Friends and Lovers

by Helen Macinnes

  “Oh, just slightly amazed for a moment or so,” he said lightly. “In any case, I might never have passed the F.O. entrance examinations, or I might have been a rotten diplomat.” He grinned, and put all the memories of Chaundler’s discussions with him this week quite out of his mind. His father had not had time to reply to his long explanatory letter; more discussions to come, there. Still, his father had liked Penny when he had met her, and as long as David didn’t concentrate on money-grabbing, but developed a career with some idea of public service behind it, his father would have no absolute objections. (His father was developing almost a mania for his public-service idea: there was some connexion between it and his complete belief in a coming breakdown in civilisation. That was almost a mania too. You could not mention Germany now without starting a worrying argument.) Yes, Penny and his father had got on well together. Margaret, however, had been quite another matter.

  “My train leaves in sixty-five minutes,” he said. “What is it to be, Penny? Big business or social consciousness?” He was watching her with a smile, but his hand was tense on the glass of wine.

  “David,” Penny’s voice said gently, “you can’t possibly mean you want me to choose.”

  “Why not? You’ve got to live with it for the rest of your life.”

  “But if a man is unhappy in his job he won’t do much good work. You know what you want. You always know.” She laughed then. “You know so well what you really want, David.”

  “Yes.” His eyes held hers. “I know.”

  After that pause he said, “But, to return to the job—and, after all, it is a luxury to be able to discuss two possible jobs in a depression where even one is hard to find, so we might as well enjoy any luxuries we have—what do you think, Penny?”

  “I think...” she began, and then stopped short. She looked at him uncertainly. If only she could make the right choice, the choice he wanted. “You don’t really worry about having a lot of money, do you, David? I mean, as long as we have— oh, David, I really could run our house beautifully on three hundred pounds a year.”

  “Why do you choose Fairbairn?” he asked. He tried to keep his voice impersonal, to keep his delight out of it.

  “Because—well, because it really is your kind of thing, isn’t it? The work you are doing now at Oxford leads into it so naturally. Fairbairn is one of the best economists we have, isn’t he?” She looked at David worriedly. Surely he hadn’t already decided on the other job. Had she made a mistake? “David, I wish you would do just as you really want. I’ve spoiled one idea of yours already. Don’t let me spoil this one too. If you really want the oil thing, take it.” She looked quite unhappy.

  He rose suddenly, came quickly round to her side of the table, and kissed her vehemently. Her ribs felt as if they were broken.

  “David!” she said, with delight, and the word came out in a gasp as he suddenly freed her so that she could breathe again. He went quite calmly back to his chair, as if he had only been opening a window.

  Giuseppe, coming upstairs with a bowl of fruit and coffee, beamed with approval and delight. He approached their table, and then hung back: this wasn’t just the right moment. Not that they would have noticed him very much. The young man was now raising his glass of wine towards the girl. Giuseppe turned away and frowned fiercely at an interested table of two men and a woman. Don’t you smirk like that, signora, he thought: no one would ever want to kiss you, even with all the lights out. And as for the two signori, you didn’t do so well for yourselves this Saturday night: the best you could manage was this leather-faced, leather-hearted woman to share between you. If anyone should be laughing at anyone else, it certainly should not be you. “Coffee?” he inquired, keeping his body so placed that he would block their view. The two men had the grace to realise their barbarism. They began talking hurriedly about poetry. Poetry! Giuseppe thought. How could they pretend to understand poetry when they did not even know it when they saw it? He let the coffee he was pouring slop over on to their saucers. Not frequent customers, anyway, and the tip, which the two men shared between them too, no doubt, was always poor.

  David was watching Penny with a smile. He had never been happier. “To you,” he said very quietly, and drained his glass.

  19

  AFTERTHOUGHTS IN GOWER STREET

  Mr. Fane was in his dressing-room, but neither that nor his silence deterred his wife from summing up the events of the day. She creamed her face before the pink-shaded light on the elaborate dressing-table, and kept up a continuous flow of comment. Mrs. Fane saw nothing peculiar in the fact that Edward had long since given up the habit of answering her. She tried to ignore a deepening wrinkle at the side of her mouth. It had been a successful party, she told herself again. “I’m quite exhausted. Still, it was a great success. You didn’t say how you liked my new suit. And how did you like Carol’s dress? Well worth the money, really. She did look well this evening. Did you notice how George Fenton-Stevens quite monopolised her? What a pity Lady Fenton-Stevens couldn’t come—George said she was leaving for the Riviera. Never anywhere near her husband. All she does is spend his money.”

