‘Yes. It’s worth a tremendous effort. I’m going to advertise it quite heavily. I’m printing seven and a half thousand of the first volume. I feel extremely confident about it.’
So that was it. He had a success of his own to build up his self-esteem. And it would be a success; it was inevitable. The first volume was superb.
‘I think we’ll sell more than that,’ she said, ‘I’d do ten thousand if I were you. It’s so marvellous.’
‘Really? Well – I’ll consider it. You know I did think briefly we might try to publish it earlier, in June say. It would be a scramble, but I’m rather afraid of someone beating us to it, doing something similar. Sagas are so very popular now. Everyone’s out to beat the Forsytes. What do you think?’
‘I think absolutely not,’ said Celia. ‘The autumn and Christmas, of course, are the perfect times for big new novels, and you shouldn’t rush it. It just wouldn’t be worth it. Besides no one could get anything similar out in time now; we’d have heard about it.’
‘I expect you’re right. I shall take your advice. Certainly we could do with the time. And James Sharpe has done some very good work on the jackets. You do like them, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Yes, I really do.’
It was true; they were slightly old-fashioned, but all the better for that, it suited the style and the concept: the dust jacket showed a house – the Buchanans’ house in Oxford – in loving detail, viewed from the front gate with the door standing just open, inviting the reader inside. It was both charming and clever.
‘Good. Well – I have to admit I was wrong about the Meridian jacket. It looks marvellous in the shops, and I’ve lost count of the number of booksellers who have told me how much people like it. Oh, now what on earth is the matter, you’re crying, Celia, whatever is it?’
‘Oh – nothing,’ she said quickly, ‘nothing at all. I mean nothing to do with the book. I’m just a bit tired that’s all. And you know that makes me over-emotional.’ Thinking that Oliver’s attitude to the jacket, Gill’s jacket, Gill’s presence at Lyttons, had been the catalyst which had driven her into Sebastian’s bed. ‘I’m sorry, Oliver.’
‘You do too much, I’m afraid,’ said Oliver with a sigh, ‘and I’m sorry you had to get involved with the Indian Mutiny as well. Very sorry.’
‘Oh – it was all right. It’s not too bad. A bit leaden, the writing, but we can liven it up with the editing. I think my great-grandfather’s diairies will make all the difference.’
‘Well – thank you anyway. I know it’s not the project nearest to your heart. But I still think it will do well. And it’s nice to see Jack so enthusiastic. Working hard too, I must say.’
‘Yes. Yes, that’s true, he is,’ said Celia. No point in saying anything else: that Jack had as little grasp of publishing as the twins – probably rather less; that his book was going to be extremely expensive to produce and then would find it hard to recoup its cost. Oliver was blind about Jack and – rightly of course – felt he wanted to help him. Well, probably Lyttons could afford it, as Sebastian said. And anyway, he was a Lytton.
‘You do look tired, my dearest. You need your weekend away, it will do you good.’
‘I – I hope so,’ said Celia opening a file on her desk. ‘Oliver you will have to forgive me, I have so much to do.’
‘Of course. I’ll leave you in peace.’
He walked out of her office, shut the door gently. Celia stared after him, wondering how he could possibly be so blind: and how she could be so wicked.
They were going to stay at a hotel in Glasgow. Celia felt it was better for everything to be as near to the truth as possible. She left a Great Northern timetable lying about, asked Janet Gould to book her ticket on the sleeper to Glasgow – where Caroline would have met her – made sure Oliver was there when she reminded Daniels to collect her from the office to go to St Pancras, asked Caroline to telephone during the day about the arrangements, so that there would be a written message from her lying on the hall table: all the small, careful deceptions of adultery which, in the case of discovery, make the crime seem so much more heinous, so much greater a betrayal.
