“Well, Mr. Stevens,” he called, “coming courting?”

Stevens flushed at the man’s impertinence. Why did menials all imply the carnal urge, he wondered irritably. Catherine, at the Greys, had had the same banter in her voice. Jeremy, standing in his path, forced him to slow his car to a standstill. “Move aside, Jeremy,” he said in his coldest and most authoritative tone. “And please don’t forget your place.”

“My place and yours will be the same one day, Mr. Stevens,” said Jeremy.

“I doubt we’ll be buried in the same grave,” said Stevens, and was pleased with himself for this quick answer.

“The whole earth is a grave,” retorted Jeremy, but he moved aside nonetheless and wandered off into the woods, with his pipe glowing among the fireflies.

Stevens felt victorious as he drove around the shell-paved yard. He was greeted at the door by the still unhappy Mary.

“They’re in the front room,” she said, and seemed relieved to see Stevens.

“Your husband is certainly a gloomy fellow, Mary,” remarked Stevens.

“Oh it’s only talk,” said Mary. Her voice was wifely and Stevens wondered if she were right.

Grace was sitting in a big chair, her feet tucked childishly beneath her and her sharp little bare knees pointing out over the edge of the cushion. She was balancing a cup of coffee on her thigh, and held in her hand a glass of brandy. Ronny was crouched upon the floor, occupied with a sharpened nail and a small ring. As for June, she was sitting in the middle of the room perfectly erect and looking in front of her with a smile on her lips. A slight movement as of a wind made the young girl’s torso and head sway as she sat there. Stevens experienced that momentary sense of unreality felt by sober people on seeing drunken ones.

He greeted Grace. “Good evening, Mrs. Villars.” And then: “Good evening, Ronny.” June he did not acknowledge.

Grace smiled and held out her left hand in an intimate way. Ronny looked up briefly through his roughened hair.

“You never came before in the night,” he said.

“Oh Roddy, is that nice?” cried Grace, smiling and pouting as though Ronny had paid her a risqué compliment, which perhaps he had.

Stevens had still not said a word to June, who was lifting a glass of brandy to her lips. His schoolmaster’s instinct made him wish to demand: “Haven’t you had enough to drink, June?” The words tried to force themselves out, but the presence of his hostess closed his mouth. He saw that she was enjoying the situation. Her frivolous little body was full of malice. In her posture, the movements of her head, and in the sharp twinkle of her eyes were the purest mischief. Stevens knew that to utter a chiding word would put him at outs with Grace forever.

Always before this, whatever colour had been given his words and actions by his secret being, Stevens had done and said what he conceived to be his duty. Now his silence seemed like a whisper in the depths of his soul, whether of relief or of regret he could not tell. In any case, he looked at Grace and smiled back and their two blond glances mingled, full of worldliness.

Then Ronny said shrilly without looking up: “June is drunk. Mother did it on purpose.”

Grace laughed. “My little lovebirds haven’t spoken together once all evening.”

June held her glass by its stem and now a little of the liquor splashed on her legs. “Speaking isn’t so important,” she said. She spoke slowly, trying to control her thickened tongue and half frowning with the effort. Her tawny, uneven hair fell forward over her cheeks and big drops of sweat were forced out on her forehead by the brandy and the fever it had reawakened. Her skin glistened and was marred by red patches.

“If you’re going to be a woman of the world, my dear, you must learn the importance of conversation.”

“I’m not going to be a woman of the world,” replied June, still in the same thick, slow tones.

“Oh? What are you going to be?” Grace winked at Stevens as she rose to get him brandy and coffee. June did not reply at once and Stevens, watching his hostess, reflected that he had never before seen a female who looked well in shorts. Those muscular, hairless little legs seemed to dance as they crossed the room and as Grace passed her son she brushed them against his shoulders. At the touch Ronny lifted his head and a sudden smile came on his face, full of masculine understanding. Stevens showed his own boyish smile to Grace as she handed him the drinks.

“So I wasn’t mistaken!” she said at once. Her airy voice with its frank inflections made a meaning clear to him; the gate, waiting to be opened between a woman and a man, was ajar.

“Mistaken?” He raised his brows whimsically.

“Yes,” she said, moving away from him and speaking over her shoulder. “I thought I had found someone amusing in this hermitage and then I was afraid you might be stuffy after all.”

“And now?”

“Now I think you needn’t be stuffy,” she said, laughing at him and curling up in her chair like a cat. Then deliberately she turned a great, blue, mocking gaze full on June.

June rose as at a signal and crouched beside Ronny. Her movements were full of a clumsy, soft, drunken grace which wrung the older woman’s heart. Stevens could see this by the way Grace’s eyes narrowed and a chord responded in his own breast.

“Ronny,” asked June, “can I help you fix Shalimar’s chain?”

“How did you know it was his?” Ronny looked at her with keen attention. His animosity towards her vanished in an instant. “You can’t touch it,” he explained, “but you can sit right here and watch.”

This did not suit Grace. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s all go to the movies.” She jumped to her feet. “I’m going to put on a skirt. Shall I lend you one, June? Come along upstairs and try it on.” She took June’s hand, pulled her to her feet and whisked her out of the room, calling: “Get ready, boys. We’ll be down in a minute.”