  She let that fact soak in. At least, I stay beside you, she thought, as she wiped off the cleansing cream carefully. Then from an elaborately fashioned jar she scooped some heavy cream, yellow with the sheep’s fat out of which it was made, scented with the essence of flowers. She smeared it over her face, her eyes following the reflection of the upward movements of her third finger as solemnly as if she were a priestess sacrificing before an altar. Then she rested (five minutes for the cream to penetrate), and her thoughts flickered back to Carol again and to George. Dear George. It would be so suitable.

  “Penelope Lorrimer,” she said suddenly. “What a surprise... so unlike Mary Lorrimer. Extraordinary that George should know her. And Billy remembered seeing her too. George was describing the summer in Scotland. He and another man— David something or other—visited Dr. MacIntyre... David Bosfield, that’s it. And then Billy said, ‘That’s who she is.’ Do you know, Billy has seen her dining in the George on Sundays with this Bosfield person? George was really most surprised. He hadn’t even known! Personally I think the whole thing looks very odd. I wonder if Mary Lorrimer has even heard of this man Bosfield?”

  Mattie Fane picked up a delicately shaped bottle and poured its verbena fragrance on to some cotton wool. She began to smooth away the glistening cream, leaving enough round the wrinkles to help them through the night. “He does sound peculiar, if you ask me. Billy says he is one of those Labour speakers in the Union debates.” She shook her head in disapproval and moved across the thick turquoise-blue carpet towards her silk-covered bed.

  “Why didn’t she say who she was?” she asked indignantly of the mirrored ceiling. And imagine Essex Rockfort walking away from Carol, and asking who was the girl with the dark auburn hair. Auburn! Plain brown with a henna rinse.

  “Are you coming to bed, Edward?” she called sharply, and tied up her chin-strap.

  He was thin and he stooped, and his eyes narrowed when he didn’t wear his glasses. He didn’t speak, because he was conscious of his empty gums—his teeth were now smiling charmingly in a crystal tumbler of antiseptic fluid on his dressing-table—and a long, thin strand of grey hair fell away from the bald crown of his head. She watched him with a sense of dissatisfaction. His age told hers. But she wasn’t really old. Men just aged more quickly than women.

  Edward Fane climbed heavily into his bed, with the boredom of a man who has long learned to expect no pleasure there. “Good night, Mattie,” he said, and closed his eyes. Duty done for the day.

  “Good night, darling.” Mrs. Fane’s voice sounded strangled, but chin-straps had to be tight. She swallowed her sleeping tablets and switched off her lamp. The fireplace glowed gently in the warm darkness.

  The strangled voice said suddenly, “Mary Lorrimer and I were very good friends. We still are. I think I shall write her soon.” Really, one owed it to one’s frien
ds to watch their daughters as carefully as one’s own.

  “Where’s Carol tonight?” Edward Fane asked unexpectedly.

  “Out with Eleanor.”

  There was a mild grunt for answer, and then silence.

  Mattie Fane listened to her husband’s heavy breathing, and began to compose the letter to Mary Lorrimer. “We were quite delighted to see Penelope. How she has changed—amusing how quickly girls adopt London clothes and mannerisms! By the way, you never mentioned the young man at Oxford. Or were you keeping it as a surprise? Do write and tell me about him and his family. How excited you must be! I heard that he was very political, practically a Communist, but I am sure that was only gossip, for I know you and Charles are such strict Conservatives.”

  Yes, she thought drowsily, I must bring that in. Perhaps not quite so crudely. And then I can give her news about Carol, about the wonderful success she has been having since she was presented last year. Perhaps just a hint about George Fenton-Stevens. Perhaps. After all, Carol would probably be engaged and married long before Penelope Lorrimer. After all...

  At that point the sleeping tablets justified the money paid for them, and Mrs. Fane’s worries were tucked up for the night.