She was feeling increasingly dreadful about it, had twice actually cancelled the whole thing. Only Sebastian’s passionate importunings, her sister’s rather cooler admonitions not to be a fool – ‘You have to take happiness where you can, Celia, surely the war taught you that’ – persuaded her to proceed. She would look at Oliver over the dining table, at his desk, beside her in bed, Oliver, whom she had once loved so much, still cared for so deeply, Oliver, who deserved not a moment of pain, Oliver, who she knew continued to love her with an extraordinary devotion, and could hardly bear to contemplate what she was about to do to him and to their marriage. Superstitious fears crowded her conscience; something dreadful would happen to the children, her father would have a heart attack, Oliver would become ill – and no one would be able to find her. To increase her wretchedness, Oliver had been particularly sweet to her over the past two weeks, less critical, more appreciative; she found herelf longing for some unjust words, some harsh comment. Neither came. The night before she left he kissed her tenderly and said, ‘I do hope you enjoy your few days with your sister. You deserve a holiday from us all,’ and she found herself, yet again, in tears of remorse and guilt.
‘There you see,’ he said, ‘you’re exhausted. Exhausted with looking after us all. Especially me. Take a few extra days, my darling, why don’t you, it’s such a long way just for a weekend. Even a long one.’
But she said no, of course not, she couldn’t possibly do that, she would be back on Tuesday morning as she had said: promising herself it would be the last time as well as the first, that the whole thing must finish with the weekend, that she would return after it to a life of matronly virtue, would renounce Sebastian as she parted from him, that, in the event of discovery, she would at least be able to assure Oliver that it had been a brief madness which had ended as soon as it had begun. What she felt for Sebastian was an addiction: and addictions could surely be overcome.
She had already left for St Pancras when the printer telephoned to say that he could start work on the new edition of Meridian on Monday. At the same time Henry Smyth, the young editorial director whom Oliver had hired to replace Richard Douglas, remembered that Sebastian had particularly asked if he could write a short letter as a frontispiece to the new edition. When Oliver phoned Sebastian at his London home, he was told by his housekeeper that he had gone away for the weekend, but when he rang Suffolk he was told by Millicent Brooke, in more than slightly brisk tones, that Sebastian no longer came down for weekends. Oliver said he was sorry to have troubled her, and told Henry they would have to get the text for Sebastian’s letter first thing on Monday morning. And made a note to ask Celia if she knew about the change in Sebastian’s domestic arrangements.
‘I have decided it’s an addiction I feel for you,’ Celia said, half-laughing, half-tearful over breakfast on the Sunday: breakfast taken, like dinner the night before in their rooms, for fear of recognition.
He had booked the bridal suite: ‘For you come here as my bride, Lady Celia,’ a superb set of rooms, with a vast, comfortable bed, a charming sitting-room, and a bathroom which she particularly liked, all mahogany and brass fittings, with a bath large enough for them both. It was their world for the weekend: safe, warm, infinitely luxurious, and they moved into it with delight, and something close to relief at finding themselves properly alone at last.
‘An addiction!’ Sebastian said. ‘I’m not sure I quite like that. It’s possible to cure addictions, after all. I certainly don’t want you to be cured of me.’
‘I can’t be exactly cured of you,’ Celia said, rather quietly, ‘I shall never ever be cured of you. You are part of me now, part of everything I do and feel and think. I shall love you for the rest of my days. But I could manage without you, I suppose. If I had to.’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ he said, smiling at her over
the piece of toast he was heaping with butter and honey. ‘You’d be quite, quite lost. And wretchedly unhappy.’
‘Sebastian, that’s an extremely arrogant statement.’
‘It is indeed. I’m an extremely arrogant person. As you know. And therefore given to arrogant statements. But I do know I’m right. You couldn’t manage without me because you’ve changed. You’re different. That Celia I first knew, so cool and in control of herself and her life, of course she could have managed very well. But the new Celia – she has an absolute need of me.’
‘Absolute?’
‘Absolute. And you know why?’
‘No,’ she said laughing, ‘but I do know this is nonsense.’
‘It is not nonsense, Lady Celia,’ he said, his expression very serious, ‘because the new Celia, the vulnerable, uncertain one is my creation. Entirely mine.’
