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By Root 3019 0

the affairs of his many relations became redoubled, growing almost feverish in its intensity. He attended marriages, christenings, funerals as if his life depended on it, as, indeed, to some extent it did, since he would usually introduce later into his column discreet reference to such ceremonies. The trifles Chips offered the public were on the whole inoffensive enough, sometimes even of general interest. All the same, not everyone approved of them: Isobel’s eldest sister, Frederica Budd, who, since the recent death of the Tollands’ stepmother, Lady Warminster, more than ever felt herself custodian of the family’s moral and social standards, found Chips’s ‘paragraphs’ particularly vexatious. In any case, Frederica did not much care for Chips, although she, and everyone else, had to admit that his marriage to Priscilla must be reckoned a success. The Lovells had a baby; Priscilla had become quieter, some complained a little sadder, but at the same time her looks had improved, so that now she could almost be called a ‘beauty’. Since Moreland had long since removed himself almost entirely from the kind of society in which Chips Lovell liked to move – was to some extent even professionally committed – the two couples never met. Such a meeting would certainly not have embarrassed Chips, who neither minded nor was in a position to mind about such refinements of sensibility where love affairs were concerned. Moreland on the other hand, once things were broken off with Priscilla, certainly preferred to keep out of her and her husband’s way.

Then one day, not long after ‘Munich’, when everyone’s nerves were in a thoroughly disordered state, some relieved, some more apprehensive than ever, Isobel ran across Matilda in the hairdresser’s. There was a great reunion. The end of it was that a week-end visit was arranged immediately to the Morelands’ cottage. Life was humdrum enough at that moment, even though we were living in so unstable, so harassing a period. I mean the events that took place while we were staying with the Morelands formed not only something of a landmark when looked back upon, but were also rather different from the material of which daily life was in general composed.

‘Matilda is dying for company,’ Isobel said, when she told me of their meeting.

‘How is she?’

‘Not bad. Out of a job. She says she has decided she is a terrible actress. She is going to give up the stage and take to petit point.’

‘Where exactly are they living?’

‘A few miles from Stourwater.’

‘I had no idea of that. Was it deliberate?’

‘Matilda knows the district. She was brought up there. At first I was too delicate to ask how near they were to the castle. Then Matty said Sir Magnus had actually found the cottage for them. Matty rather likes talking of her days with Sir Magnus if one is tête-à-tête. They represent, I think, the most restful moment of her life.’

‘Life with Hugh can’t be very restful.’

‘Hugh doesn’t seem to mind about being near Stourwater. Matilda said he was delighted to find a cottage so easily.’

I was not sure that I agreed in believing Moreland so indifferent to the proximity of Sir Magnus Donners. It is true that men vary in attitude towards previous husbands and lovers of their wife or mistress. As it happened, that was a favourite theme of Moreland’s. Some, at least outwardly, are to all appearance completely unconcerned with what experiences a woman may have had – and with whom – before they took her on; others never become reconciled to their forerunners. I remembered Moreland saying that Matilda’s father had kept a chemist’s shop in that part of the world. There was a story about her first having met Sir Magnus when she was organising a school play in the precincts of the castle. One side of Moreland was certainly squeamish about the matter of his wife’s former connexion with Sir Magnus, the other, tolerant, sceptical, indolent about his own life – even his emotional life – welcomed any easy solution when it came to finding somewhere to live. The cottage might be in the shadow of Stourwater, or anywhere else. It