Complete Short Stories (VMC) by Elizabeth Taylor Page A

that – particularly about gloves,’ Muriel said, hurrying into the room. She went to the mirror and smoothed her hair. ‘Sorry, Robert! Sorry, Hugh! Oh, and Hester, too! I didn’t see you hiding in the window-seat. I went for a little drive with Beatrice. May I have a drink, darling; and, Hugh, your glass is empty. God, what a day! Never mind, another year until the next one. Darling, Hugh’s glass! Dinner is cold and can wait for us for once. I went into the Science Room, Hugh, just to see if you had been up to anything sinister, and I was charmed. The heavenly demonstration of cross-pollination. I do think you are to be congratulated.’
    Hugh gazed intently into his glass as Robert filled it. He looked as if he were parched with thirst, but sherry was a long way from his thoughts. He knew he was being ridiculed but could not sort it out sufficiently to make an answer. ‘Meaningless innuendo,’ he decided. ‘And the very worst kind, too; because it finishes the game.’
    ‘I did Botany at school,’ Muriel said. ‘That was considered ladylike even in those days – particularly in those days, when we drew no conclusions from it. Purple loosestrife seemed to have nothing in common with us.’
    ‘Muriel!’ Robert protested. ‘Your Victorian girlhood doesn’t convince us, you know.’
    She went close to the mirrored over-mantel, leant forward to her reflection and once more smoothed her hair. Hester watched in terror the long white hands moving then from hair to flowers, tidying them, too. Then the room froze. Muriel picked up the Dresden figure, seemed surprised by genuine grief, paused; then turned to face them, looking dazed and puzzled.
    ‘What a beautiful … thing!’ Hugh said, stepping forward, as if she were only asking him to admire it. ‘The dress is just like real lace.’
    ‘Robert!’ Muriel cried, ignoring Hugh. ‘Her grief is out of all proportion,’Hester thought, remembering the same stunned look of wives in old newsreels, waiting at pit-heads as the stretchers were carried away, or of mothers lifting their babies across the rubble of bombed streets.
    Robert asked sharply – as if he foresaw hell for all of them: ‘How did that happen?’ He took the china figure and examined it. Muriel turned back and began to search the chimneypiece.
    ‘Is it broken?’ Hugh asked, but no one answered. He was accustomed to that. Hester began to tremble, and clutched the fragment in her pocket as though she might be searched.
    ‘It must be there,’ Robert said. ‘One of the maids must have done it without knowing, or they would have told you.’
    Hester, falsely, went over and looked into the flower-bowl.
    ‘Not there?’ Muriel asked. ‘No.’
    ‘Quite a clean break,’ Robert said. ‘It could be mended easily.’
    ‘If we find the other piece,’ said Muriel.
    ‘What is it we are looking for?’ Hugh asked. ‘I shall have to question the maids,’ Muriel said. ‘It has been hidden purposely. They have never deceived me before.’ She was proud of her relationship with domestic staff, to whom she was always generous and considerate: they saw a side of her which was hidden from most people and they were loyal to her. She delayed the task of questioning them, refilled her glass with sherry and as she drank it went on searching, lifting cushions and rugs and thrusting her fingers down the sides of stuffed chairs until the backs of her hands looked bruised.
    Hugh did not dine with them, and Muriel said nothing during the meal. When dishes were brought in, she helped herself and ate without raising her eyes, feeling awkwardness with the maid and guilt at her own suspicions.
    After dinner, Hester went out into the garden and walked in an opposite direction to the church – down an azalea walk to a ferny grotto. The dark, dusty leaves parted and disclosed a little Gothic summer-house, which was locked so that the boys should not damage it. No one came there – the dark rockiness of the place was