The Morning Gift

‘I ought to be a Hungarian countess,’ said Ruth, looking round at the other diners. ‘Or at least a spy.’ She had taken one look at the people getting onto the train and unpacked the page-turning frock. Even so, she felt badly underdressed – whereas Quin, in the mysterious way of Englishmen who return from the wilds, was immaculate in his dinner jacket. ‘Look at that woman’s stole – it’s a sable!’ she said under her breath.

‘I dare say she’d swop with you,’ said Quin, glancing at their middle-aged neighbour with her heavily painted face.

‘Because I’m with you, do you mean?’

‘No, not because of that,’ said Quin, but he did not elaborate.

‘Do you think you might help me to order?’ asked Ruth presently. ‘There seems to be so much.’

‘I was hoping you would suggest that,’ said Quin. ‘You see, I think we should pay particular attention to the wine.’

The wine, when it came, was presented by the sommelier who undid its napkin and held it out to Quin rather in the manner of a devoted midwife showing the head of a ducal household that he really has his longed-for son.

‘Try it,’ said Quin, exchanging a look of complicity with the waiter.

Ruth picked up her glass . . . sipped . . . closed her eyes . . . sipped again . . . opened them. For a moment it looked as though she was going to speak – to make an assessment, a comparison. But she didn’t. She just shook her head once, wonderingly – and then she smiled.

All Ruth’s acquaintances in Vienna knew that she could be silenced by music. It fell to Quinton Somerville, proffering a Pouilly-Fuissé, Vieux, to discover that she could be silenced too by wine.

‘You know, I shall be sorry to relinquish your education,’ he said. ‘You’re a natural.’

‘But we can still be friends, can’t we? Later, I mean, after the divorce?’

Quin did not answer. The wine seemed to have gone to Ruth’s hair rather than her head: the golden locks shone and glinted, tendrils curved round the collar of her dress – one had come to rest in a whorl above her left breast – and her eyes were soft with dreams. Quin had friends, but they did not really look like that.

Ruth’s vol-au-vents arrived: tiny, feather-light, filled with foie gras and oysters, and she had time only to eat and marvel and throw an occasional admiring glance at Quin, despatching with neat-fingered panache his flambéed crayfish. It was not until the plates were cleared and the finger bowls brought that she said: ‘About our wedding . . . about being married . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Would you mind if we didn’t tell anyone about it? No one at all?’

Quin put down his glass. ‘No, not in the least; in fact I’d prefer it; I hate fusses.’ But he was surprised: the Bergers seemed a family singularly unsuited to secrets. ‘Will you be able to keep it from your parents?’

‘Yes, I think so. Later I suppose they’ll find out because I’ll have my own passport and it’ll be British, but we’d be divorced by then.’ She hesitated, wondering whether to say more. ‘You see, they’re very old-fashioned and they might find it difficult to understand that a marriage could mean absolutely nothing. And I couldn’t bear it if they tried to . . . make you . . .’ She shook her head and began again. ‘They’ve been very good to Heini; he practically lived with us, but I don’t think they altogether understand about him . . . my mother in particular. She might think that you . . . that we . . .’

No, she couldn’t explain to Quin how she dreaded her parents’ approval of this marriage, the gratitude which would embarrass him and make him feel trapped. To make Quin feel that he was still part of her life in any way after they landed would be an appalling return for his kindness.

The sommelier returned, beaming at Ruth as at a gifted pupil who has passed out of her confirmation class with honours. The wine list was produced again and consulted, and it was with regret that he and Quin agreed that in view of mademoiselle’s youth it would be unwise to proceed to the Margaux he would otherwise have recommended with the guinea fowl.

‘But there is a Tokay for the dessert, monsieur – an Essencia 1905 which is something special, je vous assure.’

‘Is this how you live in your home?’ asked Ruth when her new friend had gone. ‘Do you have a marvellous cook and a splendid wine cellar and all that?’

He shook his head. ‘I have a cellar, but my home is not in the least like this. It’s on a cold cliff by a grey sea in the most northern county in England – if you go any further you bump into Scotland.’

‘Oh.’ It did not sound very inviting. ‘And who lives in it when you aren’t there? Does it stand empty?’

‘I have an old aunt who looks after it for me. Or rather she’s a second cousin but I’ve always called her aunt and she’s a very aunt-like person. My parents died when I was small and then my grandfather, and she came to keep house after that. I’m greatly beholden to her because it means I can be away as much as I want and know that everything runs smoothly.’

‘Were you fond of her as a child?’