‘I didn’t know you were coming home,’ she said. ‘Are you supposed to be here? Richard …’
‘Perfectly legit, sister dear. Mid-term break, y’know. Where are the tyrants?’
‘Father’s at Chance, of course. Mama was here yesterday, but I think she’s gone off to the country for a few days.’
Richard glanced at her. ‘All on your own, eh?’
‘I’ve just lunched at the Ritz with Isabel.’
His glance sharpened. ‘And?’
‘She’s expecting a baby.’
Richard hunched his shoulders, a comical gesture of resignation.
‘What could be more normal and natural? The primogeniture of a whole new generation of Jasperts? One can hardly be surprised, even though one may not view it with unalloyed pleasure. I have to say that any baby gives me the positive shudders. The smell, you know. But I dare say that Peter and Isabel are bursting with happiness and pride?’
Amy’s smile had faded now. She didn’t try to hide her concern as she blurted out, ‘I think Isabel’s unhappy. I’m worried about her. She …’
Richard held up his hand.
‘Wait. I’m ravenous. Starved to death. I can’t tell you not to worry until I have eaten five pieces of cake and drunk three cups of tea. On second thoughts, I shall probably need cucumber sandwiches and anchovy toast as well. Before you arrived I was going to ask for it to be sent up to the schoolroom. I was playing the gramophone up there, all alone, rather melancholy. Now you’re here we can have tea together and talk afterwards.’
‘Tea first, then. In the schoolroom.’
‘Race.’
Amy was protesting but she was already running too. They reached the stairs and pounded up them as if they were children again.
Later, when Richard had finished the last crumb of his last slice of cherry cake and had poured himself a third cup of tea, he settled a cushion behind his head and leant back in the depths of the battered sofa.
‘Now,’ he said.
Amy sat looking out of the window at the familiar view. Isabel and she had sat over their lessons and looked out at the same jumble of chimneys and rooftops. She explained her anxieties and Richard listened carefully, not interrupting her once.
‘I’m afraid that she won’t talk to any of us,’ Amy said. ‘I’m afraid that she will cut herself off. She’s proud and stubborn, you know, under that pliant exterior. She wouldn’t let us know if it had gone wrong.’
Richard looked full at her now. ‘If what had gone wrong?’
Amy made a little, awkward gesture with her hands. ‘The marriage. You know.’
Richard pursed his lips. ‘Not really. I make no claim to know anything whatsoever about marriage. As a perfect outsider, judging by the two or three occasions on which I’ve been at Ebury Street, Isabel’s marriage looks quite ordinary. Keen young politician, pretty wife to charm the constituents. A lot of mutual pleasure in their silverware and so forth.’
Amy nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve seen that too.’
Richard put down his cup and went over to the gramophone. He sorted through the scatter of records and slipped one on to the turntable. The dance music crackled again and he held out his hand to Amy. She let him draw her to her feet and put his arm around her waist. They were almost the same height, she noticed. They began to dance a slow foxtrot, their heels clicking on the ink-blotted boards of the schoolroom floor.
‘Dear Amy,’ he murmured. ‘You have such strong feelings yourself, and concealment of them is utterly beyond you. You love, and fear, and rejoice, and plunge into gloom and glee all in the space of half an hour.’
‘You are not so very impassive yourself.’
‘No. But Isabel is different. I think you must let her follow her own course.’
‘Are you telling me that I should mind my own business?’
Her brother swept her through a flourishing turn before he answered her.
‘No. I’m not telling you to stop worrying, either, because from what you say I believe there’s cause for it. All you and I can do is let Isabel know that she can confide in us and that she can trust us because we love her and support her and we always will, whatever Jaspert is or does.’
Amy smiled, then. ‘I wanted to hear you say that. I know quite well that’s all either of us can do. But it’s quite a lot, isn’t it? I know how much I rely on Isabel and you. How important you are to me. Will you … will you try to see her oftener? I may not be able to, so much, from now on.’
Richard looked squarely at her again. ‘Yes. I’ll do that. I’m sorry, Amy. I know I’m not much company for either of you. There are all kinds of things one does, you know …’
‘What kind of things?’
His eyelids drooped again. ‘Just things.’
Richard is much better at concealment than I am, Amy thought. She realized how much she loved him, and wondered a little jealously about his life.
The music stopped and they faced each other more happily.
‘May I have the pleasure of another dance, Miss Lovell?’
‘If you change the needle first, and choose something a bit livelier.’
When they started up again Richard asked, ‘And what about you, my dear ardent Amy?’
She grinned at him. ‘I have got news. I have enrolled myself as a student nurse. And I start at the Royal Lambeth Hospital in ten days’ time.’
He whirled her around in a wide circle so that her hair spun around her face. ‘A nurse? Starched cap? Night duty? Cocoa in the Nurses’ Home?’
‘Most definitely.’
‘I’m very, very glad. And I am proud of you.’ He kissed her, lightly brushing her cheek. ‘You’ll be a fine nurse. The Florence Nightingale of Berkeley Square. You know, Amy, you’re the only one of us with any real decency. If I had my hat on, I would take it off to you.’
His approval was so sincere and so valuable that Amy felt tears behind her eyes. He was the only one of her family who had understood what she wanted and believed in it. Even Isabel had received her news with polite bafflement.
‘I’m glad you think it’s a good plan,’ she said softly.
‘Well, now. What shall we do to celebrate? We could see a show and have dinner somewhere risky afterwards.’
Gratefully Amy seized on the idea. ‘I’d love to. Don’t you have to do anything else?’
‘One doesn’t have to do anything.’ Amy let the evasion pass. ‘And I’ve got another suggestion. Before you start nursing, why don’t you come up to the Fourth of June? I’ll introduce you to the Captain of the Eleven. Perfect specimen. Tall, broad shoulders, Apollo in flannels. No brain, of course, but you can’t have it all ways.’
Amy was giggling in the way that only Richard could make her. ‘Not my type. Not at all.’
He tucked her arm under his. ‘Never mind. Come anyway. I like to show you off.’
With his free hand Richard lifted the arm of the gramophone and then they went companionably down the stairs to change for the theatre.
Thick black stockings, blue dress with a starched collar and a maddening row of eighteen tiny buttons, heavy black shoes, bib-fronted apron crackling with starch from