Friends and Lovers (17 page)

It’s the heat, I think. And I’ve been worried. Just things, you know.

My music, and Father, and everything.” She turned away suddenly.

“Good night, David,” she said, in a suddenly muffled voice.

“Good night.” Poor old Meg, he thought suddenly. There wasn’t anything wrong with her which a legacy of a hundred pounds could not cure. That was all most people needed: just a sense of a little security. They could face their problems more easily then.

In his room he unpacked his writing-pad from his bag, and placed his books in their proper place beside the others in his bookcase. The row of titles welcomed him home. Plato, Hegel, Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Mills, Marx, Locke, Bentham, Rousseau, Engels … Not politically conscious, he remembered. Roger Breen was, of course; although one had to wonder sometimes when talking to him if he moved his lips when he read. Home Sweet Home, David thought.

He sat wearily down on the hard chair at his desk. He pulled the crumpled letter from his pocket. Too emotional, too damned cocksure of himself. Yet it said what he wanted to say. If he could see his future clearly he would say it. But he had nothing but uncertainty before him, and he couldn’t say it. His sister and his father, each in their own way, had reminded him of that. He tore the letter to pieces. He suddenly felt miserably tired and unhappy.

He wrote a very simple note, beginning “Dear Penny’ and ending with ” Yours sincerely, David Bosworth.” He thanked her for the pleasant day he had enjoyed in Edinburgh, he hoped he would see her in Oxford or in London.

He read the note again. Suddenly he added a postscript. When would she arrive in London, and what was her address to be? Quickly he closed the envelope, stamped it, addressed it. You thought you were a fool, he told himself, as he changed his shoes for his thin slippers, which would make less noise on the staircase, because you let yourself see her again. But you would-be a bigger fool if you hadn’t . or if you don’t.

Once he was quietly out of the house he ran swiftly towards the pillar-box at the corner of Cory’s Walk. The next collection was 6:30 a. m. Good.

Farther down the street he saw the solitary figure of a policeman. It had recognized him. He saluted back, and then hurried towards his house.

It was cooler now, and the night sky was beginning to lighten. He stood by the open window feeling the first stirring of the early morning breeze on his shoulders as he pulled off his shirt. It was strange how natural he could be with Penny, as if he were walking with only himself for company: no feeling of effort, or strain. That came before a meeting with her, or afterwards, but when he was with her … He kept thinking about Penny as he undressed and prepared for bed. And he kept thinking about her, even after he had fallen into a restless sleep.

Chapter Thirteen.

COUNTERPOINT.

Margaret had gone to Cornwall, and the month passed pleasantly in Cory’s Walk. Mrs. Trumble, Margaret’s weekly stand-by, now came in for an hour each day to ‘wash up and dust round,” as she said. She was a silent, smiling woman who—with a husband out of work and nine children below employable age—was glad to add a few extra shillings to the family’s dole. Beyond the fact that she lived near the river, and that her eldest son was called Ernie, and was a bright lad at school (this information was called forth only by the quantity of books on David’s desk), David could learn little about her. She did her work quickly, and then departed in quiet haste to merge into her own mysterious orbit once more. He would have been amazed to hear the intricate discussions on Number 7 Cory’s Walk, in Mrs. Trumble’s kitchen, with her visiting neighbours over a dish of tea.

“Give me men every time,” Mrs. Trumble would say, and her visitors, all with at least six children to their credit, would agree.

Certainly life in Cory’s Walk had become very simple. Mr. Bosworth seemed to enjoy it. If meals were not always punctual or even elaborate they could be digested in peace. And David was happy: his work was going well, and the odd hours spent with his father in the garden were pleasant for both men. They talked about the things his father liked to discuss—about the war that was so long over and yet was still so fresh in his father’s mind, about politicians’ limitations, about the Middle East, about the news in to-day’s papers, about Oxford, about the constant elections in Germany, about David’s possible future. He had always got on well with his father, but now he seemed to understand him still better.

