Black Swan by Philippa Carr

Author:Philippa Carr [Carr, Philippa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-0382-6
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-01-15T16:29:00+00:00

The Return

THE NEXT DAY BELINDA and I went up to London.

We went first to Celeste who was delighted to see us.

“Lucie as well,” she said. “This is nice. I do hope you are going to stay a little while.”

“Well, Celeste,” I replied, “I thought I’d go to Roland. He is in London now.”

“She couldn’t do without him,” added Belinda. “She has to come up to be with him.”

How could she diverge from the truth unnecessarily? I had come up at her request to see Henry Farrell, and she knew it. Why had she deliberately twisted the truth?

“So Roland will be expecting you?” said Celeste.

“No. He doesn’t know I’m coming. It was arranged on the spur of the moment. I thought I’d just come to see you and then go along to him. He’ll be busy during the day and Belinda and I have one or two things to do in London.”

It sounded reasonable enough.

We had luncheon with Celeste and by that time it was three in the afternoon.

Belinda was all impatience but I said I would go and see Henry Farrell on the following day, because I wanted to prepare what I would say to him. And first I must see Roland.

Belinda accepted my decision rather ungraciously, but she did not want to offend me for fear I would abandon the entire exercise.

I left her with Celeste and took a cab to Welling Gardens where Roland and Phillida had their pied-à-terre.

It was a street of tall narrow houses. I had been there only once before and then only briefly. Neither Roland nor Phillida had suggested that I should go again and it had not seemed necessary that I should. It was a rented house—a temporary residence—and when they had entertained us it had been in hotels and restaurants. We had always heard the place referred to vaguely as the pied-à-terre.

At number seventy I alighted and paid the cab driver. I mounted the steps to the front door and, looking down, I saw the shadowy figure of a woman in the basement. She would be the wife in the couple who took charge of the domestic arrangements and lived down there. Roland had told me that the man and wife team went with the house to those who rented it.

I knocked on the front door and after a while the woman opened it. She was middle-aged, rather plump with reddish hair.

“I’m Mrs. Fitzgerald,” I said.

The woman stared at me for a few seconds and then smiled rather expansively.

“Oh, come in,” she said. “I’ll tell Mr. Fitzgerald …”

“Oh, he’s home, is he? I wondered whether he would be at this time. My plan had been to be here and surprise him when he came in.”

Then I saw him. He was coming down the stairs and he paused to stare blankly at me for a moment. Then he said, “Lucie!”

“I’ve surprised you, I know,” I explained. “But I came to London and here I am.”

His surprise turned to warmth.

“Oh … Lucie …”

He had taken me into his arms.

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