Free The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann Page B

for it.’
    How they laughed, what a sparking and crackle developed across that dinner table on that evening—Rickie the generator, the centripetal force. After his death, separated as they all were then by time and war, and too much preoccupied to miss and mourn him as long, as deeply as they would have wished, they did, each one of them, recall his mood that evening: never more lively and preposterous, just like his old self at school, at Oxford, or in his days of a young bachelor about town. Come to think of it, none of them could remember ever seeing him like that again. As the years passed he had seemed to draw more and more into his shell, to lose his gaiety and resilience. He must have taken a bad knock, worse than he ever let on to anybody, over that rotten business. As Tim said to another chap, walking from the House of Commons across the park towards their club one raid-free evening, when it came to women old Rickie, bless his heart, had always lacked any instinct of self-preservation. The other chap remarked that Tim surprised him. To a mere acquaintance like himself, a charmer such as Rickie had appeared eminently fitted, in the matter of women, to get away with anything. He could think of three women, straight off, who’d been in love with him, or said so. Yes, agreed Tim, they said so freely: he was that sort of chap—the sort women didn’t mind people knowing they’d adored. Had a lot of loves? Tim supposed not, on the whole. He was kindness itself; he had a conscience; in spite of … And then … Tim fell silent, pondering; could not and did not want to express what else he had in mind. For instance, that evening … only the pitch and tempo, rapid, pulsating, stuck in his memory; together with the feeling beyond all qualification or rational analysis that then and always Rickie had been—how to put it?—not exactly reckless but—but any moment about to do himself no good; clearly though indefinably less able than most chaps to—to take calculations and precautions, less concerned than most to provide adequate safeguards against pain to himself. Women would love him for that, but on the other hand …
    And roughly at the same moment, in a Tuscan hill town, it came over Jack grieving for his oldest and best-loved, his irreplaceable friend, how it had struck him that evening that the dear old fellow was sailing a bit near the wind; that it didn’t seem altogether up his street to indulge in such uproarious fooling: almost defiant once or twice, almost—if not quite unkind—antagonistic. Then suddenly, to his surprise, with a gush of nostalgic tenderness Jack remembered the thrilling peace and joy that had invaded him when, in the midst of it all, Georgie had met his eye and offered him a smile, such a smile, the one he’d waited for, he knew then, all his life; sealing an absolutely secure forever understanding and devotion. Also it came sharply back to him that later, after they got home, Georgie had remarked to him: ‘That man is a tragic figure—or pretty nearly.’ ‘Rickie tragic? What rubbish, silly girl.’ But she was always one to get her teeth into a notion and hang on. She had persisted in her cross-questioning and analysis, listening with extreme attention to his rather lame account of Rickie’s recent troubles. He could see her now, lying on the sofa, drinking iced water, himself holding and stroking her small feet in his lap. He could hear her slow voice say: ‘Well, I guess you’re wrong. It’s not all over. I’d say there was considerable trouble going on in the Masters’ home right now.’ Nonsense again: Rickie had told him months ago that it was finished; and that from Rickie meant it was finished. This girl now, she said, this sister-in-law, was she truly that much of a bitch? Absolutely: one of those real deep ones, out to play a lone game and play the innocent and stop at nothing. Hard as nails. He could see Georgie considering this judgement carefully. Did he think,