Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

at the theatre in Orchard Street. It is a short walk from the Orange Grove. There is no need for the new carriage. The theatre is crowded, rowdy. Tattered plush, yellow mushrooms of light from the chandeliers. Figures call to their acquaintances; the men offer each other snuff; the women gaze out from their white faces, stroke their hired diamonds, tap their fans. There is an air of stupendous boredom, as if nothing in the world remains beyond fashion, beyond manners, beyond the predictable mechanics of intrigue. There is not even a war on.

James and Agnes settle in their box. She feeds him sweetmeats with her fingers, and all throughout the play asks him why such and such a character does this, and if that is not Mrs Lewis below them, and if he does not think that the actress in the red is egregious ugly. Would he care for another sugar plum?

James takes no interest in the play. He is dimly aware of characters larking among the painted trees, of certain voices, words, the laughter or hush of the audience. There is a fight, a reconciliation. A song. A joke about the City Corporation. A joke about Wilkes. Another song. The lovers die, then come to

life again. Someone is recognised. Someone is lowered from the flies on a cloud and throws paper flowers at the audience. Everyone claps like mad, and stamps their feet until the building shakes. It is all so pointless. Childish. He does not care for it at all.

They eat supper near the theatre - fried fish, boiled mutton in a caper sauce - and walk back through the clammy air to the Orange Grove. James is tired. He has a woman's foot to take off in the morning, a half-dozen inoculations after that and then a ride to Marshfield to examine a farmer whose gun went off in his face. Agnes is chattering about a garden, a hat, a friend, a day last week when something occurred that quite amazed her, or didn't, or saddened her or made her laugh. A servant with a candle lets them in. Dinah. She is looking at them oddly.

The door of Munro's study opens. Munro is there, filling the doorway. He is dressed as though expecting a visitor of consequence. He does not look like a buffoon, a cuckold.

A moment with you, James.'

*I am sure it may wait until morning.'

'No, sir, it may not.'

James has his foot upon the first stair. Ignoring Munro has never been difficult. Until now. He turns. Between himself and Munro is the servant, clutching her candle.

Agnes is standing very still in the dark place by the front door. She whispers: 'Robert?'

Munro says: 'Good night to you, Agnes.'

James says: 'Be brief if you will, sir.'

Munro steps back for him. James passes, Munro closes the door. Agnes stares at the door, then at Dinah. Dinah starts to cry.

It is a long time since James has been in Munro's study. For several months Munro has forbidden the servants to come in,

afraid they will disturb the delicate disarrangement of his papers. By the various chairs in the room are stacks of books, and beneath the chairs the light picks out forgotten glasses, empty bottles. On the desk, sheets of paper, heavily blotted. Beside the sand tray is a pair of spectacles with one of the lenses missing.

1 would ask you to sit, James, but I fear this is a conversation best conducted upon our feet.'

'To the point, sir.'

Munro inhales deeply. 'The point, then. It is this. You have offended me. You have abused me. Done so in my own house. Done so for years. I know the blame is not entirely yours. I have a measure of it, as does my wife. You were strong; we were weak, deplorably so. I have earned your contempt. Well, sir, I know you do not care for speeches. You are a man of action. A remarkable man in your way, ay, and a very considerable surgeon . . .'

'The point, sir!'

Munro is sweating heavily; it shows through his coat, dark continents spreading from beneath his shoulders. He says: Your frolic here is at an end, James. You will give me the satisfaction of meeting me at the earliest possible instance. In the meantime you will shift yourself from under my roof. I shall arrange for someone to call upon you tomorrow. I doubt it is the first time you have been engaged in an affair of this kind so you will know the form. That is all.'

James bows. 'You will make a generous target, Mr Munro. I bid you good night.'

It is dusk when, the following day, James returns from Marshfield. The farmer was dead. Turning into Grand Parade he spies Mr Osbourne standing alone by the balustrade. He rides up to him. Osbourne greets him dryly, says: 'I cannot dissaude him from this course. However, it is still possible that an apology and an undertaking never to see Mrs Munro wiU be sufficient.'

James says: *I have been challenged, sir. Whether or not I see Mrs Munro is neither here nor there.'

'If you kill him, Dyer, you will be taken up. Have sense, man. It's over. You are young. You might go anywhere and prosper. It is not so with Munro. You have left him nothing to lose.'

'You are to act as his second?'

*I cannot with honour refuse him.'

'And this is an affair of honour, is it not?'

'It is.'

'Then you have come to tell me a time and place where honour may be satisfied.'

'Lansdown. Follow the road to the top of the hill. I shall be waiting. Tomorrow morning at six. If one of you is fatally hurt the other will have a day's ride to get clear.'

'And how are we to kill each other?'

*I shall bring a brace of pistols.'

'To be loaded in my presence.'

'Naturally.'

'Then we have no more to say to each other.'

He rises at five, takes a light breakfast, and leaves written instructions for Mr Timmins, factotum and