The Friendly Young Ladies: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  Its ending was, however, predetermined by the hour of Norah’s last train home. Peter had indeed intended suggesting, on their way to it, that she should spend the night at his hotel instead. A kind of expectation of this kind had hung between them when they set out; fortunately, Peter thought, an unspoken one. He had decided, on reflection, to behave just as though nothing had happened, except that the invitation would not be made. That ought to answer sufficiently well. Of course, if it had been a man … An enlightened freedom from the least taint of jealousy was, he could claim without conceit (and often did) one of his specialities, to which it was almost a pleasure to give an occasional airing. Tolerance, generosity, detachment in a real situation; these satisfied the aesthetic sense, supported the ego, and incidentally, in practice, seldom failed to succeed. They flourished less handsomely in a soil salted with the ludicrous. Peter was unaccustomed to having rises taken out of him, to the point of scarcely recognizing the operation when it was performed; he was, however, quite clearly aware of being not amused.

  It was almost at the point of departure that his mercurial spirits began to recover. Suddenly it occurred to him that so theatrical an exhibition argued, after all, a certain interest in the audience. It might even be this odd creature’s idea of an amatory challenge. At the moment of leave-taking, he decided, he would try this theory out. A quick thrust-and-parry of glances, a moment of tension, a flash of humour, the picking up of a gauntlet … it would be, anyway, a good exit-line. He began rehearsing it inwardly, but stopped because Elsie was looking at him oddly, and he suspected that his face was, perhaps, rehearsing too.

  “I really shall have to go in a few minutes,” said Norah. “What a shame.”

  “Must you go back to town tonight?” Leo looked along under her lashes. “What about a shakedown here, and a swim in the morning?”

  Norah declined in unexceptionable terms; but Peter, who had seldom seen her blush, found the demonstration ill-timed. He rallied his forces, with more determination than ever, for the coming clash, and worked out a strategic plan by which his adieux to Leo would be slightly isolated, and left till the last.

  “Why,” said Helen, turning in her chair, “look who’s here. Come in, Joe.”

  “Hullo,” said Joe. He leaned in at the doorway, shabby, brown, unintrusive and placidly at home. “I came for my line, but I’ve found it. Don’t anyone move. Thanks for drying it, Leo. Good night.” He began to withdraw.

  “Hey,” said Leo, “hold on, you ass, what’s the idea? There’s still some beer.”

  Peter stared at her. His eyes and ears seemed to be playing him false. Malice, innuendo, the whole fanfarronade had gone. A boy’s smile, open and straight, a boy’s unconsidered long-legged ease, transformed her as an actor is transformed when the coloured spotlight goes off and the house lights come on.

  “Here you are,” she said. “Best part of a pint. I’ll get you a mug.”

  “Well, thanks,” said Joe. “I don’t mind if I do. O.K., I know where the mugs are.” They met at the locker. Peter heard him say, amusedly, “You’ve looking very natty tonight. Quite the dude.”

  “Huh,” said Leo. It was an offhand aside of cheerful dismissal. She got out the mug and filled it; there were vague, casual introductions. Joe sat down, looking settled-in like part of the furnishings.

  Peter looked at the clock. The process of deflation was complete. From incredulous refusal to admit it, rather than convention, he remained for another five minutes, during which he talked. He regretted it as soon as he had begun, but obstinately continued. As happens inevitably at such moments, he was resentfully aware of being slightly ostentatious and cocksure. Joe looked at him thoughtfully, with a reposeful interest which Peter’s discomfort translated into smugness. His reaction communicated itself, as is the way of similar reactions, with little delay. Joe withdrew into a cool stolidity, and behaved with uncharacteristic correctness. The atmosphere acquired that unique stickiness which occurs in a room where two men are disliking one another politely in the presence of women.

  It was Leo who, in the end, accompanied them to the garden gate. She started out with a casual and rather abstracted courtesy, and it was not until they were half-way down the path that a certain constraint descended on her, as if she had remembered something.

