Free Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman Page B

made me feel perkier. I returned from a sortie to the melancholy monkey puzzle with a new spring in my step.
    Terence Gray was just arriving as I reached the house. And Ellie, who had been slaving in the kitchen all morning, making bread and achicken pie, was informing him—without batting an eyelid—that he would have to take pot luck. I was delighted at this innocent deception. Like father, like daughter, I said to myself. I may be getting on in years, but all my faculties are still intact. I fought in the first war, and was back in harness, breaking codes, in the second. I’m still a wily old fox, I told myself. I felt I was more than a match for Gray, well able to steer him in the right direction, and well able to deal with any unilateral tendencies he might choose to manifest.
    It wouldn’t take me long to find out exactly what old Frith had told him, I decided—and with that comforting intention (among others) I plied Gray with a glass of my latest bargain sherry (not too bad at all; a bit on the sweet side, but a discovery nonetheless); then, taking his gray-suited arm by the elbow, I led him most affably into my study for a little chin-wag before lunch.

S IX
    S O HOW WAS OLD F RITH THEN?” I SAID . N O POINT IN beating about the bush. “Learn anything interesting? Warm enough in here for you, is it, Gray? Nasty nip in the air this morning, I thought. Ellie got the fire going for me. How’s the sherry? I hope it’s to your taste?”
    I had installed myself with my back to the fire, which was blazing away in a very satisfactory manner. Gray, as he tends to do when he comes here, was wandering around the room preparatory to settling himself. His eyes rested on my bookshelves, which cover all four walls just as they did in my grandfather’s day, and which are stacked floor to ceiling with a fine array of books. Before beginning any conversation with me, Gray likes to make a brief circuit of these shelves—and this morning was no exception. As usual, he began prowling about, peering at titles. I smiled to myself. Some visitors, as I’ve often observed, like to “read” one’s bookshelves, and make all kinds of rash deductions from them as to a man’s character, intellectual leanings, and so on. Gray is one such. Since I find the habit irritating, I’d made some alterations to the arrangements of these shelves since his last visit. I’d prepared a little test for him and was intrigued: Would he notice, or not?
    On the left, as you enter, are the older volumes, leather bound,that formed the backbone of my grandfather’s library. Gray, passing by, gave them a cursory look. Beyond them, by the bay window, come the sections devoted to natural history, military history, and the morocco-bound immortals my grandfather taught me to love, first the Greeks and then the Romans. Ellie keeps these dusted, but they don’t get read very often, I’m afraid. I was well-tutored by my grandfather, however, so I can still recite by heart great tracts of the Iliad . Barker is my only audience for these rousing recitations—and just as well, I expect.
    Gray paused by this section, then moved on to the far corner, where these deities join hands with their English counterparts. Here we begin with Chaucer and Malory: His Le Morte d’Arthur , much thumbed, was my mother’s favorite book, and mine, as a child. I owe to Malory my Christian names of Arthur and (God help us: I keep quiet about this) Lancelot.
    Gray dallied by Camelot, then moved more swiftly past all the obvious staging posts: Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope—all the poetry collections my dead son loved. He paused thoughtfully in the dark corner where the Romantics languish on a high shelf, came to a halt at Housman, and began on the novels. There, on the far wall, we romp through the eighteenth century via Sterne and the incomparable Fielding, dwell at length with Walter Scott, hop over that prissy Austen woman, skedaddle past those blasted Brontës, and