Friends and Lovers (47 page)

Mrs. Lorrimer picked up her pen once more. How easy it was to understand Betty. If only she could stay at this age for ever, instead of having to grow up and go out into the world. As Penelope had done. You brought up girls carefully, made them sweet and innocent and trusting. And then they met men, and you did nothing but worry. Why were men like that, anyway?

Look at her own father and these shocking ideas he had expressed about men and women in love..

Why, if an elderly scholar, a quiet, gentle man, could have thoughts like these, what must younger men think of life?

Charles—surely he did not think like that, or rather feel like that?

For Father’s letter had emphasized emotion rather than thought. Yes, that was where he was wrong: he had not talked about rational human beings, but only those who were driven on by—she thought of the word “passion,” but slipped it quickly out of her mind into the deep cellar where all disturbing thoughts must be buried, walled up, not discussed, not even imagined in privacy.

At that point the parlour maid brought in the silver tea-tray, and Mary Lorrimer abandoned her writing-table. The letter could be written after tea.

She must rest now, and put her feet up as the doctor said, and try to stop worrying. She picked up the new novel which Boots’s library had recommended to her this morning. It was really so difficult to-day to find suitable books, what with all the violent thoughts and words and monstrous ideas that so many writers were using. She felt irritation at her father’s possible reply to that: what about Chaucer, or Shakespeare, or Balzac, or Tolstoy?

As if one didn’t know that those were classics. Classics were different.

Now she must stop thinking about such things, or she never would forget her worries. She had to get her mind calm and clear before she wrote to Penelope. She opened the book on her lap, looking at the first page then at the last page and then at a page near the middle.

Yes, it did seem a pleasant story; about a pleasant house and pleasant people. Now nice …

Mrs. Lorrimer poured herself a second cup of tea, and began to read.

The front door opened rudely. There was a low murmur of confused voices.

Moira was calling to her. She laid aside the book with regret. Moira must have brought some of her friends in for tea: late, too. Goodness, it was late. Was there never any peace in this house, with all this perpetual running in and out, all these unexpected guests? Really, she must speak seriously to Moira about this kind of thing.

She rose as Moira entered the room with her hat in her hand and her hair ruffled.

“I’m just about to write a letter,” she said, trying to convey a broad hint in her words without appearing rude to any listening guest. And then she stood quite still as Moira was standing. Moira’s face was tense and white.

The murmur in the hall had given way to shuffling feet.

“What’s wrong, Moira? Betty … Has something happened to Betty?”

Moira shook her head.

“It’s Daddy,” she said, in a stifled voice, and burst into tears

Chapter Thirty-six.

SHE SETS SAIL GALLANTLY IN ANOTHER DIRECTION

Mary Lorrimer was alone in the silent drawing-room. It was the third day of Charles Lorrimer’s illness. Everything was under control again—the alarm, the tears, the terrifying emotions which threatening death arouses. The capable nurses had established their territory in the Lorrimers’ bedroom, an Mrs. Lorrimer had found herself exiled. She disliked illness anyway, regarded it as a worrying nuisance, a disturber o routine. She wasn’t, therefore, a particularly good nurse. Ye she resented the nurses’ authority.

“But Charles needs me,” shi had said pathetically to Dr. Morrison.

“Well, you are here i he calls for you,” the doctor had answered soothingly.

Whici was true. So she put her energies into superintending thi whispered footsteps and lowered voices even down to thi basement kitchen.

The doctor had just left after his late evening visit. He ha held out more hope that before, and at the same time hi cheerful words had thrown her into a panic.

“Definiti improvement to-day. There’s a good chance now that the firs shock will not be followed by a second one.”

And Mrs. Lor rimer, who for three days had not even been thinking about the possibility of a second shock, stared in amazement at D Morrison.

She had thought the worst danger was over whei they had brought Charles home from the club. Now shi realized for the first time the full meaning of the nurses’ over officious watchfulness, of the doctor’s guarded phrases, of thi serious words which Charles’s business partners had spoken They had all known the danger, but she had never thought i possible that Charles would die.