‘Of course I’m not.’
‘But you are. As I am yours. You must not underrate that. We have transformed one another, by love. You should enjoy that thought, not argue with it. Now eat that fruit. It’s good for you. And after that I thought perhaps another short sojourn in that wonderful bath, and thus back to bed.’
‘Sebastian—’
‘Now listen to me,’ he said almost severely, picking up an orange, beginning to peel it for her, ‘here we are, in the situation we have dreamed of, rich in time at last, no longer paupers. For heaven’s sake let us enjoy every single golden sovereign of it.’
She looked at him; he was suddenly very still, his eyes on hers, his expression serious, almost stern. She felt a shock of desire for him, so violent she could not stay still; she stood up, holding out her hand to him.
‘Let us indeed,’ she said.
Sex, she thought, as she lay on the bed afterwards, smiling at Sebastian while he ordered champagne on the telephone, was such an extraordinarily complex thing, the physical pleasure threaded through ineradicably with emotion and intellect, so transient but still so enduring, so joyful and yet of a great and solemn importance in the conduct of love.
What she felt for Sebastian was difficult and dangerous, and while bestowing great happiness on her life, was filling it at the same time with fear and potential pain. But while she was making love with him, she found at the heart of the physical turmoil, the throbbing, shaking, violent delight, a most surprising and almost fervent peace.
‘I love you,’ she said simply now, ‘I love you very, very much. Whatever happens, to either of us, remember that.’
‘I will,’ he said, and his expression was unusually sombre, ‘whatever happens, I will remember. I promise you that.’
They ventured out once or twice, walking down the streets, looking into the shops, sitting in the park.
‘Isn’t it strange?’ said Celia, tucking her hand into his, ‘people looking at us assume we are simply a couple, a happy, uncomplicated couple.’
‘I don’t suppose they assume anything at all,’ said Sebastian, laughing, ‘they have better things to do with their lives. You mustn’t aggrandise yourself, Lady Celia, it must be your background.’
She said she wasn’t aggrandising herself at all, that people did tend to notice, to look at other people, and remained much taken with the thought: the difference between appearance and reality. It seemed to her very much the stuff of fiction; work, as always, weaving its way into her most intimate life.
‘I wonder,’ she said suddenly, ‘if I had met you at a party or something, if I had not known you were a writer, would I have been quite so – taken with you.’
‘You mean you only love me for my genius? Shame on you.’
‘Of course I don’t mean that.’
‘I think you would have been just as taken with me,’ he said, ‘actually. I would have been the same person, after all.’
‘To you. But not to me. What first entranced me about you was – well not your story of course. But your passion for it. And the way you told it. Sitting there, on my sofa, like—’
‘Like Scheherazade? Telling tales for her Arabian sultan? What a wonderful idea. I wonder if you will free me after a thousand and one nights.’
‘If only we could have a thousand and one nights,’ she said sadly, ‘maybe I could contemplate it. After only one, it seems horribly unlikely.’
‘We have one to go yet. Which brings us down to nine hundred and ninety nine. A much more manageable figure. Now come along. Let’s go back to our palace on Hope Street, and I’ll try to engage your attention for a little longer at least.’
They dined in their room; it being Sunday there was little choice. They debated braving the dining-room, and rejected it. The risks outweighed the advantages, which seemed in any case extremely limited.
‘We are hardly tired of one another,’ said Sebastian, ‘not running out of things to say. There will be no awkward silences.’
‘Indeed not,’ said Celia, ‘and if there were, then we would have other diversions.’
‘Very true. Although I’m not sure I quite like the implication that I am purely a diversion. Any more than purely an author. Or indeed an addiction.’
‘Oh Sebastian,’ she said, ‘how adept you are at distorting what I say to you.’
He looked at her very solemnly then, without speaking.
‘Now what?’ she said, ‘I don’t like it when you’re quiet.’
‘I want to ask you a question,’ he said, ‘and then I will try my hand at distorting the answer.’
‘Very well.’