  “Good-bye,” she said to Norah at the gate. “I’m glad you came.” She smiled, and held Norah’s hand a moment longer than was necessary. She was already bored by the episode and secretly ashamed of it; but she retained at such times (which had occurred before) the instincts of a gentleman. “Good-bye, Peter. Be seeing you, I dare say.” Their eyes met. In Leo’s the swagger and defiance were still curiously absent; they had a half-smile, not exactly apologetic, but with a suggestion, tentative and ready to be recalled, of appeal to see the joke and be friends. It was a moment Peter could have made use of ten minutes ago. The thought of Joe’s face, tacit and unembarrassed, intervened.

  “Thank you,” he said with an irony just decently clothed, “for a delightful evening.”

  The mocking slant came back into Leo’s face. She said, to Norah, “Auf Wiedersehen, I hope,” whistled for the ferry with piercing efficiency, and went in.

  They crossed to the other side in a silence beside which a transit of the Styx would have seemed frivolous.

  “A bit after me regular time,” said Mr. Hicks, with a certain suggestive point, when they got over. “Well, thank you, sir, I’m sure. Always a pleasure to oblige the Lily Belle. A couple of real nice, friendly young ladies.”

  “Yes,” said Norah with animation, “aren’t they?”

  Peter withheld his opinion.

  CHAPTER XX

  ELSIE DECIDED THAT, BEFORE she met Leo, there would just be time for a Knickerbocker Glory. It was an extravagance, but a handsome one at the price—a gilt and marble palace, an orchestra in fancy dress, and a foot-high trumpet of baroque, exuberant colour and taste, all for one and sixpence. This was her fourth expedition to town; she had traversed, by herself, St. James’s Street, the Mall, the Admiralty Arch and the Haymarket, and was feeling sufficiently metropolitan and mondaine even to enter the Corner House alone. She walked in, almost convincing herself that she had been doing it every day for years.

  “A Knickerbocker Glory, please,” she told the waitress, and, while she waited for it, gazed about her, for Peter had once told her that much might be learned of human nature from studying the types in a London restaurant.

  This was one of Elsie’s good days; a maternal legacy of temperament, when accumulated pleasant trifles, or even the absence of unpleasant ones, were sufficient to fill the present with confidence and the future with promise. Her Viennese dress was freshly laundered; she was going, for the first time, to the ballet; she had been turned loose for a couple of hours while Leo saw a mysterious functionary called a literary agent somewhere off the Strand. More than all, Peter had met her in Mawley the evening before, had walked with her, discoursing brilliantly, for more than half a mile, and had not even bothered to go in and see Leo though Elsie had told him dutifully that she was at home. It was Elsie herself, he had told her, to whom he wanted to talk; he had had no chance lately, there was always a crowd. And he had talked indeed; ideally, from Elsie’s point of view, for she had had hardly anything to do but listen; had told her the most amusing stories about odd and difficult people he had met and how he had dealt with them, and had assured her at the end that her company was refreshing and did him good. If, he had ended cryptically, she ever got tired of living in an orchid-house, he and she would slip off together for a blow of fresh air. It had almost been like the old days in Cornwall.

  The conversation might have lasted even longer, she remembered with regret, if they had not just then run into Joe Flint, doing his domestic shopping (and, no doubt, part of Leo’s as well) equipped as his custom was with an old string bag. He had grinned at Elsie, seemed to be about to stop, seen Peter, nodded, and passed on into the grocer’s, leaving behind him an atmosphe
re suddenly and unaccountably chilled.

  “Does he live in these parts?” Peter jerked his head at the grocer’s closing door.

  “Not all the time.” Elsie, anxious to restore the more personal and interesting status quo, had been brief. “He lives in a sort of hut on an island, just up the river.”

  “A solid type, I imagine,” Peter had said, raising his eyebrows.

  “He is, rather.” An ill-defined feeling of guilt caused her to add, “He’s quite nice, really”; but the much more potent desire to please Peter made her voice tepid and neutral.

  “What does he do? Or doesn’t he?”

  “He brews beer,” said Elsie, “as his regular job.”

  Peter merely nodded, as if this were just what he had expected.

  Elsie would gladly have let it go at that, but she was a conscientious girl. “He writes a bit too,” she concluded, “sometimes.”

  “Amazing. What did you say his name was?”

  “Flint.”

  “Flint?” Peter seemed to find this entertaining. “Well, I presume he doesn’t use it to write under. It’s been pretty heavily taken up already. If he does, I’ve certainly never heard of him.”

