Read Online The Image in the Water by Douglas Hurd - Free Book Online

content withthat explanation, and it sufficed. Their marriage set quickly into a pattern that hardly altered. Hélène took the minimum necessary interest in politics. She insisted on small matters of respect, appearances and protocol because she knew he neglected them. She went with him to the rented cottage in Northamptonshire. She wore good but not too good clothes at the Mayor’s ball and the High Sheriff’s cocktail party. She developed a genuine interest in the Daventry art gallery. More important, after a long reluctance she provided Roger with a daughter, then two sons. Beyond that, she led her own life, enjoying London to the full, mostly in a world of artists and writers, French and English, into which she did not expect him to follow. Ignorant, mocking people, seeing them usually apart, supposed that each of the Courtaulds ran their own love affairs. In fact, both were faithful, since for neither was physical love particularly important. Hélène looked after the girl’s education at the Lyceé in London; Roger organised the boys at a prep school in Berkshire. They remained fond of each other and shared a bedroom, but in practice there were not many subjects on which they needed to talk. Money might have been one, but Hélène was an only child, the count enjoyed a smattering of political conversation, which Roger provided, and the Armagnac continued to thrive.
    Roger’s decision to contest the leadership lay on the borderline of their two lives. They had discussed it, but briefly, there being no disagreement. She wanted him to advance himself and would be willing as wife of the Prime Minister to undertake more public work alongside him than came her way as wife to the Home Secretary. He had no idea whatever how she would react to
Thunder.
    â€˜He does not look very intelligent,’ she said, sipping tea.
    â€˜It amounted to nothing. No more than you see. An afternoon long ago, an hour or so on the beach. Even that makes it sound more than it was.’
    She looked at him. ‘I understand that. Even if it were more, to me it would be nothing. It is long ago, and anyway,’ she shrugged, ‘Roger Courtauld and grand passion do not go well together. Mrs Courtauld knows this and does not criticise. But politically for you, I wonder …’
    She was about to cross their unseen frontier into the heart of his concerns.
    â€˜You wonder …?’
    But she retreated. ‘It is not something for me, Roger. You have good friends who know about these things. You must ask them. I will support you whatever you do.’
    He considered pressing her, but the sense of frontier was too well established between them. He shuddered to think of those colleagues whose pillow-talk was politics. Better to have, like himself, a quick kiss, silence, sleep, and in the morning some necessary discussion of the diary or the children.
    He moved to the window and opened it. The rough noise of a street market filled the room, but there could be no street market in South Eaton Place. One of the crowd of journalists outside the house looked up and spotted him. ‘Are you pulling out, Home Secretary?’
    The questions shot in through the window.
    â€˜Are you suing?’
    â€˜Have you talked to your wife?’
    â€˜Have you talked to Fritz?’
    He shut the window. For him the immediate escape would be quite easy. In ten minutes his driver would arrive and parkimmediately outside the front door. The two protection officers would see him through the jostling press, microphones and cameras into the car and away within a few seconds. For Hélène it would be much more difficult.
    â€˜You are going out this morning?’
    â€˜Of course. I have to chair the parents’ meeting at the Lyceé. But do not worry. I must smile when I am photographed, keep moving, and say nothing. I learned this long ago. My smile must be my message, whatever you decide. They will not expect