Absent in the Spring (15 page)

And Joan, unable to bear keeping silent any longer, broke in sharply.

‘Don't say such wicked things, Barbara. You don't know what you're talking about!'

‘I forgot you were there, Mother. Of course,
you
wouldn't ever do a thing like that.
You'd
always be calm and sensible, whatever happened.'

‘I should hope so indeed.'

Joan kept her temper with a little difficulty. She said to Rodney when Barbara had left the room:

‘You shouldn't encourage the child in such nonsense.'

‘Oh, she might as well talk it out of her system.'

‘Of course, she'd never really do any of these dreadful things she talks about.'

Rodney was silent and Joan looked at him in surprise.

‘Surely you don't think –'

‘No, no, not really. Not when she's older, when she's got her balance. But Barbara is very unstable emotionally, Joan, we might as well face it.'

‘It's all so ridiculous!'

‘Yes, to us – who have a sense of proportion. But not to her. She's always in deadly earnest. She can't see beyond the mood of the moment. She has no detachment and no humour. Sexually, she is precocious –'

‘Really, Rodney! You make things sound like – like one of those horrid cases in the police court.'

‘Horrid cases in the police court concern living human beings, remember.'

‘Yes, but nicely brought up girls like Barbara don't –'

‘Don't what, Joan?'

‘Must we talk like this?'

Rodney sighed.

‘No. No, of course not. But I wish, yes, I really do wish that Barbara could meet some decent young fellow and fall properly in love with him.'

And after that it had really seemed like an answer to prayer, when young William Wray had come home from Iraq to stay with his aunt, Lady Herriot.

Joan had seen him first one day about a week after his arrival. He had been ushered into the drawing-room one afternoon when Barbara was out. Joan had looked up surprised from her writing table and had seen a tall, sturdily built young man with a jutting out chin, a very pink face, and a pair of steady blue eyes.

Blushing still pinker, Bill Wray had mumbled to his collar that he was Lady Herriot's nephew and that he had called – er – to return Miss Scudamore's racket which she had – er – left behind the other day.

Joan pulled her wits together and greeted him graciously.

Barbara was so careless, she said. Left her things all over the place. Barbara was out at the moment, but probably she would be back before long. Mr Wray must stay and have some tea.

Mr Wray was quite willing, it seemed, so Joan rang the bell for tea, and inquired after Mr Wray's aunt.

Lady Herriot's health occupied about five minutes, and then conversation began to halt a little. Mr Wray was not very helpful. He remained very pink in the face and sat very bolt upright and had a vague look of suffering some internal agony. Luckily tea came and made a diversion.

Joan was still prattling kindly, but with a slight sense of effort when Rodney, much to her relief, returned a little earlier than usual from the office. Rodney was very helpful. He talked of Iraq, drew the boy out with some simple questions, and presently some of Bill Wray's agonized stiffness began to relax. Soon he was talking almost easily. Presently Rodney took him off to his study. It was nearly seven o'clock when Bill, still it seemed reluctantly, took his departure.

‘Nice lad,' said Rodney.

‘Yes, quite. Rather shy.'

‘Decidedly.' Rodney seemed amused. ‘But I don't think he's usually quite so diffident.'

‘What a frightfully long time he stayed!'

‘Over two hours.'

‘You must be terribly tired, Rodney.'

‘Oh no, I enjoyed it. He's got a very good headpiece, that boy, and rather an unusual outlook on things. The philosophic bent of mind. He's got character as well as brains. Yes, I liked him.'

‘He must have liked you – to stay talking as long as he did.'

Rodney's look of amusement returned.

‘Oh, he wasn't staying to talk to me. He was hoping for Barbara's return. Come, Joan, don't you know love when you see it? The poor fellow was stiff with embarrassment. That's why he was as red as a beetroot. It must have taken a great effort for him to nerve himself to come here – and when he did, no glimpse of his lady. Yes, one of those cases of love at first sight.'

Presently when Barbara came hurrying into the house, just in time for dinner, Joan said:

‘One of your young men has been here, Barbara, Lady Herriot's nephew. He brought back your racket.'