  Elsie found this natural enough, since she herself, before meeting Joe, had never heard of him either. “He is rather ordinary, I suppose. But he’s quite good-hearted.” She had a feeling that Remission had Joe’s correct name on the back, but it seemed unimportant, for a flash of intuition had visited her mind. She had mentioned meeting Joe in her letter; he had smiled at her just now; he had called last night. Could Peter suppose that she was becoming fickle? Hastening to reassure him, she said, “Leo likes him. They’ve been friends for years, I believe. He’s always in and out, coming to see her.”

  “Indeed?” said Peter without warmth. “Your sister’s interests seem remarkably versatile.”

  “Yes, Leo’s interested in all sorts of queer things.” She would have been happy to elaborate, for Peter’s impressions of Leo would, she was sure, be interesting, besides setting the conversation on its feet again; but Peter had remembered almost at once someone whom he ought to see. In order to keep her memories intact she had gone out of her way to avoid meeting Joe, who would, she knew, offer to take her back in the punt. Besides, there must be some reason for Peter’s lack of enthusiasm. Joe would evidently have to be reconsidered.

  At the moment, all these impressions were merged in a general sense that life was full of varied possibilities. Two women were talking French at the next table; the orchestra was playing, softly and lusciously, selections from romantic musical comedy. A young man at the next table had looked at her twice when he thought she was looking the other way. He was not exactly striking, but contributed to her feelings of sophistication and self-esteem. Elsie crossed her legs at the knee, wished she had a cigarette to smoke like the French ladies, and wondered what some of the girls at school would think if they could see her now.

  She had played with this notion for a few seconds before she realized what had put it into her head. Her eye, in its review of surrounding humanity, had actually passed over a felt-hatted, wool-stockinged figure, sitting with two others a few tables away. Satchels and attaché-cases were piled beside their chairs. She looked again. The uniform was unfamiliar, but one of the faces was not. It belonged to Thelma Price, who had occupied the next desk to Elsie for a year; who had left, followed by waves of envy, to move with her parents to London and prepare for the University at one of the big public day-schools. Here she was, in uniform, drab and correct, without the least trace of make-up, school stamped all over her. And Elsie had coveted her lot, half a year ago! She had not looked round yet. With swift decision, Elsie went over to the cash desk.

  “May I have a packet of cigarettes, please?”

  “How many, madam, and what brand would you like?”

  “Ten, please. Er—those will do. Thank you.”

  She went back to her table, crossed her legs more modishly than before, and lit up with the ease of no less than three previous experiments. A minute and a half later, drawn no doubt by the relentless compulsion of her will, Thelma looked round. Elsie gave her an easy, social smile. Thelma stared, stared again, said something to her friends and came over.

  “Elsie Lane!” she cried, performing her part as if it had been written for her. “Well! Fancy! I couldn’t believe it! When I saw you, I felt absolutely knocked flat.”

  In a manner distantly copied from Leo, Elsie tapped the ash off her cigarette.

  “Oh, hullo, Thelma. What fun meeting like this. How are you liking school? Do sit down for a minute and talk to me.” She added, casually, “Have a fag.”

  “Thanks frightfully all the same. I do smoke, of course, out of uniform. We mostly do, in the Lower Sixth. But you know what it is. Some stuffy parent, or someone, always notices the hatband and reports it.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” said Elsie kindly. “Bad luck.”

  At this perfect moment the Knickerbocker Glory arrived, like a symbolic cornucopia. At Thelma’s table, she had already observed, they had been having small coffees. Elsie turned to the waitress, her cigarette poised between two fingers. “Will you bring another of these, please, for my friend?”

  “No, really,” protested Thelma, with brightening eyes. “I mean, thanks frightfully, but. …”

  “This is on me. Here, you have this one, and I’ll wait. I’m just amusing myself in town for the day, so time doesn’t matter to me.”

  “No, truly, well, it’s frightfully sweet of you.” Thelma dipped her spoon into the thick cream at the top, remarking with ill-concealed satisfaction, “I really don’t know what Joan and Phyllis will be thinking.”