Stevens felt a sensation new to him and thought it to be happiness. Yet perhaps it was excitement, admiration or even that ultimate emotion. ‘If only this could be love!’ he said to himself in a sort of prayer.

June did not want to go upstairs at all. In her burning hand whose edges seemed undefined, dissolved in fever, that other hand was sharp and cool. Those alien fingers curling around into hers were like supple knives and June fancied that they pierced the lines of her palm, that they marred her destiny. And how strong that sharp hand was! It lifted her to her feet, or one must suppose so, because June could no longer associate her feet with herself.

‘Am I really drunk?’ she wondered with a thrill. ‘How wicked and daring I must be!’ She stumbled on the first step. ‘I am not one to be afraid of vice,’ she thought. ‘I knew I wouldn’t be, since one must, after all, experience everything. One must drink life to the lees.’

“Don’t you think, Mrs. Villars,” she said as they went upstairs, “that one must drink life to the lees?” There! Surely after such a profound and courageous phrase, this blond mother of Ronny would treat her as a friend and equal.

“And what of the lees?” asked Grace; “Must one drink them, too? They’re bitter you know.”

“Yes, them too.” June shook her head wisely and all of a sudden felt sick. The stairs curving up into the darkness were interminable and in the niche of them was a monster. It was a stone gargoyle which Walsh had brought back from Europe because he said it reminded him of his mother. Once it had stretched its stone neck to frighten the enemies of God. Now, with its protruding tongue and small, vicious eyes, it made June retch. She swallowed frantically. For a while the poison turned like a great wheel cold as ice between the feverish walls of her chest. She gulped back a sour mouthful which stung her throat. Then the wheel dissolved and sank slowly down again into her stomach. She was left grateful and almost sobered by her escape.

They reached Grace’s room, and Grace, having opened her closet, had taken out a length of flowered linen and was twisting it around her hips. It became a skirt as if by magic, although one could still see a glimpse of her leg and the pink shorts on one side.

“Now let’s see,” said Grace, looking at June.

The young girl, too, looked down at herself, as though viewing her figure through Grace’s eyes. She experienced at once that acute sense of unattractiveness which stains the adolescent’s pride. It was hopeless, she thought looking down at her marvelous body, at the tender, eager, unviolated curves of her youth. Hopeless! She was going to be fat and ugly.

June’s feelings must have been understood by the older woman, for Grace smiled. “Here,” she said, “this is the biggest thing I have. I’m sure it would fit anyone.” She handed June a peasant skirt dotted with small farm animals. While June put it on, Grace sat down at the old-fashioned dressing table and remade her face. She did this in a sketchy, happy-go-lucky way that was really meticulous. She spat into the mascara and rubbed her finger in the wake of her lipstick. Then she powdered her nose with a big, swansdown hoop and the powder scented the room.

June watched and admired her. Grace grinned in the mirror and then, half turning said: “Come here.”

“Come on,” she urged as the girl hesitated and she put out once again her small, sinewed hand. This time she grasped June’s arm and pulled her around to sit beside her on the wicker-covered bench. When June was seated, Grace tightened her grasp.

“Look there, June,” she commanded in a peculiar voice whose lightness could hide neither cruelty nor anxiety. Then, as June seemed to be gazing stupidly at nothing, Grace released her arm and twisted the girl’s chin around to face the mirror. “Just look,” she cried, “at the difference between you and me!”

For an instant that stretched for both of them out of actual time, they sat there hip to hip and stared steadfastly at the two reflected heads set so mistakenly together. Beside the older woman’s vivid face, June’s appeared sallow, troubled and pale. She saw that her nose shone, that there was a red spot on her chin and that the scrolls of Grace’s platinum curls made her own hair colourless and dank. Oh to have small features, pink cheeks, and those blond curls!

Grace was laughing. All traces of anxiety had left her. “Isn’t it funny?” she trilled, and letting go of June’s chin she clapped her hands together. “How funny you look!”

It was the kind of thing a brother might say and one would forget it at once, thought June. Why then did she feel that she would never forget it now? She did not dare ask to borrow powder so she simply sat there smiling in a cowardly way until Grace got tired of the joke. Or perhaps Grace realized that the joke would not bear too lengthy an inspection. Anyway, she rose and they both went back downstairs.

Stevens was wondering why Grace insisted on bringing Ronny and June along to the theater. But that was her way. She liked crowds and she liked situations, especially if she were mistress of them. Also, she did not relish the idea of Stevens alone. To Grace it would be an insult were he not to make an attempt of some sort. Even Stevens would feel that. Yet with a man such as he, it was far too soon. It would be like eating a green apple. As a malicious stroke she said:

“I’m going to sit with my Roddy in the back.” She flashed into the car, showing her leg and shimmying around like a fish to sit in the seat. Ronny followed her, silent and preoccupied. He had a dreamy expression and he clanked in his pocket the metal ring on which he had been working. June climbed in drearily and could not bear to look at Stevens as he started the car. Her fever which had flared up with her drunkenness turned now into chill. She shivered as the soft night breeze blew into the window. Against her neck the collar of her blouse felt cold.

They left the peninsula and the lights of Star Harbour appeared ahead. They had difficulty parking because it was Bingo night and everybody was at the movies, nor when they arrived could they all sit together although they were too late for the game.