Friendly Young Ladies (32 page)

“And Leo? Is it as simple as that for her?”

“Leo can tell you about herself, if she wants to.”

He had come, he saw, to the blank wall of an impregnable loyalty. There was a generosity in him that acknowledged and was pleased by it. His vanity, on the other hand, impelled him to tap the wall here and there. It was sufficient to have found the flaw, he had no wish to exploit it.

“On your side,” he said, “surely it entails a certain amount of—well, reticence?”

“How do you mean?”

“Do you tell Leo quite everything you do?”

“Nobody tells anyone everything. It wouldn’t be interesting. I don’t think whether I shall tell Leo things or not.”

“Will you tell her, for instance, about this afternoon?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.” She spoke like someone who reassures a child.

“I was thinking,” said Peter, a little nettled, “of her feelings, not of mine.”

“Leo’s
feelings? Whatever for? She’d laugh, of course.” Seeing his face and instantly contrite, she added, “I’m so sorry. I thought that was what you meant.”

There was a pause during which Peter seemed to see, through Helen’s sweet, gently concerned face, the outline of another. He was annoyed with the image and with himself; he had been enjoying, most of the afternoon, a pleasant pity for her. To recover this emotion, and the feeling of well-being that went with it, he said, “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad for Leo to laugh. There’s too much loneliness in the world not to be glad of any human happiness one sees, however unorthodox—and precarious, perhaps. Believe me, I wouldn’t do anything to make it less.”

As a pool is ruffled by a flicker of wind, Helen’s blue eyes held, for a moment, the delighted appreciation of a joke, from which she seemed to withdraw into some private meditation. Next moment they were cloudy and soft with sympathy again.

“That’s very sweet of you,” she said.

She rendered it so prettily that he was about to kiss her again, when he became aware of a sharp pain in his calf. It was produced by the swan, which had exhausted the remains of the sandwiches and, finding the bag itself unpalatable, had returned after the manner of the ancient Danes for a further subsidy. It pursued them, threatening and offensive, as far as the Lily Pond.

Peter took Helen home; as everyone did, even escorts who scorned convention or cultivated the remiss. In her presence such things became a reflex.

“Leo’s out,” she said, discerning some occult sign from across the river. “And Elsie’s at the cinema. Never mind, you must come in and have an egg to your tea with me. I’ll have to leave fairly soon, I’m going to the theatre. But I dare say someone will be in by then.” She added, presently, as they crossed the gang-plank, “I’m not sure where Leo went to. Somewhere with Joe, I expect. We’d better leave them a couple of pints to come back to.”

She went into the galley to collect the meal. Peter wandered round the living-room; it was strewn, here and there, with traces of Leo’s recent occupation. Her personality seemed still to be lounging casually about the place, as incomprehensible, now he had been discussing her half the afternoon, as ever. They had not, after all, he reflected, discussed her at all. On the table were some loose papers; one of them had a carefully drawn plan of a ranch with its corrals and out-buildings, annotated in a clear and somehow quietly authoritative hand; not Leo’s scrawl, which he had seen before. An old, well-chewed pipe lay abandoned beside it. Peter found the set-up irritating; since Helen would be wanting to lay the table, he swept the collection up and dumped it on one of the lockers in a heap.

She must, he decided, for all her arrogance, be fundamentally lonely. (It was not Helen, making pleasant domestic sounds within earshot, of whom he was thinking.) This Joe person was probably a symptom of it. A simple doglike creature, Peter guessed, who would put up with anything or be too dumb to notice it. What she needed was a really constructive relationship. Perhaps she realized it and, when it offered, became defiant, as the subject who has most need of psycho-analysis is loudest in condemning it. Helen’s placid kindness, the dim harmless neighbour with whom she pottered about the river—well, they did little enough damage, no doubt, but where were they getting her? Eccentricity in women always boiled down to the same thing. She wanted a man.

Helen was coming, with the fruit of her labours on a tray. Her cooking, he found, was on a level with her looks. What, after all,
was
she doing here? No doubt she hadn’t told him everything; well, that would come. He hoped that Elsie’s session at the cinema was beginning rather than ending; one did not want to shirk anything one could do, but she was, undoubtedly, heavy going. If Helen left first he could leave with her; in fact, it might be better not to wait. He was preparing his excuses when Helen went out to fill the kettle again.

