Friends and Lovers (6 page)

It was with relief that he heard Ma clean say that they must leave.

The goodbye was as disappointing as he had feared. Their hands touched briefly. Her eyes wouldn’t meet his. George, he noticed with some bitterness, was given a longer handshake and a generous smile.

David was sullen, and he knew it, which made him even more bad-tempered as he walked with Fenton-Stevens and Ma clean to the jetty. He had begun to feel that he had never been more foolish in his life than he had been that afternoon. He groaned at the thought of his self-confidence, based on so little. A pretty girl had at least a face to justify her hopes.

Mrs. McDonald waved her white apron from the door of her cottage as they sailed out into the Sound and veered north for Loch Innish. Dr. MacLntyre’s house seemed deserted. Then the Devil’s Elbow crooked out, and the village was hidden behind it. Inchnamurren became a lonely island on a lonely sea.

George was watching him curiously.

“I had rather a decent time,” he said.

“Hadn’t you?” “Yes,” David said, “Dr. MacLntyre was very good value.” And he kept the conversation determinedly on Dr. MacLntyre throughout the rest of the journey to the Lodge at Loch Innish.

Chapter Five.

THE PLEASURES OF FAMILY LIFE.

In Dr. MacLntyre’s study Mrs. Lorrimer was finishing her monologue.

“And the first thing that frightens away a young man is a girl who sets her cap at him,” she concluded.

Penny turned away from the window as the small sailing-boat disappeared behind the Devil’s Elbow, ignored Moira’s superior grin, and said angrily, “I wasn’t. Mother. We were walking and talking.”

“You missed tea, and that was rudeness to both your grandfather and Mr. Fenton-Stevens. I am not objecting to walking and talking. I am objecting to bad manners.”

Dr. MacLntyre rustled his newspaper impatiently. It had arrived by the afternoon’s boat, and so far there had not been ten consecutive minutes to enjoy it. He noticed Penny’s angry eyes. Time to change the subject, he thought. He said, “Depression in America, depression here, and the same trouble in Europe. It looks bad.”

“Let’s see. Grandpa.” Moira leaned over his shoulder to read the news.

Moira had gone political since she had become a history student at Edinburgh University. Her conversation was now a strange mixture of international understanding and what were her chances in the Varsity tennis team. Her grandfather studied her fair hair, her young-pretty face so like Betty’s.

But neither she nor Betty would keep that prettiness in middle age. They hadn’t the bones for it: they had their father’s lack of features. Penny was different. She had good bones, something that lasted—if she had a happy life. He stopped thinking about faces as Moira’s even breathing down the back of his neck aroused him. He never could bear anyone reading over his shoulder.

“Here, take it.” He handed the paper to her.

“Now go away and read it somewhere else.”

Moira looked surprised, but obeyed.

“You too. Penny. Go out and have a walk. Another one. And Moira,” he added, as the two girls reached the door, ‘bring that paper back in half an hour, properly folded, with the pages in the right order.”

He rose and searched for his pipe.

“Bad enough to be disturbed in the middle of the leader without having the paper made altogether unreadable.”

“Then why did you give it to her, Father?” Mary asked.

“I wanted to have a talk with you, Mary.”

Mrs. Lorrimer’s surprise gave way to a vague uneasiness. She had not heard this tone of voice for twenty years.

Dr. MacLntyre paused, and then he filled his pipe thoughtfully. His intelligent blue eyes looked up suddenly at her from under his thick white eyebrows.

“I think you worry toe much about the children, Mary. Why don’t you go alone witt Charles to North Berwick in August, and have a good holiday together?

The girls can stay on here for another month. Il would do you all a world of good.”

*I don’t see how it would.”

“If I must be frank, Mary, then I shall say that the childrer are getting on your nerves, and soon you will get on theirs That is the quickest way to lose their affection, you know.”

“Father, I think you are talking nonsense. What nerves^ Why should they lose affection for me? I have been a goo mother, haven’t I?”

“Excellent. An excellent wife too,” he said soothingly.

“Bu damn it all, Mary, the girls are getting big enough to stanc on their own feet. You can now sit back and enjoy yourself.

