“Dear, kind, practical Sara,” said Catherine. She got slowly to her feet, stiffly, all the young graceful resilience gone out of her body as well as her spirits. “Do you know, for quite a long time I thought you were going to marry Lawrence?”
“I, Cath? Oh, no!”
“Well, I’m sure he wanted to—I’m sure he asked you,” she said, looking at me with her candid gaze. “Yes, I thought so . . . and I was adjusting myself to the idea when I saw that you only liked him in the ordinary way. This has been the most utter surprise to me—to all of us, in fact—”
“You know, Cath, it is partly the shock of surprise that you are suffering from now,” I told her as we set off for home.
“Perhaps,” she assented doubtfully.
I didn’t try to sympathise with her in words—what could I say to make her hurt any less?—and we hardly spoke at all after that; but when we reached the house she took my hand and held it tightly for a moment.
“Thank you, Sara,” she said.
Elizabeth was relieved to know of her daughter’s whereabouts. Alan Whitburn, she said on the telephone, had come over to Carmichael and was staying to supper with them. He wanted to come for Catherine and drive her home.
“What about it? Would you rather he didn’t?” I asked with my hand over the mouthpiece as I delivered this message.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. Yes, let him come,” she said indifferently, “Will you say so for me, Sara?”
She was looking a little less wan and strained when she left, I am glad to say. I felt very sorry for Alan Whitburn, who feels for her as she feels for his cousin Lawrence. It does seem a pity that life should be so twisted for some people; but Cath will never turn to Alan, I am sure. She needs an older man, and in my opinion she is far too good for Lawrence. Not that I mean to disparage Lawrence, who is kind and cheerful as well as being good-looking in his own attractively ugly way, but he just isn’t right for Catherine. She, of course, is blinded just now by her own feelings, but if she has time and opportunity to view him dispassionately, I am sure she would see clearly what I am trying to say to you—that life with Lawrence might prove a little dull after the first gilt had worn off. Now with you, Hugo, there would be an always increasing interest and affection, for you both have deeps which would take time to explore. I wish you were here at this hour of her need to help her. Better still, I wish she were at Fort Cecil. She ought not to have to stay here and see Lawrence marry Elise Kilmartin. And I don’t think a new job anywhere near home will solve her problem. She needs an entire change of scene.
In the meantime I must end this long letter which I am writing in the small hours “ayont the twal.” Write to me soon, Hugo, but write to Catherine first. It will do her a lot of good. She is very fond of you already without realising it.
CHAPTER XXIV
LATE JUNE, 1953
My dear, dear Hugo, I have never found it hard to write to you before, but this letter is not easy at all. Thank you, my dear, for asking me to be your wife. I do most truly feel touched and honoured, so please forgive me when I say No. I know that you are fond of me; I hope you know how fond I am of you, but it is not the right kind of affection to marry on, in spite of what you say about our similarity of tastes and outlook.
You must marry someone younger, someone who can give you children to bring up at Corseburnhead when you leave Northern Rhodesia, and your heart is really set on Catherine, isn’t it?
I think you feel that you are responsible for me for Ivo’s sake. If so, it is a brother’s responsibility, not a husband’s. I have made my own life now, and am content. With Atty, who almost takes the place of a son, and you for my brother, I do not need or wish for more.
I will go and see Mrs. Keith as you ask me to, though if you think she can say anything to make me change my mind when you cannot, you are wrong. But I want to see her, for I have an idea that she may be able to do something to help Catherine. I am sorry in a way that my last letter did not reach you before you wrote and put what you call your “proposition” to me. And yet, I am glad to know that you care enough for Sara Monteith to want her to share your life. Dear Hugo, I hope I shall always have a share in it, as you have and will continue to have in mine.
*
When I got to Ladymount this afternoon, it was of Catherine that I spoke first. I managed, without giving her away, I hope—but Mrs. Keith has very acute perceptions—to suggest that she ought to have a change, perhaps to Northern Rhodesia.
Mrs. Keith took it with complete composure, and such entire lack of surprise that I could not help thinking she must have guessed all about Cath already, and you in connection with her.
“Elizabeth is worried about the girl,” she said. “And I promised to do what I could. In fact, I have written to one or two old friends at a distance asking if they would like to have her on a long visit. But your idea of Rhodesia is much better, Sara.”
When I murmured that it was a very expensive journey, for that aspect of it had been worrying me more than a little, she only smiled. “There are ways of getting round that difficulty,” she told me. “I know a woman and her husband who farm, not too far from Fort Cecil, as it happens. They are well-to-do, and are in England now. Every time they come home they take a girl back with them, because Mrs. Nairn likes young company—it is lonely for her on the farm. I am sure they will be delighted to have Catherine. Of course they pay her passage and all expenses. They should be starting back in about a month’s time. I will get in touch with them at once. Mrs. Nairn is a kindly soul and will look after Catherine. I would have spoken of it to Elizabeth if it had not been that I thought—”
She broke off and gave me a long searching look. “You didn’t come here to-day just to talk about Catherine Drysdale,” she said.