It was a still day, on which small craft could approach without a warning ripple. Peter heard none, till the hull he sat in was softly jarred by the impact of a punt. Elsie, he thought; oh damn. Then from the floating deck outside he heard Leo’s voice, easy and clear.

“Come in and see if there’s some tea left.”

“Well, I … No, thanks, maybe not today. I think I might get something done this evening. The canoe looks pretty good, now it’s dry.”

“Bill Brooks says we made quite a job of it. … It’s time I put in a spell myself, now you mention it. I’ve got to get this pie-eyed heroine rescued. I can’t think why on earth he should want to bother, in the middle of the round-up too.”

“Don’t forget his horse will be pretty blown if he’s been cutting out cattle for long.”

“It gets shot quite soon. Thanks for working out all that stuff, it’ll keep me going for days. … Here, wait a minute, this looks like a bit of yours. Yes, that’s the lot, I think. ’Bye, Joe.”

“’Bye, Leo.”

There was a moment’s pause; Peter could hear an armful of oddments being dumped outside. Then Leo strolled into the room. Her hands were in her corduroy pockets, her head was up. For a few seconds she did not see him; the sun, outside, had been in her eyes. She took out a cigarette and lit it. Her face had a kind of watchful happiness; she looked like someone who has been lately in peril, and who holds, in the moment of safety, to a vigilance it may yet be too soon to relax. She threw the match from her cigarette quickly away; she seemed to be throwing a thought away with it too.

“Helen,” she said.

“Well, Leo,” said Peter, getting up from his chair.

She did not start with surprise; she seemed to withdraw into herself for a moment, before she came forward to meet him.

“Well, Peter,” she said. “Did you and Helen have a good day?”

She was smiling; it might have been in mockery, he could not tell. Suddenly it mattered very little.

“Yes,” he said. “Most successful, thanks.” He was smiling too. The challenge, thrown and accepted, made them lose the thread of their irrelevant words.

Helen came back and said, “The tea won’t be a minute. Is Joe coming in?”

“No, he’s gone home to work. I’d better go and clean up before I eat. Shan’t be long.”

She was, however, a little longer than usual. When she came down again, she had changed into the scarlet dress.

W
ITH HALF-DISAPPROVING APPRECIATION
(for his tastes were conservative), Foxy Hicks looked at Helen’s silver-grey dress, gathered up round her to diminish contact with the grubby seat of the ferry-boat, and her little velvet jacket frogged with silver lace. Pretty, but no warmth in the things, he thought. “Going out enjoying yourself, Miss Vaughan?”

“Yes,” said Helen. “I’m going to the theatre.”

The girls nowadays, thought Mr. Hicks, get too much gadding around; they lose the fun of it. Outings meant something when I was a lad.

“Miss Lane will be crossing you back, I reckon,” he said, “in that canoe.” He disapproved on principle of canoes, which had a high nuisance-value in the hands of trippers who couldn’t steer them.

“I’ll be coming back by car, so we shall cross at one of the bridges lower down.”

“Ah,” said Foxy, with a rufous wink, “home with the milk, as they say?”

“Not as bad as that.” She smiled at him, pleasant and agreeable-like as usual; but she looked, he thought, a bit middling tonight. As if in answer to this reflection, or to one of her own, she said, “It’s rather a bore, really. I didn’t feel like turning out. But it was too late to put it off.”

“You young ladies, you get so much gaiety you get blasé.” He pronounced it rather like “blowsy.”

“Yes,” said Helen, replying absently to the general sense, “I expect it’s that.”

It was beginning to be twilight. Between the willows on the island, a yellow patch of lamplight appeared. Foxy remarked, conversationally, “Mr. Flint sitting at that writing of his again. Funny thing to me what he finds to write about, living by himself in a hole-and-corner place like that.”

“He likes not being disturbed, I suppose.” I wish to God, she thought, he’d come in with Leo tonight. She never runs into trouble when Joe’s about. For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel. … Why, when one’s mind is upset, should it throw up ridiculous tags? Inappropriate too. She turned to look over her shoulder at the
Lily Belle.
No lights on, she thought, only the fire. Well, it’s early yet. … I suppose, after all, she could hardly have done better than she’s done this time. Neither of them has any capacity for hurting the other; she can only hurt herself. But I wish it were over.

