Infatuation

'That must be a new experience for you, darling,' Mrs Doulton told him, giving him an amused look, then she asked Judith: 'You've just got back from New York, I hear; how was it?'

'Noisy,' said Judith, smiling. 'Electrifying and exciting—but it must be one of the noisiest cities on earth, and very disorientating, because they keep pulling it down and building it up again overnight. Nothing ever satisfies them. I suppose; they always think they can make it bigger and better. I don't know why they bothered to send spaceships to the moon— sooner or later the skyscrapers of Manhattan are going to get there anyway!'

Mrs Doulton laughed, watching her intent

ly and making Judith nervous and very aware of her own shortcomings. Luke's mother had only recently met Baba—Judith must be something of an anti-climax after that, in her very plain dark red dress with her windblown hair tossed around her thin, sallow face. Judith looked down, flushing; the brief vivacity extinguished in her the moment she remembered what she actually looked like. Mrs Doulton, like Baba, must have been a real knock-out when she was young if even at sixty she could make you believe she was still beautiful.

'Don't loom, Luke,' Mrs Doulton ordered. 'We don't need you—go down and coax Fanny into a better mood; she's very cross because you were late.'

'You shouldn't have got worried; Fanny only gets cross because you're upset, you know that.'

'I know everything there is to know about Fanny, thank you, and I can't help getting agitated when you're nearly an hour late.' Mrs Doulton waved an imperious hand at him. 'Go down and talk to her!'

Luke went out and his mother gave Judith a rueful smile. 'Stupid of me to fret over him at his age, a habit I picked up in the States—such a violent society especially when money is involved. His father had several narrow scrapes—I lived in terror for weeks when someone with a grudge against him threatened to have him killed!'

'Luke has his security men on hand all the time, I gather, even over here—so I shouldn't worry too much.' Judith hesitated, then told her about the little incident on the way down to Lambourne. Mrs Doulton listened and laughed.

'Were you scared?'

'Petrified,' Judith admitted. 'I felt so silly when he told me they were his own men; I'd been trying to work out how to escape them!'

Mrs Doulton lay back, her thin hands immobile on the sheet. 'You aren't what I was expecting,' she said suddenly, and Judith looked at her warily.

'What had you been expecting?' Had Mrs Doulton expected someone like Caroline Rendell? An elegant, beautiful woman with charm as well as brains? Instantly. Judith felt both irritated and depressed; why were looks so important? She had felt she was getting on very well with Luke's mother, yet Mrs Doulton, too, was measuring her against that implacable standard and finding her unimpressive simply because she was not beautiful.

'Luke told me you were prickly and difficult,' Mrs Doulton said, taking her by surprise. 'I gather you argue with him all the time; he says you're obstinate and too free with your opinions.'

'Oh, did he?' Judith murmured, her dark eyes lowered to hide the rebellious glint in them. So that was what he had told his mother, was it? Had he told her why she had been free with her opinions? Did Mrs Doulton know about him and Caroline Rendell?

Almost on cue, Mrs Doulton asked her: 'Have you met your predecessor, Miss Rendell?'

'Yes,' said Judith with what she hoped was commendable discretion and lack of intonation, keeping her gaze down because she knew it would betray her.

'She's exactly the type of girl Luke has had working for him in the States; to get on over there you need that sort of gloss, she can be so charming and she dresses perfectly, she looks the part.'

'Yes,' said Judith through almost closed lips.

'But her eyes give her away,' Mrs Doulton went on, surprising her into looking up. 'They do, you know,' Luke's mother added, then laughed teasingly, 'Is that why you wouldn't look at me just now? Afraid of what I'd see in your eyes?'

Judith didn't say anything but she laughed back, her face lightening.

'Yes, you can make your mouth smile obediently, you can lie like a trooper, but your eyes tell the truth, and Caroline Rendell has cold eyes,' Mrs Doulton said.

She pushed back a straying strand of the fine hair which looked like silver-gilt wire; had her hair been blonde or red? She wore it in a loose mass tied back behind her head with a pink ribbon; it gave her the fleeting appearance of girlhood except that it was all silver, and so fine now that you could see her pink scalp through it here and there. She was wearing a delicate dusting of powder on her face, the merest brush of pale pink lipstick; a concession to beauty she did not need because her real beauty lay inside her.

'I was taken aback when you came in with Luke,' she said. 'Taken aback and delighted—I can talk to you; I could never talk to Caroline. Luke has told you that one' of your chores will be to keep me informed of what he's doing? I don't mean where he is, that sort of thing—he always rings me several times a week whether he's in Tokyo or Los Angeles. I meant as far as the company in London is concerned. I like to know what's going on; I may be stuck in this bed, but that doesn't mean my brain has turned to mashed potato. I keep abreast of current affairs, read the papers each morning, talk to my broker and my banker. The day I stop taking an interest in the rest of the world I'll know I'm dead!'

Judith laughed, very amused and interested. Mrs Doulton looked delicate and finely balanced, but she talked in a direct, frank way that Judith could relate to immediately. There was a toughness in her which she had handed on to her son; it was that core of her which you sensed as soon as you met her, you felt that she had been through great pain and loss and come out strengthened by it and without bitterness. Was it her illness which gave her that strength? Or the death of her husband? It was probably both, Judith decided; life didn't stop handing you problems simply because you had managed to cope with one painful situation, surely? You still had to go on and face new challenges, or was there a time when .you emerged on to a plateau of calm and acceptance? No, she thought, watching the other woman's face; that was not the resignation of someone who has stepped out of life, those eyes were still looking outwards,

Mrs Doulton was right about that. She was still very much involved in the world.

'You are an old friend of Baba's, Luke tells me,' Mrs Doulton said, and Judith nodded.

'I've known her for years. Her sister is my best friend.'

'I was beginning to think Luke would never get married. He's been so busy since his father died and he took over.' Mrs Doulton laughed ruefully. 'Oh, there have been girls in his life, but none of them stayed around for long, they never seemed to matter to him; it worried me. He gave all his attention to his work; that was what he really cared about, there was no room in his life for marriage. When a man gets used to living like that it becomes a habit; they get selfish, they don't want to change.' She looked at Judith thoughtfully. 'You're not planning to get married yet?'

'No,' said Judith, unwilling to discuss herself.