Free Lettice & Victoria by Susanna Johnston

Roland was out of humour.
    Victoria sent a note to say that she had enjoyed the party and had also heard that the dinner had been a great success.
    Who had she heard it from? It could only be Archie. ‘Touch wood and whistle,’ she told herself.
    Shaken and emboldened by desire to investigate, Lettice decided to ask her to stay for a few days before Edgar returned from peddling ink in Yugoslavia.
    ‘Darling. What a lovely letter! Roland and I both long to have you here and the country air would do you good. What about next week? Monday would suit perfectly. After all the people we had to fit in during our London visit, it is paradise to be alone and to listen to birdsong. The dawn chorus was unimaginable
ce matin
. I think Roland feels a little flat now it is all over and we rely on you to come and cheer us up. Soignezvous
bien
. All fondest thoughts. Lettice.’
    Victoria replied that, alas, she had been invited to stay in Cambridge for two nights that week. Archie, in his letter of invitation said, ‘I want to see you very badly. I am not in a very good way generally and need a change. One that your presence would supply. My head and various parts of my body seem to lead separate existences so that I am watching myself and overhearing myself the whole time, and not only my memory but my power of connected thinking seem to be removed from each other; I feel like a department store suffering from a power cut and with alarm bells sounding in all parts of the building (little pricks and tingles in limbs and extremities) which I interpret as signals, not of fire or gas but of closing time. But I am getting morbid and writing to excite pity. It’s not really as bad as that but I do feel low, partly because I want to see you and partly because Harold is rather (but not entirely) withdrawn and I feel somehow at a loss. Please come soon. Love Archie.’
    Victoria, overwhelmed in joy at thus being minimally confided in, had accepted his invitation by return of post.
    ‘Holy mackerel!’ Lettice started to panic and to talk to herself . ‘Cambridge! How had she heard that the dinner party went well? It can’t be Archie and Harold, can it? I don’t see how. What am I to do – buried here among the mossy banks?’

Chapter 10
    V ictoria drove to Cambridge. She was greeted at the door of the leaden-looking lodgings by a polite college servant who told her that the principal awaited her upstairs in his study. As Victoria, heavily pregnant, walked quietly into the room, Archie Thorne rose from his chair and lowered his spectacles. It was unnerving to see him there. Principal of a college.
    ‘I am terribly pleased to see you.’
    Victoria inspected the room – donnish with piled pieces of paper spilling over each other. She was taken aback to see, among other works of art, so many indifferent portraits of young men – some with ruby lips and many unclad.
    ‘So. You are admiring my paintings, I see. The one that I particularly like is the one on your right.’ The picture on her right showed nothing but gravestones. ‘Rather gloomy,’ she said.
    ‘I like it. It is named
Churchyard
and the best thing about it is that the artist himself is also called Churchyard. My colleague , Harold, who you know well, will join us at teatime. Heis terribly excited to think that he is going to see you again very soon. He was so excited last evening that he brought a tea tray down on my head.’ Archie put his hand to his temple, winced and said, ‘It was frightfully thrilling but fortunate that none of the fellows of the college were about.’
    She joined Archie in the study where a tea tray had appeared. She wondered if it was the one to have been brought down on Archie’s head by Harold in his excited anticipation of seeing her again.
    ‘Ah. Here comes Harold. Harold. I have been telling Victoria how you have been looking forward to her visit.’
    ‘No. No. You mustn’t.’
    ‘Mustn’t what?’
    ‘Say anything.’
    Harold then fell