A long silence. Then, ‘Do you think we have any kind of a future together? Other than a continuation of the present?’
It was question so terrifying in its implications, so literally shocking in its unexpectedness, and yet so moving, so heart-shaking that she did not dare even hesitate.
‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘no of course not. We absolutely don’t. No kind of future in any way. Other than a continuation of the present that is.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Yes, I thought that was what your answer would be.’
‘No room for distortion,’ she said, and discovered she was physically breathless with fear.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘You know what Mark Twain said.’
‘No Sebastian, I don’t,’ she said, half irritably.
‘Get your facts first,’ he said, ‘and then you can distort them as much as you please. Good advice. I follow it constantly myself. Now we won’t talk about it any more. For the time being at any rate.’
‘No we won’t,’ she said, ‘not at any time, being or otherwise.’
‘Stop looking so cross. I want to tell you something else.’
‘What?’
‘I love you.’
Later, lying awake while he slept deeply, while their second night together drifted towards an end and as the reality left so joyfully behind only forty-eight hours earlier began to close in on her once more, she found it impossible not to contemplate, momentarily at least, the shared future he had asked about. And even while knowing the futility, the danger, the stupidity of such contemplation, she found it absolutely irresistible.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Lytton,’ said Janet Gould, ‘but Mr Brooke is still not at home. Not back in London, I mean. What shall we do?’
‘I don’t know. We can run the edition without his letter, of course, but it’s a nice idea and he was very anxious to do it. I like to accommodate him whenever possible.’
‘Yes, of course. Shall I phone again later?’
‘Yes please, Mrs Gould. If you would. But if it gets to midday we shall have to go without it.’
‘Certainly, Mr Lytton.’
An hour later she went back into Oliver’s office.
‘Still no word from Mr Brooke, Mr Lytton.’
‘Oh dear. Well we’ll have to run this edition without his addendum. Pity though. She’s no idea where he is, the housekeeper?’
‘Well – no. I don’t think so.’
Oliver felt a flash of irritation. Secretaries w
ere so limited. Even good ones like Janet Gould. They settled for so much less than they might conceivably get.
‘I’ll phone her myself,’ he said, ‘thank you, Mrs Gould.’
Mrs Conley, Sebastian’s housekeeper, said – just slightly wearily, having been asked the question four times now – that she really had no idea when he might be back.
‘But not today, that’s for sure.’
‘Really? How do you know that?’
‘I was dusting his room just now, and I found a letter on his chest of drawers. Just lying around,’ she said hastily, clearly anxious lest Oliver think she had been poking her nose into Sebastian’s affairs. ‘It was from the Great Northern Railways. Saying they were enclosing his tickets on the sleeper to and from Glasgow.’
‘Glasgow,’ said Oliver. ‘Yes. Yes, I see.’ His voice was rather loud suddenly. ‘And – did it mention the dates of the tickets? This letter.’
‘Yes. Up on Friday night, down Monday night. So he might go on somewhere else. But he won’t be back till tomorrow morning, whatever happens, will he?’
‘No,’ said Oliver, ‘no obviously he won’t. Thank you, Mrs Conley.’
He put the phone down very gently and sat staring at it. Not moving. Feeling – odd. Then he stood up and walked purposefully into Henry Smyth’s office and told him to go ahead with printing the eighth edition of Meridian immediately. ‘Without Mr Brooke’s addendum.’
‘Is that really all right, Mr Lytton? You don’t think he’ll be upset?’
‘I’m afraid we can’t hold up a printing just because Mr Brooke might be upset,’ said Oliver briskly. ‘There are more important considerations than that, I feel.’
‘Yes of course Mr Lytton.’
He stalked out, slamming the door.
Jack was on his way to see Henry Smyth himself; he heard the bang of the door, saw Oliver walking quickly down the corridor. He went in. He liked Henry: far more than he did Edgar Green. Henry didn’t seem to think he was nearly so important for a start, which was ridiculous, as he was Edgar’s boss. And he had been much more friendly towards him, had had lunch with him several times.
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