around since it would have seemed t
refer to the music that had just been played. And the moti
had been written on his programme also in musical termi
The Young Siegfried. It must have meant something. Wel
perhaps further enlightenment would come. The Youn
Siegfried. What the heU did that mean? Why and ho^ and when and what? Ridiculous! All those questioning words
He rang the telephone and obtained Aunt Matilda's numbel
'But of course, Staffy dear, it will be lovely to have yol
Take the four-thirty train, it still runs, you know, but i
gets here an hour and a half later. And it leaves Paddingto
later--five-fifteen. That's what they mean by improving th
railways, I suppose. Stops at several most absurd stations o
the way. All right. Horace will meet you at King's Marston
'He's still there then?'
'Of course he's still there.'
'I suppose he is,' said Sir Stafford Nye.
Horace, once a groom, then a coachman, had survive
as a chauffeur, and apparently was still surviving. 'He mus
be at least eighty,' said Sir Stafford. He smiled to bimsell
Chapter 6
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
'You look very nice and brown, dear,' said Aunt Matild
surveying him appreciatively. 'That's Malaya, I suppose. I it was Malaya you went t
o? Or was it Siam or Thailand
They change the names of all these places and really i
makes it very difficult. Anyway, it wasn't Vietnam, wa
it? You know, I don't like the sound of Vietnam at al It's all very confusing. North Vietnam and South Vietnar
and the Viet-Cong and the Viet--whatever the other thin is and all wanting to fight each other and nobody wantin
50
to stop. They won't go to Paris or wherever it is and sit
round tables and talk sensibly. Don't you think really, dear
--'I've been thinking it over and I thought it would be a
very nice solution--couldn't you make a lot of football
fields and then they could all go and fight each other there,
but with less lethal weapons. Not that nasty palm burning
stuff. You know. Just hit each other and punch each other
and all that. They'd enjoy it, everyone would enjoy it and
you could charge admission for people to go and see them
do it. I do think really that we don't understand giving
people the things they really want.'
'I think it's a very fine idea of yours, Aunt Matilda,' said
Sir Stafford Nye as he kissed a pleasantly perfumed, pale
pink wrinkled cheek. 'And how are you, my dear?'
'Well, I'm old,' said Lady Matilda Cleckheaton. "Yes, I'm
old. Of course you don't know what it is to be old. If it
isn't one thing it's another. Rheumatism or arthritis or a nasty
bit of asthma or a sore throat or an ankle you've turned.
,' Always something, you know. Nothing very important. But
there it is. Why have you come to see me, dear?'
' Sir Stafford was slightly taken aback by the directness of
the query.
J "I usually come and see you when I return from a trip I abroad.'
'You'll have to come one chair nearer,' said Aunt Matilda.
Tm just that bit deafer since you saw me last. You look
different . . . Why do you look different?'
'Because I'm more sunburnt. You said so.'
'Nonsense, that's not what I mean at all. Don't tell me
it's a girl at last.'
A girl?'
'Well, I've always felt it might be one some day. The
trouble is you've got too much sense of humour.'
'Now why should you think that?'
'Well, it's what people do think about you. Oh yes, they
do. Your sense of humour is in the way of your career, too,
You know, you're all mixed up with all these people. Diplomatic
and political. What they call younger statesmen and
elder statesmen and middle statesmen too. And all those
different Parties. Really I think it's too silly to have too
many Parties. First of all those awful, awful Labour people.'
She raised her Conservative nose into the air. 'Why, when
I was a girl there wasn't such a thing as a Labour Party.
Nobody would have known what you meant by it. They'd
have said "nonsense". Pity it wasn't nonsense, too. And then
51
there's the Liberals, of course, but they're terribly wet. And
then there are the Tones, or the Conservatives as they call
themselves again now.'
'And what's the matter with them?' asked Stafford Nye,
smiling slightly.
Too many earnest women. Makes them lack gaiety, you
know.'
'Oh well, no political party goes in for gaiety much nowadays.'
'Just so,' said Aunt Matilda. 'And then of course that's
where you go wrong. You want to cheer things up. You
want to have a little gaiety and so you make a little gentle
fun at people and of course they don't like it. They say "Ce
n'est pas un gar if on serieux," like that man in the fishing.'
Sir Stafford Nye laughed. His eyes were wandering round
the room.
'What are you looking at?' said Lady Matilda.
'Your pictures.'
'You don't want me to sell them, do you? Everyone
seems to be selling their pictures nowadays. Old Lord
Grampion, you know. He sold his Turners and he sold
some of his ancestors as well. And Geoffrey Gouldman.
All those lovely horses of his. By Stubbs, weren't they?
Something like that. Really, the prices one gets!
'But I don't want to sell my pictures. I like them. Most
of them in this room have a real interest because they're
ancestors. I know nobody wants ancestors'nowadays but
then I'm old-fashioned. I like ancestors. My own ancestors,
I mean. What are you looking at? Pamela?'
'Yes, I was. I was thinking about her the other day.'
'Astonishing how alike you two are. I mean, it's not even
as though you were twins, though they say that different
sex twins, even if they are twins, can't be identical, if you
know what I mean.'
'So Shakespeare must have made rather a mistake over
Viola and Sebastian.'
'Well, ordinary brothers and sisters can be alike, can't
they? You and Pamela were always very alike--to look at,
I mean.'
'Not in any other way? Don't you think we were alike in
character?'
'No, not in the least. That's the funny part of it. But of
course you and Pamela have what 1 call the family face.