Charles couldn’t die; so mud of his life was still before him. She had glanced sharply a Dr. Morrison’s thoughtful face.

“Won’t Charles ever be fulb recovered?” she heard herself ask. Dr. Morrison had hesitated

“Never fully; never quite the same again,” he had answerec gravely.

“He will have to take care, perhaps give up much o his work, rest for a long time, look after himself.” And as hi left her he added, “I warned him about that blood-pres sun of his last summer, you know. I told him to cut down worl and exercise, and I prescribed a diet for him. Didn’t hi follow it?”

Yes, Charles had followed it to a certain extent. But i was difficult for a man with so many public engagements t( be able to keep that strict diet. And Charles had never tol< her why he was supposed to keep a diet: he had let thi family think that it was simply indigestion which troublec him, a case of stomach ulcers. He had not told them thi truth, perhaps wanting to spare them worry, perhaps refusing to believe himself that he could be made a helpless invalic overnight. Charles had been so proud of his physical strength.

Overnight? In a few minutes. For that was how it had happened. He had pleaded a sudden attack of cramp towards the middle of the match, had walked firmly by himself towards the Club Room; and there the shock had struck him down. Thank Heaven, Mary Lorrimer thought, remembering Charles’s horror of scenes, that he had been inside the Club House and not on the tennis-courts at the time. And if he had not taken the warning signal, if he had gone on playing? She suddenly realized that he would have been dead. Charles dead, and Mary Lorrimer a widow with three daughters to provide for. She grew white-lipped at that thought.

Mary Lorrimer faced the drawing-room, seeing its value for the first time since she had come to live in this house. She had looked at it then, and wondered delightedly that it was hers. Now she looked at it, this pleasant room symbolizing a pleasant way of living, and she knew it was lost to her.

In a few minutes, she repeated. It only had taken a few minutes to end everything built up through years. And then the new feeling of humility, of fear, of insecurity struck her its full blow. She sat down on the nearest couch and buried her face in a cushion as if to shut away the lost room.

Moira was saying in a hushed “voice, “Mummy! Daddy’s awake now. The nurse says you may see him.” Moira, embarrassed, troubled at the sight of her mother’s unhappy face, was saying over and over again, “Don’t worry; it’s all right, Mummy.” But she knew it wasn’t all right.

I wish I were Penelope, Moira thought suddenly: Penelope with a career she really likes, not just forced into teaching because mother kept complaining about money nowadays. Penelope with David Bosworth.

Penelope is free, and I am tied to the family. It is unfair, unfair.

Penelope is always the lucky one.

“He said one word,” Moira went on.

“He said, “Penny.” Mummy, you should have let me write to her.”

The two women looked at each other. Then Mrs. Lorrimer rose and made her way to the staircase.

At the bedroom door she halted. What, she wondered miserably, had made Charles think of Penelope? Was it possible that lying there, so motionless on that bed, he had been conscious some of the time, conscious of his nearness to death, conscious of the problem of Penelope which must not be left unsolved if he were to die? Charles will blame me, Mary Lorrimer thought: yet it wasn’t I who was against Penelope; I was only doing what Charles wanted to be done. He was always so busy with his career.

Everything I have done has been all for Charles. He must know that. And on that resolution, having persuaded herself that she was telling the truth, she opened the bedroom door.

The nurse smiled encouragingly. Charles looked so weak, so white, so helpless, so unlike Charles that Mary Lorrimer again felt the terrifying fear. She took the limp hand in her own. Charles, I love you, get well, get well, she thought. She slipped to her knees beside the bed, and tried to smile.

“Don’t worry, Charles,” she said, when she could control her voice.

“Don’t worry.”

The white lips were forming themselves slowly.

“July,” she seemed to hear. July. He was remembering her father’s letter.

*I know, dear,” she said.

“I’ve written the letter to Penelope, saying we agree with Father. Shall I post it?”

He tried to say something, and then she saw that his eyes were happy.

They, alone in his face, could still communicate with her. The look of trouble and worry had gone in them. They were happy.

She kissed him, even if the nurse was watching them, and murmured close to his ear, “Get well, Charles, and everything will be all right. That is all that matters.”

