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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry for the delay and the short update. Trying to figure out exactly what the beats are in this story is more difficult than I expected.

Pamela Beesly was greatly out of sorts. She was conscious for the first time in a long time of a sense of disappointment in Roy; not for losing the cricket match, but for being so ungentlemanly as to collide with Jim in an attempt not to lose. She had no doubts as to Roy’s intent, even if he had tried to play it off as an entirely accidental interference. She knew how smoothly and easily he could move when he tried, how he could avoid contact with others with the catlike grace that so attracted her. If he had hit Jim, he had meant to hit Jim. And the breezy ease with which the denial of it came from him only convinced her more. Roy, embarrassed, stammered. Roy pretending to be embarrassed had the same free and easy manner Roy usually had. This was unfortunate, as she could very easily tell that he was not embarrassed by running into Jim, only disappointed not to have succeeded in getting him out.

 

 

More bothersome still, a small quiet voice inside her head would not stop pointing out that this wasn’t really the first time she’d been disappointed in Roy, only the first time she’d been disappointed in his behaviour towards other people in public. It reminded her of the missed appointments, the seeming inability to hold onto money as it flowed through his hands despite his avowed intention of raising enough of a stake to get married and settled with, the unwillingness to consider her interests and desires as equal (let alone superior) to his own. The aborted trip to Italy. The ruined paints from when she took up watercolors and he washed the tins out to store his flyfishing tackle. The many, many postponements of the wedding date that never quite materialized. She was angry with the voice, but a deeper part of her was angry with whatever piece was angry with the voice. The voice was right, and that was important. She was disappointed in Roy all the time, so much that it had become the background noise of her life, no more noticed than the creak of a chair or the hush of rain on an autumn night without wind. It made her too happy when he did show some consideration, some indication of his regard, because it made her forget all the times he had not shown it—because they were all too common. It was rejoicing at the frosting on a cake while neglecting that the cake itself was dry.

 

Facing this unaccustomed vehemence in her soul, she fled. She found herself in St. John’s Wood outside the cricket ground, and stepped blindly into the first shop that caught her eye. The sign above the door said “Pethick’s Paints.” She emerged fifteen minutes later with a fresh set of brushes, a small selection of paints, a small canvas laid out carefully on a woodenframe, and a sketchbook bound in bright leather. She turned and walked determinedly for home, not looking back.

 

Jim Halpert also headed for home, fully recovered from his collision with Roy Anderson but somewhat the worse for wear from the pounding his back had received when Michael had realized they had triumphed on the last ball. He needed nothing more than a stiff drink, a few hours of rest, and perhaps a good game of whist or piquet to take his mind off things.

 

He was not destined to get them.

Chapter End Notes:
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