  “Oh, never mind. It’s such an age since we met.” Elsie found that she was surprising even herself. It had taken this measuring-stick from the past to reveal to her her own progress. To prolong the sensation, she drew from Thelma her chronicle of the last year; the daily train journey from Golders Green, the approaching Higher School Certificate, the family holiday at Weymouth. Thelma abandoned her efforts to give some of the high-lights a pale importance. Her mind was elsewhere, and the bulletin petered out. Elsie knew what was coming. She took out another cigarette, tapped the end of it, and lit it deftly. It was like waiting in the wings to come on and play lead.

  “You could have knocked me down with a feather,” Thelma said, “seeing you here. Where did you. … I mean, you’ve been away from home, haven’t you? Are you—er—back with your people now?”

  “It doesn’t look like it, does it?” Thelma’s hesitation in coming to the point added a final savour. She must think the worst, the very worst. “I may as well tell you I took a bit of a chance, letting you see me. If it had been someone like Vera Piggott, I’d have made a dash for it without even waiting to finish my ice. Of course, I know I can trust you. But if you chose to walk out of that door and say you’d found me here, the police would probably give you a reward.” She waited a moment for this to take effect before adding, “Not that I’ve done anything, of course. But they can fetch you back if you’re under twenty-one.”

  “I know. I heard the broadcast. It was most weird, hearing the name of someone I knew, just like a film. Just my luck, a thrill like this and having to keep it a secret. Wild horses wouldn’t drag it out of me, of course. I don’t suppose they’ll ever catch you. You look so different and grown up, you can’t be like any photos they’ve got. Your hair and everything. But aren’t you scared, coming up to town like this, you might meet your people some day?”

  “Well, it might happen.” Elsie was unwilling to dismiss any risk that could add to the glamour of the situation. “It would be pretty awful. But you know, they only come up to London about once a year.”

  “But my dear. Haven’t you heard?” It was Thelma’s turn; but glutton rather than epicurean, she rushed upon her moment, taking no time to revolve its flavour on the tongue. “Your father and mother live in London now. They came about a fortnight ago. My mot
her met your mother shopping at Selfridge’s, and she told her all about it. She was awfully upset, my mother said. They live in Hampstead. My mother’s going there to tea.”

  Elsie’s ice arrived on the table before her. She did not even see it. Her face satisfied Thelma’s richest expectation. “But they can’t have. We’ve always lived in Cornwall. They weren’t even thinking of moving. Why, I’ve only been gone six or seven weeks.”

  Thelma dropped her voice; a needless precaution, since the orchestra was playing The Riff Song fortissimo, but impressive.

  “It was the scandal,” she said. “I hope it isn’t a faux pas, bringing this up, but didn’t you have a sister who ran away too? This is only what my mother said, you know. She said your father threw up his practice, and he’s taken a post with a firm that does housing estates or something like that.” Thelma’s mother had also said that they would not be so well off, but that of course was unmentionable. “Your mother said it’s not living in London she minds, it’s wondering what’s happened to you. It must be rather awful for her, I expect.”

  “I did write to her,” said Elsie. The whole content of life was shifting like a kaleidoscope. Linked by Thelma’s presence to the laws of childhood, she felt her sense of sin grow terrifying and huge. Her parents felt closer than Leo and Helen, even Peter; the knowledge that an act of hers had shifted the course of their lives was appalling, unnatural. And Cornwall, the house, the garden, the familiar walk along the cliffs, struck away from all possible futures, dead at a blow … only then she realized that always, at the back of her mind, had been the thought that she would return.

  Now, if she went back, it would be to a life as different from the old as her life of the present. Almost unconsciously, her mind began to probe at its possibilities. “Does my father work at home now, or does he go to an office somewhere else?”

  Thelma found this question a very natural one; she had been to tea with Elsie once or twice in Cornwall. Keeping, with careful attention to good form, all traces of comprehension from her voice, she said, “He hadn’t started, when my mother met yours. But I think she said he goes up to some place in the city, or out to where the building is, and doesn’t get back till quite late in the day. I expect,” she added meaningly, “your mother’s often lonely.” She had been made a prefect lately, and felt it her duty to influence people for good. “Don’t think I’m prying,” she said earnestly; “but I feel sure your mother would understand, and be all right about it … whatever you’ve done. She told my mother so, as a matter of fact.”