‘Oh, Bill Wray? So he did find it? It seemed to have disappeared completely the other evening.'

‘He was here some time,' said Joan.

‘Pity I missed him. I went to the pictures with the Crabbes. A frightfully stupid film. Did you get awfully bored with Bill?'

‘No,' said Rodney. I liked him. We talked Near Eastern politics. You'd have been bored, I expect.'

‘I like to hear about queer parts of the world. I'd love to travel. I get so fed up always staying in Crayminster. At any rate, Bill is different.'

‘You can always train for a job,' suggested Rodney.

‘Oh, a job!' Barbara wrinkled up her nose. ‘You know, Dads, I'm an idle devil. I don't like work.'

‘No more do most people, I suspect,' said Rodney.

Barbara rushed at him and hugged him.

‘You work much too hard. I've always thought so. It's a shame!'

Then, releasing her hold, she said, ‘I'll give Bill a ring. He said something about going to the point to point over at Marsden …'

Rodney stood looking after her as she walked away towards the telephone at the back of the hall. It was an odd look, questioning, uncertain.

He had liked Bill Wray, yes, undoubtedly he had liked Bill from the first. Why, then, had he looked so worried, so harassed, when Barbara had burst in and announced that she and Bill were engaged and they meant to be married at once so that she could go back to Baghdad with him?

Bill was young, well connected, with money of his own, and good prospects. Why then, did Rodney demur, and suggest a longer engagement? Why did he go about frowning, looking uncertain and perplexed?

And then, just before the marriage, that sudden outburst, that insistence that Barbara was too young?

Oh well, Barbara had soon settled that objection, and six months after she had married her Bill and departed for Baghdad, Averil in her turn had announced her engagement to a stockbroker, a man called Edward Harrison-Wilmott.

He was a quiet, pleasant man of about thirty-four and extremely well off.

So really, Joan thought, everything seemed to be turning out splendidly. Rodney was rather quiet about Averil's engagement, but when she pressed him he said, ‘Yes, yes, it's the best thing. He's a nice fellow.'

After Averil's marriage, Joan and Rodney were alone in the house.

Tony, after training at an agricultural college and then failing to pass his exams, and altogether causing them a good deal of anxiety, had finally gone out to South Africa where a client of Rodney's had a big orange farm in Rhodesia.

Tony wrote them enthusiastic letters, though not very lengthy ones. Then he had written and announced his engagement to a girl from Durban. Joan was rather upset at the idea of her son marrying a girl they had never even seen. She had no money, either – and really, as she said to Rodney, what did they know about her? Nothing at all.

Rodney said that it was Tony's funeral, and that they must hope for the best. She looked a nice girl, he thought, from the photographs Tony had sent, and she seemed willing to begin with Tony in a small way up in Rhodesia.

‘And I suppose they'll spend their entire lives out there and hardly ever come home. Tony ought to have been forced to go into the firm – I said so at the time!'

Rodney had smiled and said that he wasn't very good at forcing people to do things.

‘No, but really, Rodney, you ought to have
insisted
. He would soon have settled down. People do.'

Yes, Rodney said, that was true. But it was, he thought, too great a risk.

Risk? Joan said she didn't understand. What did he mean by risk?

Rodney said he meant the risk that the boy mightn't be happy.

Joan said she sometimes lost patience with all this talk of happiness. Nobody seemed to think of anything else. Happiness wasn't the only thing in life. There were other things much more important.

Such as, Rodney had asked?

Well, Joan said – after a moment's hesitation – duty, for instance.

Rodney said that surely it could never be a duty to become a solicitor.

Slightly annoyed, Joan replied that he knew perfectly what she meant. It was Tony's duty to please his father and not disappoint him.

‘Tony hasn't disappointed me.'

But surely, Joan exclaimed, Rodney didn't like his only son being far away half across the world, living where they could never see the boy.

‘No,' said Rodney with a sigh. ‘I must admit that I miss Tony very much. He was such a sunny, cheerful creature to have about the house. Yes, I miss him …'

‘That's what I say. You should have been firm!'