“Hugo told me to come and see you—”
“Well,” she said. “I thought there was something, Sara. I am to give you this, if you will take it. That is why Hugo asked you to come here.”
She rummaged in the depths of that capacious black bag of hers, which is always beside her, and produced a tiny red leather jeweller’s box, rather worn and old-fashioned.
I knew before I opened it what I should see; your mother’s ring, the one she left for whichever of her two sons was engaged first, to give to his future bride. Ivo often spoke about it, he was going to get it out of the bank for me on that next leave that he never came home to. I looked at the mild brilliance of those beautiful diamonds for a moment, wondering how it would have felt to wear them, realising that I could never let anyone but Ivo put the ring on my finger. Then I snapped down the lid of the little case and gave it back to Mrs. Keith.
“I can’t take it,” I said.
“I didn’t think you would,” she answered, putting it away in her bag again. “So—it is Catherine who is to go to Northern Rhodesia, and not you. I am sorry in a way, but I should have been disappointed in you if you had accepted Hugo’s proposal, Sara.”
Then we talked for a long time about Ivo, and you, Hugo, and about Catherine and what we hope for your future. . . .
While we were having tea, which Beattie brought in with the usual pomp of silver paraphernalia, Mrs. Keith told me she had had a visit from Miss Bonaly.
“I suppose she ‘just happened to be passing,’ as usual?” I said.
“It ill befits you to speak of her like that,” said Mrs. Keith reprovingly. “For she has decided to approve of you. In spite of your disagreeably flippant manner and rather lax attitude towards morals—that must mean Madge, I suppose?—she thinks that you have a kind heart.”
I groaned. “This is too much! Dearest Mrs. Keith, what am I to do if Miss Bonaly starts being friendly to me?”
“Oh, you have a long way to go before it comes to that,” said Mrs. Keith encouragingly. “Miss Bonaly is not in the least likely to be friendly as we mean it. She will just moderate her disapproval, and you can surely learn to thole that. I doubt if you will notice any difference in her.”
&nbs
p; “I’m sure I hope I shan’t!” I replied with feeling.
“You are being most ungrateful. Think how much more peaceful life in Ravenskirk is going to be now that Miss Bonaly hasn’t got her knife into you.”
“It will also be much more dull,” I said.
“The girl’s incorrigible!” murmured Mrs. Keith with a twinkle, and we both laughed.
I got up to go. It was better to leave on this lighter note, for neither Mrs. Keith nor I are emotional people, and we had been stirred to the depths this afternoon, which I was afraid might have overtired her.
“Bless you, my dear,” said Mrs. Keith as I kissed her. “Bless you and be happy.”
I walked home across the moor among the budding heather with Pam, and I did feel happy, as if Mrs. Keith’s blessing were being fulfilled already; and I felt sure of your future happiness, dear Hugo. You and Catherine will meet soon and everything will come right for you.
As for me, I looked ahead at the long ridge of hillside, so dear and familiar to me now, at Windy Gans filled to the brim with golden evening light, at the white walls of my own little house rosy in the same mellow glow, I thought of you and Atty and all my friends, and as I came to my door I knew that my lot had fallen to me in a fair ground.
T H E E N D
About The Author
Mary ‘Molly’ Clavering was born in Glasgow in 1900. Her father was a Glasgow businessman, and her mother’s grandfather had been a doctor in Moffat, where the author would live for nearly 50 years after World War Two.
She had little interest in conventional schooling as a child, but enjoyed studying nature, and read and wrote compulsively, considering herself a ‘poetess’ by the age of seven.
She returned to Scotland after her school days, and published three novels in the late 1920s, as well as being active in her local girl guides and writing two scenarios for ambitious historical pageants.
In 1936, the first of four novels under the pseudonym ‘B. Mollett’ appeared. Molly Clavering’s war service in the WRNS interrupted her writing career, and in 1947 she moved to Moffat, in the Scottish border country, where she lived alone, but was active in local community activities. She resumed writing fiction, producing seven post-war novels and numerous serialized novels and novellas in the People’s Friend magazine.
Molly Clavering died in Moffat on February 12, 1995.
Titles by Molly Clavering
Fiction
Georgina and the Stairs (1927)
The Leech of Life (1928)
Wantonwalls (1929)
Susan Settles Down (1936, as ‘B. Mollett’)
Love Comes Home (1938, as ‘B. Mollett’)
Yoked with a Lamb (1938, as ‘B. Mollett’)
Touch Not the Nettle (1939, as ‘B. Mollett’)
Mrs. Lorimer’s Quiet Summer (1953)
Because of Sam (1954)
Dear Hugo (1955)
Near Neighbours (1956)
Result of the Finals (1957)
Dr. Glasgow’s Family (1960)
Spring Adventure (1962)
Non-Fiction
From the Border Hills (1953)
Between 1952 and 1976, Molly Clavering also serialized at least two dozen novels or novellas in the People’s Friend under the names Marion Moffatt and Emma Munro. Some of these were reprinted as ‘pocket novels’ as late as 1994.
