The Rules of Engagement by Anita Brookner Read Free Book Online

each other's hands, and, so joined, proceeded towards the door which I held open for them. Betsy turned to me with a smile that held a certain fatigue. I thought she must have grown thinner; either that or her eyes were wide, too wide, as if she were contemplating a great difficulty. She was faultlessly dressed; her hair was immaculate. She was becoming transformed into one of those Parisian women whose look of exigence, of stress, merely adds to their allure, and announces their readiness to deal with any possible criticism, if anyone were rash enough to offer it. Any difference of opinion would be dealt with combatively; I had witnessed this too many times to expect anything different. And I could see that Betsy would soon acquire this manner, if and when she were called upon to defend her lover, in whom hostile witnesses, such as myself, could see only idleness, wilfulness, a sort of innocent savagery, like that of an infant whose own wishes must be imposed on his surroundings. Yet as he turned to her he gave her a look of love to which she so naturally responded that I was left in no doubt that this was a genuine love affair, even if in my eyes it had little to recommend it beyond the fact that it seemed to have come about naturally, and that it therefore had nature on its side.
    As I cleared away the cups and saucers (and I seemed always to be clearing things away in what was after all my own home) I wondered whether I should ever be able to attach myself to a man who promised little more than youth and beauty, and decided that I was too staid in temperament ever to conceive of such an arrangement. Yet the afternoon had saddened me: it is a terrible thing to lose a friend, and it was clear that I had lost Betsy, or rather that we had lost each other. I told myself that I could bear this, as I had learned to bear other absences in my life, passion, joy, rapture, escape from the destiny I had sought and had congratulated myself on attaining. I wandered into the bedroom and contemplated it for a moment. Then I shook my head, as if to dismiss unseemly thoughts, thoughts which visited me when I was low-spirited. I decided to write Betsy a note, suggesting that we meet, just the two of us. I hoped that this might restore something of our previous friendship. If such a meeting took place I should not mention Daniel. I did not want to question her or to learn any more about him. To be an accessory to another woman's love affair is an invidious position, and I had no intention of becoming such an accessory, however much Betsy might wish me to become one.
    I ran a bath, washed my hair, put the disruptive afternoon out of my mind. We were to dine with the Fairlies, in their rather grand house overlooking the river. This was the sort of entertainment I was used to, and it was very different from the sort of love in a garret which I imagined reserved for the happy few. The evening would be ponderous, and I might question my own tolerance of such ceremonies. And so it proved. I studied Constance Fairlie with some perplexity, as if newly open to her barely concealed malice. Edmund Fairlie saw my glance, and I turned to meet his eyes with a deprecating smile, as if to excuse myself. Digby's eyes were watering slightly in the effort to keep awake. Then it was time to leave. Edmund Fairlie helped me into my coat, then stood watching me as I held the collar protectively to my face. That instant proved to me that it was not the first, almost unemotional, sighting of a potential lover that was significant, but the second, the moment not of recognition but of confirmation, so that every other consideration is irrelevant, as if it might have mattered at some point in the past but no longer had any currency in the charged wordless exchange that seals the matter for ever, regardless of the dangers thus incurred and whatever the cost.
     

 
     
     

    4
     
    I descended into clandestinity with a gratitude, a relief, and an open-heartedness of