Nothing happened? No, she mused. It wasn't quite as simple as that. While sitting on his lap her mind would become strangely bifurcated: one part of it would be acutely aware of his physical presence, while another would spend the time fantasizing, daydreaming, as though by force of his physical presence alone he seemed able to set her mind free in some indefinable way.
Nor did she simply lay passively against him like a rag doll. As she became comfortable with being in such close physical contact with him she would press her face against his chest and listen to the reassuring thump of his heart, or put her arms around his neck and her head on his shoulder.
On infrequent occasions Mrs. Dewhurst or someone else would get up out of bed for one reason or another and see the two together. The first time Pamela saw Mrs. Dewhurst pass by the door the woman had given the two of them a look of such undisguised relief as left Pamela feeling completely baffled, as Theo's behaviour often did.
Each night after going to bed, Pamela would lay awake and find part of herself wishing that Theo had taken her to bed with him. Each night it got a little harder to be parted from him. But never once did he give the slightest indication that he felt any such inclination himself.
Afraid of jeopardizing their quiet time together by speaking of it, a time she cherished and looked forward to, all day and every day, she held her peace. And she waited.
As the day grew closer for Pamela to go with Ellie and Doris to Hornsea, Pamela felt as though she were walking on air, despite the pall that seemed to have fallen over much of the household. The only bright notes in the whole mansion these days seemed to be little Jennie, Fred and Anne Pascoe's little girl, and old Misters Smith and Pritchard, who at the moment were seated, as was normal for them, at a small table in front of a window at the back of the kitchen, utterly absorbed in their game of chess. The two of them were surrounded by a veritable cloud of smoke from Mr. Pritchard's pipe and Mr. Smith's Player's, using an ancient tobacco-can lid as an ashtray, until Pamela flounced by, opened the window, and brought them some fresh coffee.
'Thanks, lass,' said Mr. Pritchard appreciatively without looking up.
'Mm,' Mr. Smith agreed. 'Here, no kibitzing, young lady!'
With a broad smile, Pamela flounced away, whiling away the lazy afternoon. She set to watering the plants, passing Mr. Pascoe in the upstairs hallway, heading towards the end where a pair of ancient asparagus ferns had stood to either side of the window in their ornately carved wooden stands, literally for generations.