FURROWED MIDDLEBROW
FM1. A Footman for the Peacock (1940) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM2. Evenfield (1942) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM3. A Harp in Lowndes Square (1936) ... RACHEL FERGUSON
FM4. A Chelsea Concerto (1959) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM5. The Dancing Bear (1954) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM6. A House on the Rhine (1955) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM7. Thalia (1957) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM8. The Fledgeling (1958) ... FRANCES FAVIELL
FM9. Bewildering Cares (1940) ... WINIFRED PECK
FM10. Tom Tiddler’s Ground (1941) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM11. Begin Again (1936) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM12. Company in the Evening (1944) ... URSULA ORANGE
FM13. The Late Mrs Prioleau (1946) ... MONICA TINDALL
FM14. Bramton Wick (1952) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM15. Landscape in Sunlight (1953) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM16. The Native Heath (1954) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM17. Seaview House (1955) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM18. A Winter Away (1957) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM19. The Mingham Air (1960) ... ELIZABETH FAIR
FM20. The Lark (1922) ... E. NESBIT
FM21. Smouldering Fire (1935) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM22. Spring Magic (1942) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM23. Mrs. Tim Carries On (1941) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM24. Mrs. Tim Gets a Job (1947) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM25. Mrs. Tim Flies Home (1952) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM26. Alice (1950) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM27. Henry (1950) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM28. Mrs. Martell (1953) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM29. Cecil (1962) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT
FM30. Nothing to Report (1940) ... CAROLA OMAN
FM31. Somewhere in England (1943) ... CAROLA OMAN
FM32. Spam Tomorrow (1956) ... VERILY ANDERSON
FM33. Peace, Perfect Peace (1947) ... JOSEPHINE KAMM
FM34. Beneath the Visiting Moon (1940) ... ROMILLY CAVAN
FM35. Table Two (1942) ... MARJORIE WILENSKI
FM36. The House Opposite (1943) ... BARBARA NOBLE
FM37. Miss Carter and the Ifrit (1945) ... SUSAN ALICE KERBY
FM38. Wine of Honour (1945) ... BARBARA BEAUCHAMP
FM39. A Game of Snakes and Ladders (1938, 1955) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
FM40. Not at Home (1948) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
FM41. All Done by Kindness (1951) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
FM42. My Caravaggio Style (1959) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE
FM43. Vittoria Cottage (1949) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM44. Music in the Hills (1950) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM45. Winter or Rough Weather (1951) ... D.E. STEVENSON
FM46. Fresh from the Country (1960) ... MISS READ
FM47. Miss Mole (1930) ... E.H. YOUNG
FM48. A House in the Country (1957) ... RUTH ADAM
FM49. Much Dithering (1937) ... DOROTHY LAMBERT
FM50. Miss Plum and Miss Penny (1959) ... DOROTHY EVELYN SMITH
FM51. Village Story (1951) ... CELIA BUCKMASTER
FM52. Family Ties (1952) ... CELIA BUCKMASTER
FM53. Rhododendron Pie (1930) ... MARGERY SHARP
FM54. Fanfare for Tin Trumpets (1932) ... MARGERY SHARP
FM55. Four Gardens (1935) ... MARGERY SHARP
FM56. Harlequin House (1939) ... MARGERY SHARP
FM57. The Stone of Chastity (1940) ... MARGERY SHARP
FM58. The Foolish Gentlewoman (1948) ... MARGERY SHARP
FM59. The Swiss Summer (1951) ... STELLA GIBBONS
FM60. A Pink Front Door (1959) ... STELLA GIBBONS
FM61. The Weather at Tregulla (1962) ... STELLA GIBBONS
FM62. The Snow-Woman (1969) ... STELLA GIBBONS
FM63. The Woods in Winter (1970) ... STELLA GIBBONS
FM64. Apricot Sky (1952) ... RUBY FERGUSON
FM65. Susan Settles Down (1936) ... MOLLY CLAVERING
FM66. Yoked with a Lamb (1938) ... MOLLY CLAVERING
FM67. Love Comes Home (1938) ... MOLLY CLAVERING
FM68. Touch not the Nettle (1939) ... MOLLY CLAVERING
FM69. Mrs. Lorimer’s Quiet Summer (1953) ... MOLLY CLAVERING
FM70. Because of Sam (1953) ... MOLLY CLAVERING
FM71. Dear Hugo (1955) ... MOLLY CLAVERING
FM72. Near Neighbours (1956) ... MOLLY CLAVERING
A Furrowed Middlebrow Book
FM71
Published by Dean Street Press 2021
Copyright © 1955 Molly Clavering
Introduction copyright © 2021 Eli
zabeth Crawford
All Rights Reserved
First published in 1955 by Hodder & Stoughton
Cover by DSP
Shows detail from an illustration by Eric Ravilious
ISBN 978 1 914150 56 2
www.deanstreetpress.co.uk
Dear Hugo Page 22