‘After all, Joan, it's Tony's life. Not ours. Ours is over and done with, for better or worse – the active part of it, I mean.'

‘Yes – well – I suppose that's so in a way.'

She thought a minute and then she said, ‘Well, it's been a very nice life. And still is, of course.'

‘I'm glad of that.'

He was smiling at her. Rodney had a nice smile, a teasing smile. Sometimes he looked as though he was smiling at something that you yourself didn't see.

‘The truth is,' said Joan, ‘that you and I are really very well suited to each other.'

‘Yes, we haven't had many quarrels.'

‘And then we've been lucky with our children. It would have been terrible if they'd turned out badly or been unhappy or something like that.'

‘Funny Joan,' Rodney had said.

‘Well but, Rodney, it really
would
have been very upsetting.'

‘I don't think anything would upset you for long, Joan.'

‘Well,' she considered the point. ‘Of course I have got a very equable temperament. I think it's one's duty, you know, not to give way to things.'

‘An admirable and convenient sentiment!'

‘It's nice, isn't it,' said Joan smiling, ‘to feel one's made a success of things?'

‘Yes.' Rodney had sighed. ‘Yes, it must be very nice.'

Joan laughed and putting her hand on his arm, gave it a little shake.

‘Don't be modest, Rodney. No solicitor has got a bigger practice round here than you have. It's far bigger than in Uncle Henry's time.'

‘Yes, the firm is doing well.'

‘And there's more capital coming in with the new partner. Do you mind having a new partner?'

Rodney shook his head.

‘Oh no, we need young blood. Both Alderman and I are getting on.'

Yes, she thought, it was true. There was a lot of grey in Rodney's dark hair.

Joan roused herself, and glanced at her watch.

The morning was passing quite quickly, and there had been no recurrence of those distressing chaotic thoughts which seemed to force themselves into her mind so inopportunely.

Well, that showed, didn't it, that ‘discipline' was the watchword needed. To arrange one's thoughts in an orderly manner, recalling only those memories that were pleasant and satisfactory. That is what she had done this morning – and see how quickly the morning had passed. In about an hour and a half it would be lunch time. Perhaps she had better go out for a short stroll, keeping quite near the rest house. That would just make a little change before coming in to eat another of those hot, heavy meals.

She went into the bedroom, put on her double felt hat and went out.

The Arab boy was kneeling on the ground, his face turned towards Mecca, and was bending forward and straightening himself, uttering words in a high nasal chant.

The Indian, coming up unseen, said instructively just behind Joan's shoulder, ‘Him make midday prayer.'

Joan nodded. The information, she felt, was unnecessary. She could see perfectly well what the boy was doing.

‘Him say Allah very compassionate, Allah very merciful.'

‘I know,' said Joan and moved away, strolling gently towards the barbed wire conglomeration that marked the railway station.

She remembered having seen six or seven Arabs trying to move a dilapidated Ford that had stuck in the sand, all pulling and tugging in opposite directions, and how her son-in-law, William, had explained to her that in addition to these well meant but abortive efforts, they were saying hopefully, ‘Allah is very merciful.'

Allah, she thought, had need to be, since it was certain that nothing but a miracle would extract the car if they all continued to tug in opposite directions.

The curious thing was that they all seemed quite happy about it and enjoying themselves. Inshallah, they would say, if God wills, and would thereupon bend no intelligent endeavour on the satisfaction of their desires. It was not a way of living that commended itself to Joan. One should take thought and make plans for the morrow. Though perhaps if one lived in the middle of nowhere like Tell Abu Hamid it might not be so necessary.

If one were here for long, reflected Joan, one would forget even what day of the week it was …

And she thought, Let me see, today is Thursday … yes, Thursday, I got here on Monday night.

She had arrived now at the tangle of barbed wire and she saw, a little way beyond it, a man in some kind of uniform with a rifle. He was leaning up against a large case and she supposed he was guarding the station or the frontier.

He seemed to be asleep and Joan thought she had better not go any farther in case he might wake up and shoot her. It was the sort of thing, she felt, that would not be at all impossible at Tell Abu Hamid.