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never been young, never been at all frivolous and gay, let alone fashionable or smart. At the beginning, it had been through a combination of ignorance and poverty; later, untutored, in awe of my new life and position, and in the shadow of Rebecca, the immortally beautiful and impeccably, extravagantly dressed, I had chosen safe, uninteresting things, not daring to experiment. Besides, Maxim had not wanted it, he had married me because of, not in spite of, my ill chosen, unbecoming clothes, they were all part of the innocent unworldly person I had been.
    So, I had taken out the plain, tailored, cream blouses, the sensible beige-and grey-and mole-coloured skirts, the dark cardigans and neat, self-effacing shoes and packed them carefully, and was oddly unable to imagine whether it would be warm or cold in England, and afraid to ask Maxim for his
     
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    opinion, for I knew that he would have closed his mind to it completely. But it was all done quite quickly, and the rest of our belongings locked away in the wardrobes and drawers. We would return, of course, though I did not know when. I went down to reassure the hotel manager that we were keeping on the room. He had tried to make us pay a deposit and, confused, anxious to get everything over with, I had been about to agree, thinking that it must be usual and was only fair. But when Maxim had heard he had suddenly sprung to life, like a dog that has been sleeping and is roused to temper, and snarled at the man in his old, thin lipped, imperious way, told him we had no intention of paying more money than we would owe in the normal course of events, he must accept our word that we would return. ‘He hasn’t a chance of letting the rooms to anyone else at this end of the season and he knows it perfectly well. The place is emptying now. He’s lucky to get us. There are plenty of other hotels.’
    I bit my lip and could not meet the manager’s eye, as he watched us climb into the taxi. But Maxim’s spurt of temper had died and for the rest of the journey, all that day and night and for the whole of the following day, he was shrunken into himself, silent for the most part, though gentle with me, taking food and drink when I proffered it, like a child.
    ‘It will be all right,’ I said, once or twice. ‘Maxim, it will not be as bad as you expect.’ He smiled wanly, and turned his head to look out of the train window at the endless, grey plains of Europe. Here, there was no autumn sunshine, no glorious, sifting light, here there were only rain sodden fields and ragged trees and dull, huddled villages, bleak little towns.
     
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    There was just one other thing. It was fleeting, momentary, but it terrified me, it came so unexpectedly and with such force, and for a second it froze my heart.
    We were at a railway station on one of the borders, and because they were changing engines we had half an hour to wait, enough time to get out and walk up and down the long platform to stretch our legs. There had been a stall selling cooked sausages, good hot coffee and schnapps, and sweet, spicy cakes which we dipped in and soaked, before eating greedily. Maxim was watching some pantomime to do with a man and a great heap of luggage piled on to a rickety trolley. Amused, standing beside him, I was thinking at that moment of nothing, nothing in particular at all, neither past nor future, simply enjoying the break from the motion of the train, the taste of the cake and coffee. Then Maxim had turned and glanced at me, caught my eye and smiled, and as I looked into his face I heard, falling into my head as clearly as drops of water falling on to stone, That man is a murderer. He shot Rebecca. That is the man who killed his wife,’ and for one terrible moment, staring at Maxim, I saw a stranger, a man who had nothing to do with me, a man I did not know.
    And then the guard had blown the warning whistle to summon us back on to the train.
     
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CHAPTER
    Three
     
    ‘Man that is born of woman