“Not yet,” Mary said quietly.

“Certainly with Moira and Penelope. I agree Betty need; you for another few years.”

“And then there’s no more need for me? Father, you don’ know how cruel you sound.” Mary Lorrimer was indeec hurt.

“I am not cruel,” Dr. MacLntyre said angrily.

“And remember, I know something about the upbringing of girls. You were not such a bad specimen either, he thought, whei you were twenty.

“You see,” he went on sadly, ‘the most a father and moth el can do is to give their children a good beginning health character, moral sense. You cannot go on controlling thei] development. That is their own life. But as long as they stici to the foundation you’ve given them they won’t go essentially wrong. You worry too much. God knows why. If youi daughters were sneaking little hypocrites, or cross-eye nymphomaniacs you might have cause for worry.

Damn i all, Mary, they have as good a chance of happiness as an^ girl. Each one’s life is what she makes of it.”

“But they have such unsettled ideas. Penelope with her plans cent red on London and this Slade School. Why can’ she be content with the School of Art at home? Why can’ Moira find something suitable to do in Edinburgh, instead o: thinking of the League of Nations? They are both pretty girls, I must admit. They could marry suitable men, wh< would give them security and a decent position in life. That would save them a lot of tears.”

“Perhaps they don’t want your suitable young men. Perhaps they want to decide for themselves, even if it does mean tears. Let them make their own mistakes, Mary. They are old enough to pay for them.”

“You didn’t let me make any mistakes. Father.”

He looked at her. He said quietly, “Well, if you feel you have made no mistakes you must be a completely happy woman indeed.”

Mary glanced at him sharply. But he was relighting his pipe intently.

She moistened her lips, pale and thin now—once they had had the same curve as Betty’s, ready to laugh, eager to smile—and her eyes widened for a moment so that they lost the narrow, worried look which had robbed them of youth.

Then she looked down at her smooth, well-manicured hands lying folded in her lap. She picked a small white thread off her brown skirt (the material was excellent, always a pleasure to look at, she thought), folded her hands again in that very composed way, and studied the toes of her long, narrow shoes.

Even the way she sat, rather erect, with her ankles delicately crossed, annoyed Dr. MacLntyre at this moment.

With an effort he said gently, “Don’t you trust the girls? If you don’t trust them, then you must feel you have failed in bringing them up.”

“Of course I trust them.”

“Then stop worrying, Mary. Why don’t you have this holiday alone with Charles? It’s good for married people, anyway, to get away by themselves.” You could even, with the money you will spend at North Berwick, have a holiday in Salzburg or Ragusa … But he knew it was useless suggesting that.

“But we all enjoy being together. Father.” Her voice held quiet reproof.

T know that. But look, Mary–-” God in heaven, what was the use?

Mary was right: Mary had such well-selected friends; Mary had such a comfortable, large, and well-run house; Mary had three healthy and pretty daughters; Mary had a faithful husband with money; Mary was a virtuous woman.

How could Mary be wrong?

“But what. Father?”

“Nothing, my dear, nothing.”

“You couldn’t possibly mean that I am to take no interest in what happens to Moira or to Penelope. It wouldn’t be natural …”

“It wouldn’t. I didn’t say you were to drop all interest. I said you should not take more interest than they now need. If they want your advice and help they will come to you. And they will value it all the more then. Look at us at this very moment. I am giving you advice which you did not ask for, so you don’t like it and probably won’t listen to it.” He smiled. The point was well proven.

But Mary didn’t smile. She rose to her feet, and said, “I must see about supper. We are having one of your old favourites tonight.

Father. I must go and find out if Maggie has remembered to put in enough seasoning.”

Maggie cooked well enough, Dr. MacLntyre reflected, for eleven months of the year. Strange how incapable she became each July. He contented himself with clearing his throat.

His daughter had reached the door. She said suddenly. “Besides, our circumstances are quite different. I am a middle-aged woman. The girls have their lives before them.”

Dr. MacLntyre stared at the door, which she closed firmly, gently, behind her.

His point had not been so well proven after all, it seemed.

Penelope brought back his newspaper, neatly folded, and then she hovered round the room, looking at some books, straightening a pile of music, rearranging the flowers on his desk.

