Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
Cecilia mends the vase and though it has three cracks, it is unlikely anyone will ever notice the damage. As she leaves the library, she encounters Briony who looks as if she's about to cry. Unhappy with the play, Briony is on a mission to destroy the playbill. While Cecilia, who has always loved to cuddle and comfort her younger sister, tries to cheer her up, Briony resists. The young girl attempts to destroy the watercolor poster she so carefully made, but her sister is able to keep her from doing irreparable damage. Briony considers confessing to Cecilia her true feelings about the play of which she was once so proud. Instead, she tells Cecilia she chose the wrong genre (though she pronounces it as she supposes the French do), but Cecilia does not understand and is left confused as the younger girl leaves to greet her arriving brother.
Taking the vase to the guest room (assigned to her brother’s friend Mr. Marshall) as her mother asked her to do eight hours ago, Cecilia contemplates the cool, tidy bedroom. Looking out the window, she spies three silhouettes in the distance: Hardman, Mr. Marshall, and what must be her brother. A fourth, Robbie Turner, joins them and their outlines appear to fuse together. Cecilia imagines the greetings of these young men and is resentful that her brother would treat Robbie as a friend, not knowing he is “in disgrace.” She goes upstairs for a cigarette.
Smoking in the house is something her father disapproves of, but he is away and twenty-three-year-old Cecilia is bold enough to light up as she heads outside to meet her brother. Her father has distinct ideas about when and where women should smoke, and though she talks of liberation and freedom, Cecilia generally does not openly disobey him. The two new guests arrive and Danny Hardman is behind them with their luggage. Old Hardman looks mutely at the five-pound note in his hand. Leon, aged twenty-five, is pleased to see his sister and introduces her Paul Marshall. While Cecilia and Leon discuss their parents’ whereabouts, she is aware that Paul is staring at her; before she can speak to him, though, she must think of something to say. She tells her brother that Briony is planning a play but all may not be well. Paul says it must have been Briony who he saw down by the lake thrashing the nettles.
After Danny takes the luggage upstairs, the three young adults sit on the terrace, talking. Paul, who is from a wealthy family in the chocolate bar business, spends ten minutes blathering about their company’s plans for expansion and how refreshing it is to be so far away from everything that matters. As he drones on, the siblings share an inside joke and do their best to keep from bursting into laughter at their guest’s expense. Just when they are about to erupt into a fit of giggling, Paul finishes his diatribe and Leon tells his sister he invited Robbie to join the festivities later that night.
Cecilia is not happy to hear this news and is quick to tell her brother she does not want Robbie at their table that night. Leon is indignant, feeling that she is condescending and being arrogant about the cleaning woman’s son. The two who were, mere moments ago, sharing a secret joke are now in discord. For a moment, Cecilia has the feeling that everything that happens, from the minutest moments to the most colossal things, has already been determined, are “already in place.” She quickly suggests that Paul make them all drinks to lighten the mood. Paul offers to make a rum and chocolate iced drink, but Cecilia thinks she would prefer something bitter, or perhaps sour. As they enter the house, she thinks she feels Paul lightly brush her arm as she passes, but perhaps it was just a leaf.
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