The Crimson Rooms by Katharine McMahon Page A

If I’d known that his might be the only kiss that would ever be granted me, I’d have drawn him into the darkness, abandoned my Clivedon Hall Gardens principles altogether, and let him make love to me à la Ethel M. Dell. Because as soon as he went away, even before he got himself shot or shelled or whatever it was that provoked the word missing on the telegram home, in my imagination he became taller, bolder, more beautiful, an ideal boy, in fact, with Byronic hair and features, full of wit.
    So the music was an opportunity to lose myself again to his touch, to snatch more forbidden moments in the shadow of the bridge, to remember his three letters, each of which closed with the phrase You have been on my mind (into which I read a restrained but passionate yearning), to smell his alien young male scent, to feel his fingertip play secretly along the veins on the underside of my wrist as we sat side by side at the Clivedon Hall Gardens dining table on the night before he went away.
    The second affair, nearly four years later, when I was twenty-five, had been more tortured still. It was enough to recall a bowl of red glass cupped in the hand of a uniformed man to feel my blood shudder with the anticipated shock of lovemaking.
    The music ended and I opened my dazed eyes to find that I was being scrutinized from across the room by a man I recognized but couldn’t at first place. Then I remembered that he was the barrister who had caught hold of me in the foyer of Shoreditch Magistrates’ Court after the humiliation of Leah Marchant’s bail proceedings and advised me not to interrupt a magistrate. Not wishing to be reminded of that morning, I looked hastily for Carrie but, seeing no sign of her, headed for the door.
    “Miss Gifford.”
    Surely I had been mistaken; he would not bother to follow me into Commercial Road and was hardly likely to have remembered my name. But though I didn’t pause, he called again and actually came abreast of me. “Miss Gifford.”
    I shielded my eyes from the sun to look into his face as he offered his hand. “Nicholas Thorne,” he said. “Last time we met, I’m afraid there was no time for introductions—do you remember—Marlborough Street Police Court or some other godforsaken hole?”
    You don’t deceive me, I thought as I withdrew my hand from his clasp, you remember exactly where we met. I walked on, wondering what on earth he wanted with me.
    “Did you enjoy the concert, Miss Gifford?” he asked, falling into step beside me.
    “Very much.”
    “Although I think you missed all but the last piece. I saw you come in toward the end. Such a shame. We had Gluck, and Handel’s G Minor sonata. Do you know that particular work? It happens to be one of my favorites. I’ve not seen you at the Toynbee concerts—is this a first for you? It’s like old times for me, quite a nostalgia trip because I was here just after the war offering a bit of legal advice and a spot of lecturing in psychology and French. Sanest thing I’d done for years, it seemed to me.”
    There were many reasons for my reluctance to be drawn into conversation with him, the foremost being that I could see no reason why he would wish to talk other than to bait me. I had encountered plenty of embryonic barristers at Cambridge and recognized the educated drawl, disarming smile, and acute memory. Yet he was such a gentleman in the way he maneuvered to ensure that he was on the outside of the sidewalk, and his smile was so engaging—barely a muscle was disturbed in his lip or cheek but his eyes were warm—that I could not be completely immune. He was a beautiful, intact, youngish man and therefore a rarity indeed. And of course I was still in the grip of the wretched music.
    At last I said: “I used to go to Toynbee Hall last year. I worked on the poor man’s law scheme too.”
    “Actually I assumed you once used to frequent Toynbee.”
    “Why?”
    “You work for Breen. Everybody knows the work Breen did at