Dr. MacLntyre looked at the paper, laid it aside, and said in a resigned voice, “Well, what is it. Penny?”

“Oh … nothing. I’m sorry. I was just leaving.”

“Were you?” Then he relented and said, “Come and sit over here. Only stop fiddling about in that way.” The end of July would come soon enough, and he would be left in peace then. Besides, he reminded himself, there were days in the long winter when he would have been very glad to have some one fiddling about. After all, he was fond of his grandchildren, fond of Mary too, even if she irritated him more and more. And they did make this effort to come and see him every July. He should be thankful that Charles did not make the effort.

“You aren’t disturbing me in the least.”

He lied with sudden good grace. Penny was his favourite granddaughter, although he did his best to hide that. He never had to explain his jokes to her. Besides, it flattered his vanity to look at her, to think that he was one-quarter responsible for this young woman’s existence. How extraordinary the way these young things suddenly grew up! He smiled as she crossed the room towards him. At this moment she was so very serious: Mary’s public lecture must be still rankling.

“I was thinking of the days,” he said lightly, ‘when you called everything “ripping” or “marvelous,” from Spenser and Shelley to chocolates and ice-cream. And food was “scrumptious,” and all the boys you liked were “simply spiffing,” and all the boys you didn’t like were—now what was that particularly apt remark? —they were “absolute drips.” And what was it you felt for your more attractive schoolteachers and film-stars? A “crush”

“

He had made her smile. That was better, much better, “It wasn’t so very long ago, either,” he went on.

“You certainly have grown up in these last three years.”

To his alarm, she suddenly came forward and kissed his ear. She must be really upset about something. A display of affection was not in the Lorrimer tradition.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“For cheering me up.” She sat down on the hearth rug her legs lay together sideways; one hand rested on her ankle; the other hand, stretched flat on the ground beside her, supported the weight of her body. She was a graceful creature, he thought. She reminded him more and more of her grandmother, of his own Penelope. At this moment he remembered vividly when his Penelope had been Penny’s age. And he had been young, as young as these two men who had visited him to-day. Fastened to a dying animal, he thought. And he looked down at Penny and felt a twinge of old age.

“Well,” he said quickly, trying to recall their conversation. Like her grandmother, a pretty creature, graceful. Now she was sitting here, full of life and vitality, forty years of possible happiness still before her. She had sat down there— oh, yes, after she had kissed him For cheering me up.

“Well,” he asked, ‘and how did I do that?”

“By saying that I’m grown up. And by letting me stay with you.” She glanced towards the door.

“Mother is on the warpath, you see. Clouds of gloom everywhere.”

“Your mother has a big responsibility bringing up three girls to be intelligent young women. That’s quite a strain on anyone, I imagine.”

Penny let him enjoy his mild joke.

“But,” she said, ‘if we were three boys she wouldn’t worry this way. So it’s ridiculous. Because men and women—well, what’s the difference nowadays?”

“I believe there is still a slight one. Vive a petite difference!”

“Grandfather! You know what I mean.”

That’s the reason she’s my favourite, he thought affectionately, as he watched her laughing eyes. That jersey was a pretty colour—matched them.

Gentian blue. Pretty, against the sun-tanned skin and the pink cheeks.

Women always ought to wear pretty colours. There should be a law against wearing orange or puce, or all those dirty-looking shades which were just about as subtle as the floor of a cow-byre.

He asked, “What did you really want to see me about?”

Her eyes were now watching him carefully, hesitantly.

“It is all right,” he said.

“I am in a good mood. Penny.”

She smiled for a moment, and then she became very serious.

“I want your help,” she admitted.

“I want you to persuade Mother to let me go to London next winter.”

To the Slade School?”

“Yes. I am not just playing with the idea. I did work hard all last winter in these art classes, you know, and my work has improved. At least, I think so. Hasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Surprisingly so. Penelope had definite talent: she had a sense of line and a quite remarkable feeling for colour. She might be a painter some day, given really good training and hard work. And experience in life. That would come, of course. As he studied her pretty face, now so very serious and anxious, he hoped experience would deal kindly with her.