Death of a Unicorn

‘He wasn’t used to it, you see,’ I said. ‘If you’re going to be that sort of creature and live that sort of life, love is too dangerous. You daren’t love anyone, because then there’s a hostage. You’ve got to stay wild, with the whole world your enemy. You mustn’t let yourself be tame for anybody. It was all my fault, letting him love me. There was only one of him in the whole world, ever. Only one in all the world.’

‘Marge even dreams romantic,’ said Terry’s voice. He was the person I couldn’t see on the other side of the bed.

‘It’s all true,’ I said. ‘Ages ago, but all true.’

‘I keep telling her she wants to stop living in the past,’ he said, ‘The only time is now.’

The woman glanced towards him again. Something characteristic about the slant of her face made me see that it was Sally. My heart leapt.

‘It’s better not to live in time at all,’ she said.

VIII

I have implied that I do my stint of conducting visitors round Cheadle. This is not strictly true, because I don’t have the time. But the fact that I may be acting as guide does encourage more parties to book than otherwise would; members of Women’s Institutes and similar bodies are among my most loyal readers; they come clutching copies of my books for me to sign, a problem I have solved to my satisfaction if not theirs by selling autographed Cheadle book-plates in the souvenir shop, where they can also buy my books. I always buy up remaindered editions and find it immensely satisfying to be taking ninety per cent of the published price instead of the usual minuscule royalty.

Of course, parties try to book me as their guide. Within the limits of my own commitments I play fair, taking pot luck, although my own preference is for working-class pensioners, women with the print of time on them, brave poverty-weathered faces. I like the way they think that because they have paid their fee they have a right to their money’s worth. I like their sense of acceptance of transience, which in itself has the quality of endurance, and echoes what I feel about my house. Sometimes these parties include splendid old ladies who used to be in service themselves and reminisce about backstairs life, the appalling long hours, the incredible restrictions on their freedom, the tiny wages, but in no complaining tone, in fact with a scholar-like sense of reconstructing lost ways of life. I prefer such groups to middle-class women who drop quiet hints to each other that in childhood they were at home in surroundings like Cheadle.

When I could walk after my accident I took on a bit more of this work, to show my visitors and prove to myself that I was now up to it. One Wednesday afternoon I had an outing from Dorset. A mixed bag from a market town, no trouble but not very interesting. The tour ends in the kitchens so that visitors have to go out through the shop, which is in the old brewhouse. I had said goodbye to them and was waiting to see that they did all in fact leave when a woman came up to me. I had noticed her during the tour, younger than most of the others, plump but trim, wearing a too-smart pale violet coat and bouffant blonde hair, a style that would have better suited someone twenty years younger. But she carried herself with confidence and did not at all look as though she had sat in a coach all morning, had a picnic luncheon and then trailed for an hour round a huge house. I had noticed too that the other women showed the usual unconscious signs of deference to her, so when she approached me I assumed she was the President of their WI and was about to say thank you on their behalf. Then I saw she was clutching a book.

I had already explained about not signing autographs because of the time it takes and the need to be fair to other parties, so I was irritated that this apparently educated woman had not got the point.

‘You won’t remember me, Lady Margaret,’ she said. ‘I was so hoping it might be you. You see, a million years ago I lined up next to you at Queen Charlotte’s Ball.’

‘You’re not Veronica Bracken!’

‘How clever of you. I haven’t forgotten, of course, but I didn’t dream you’d remember.’

‘You’re Mrs . . . Seago now, isn’t it?’

‘Lady Seago, actually. Paul got his K in the New Year Honours.’

‘Congratulations. He’s still in the Air Force then?’

‘It’s too brilliant of you to know all this. How on earth do you do it with everything else to think about?’

‘Oh, I suppose it’s just one of the things that stick. After all, you were easily the most beautiful girl in our year. Or in any year ever, as far as I’m concerned.’

She looked pleased, and younger now. I could sense rather than see it was the same woman. Handsome, certainly, but of course the unbelievable bloom had gone. Still, an innocence remained that had been part of it.

‘I’ve read all your books,’ she said. ‘I think they’re marvellous. But I’m afraid this is still my favourite.’