Then the nurse was signing to her, and she had to rise to her feet and move to the door. He had closed his eyes, and there was a subtle change, almost an expression of relief, on the blank face.

Mary Lorrimer sealed the letter to Penelope.

After four weeks of deliberation it had taken her four minutes to write. And now it was ready to post, and the white lie told upstairs in the bedroom had become truth. Well, she thought, that was that..

She tore up her father’s letter. That was that, she repeated; another problem decided. Now she would only have to worry about the future of two daughters: one, at least, was off her hands.

Not that I’ll ever be able to like David Bosworth, she admitted frankly to herself. But if Penelope was determined to be in love with him—well, what could parents do? Penelope’s future was Penelope’s responsibility.

I hope they will be happy, she added doubtfully.

Chapter Thirty-seven.

FINALS.

Final examinations were over; the results had been posted that morning; and Chaundler asked David to lunch with him and Fairbairn in order to celebrate David’s excellent First. After that David would catch the afternoon train to London. Most men had gone down from Oxford already: and the few who had stayed there until the results were out shared the quiet town with visiting sightseers. As Chaundler sat with his two guests in his dark, cool room the desultory voices of the tourists visiting the chapel came drifting in through the opened easement windows.

The chestnut-trees spread their broad leaves in the warm, breathless air.

Even the bees were lazy in the strong July heat; a fat black one humbled his way slowly into the room through the open window, and then lazily, almost heavily, moved out towards the sun-splashed chestnut-trees again. It was pleasant, David thought, to sit in a quiet room, to feel as lazy and unhurried as the world outside. He drank Chaundler’s admirable Amontillado, listened to Fairbairn discussing the differences in climbing in the Austrian Tyrol and the Swiss Alps, and thought of the journey to London this late afternoon.

At last Chaundler rose and moved towards the table at the oriel window. His guests followed him. His scout watched anxiously to see that everything was just right—the silver cups and bowl that Mr. Chaundler liked for special occasions, the hock properly iced, the ground ginger well mixed with sugar for the melon. Everything was just right. The four men relaxed, each in his own way. And then Fairbairn produced his latest idea: David, before he settled in London to work on a survey of seasonal unemployment, was to make a tour. He was to go to America, to the United States, to see how the problem of unemployment was being tackled there.

Then, having let the idea explode in the quiet room. Fairbairn began to explain it in more detail. The United States, probably because of the advanced specialization of its industry and agriculture, had always had a serious problem in seasonal unemployment. But it was only when the depression reached a climax that general and seasonal unemployment combined to produce a first-magnitude crisis. With their usual violent energy the Americans had faced the crisis and formed plans to meet it. It would be interesting to see how far the plans would work; and next year would be the testing time.

What interested Fairbairn most were two things: how far had seasonal unemployment tipped the balance towards disaster; how could seasonal unemployment be regulated? There were other things, too, which would be interesting to watch: these projected camps for young men, for instance, where they were taken off the street and trained for jobs; the Public Works Administration, which intended to avoid the evils of the dole; the balance of State planning, which must be carefully held if a country of the size and potential strength of the United States was not to degenerate into a totalitarian machine. But it was the problem of seasonal unemployment which interested Fairbairn most.

For he had a theory that there would always be cycles of unemployment in the world, but that if seasonal unemployment were more recognized, and better controlled, then these cycles would not degenerate into the grave danger and threat of a really fulminating depression.

He talked on and on, with all the enthusiasm of elaborately dressing one’s own brain-child. And it was a good idea; he knew that.

Fairbairn—his alert brown eyes shining with enthusiasm, his thatch of white, heavy hair falling untidily over his brow as it always did when he was excited over something, his shoulders hunched, his hands clasped before him, his elbows on the arms of his chair—gave the details in his crisp, complete way. Originally this tour of America had been arranged for himself, but a crisis had arisen here in London with one of his publications—his favourite one, the Economic Trend—and he had better stay at home for the next month or so to control matters. If David were going to work on seasonal unemployment he was certainly the man to send as Fairbairn’s eyes.