Not a Nye face. I mean the Baldwen-White face.'
her something about it. Perhaps I did read it AD very pure, I suppose. Not too sexy?'
Certainly not We didn't have sexy books. We had romance.:
The Prisoner of Zenda was very romantic. One fell in love, usually, with the hero, Rudolf Rassendyll.'
'I seem to remember that name too. Bit florid, isn't it?'
'Well, I still think it was rather a romantic name. Twelve
years old, I must have been. It made me think of it, you
know, your going up and loolung at that portrait. Princess
Flavia,' she added.
Stafford Nye was smiling at her.
"You look young and pink and very sentimental,' he said.
Well, that's just what I'm feeling. Girls can't feel like
that nowadays. They're swooning with love, or they're fainting
when somebody plays the guitar or sings in a very loud
voice, but they're not sentimental. But I wasn't in love with
Rudolf Rassendyll. I was in love with the other one--his
double.'
'Did he have a double?'
'Oh yes, a king. The King of Ruritania.'
Ah, of course, now I know. That's where the word
Ruritania comes from: one is always throwing it about.
Yes, I think I did read it, you know. The King of Ruritania, and Rudolf Rassendyll was stand-in for the King and fell
in love with Princess Flavia to whom the King was officially
betrothed.'
Lady Matilda gave some more deep sighs.
'Yes. Rudolf Rassendyll had inherited his red hair from
an ancestress, and somewhere in the book he bows to the
portrait and says something about the--I can't remember
the name now--the Countess Amelia or something like that
from whom he inherited his looks and all the rest of it. So I looked at you and thought of you as Rudolf Rassendyll
and,you went out and looked at a picture of someone who
ought have been an ancestress of yours and saw whether ^e reminded you of someone. / So you're mixed up in a
romance of some kind, are you?'
'What on earth makes you s
ay that?'
'Well, there aren't so many patterns in life, you know.
One recognizes patterns as they come up. It's like a book
on knitting. About sixty-five different fancy stitches. Well,
you know a particular stitch when you see it. Your stitch,
at the moment, I should say, is the romantic adventure.'
She sighed. 'But you won't tell me about it, I suppose.'
There's nothing to tell,' said Sir Stafford. 55
'You always were quite an accomplished liar. Well, never mind. You bring her to see me some time. That's all I'd
like, before the doctors succeed in killing me with yet another
type of antibiotic that they've just discovered. The
different coloured pills I've had to take by this timel You
wouldn't believe it.'
'I don't know why you say "she" and "her"--'
'Don't you? Oh, well, I know a she when I come across
a she. There's a she somewhere dodging about in your life.
What beats me is how you found her. In Malaya, at the
conference table? Ambassador's daughter or minister's daughter?
Good-looking secretary from the Embassy pool? No,
none of it seems to fit. Ship coming home? No, you don't
use ships nowadays. Plane, perhaps.'
You are getting slightly nearer,' Sir Stafford Nye could
not help saying.
'Ah!' She pounced. 'Air hostess?'
He shook his head.
''Ah well. Keep your secret. I shall find out, mind you.
I've always had a good nose for things going on where
you're concerned. Things generally as well. Of course I'm
out of everything nowadays, but I meet my old cronies
from time to time and it's quite easy, you know, to get a
hint or two from them. People are worried. Everywhere--
they're worried.'
'You mean there's a general kind of discontent--upset?'
'No, I didn't mean that at all. I mean the highups are
worried. Our awful governments are worried. The dear old
sleepy Foreign Office is worried. There are things going on,
things that shouldn't be. Unrest.'
Student unrest?'
'Oh, student unrest is just one flower on the tree. It's blossoming
everywhere and in every country, or so it seems.
I've got a nice girl who comes, you know, and reads the
papers to me in the mornings. I can't read them properly
myself. She's got a nice voice. Takes down my letters and she
reads things from the papers and she's a good kind girl.
She reads the things I want to know, not the things that
she thinks are right for me to know. Yes, everyone's worried,
as far as I can make out and this, mind you, came more or
less from a very old friend of mine.'
'One of your old military cronies?'
'He's a major-general, if that's what you mean, retired
a good many years ago but still in the know. Youth is
what you might call the spearhead of it all. But that's not
56
really what's so worrying. They--whoever they are--work
through youth. Youth in every country. Youth urged on.
Youth chanting slogans, slogans that sound exciting, though
they don't always know what they mean. So easy to start
a revolution. That's natural to youth. All youth has always
rebelled. You rebel, you pull down, you want the world to
be different from what it is. But you're blind, too.''There
are bandages over the eyes of youth. They can't see where
things are taking them. What's going to come next? What's
in front of them? And who it is behind them, urging them
on? That's what's frightening about it. You know, someone
holding out the carrot to get the donkey to come along and
at the same time there is someone behind the donkey urging
it on with a stick.'
'You've got some extraordinary fancies.*
They're not only fancies, my dear boy. That's what people
said about Hitler. Hitler and the Hitler Youth. But it was a
long careful preparation. It was a war that was worked out
in detail. It was a fifth column being planted in different
countries all ready for the supermen. The supermen were
to be the flower of the German nation. That's what they
thought and believed in passionately. Somebody else is perhaps
believing something like that now. It's a creed that
they'll be willing to accept--if -it's offered cleverly enough.'
'Who are you talking about? Do you mean the Chinese
or the Russians? What do you mean?'
'I don't know. I haven't the faintest idea. But there's something
somewhere, and it's running on the same lines. Pattern
again, you see. Pattern! The Russians? Bogged down by