And it was easy to be happy with this new background of elation to all his thoughts. He was writing twice a week to Scotland, and twice a week he had his replies. He would have written every day if Mr. Lorrimer had not to be reckoned with. Penny reported that a letter even twice a week was raising eyebrows in one half of the family and amused comment in the other half.

Her first reply had been as stilted as his first letter. And then, as his letters had become fuller, she had gradually thawed out. When he had changed

“My dear Penny’ he had become “My dear David.” She wouldn’t have done that if she hadn’t at least liked him. He convinced himself of that, remembering her upbringing and background. This, in a way, put all the responsibility of future developments completely on his shoulders. But in a way, too, that was how he as a man wanted it to be. The delicate balance of human relationships, of a woman and a man with two separate and well-defined personalities learning to adjust them to each other, would have been over weighted if she had been more confident, more dominant than he was.

He no longer tried to rationalize or justify his summer madness. He was content to feel the excitement which raced through his blood when he saw her neat, decided writing on an incoming envelope, or to hold the happiness which swept over him when he took his pen and sat down to write to her. And he knew instinctively that if he once let her slip he would never find her again.

September came at last, with its greyer skies and cool evenings. The mists hung over the river at night, and spread northward towards Cory’s Walk, leaving a few wisps to trail over the gardens in the morning. The roses were fading, and hung full and loose-petalled on the branch ready to be scattered over summer’s grave.

People like Margaret Bosworth, who had been out of town, returned with brown and healthy faces to mock those whose earlier summer holidays were already forgotten. She came back with a new store of energy, which she proceeded to use in deploring the state into which the house had fallen during her absence. David and his father retired unanimously into their own rooms to read. Mrs. Trumble’s hurt feelings developed into sciatica, and she stayed away for a couple of weeks, to return when she decided that she had asserted her independence sufficiently and that Ernie needed a new pair of boots for school.

It was bad enough, David reflected, to have this tornado of energy strike with full force, to be made to feel he ought to offer his help, to have his routine completely upset and his work made more difficult, without being conscious of the fact that all this was happening because of the Rawson woman.

Ill After all, Margaret said, the house could not just be run to suit him alone. True enough, but still damned annoying.

She had made that remark when they were washing up the supper dishes together. (“If I take time off my own work to cook for you I don’t see why you can’t take time off to help clear things up.” Again, true enough. But still damned annoying. ) Then she removed her rubber gloves, looked at her hands critically, and massaged some lotion into them.

“I’ll go upstairs now,” she said.

“I have some Busoni studies to practise before Roger comes to collect me.”

And I’ll come and insist you move the piano to another corner of the room when you are in the middle of them, David thought.

“What’s amusing you, David? You needn’t laugh at piano exercises.

They are hard work.”

“I know. How’s your Jeux d’eau coming along?”

“Slowly. I’ll have it perfect in another week.”

In time for dear Florence, David thought. Yet Margaret’s actions, from Margaret’s point of view, were all justifiable. She was the mistress of this house by virtue of her work in it. Her father was the master, paying for the rent and food out of his pension. David was only a boarder, who contributed his share to the household expenses when he was at home.

“What’s wrong, David?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking I’m probably rather a nuisance to you—extra trouble and all that.”

Margaret’s thin face looked at him searchingly.

“You aren’t a nuisance,” she said.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Then she tried to assume a more casual tone.

“You know, David, I’ve often thought it was madness for you to go to Oxford.

If you had entered an office of some kind you would have been earning a steady salary by this time.

And we’ll need that, you know, if Father dies. Remember, his pension dies with him.”

David looked at his sister, but her eyes avoided his. He suddenly felt as if an octopus had whipped an arm around his ankle.

“If Father were to die,” he said calmly, ‘then we certainly would not keep this house going.”

“We have to live some place. Besides, I can always have a piano here.”

