Intrusion

e new day as Autumns own-a little wistful in spirit, but exquisitely dressed in green and gold, hung about with deep blue shadows and veiled, every now and then, by the silver mist of the finedriving rain. If you looked closely you could almost see Autumn slipping a little deeper into the embrace of Winter, her sombre lover. . . . That, somehow, was how the day stayed, coloured and wistful and reluctant, in Guen Suffields mind. And yet this is not Guens story. . . . It is true, however, that she is inextricably mixed up with the telling of it, since, but for her, neither Allan nor Caryl would ever have seen Roberta, whose story this really is. That, at least, was what Guen always contended, which was why, after the thing happened, theie were times when she felt worse about it than anybody else worse than Allan, 4 worse, possibly, than Caryl, both of whom it so much more closely concerned. One thing was certain. The thread of Allans misery there, at the end, was snapped suddenly by the sight of Caryls and by something else which doesnt, properly, belong to this story. . . . . Guen, Caryl and Allan. Concerned as closely as these three there was a fourth. Difficult to say how much he suffered--or how , long. Perhaps Caryl knew-but Caryl never said. She was too deeply occupied in pretending that the thing had never happened at all. She wanted everybody to know that it hadnt crushed her. She couldnt bear any of them to think her wound was mortal. You couldnt look at her without realising that she, at least, was convinced it was not. Yet it was always Caryl who stood in the way of the easy conclusion that Fate had been kind. Even though you knew the roots of her happiness went so deeply you must kill her to destroy them even thdugh you knew there was some little bit of herself she held always impregnable though you realised that, , for Caryl, there would always be something left. Certainly Guen never doubted that Fate had been kind to Roberta. The best thing that could have happened to her she said afterwards and with utter dispassion to Tony Gore, who didnt agree with her. But he couldnt shake her conviction. She was quite certain Fate might have done so inuch worse for them all-even for Roberta. Even for Roberta. She put it like that, remembering that Roberta had walked in beauty like the night. . . . Whatever else Guen and Allan foigot it wasnt likely they would forget that. You dont forget beauty as unequivocal ds Robertas. When youd stripped her of everything elseall the things you hated and despised and despaired of-the beauty remained. They saw it always, Guen and Allan, as a vivid, enduring thing-like dawn and sunset and the golden noon. Heaven only knows how Caryl saw it. When you felt best about it you hoped she didnt see it at all that she had wiped out Robertas beauty as she had wiped out Robertas sin. - INTRUSION - BOOK I - CHAPTER ONE I - THE whole house was full of Jans ragtime. Played with a maddening precision it floated up to Guen in her study and offered yet another argument against her attempt to work... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.