Lights were beginning to spring up, here and there, on the opposite bank, with the soft gay promise of an early summer evening. Helen let her mind blow clear of thought; she began to slip, almost unconsciously, into the mood she would need for the young man she was meeting, who had shown, last time, the first almost imperceptible signs of becoming difficult.

“Want a cigarette?” said Leo, sitting up.

“No. And neither do you. What a restless thing you are. Come back here and be quiet.”

“Quiet?” She laughed, and went over to the box on the table. Peter, from the couch, watched her movements with interested attention. She lit her cigarette at the electric fire, and settled beside him again.

“You can finish it now,” he told her. “I don’t make love to any woman while she’s smoking.”

“Thanks, I will.” She sat upright, blowing shadowy rings into the glow of the fire. Its red light, shining on her red dress, made it luminous like a signal at night. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m often very bad form. You think I’m the sort of person who’d bring out a packet of crisps in the middle of Beethoven’s Fifth, don’t you?”

“No,” said Peter, “I think you’re nervous, if you want to know.”

“Nonsense. Why should I be? Seeing this room is for all practical purposes the front hall and anyone might come in at any moment, that would be too ridiculous, wouldn’t it?”

“You know perfectly well there’s nobody in the place but ourselves. Put that thing out and relax.”

“Elsie will be in before long. And Helen isn’t away for the night either.”

“I wish they both were,” said Peter softly, “don’t you?”

“I think it’s probably all for the best myself.”

“Isn’t that another way of saying yes?”

“I’m sure it must be, if you say so.”

“Why are you so defensive,” he murmured. “You weren’t a few minutes ago.” She was silent—tensely silent, he thought. When he craned round to see her face, he discovered that she was laughing.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I suddenly thought of the Victorian villain who twirls his moustache and says, ‘Why do you fear me, little one?’ I wonder if the things we say will sound just as funny, fifty years from now.”

“Well,” said Peter unexpectedly, “why do you, if it comes to that?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t believe I do, much. I can’t think why.” She had discovered with other men that there was almost no limit to the amount of truth with which she could get away in the guise of irony; she was becoming reckless about it.

“Let me tell you that your sense of security is very ill-founded.” It had only been a random thrust, after all. Her bluff had succeeded again; its success was necessary but monotonous, like the success of a card-trick one did for a living. Why did we begin talking, she thought wearily; oh, yes, I remember why. Her cigarette was smoked three-quarters down; she put it out.

“About time, too,” said Peter, slipping his arm under her shoulders.

Helen’s right, thought Leo, he’s really very sweet. I wonder how they got on this afternoon. He’s probably nicer with Helen; everyone is. She can afford to be honest and kind. Her reserves are just decencies; there’s nothing behind them she daren’t have found. He’s better in himself than ever he’ll have the chance to be with me. I can know that and not mind, because we didn’t start as friends; thank God, I haven’t broken anything this time.

“That’s better,” said Peter, taking breath. “Why were you so jumpy before?”

“I don’t behave like this at home. I never have, till this evening.” It’s a relief to be able to say something to him that’s true, as far as it goes. He’s so generous. He asks nothing better than that I should tell him how to do me good. Or more probably, by now, he thinks he knows. Here he is, so near, and here am I quite safe with myself. Thought’s secrecy must be one of the most wonderful of the works of God. Everything else is explorable, or violable, or reacts to chemistry, or can be laid open with a knife. But thought can only be given. That’s the ultimate dignity of man.

“You’re not happy,” said Peter. “Are you?”

“If I were, I should consider it a smack at Providence to say so.” He only wants to know how to be kind to me. Why not; why do I feel I’d sooner have my throat cut? Properly considered, it seems very unreasonable. I think I see why. It’s because he
knows
it’s more blessed to give than to receive. Perhaps the blessing is one of those things that goes if you think about it—like Joe’s Arizona drawl. …

“What’s the matter?” asked Peter.

“Matter? Nothing, why?”

“You started away then like an overbred horse.”

“I thought I heard someone at the gate, but it wasn’t.”