“I think this house would be too big for one person.” And he saw her eyes again turned towards him, questioning, watchful; he explained, “I am away for most of the year, Meg. And, frankly, if Father weren’t here I’d take a job of some kind abroad during the holidays. And after I go down from Oxford I may not even be living in London.”

“But I needn’t be alone. Florence could live with me here, and then you’d always have a home to visit when you wanted one.”

Had all this been planned in Cornwall, he wondered. He suddenly saw his personal future being neatly arranged for him, all in the name of brotherly love and sisterly care and family duty.

“Suppose I die before Father does? You should think of that too if you. have started calculating results of deaths.” His voice was bitter enough to startle her. Or perhaps it was this new idea which shocked her.

“Wouldn’t it be wiser to arrange your life independently of mine?” “How?” she asked angrily. Tve no money. I wasn’t allowed to finish my course at the College of Music. I am qualified for absolutely nothing.”

“You did get some education,” he reminded her. He didn’t add that it had been paid for, too, through careful economizing by their mother.

“Why don’t you and that woman Rawson look for a job? That is what most young men and women do.”

“Then we’ll never have the careers we want.”

“How many men do have the careers they really want? Even if a man is willing to starve in a garret for the sake of his own hopes he can’t inflict that on his wife.”

“He doesn’t have to marry.”

“Mistresses are even more expensive than wives, I believe,” David said, with a smile. His anger had turned to amusement. Margaret imagined that every one else should be arranged emotionally into the same watertight compartments as she was. Judging from the shocked look on her face at this moment, it was even possible she thought that men’s emotions were as easily controlled and managed as women’s.

“Don’t be crude, David,” she said angrily. She left the kitchen suddenly, and paused at the foot of the narrow stairs to call back, “And don’t call Florence ” that woman.” She is my friend. So don’t think you can separate us.”

“I am not trying to separate you,” David said, as he entered the hall.

Lord, he was thinking, wt “All I ask is that you don’t inflict her ( ” You are horribly mean about To want me to have any friends, that’s it “If Roger is coming round tonight do your hair. The parting is uneven him for the last fifteen minutes.

“Roger doesn’t bother about such icily.

“He is interested in what I thin] He is only interested in what he would have liked to say. But he didr knocked on his father’s door instead, her last word all the way upstairs.

As he set out the cards on the sma Margaret was beginning a steady se argument had not affected her playin regular, brilliant, machine-like in ace “We need two packs for bezique,” ‘. him gently.

“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” David sai to feel better as he saw the anticipal This was the game his mother and fa many a long evening.

He shuffled t waited patiently as his father’s thil slowly, and the leisurely game beg; as he listened to the unending st Margaret’s talent was really as first-r tainly he couldn’t offer any advice. ^ first-or second-rate in your work w< find out for yourself.

He let his father gather a fourth a< points. It always acted like a tonic c win, not too easily yet definitely. P thin face, the skin drawn so tightly o flesh and red blood to give it shape a were, at this moment, interested and ness and patience were gone. The we “Four aces,” his father declared, in t “Good for you.” David pushed father’s side of the table. He rose ti evenings were short now. He closed turned damp and cold at sunset, and rushing feet of the children as they had their last game before bedtime.

As he lifted his cards once more he remembered other September evenings.

There had always been eyes at windows watching the children as they played, there had always been the fading trees above the chalk-scrawled walls. He remembered the fine feeling of mist and gathering darkness, the cool touch of the night air on his hot cheeks. And when he had come indoors his mother and father had been finishing their game of bezique, and upstairs Margaret had been thumping out five-finger exercises. A profound melancholy stirred in him, and he sat quite motionless.

His father was waiting for him to draw and play.

“Is there anything wrong, David?” he asked.

David listened to the new burst of rhythm from upstairs. Margaret had abandoned scales for Brahms, but she still played with hard accuracy, as if the heart were not needed to balance the mind’s technical skill.

“I was wondering whether I am deluding myself too,” he answered gloomily.

“What’s that, David?” His father had been too engrossed in trying to collect four kings.

“What did you say there?”