  * * *

  Penny, as she climbed the darkened staircase to her room that night, remembered that she had never had time, after all, to explain to David about the Fane party. But it had become less important in face of all the news that David had brought with him. She was still slightly dazed by it: for months she had accustomed herself to having no definite idea of the future, and then suddenly, tonight everything had begun to take a definite shape. Not that everything was settled, as David had been very careful to point out. No job was settled, until he had taken his Finals and had produced a good First. But everything was as settled as it could be at this stage: it was certainly more settled than it had been last week. Penny began to hum, and then stopped short and smiled as an angry voice called, “Shut up, there!” from one of the rooms which was already in complete darkness. That was someone who had had a very dull Saturday night.

  Penny removed her black dress carefully, noticed the creased skirt, and was reminded of her mother, who hated cheap clothes because they wore so badly. Well, she thought resignedly, she would just have to reach the ironing-board on Monday before Neri installed herself there. She pulled on a woollen sweater and tweed skirt, and over that went her flannel dressing-gown, for it was miserably cold in these upstairs rooms at night. She placed the small electric fire as near her ankles as was safely possible, sat down at the brown wood table, adjusted a wad of paper under its short leg so that it would stop rocking as she wrote.

  Marston and Bennett, returning from the dance at College, saw the light under Penny’s door. “Are you visible?” Marston asked, as she came in.

  “I’m perfectly decent, if that’s what you mean,” Penny said, and covered the envelope’s address negligently with a piece of blotting-paper.

  “Not writing him!” Bennett said. “Why we thought you had gone out with him tonight.”

  “I was just writing some letters,” Penny said carelessly, avoiding Marston’s eyes; she rose from the desk and rubbed her cold hands. “I don’t know how your circulation gets on with these tuppeny electric fires, but I go to bed each night wrapped up like a cocoon.”

  “A cardigan wrapped round one’s legs does help sleep,” Bennett said. At the mention of the word she yawned, twisting her sweetly pretty face into a strange distortion, and ruffled her hair, curling hair with one of her nicely manicured hands. “I had a marvellous time tonight. A medical from the West Indies danced with me all evening. The most divine tango.”

  “So I guessed,” Marston said. “You danced a tango no matter what the band played.”

  “Well, if you really are dancing a good tango...” Bennett shrugged her shoulders. She was thoughtful for a moment. And then she gave one of her small, high-pitched laughs and sat down on the bed. “You know,” she said, “I’ve often wondered whether a man who dances divinely with you, so that it just seems impossible to make one mistake while you are following him, might not be a good man to marry. That could be a very good test, couldn’t it? What do you think, Marston?”

  “I’m too tired to play guessing games,” Marston said sharply, and caused Bennett’s thin, delicate eyebrows to rise in a half-circle. “You certainly are becoming an expert on dancing, anyway: this is the fifth night you’ve been out this week. And don’t go to sleep on Lorrimer’s bed. I only came in to ask if she had a good time tonight.”

  “You obviously didn’t,” Bennett said. And, contented with the sharp truth of that remark, she stretched herself comfortably on the bed. “How did you get on, Lorrimer?” she asked curiously.

  “I had a marvellous time,” Penny said.

  “Well,” Marston said, her voice not troubling to hide its relief, “that’s a load off my chest.”

  “What is all this about, anyway?” Bennett asked, with sudden interest.

  “Look,” Marston said, “it is time we all went to bed—our own beds. Come on, Bennett. No one can be as tired as all that.”

  “I tire very easily,” Bennett said, with more dignity than her legs showed as they were swung on to the floor. “You look as fresh as a daisy, Lorrimer. All that porridge, I suppose, and heather and things.” She increased the roll of her r’s. She rather fancied her Scots accent. (When she had first met Penny—or, rather, after she had learned Penny came from Scotland, for at first she had not been altogether sure where Penny did come from—she had giggled and said, “Oh yes... It’s a braw brickt moonlickt nickt the nickt.” And she had looked so pleased with herself that Penny, in spite of her amazement—for what would Bennett have said if Penny had given an imitation of her idea of a Lancashire comedian just because Bennett came from some place near Manchester?—had found her annoyance tinged with amusement.)

  But tonight nothing could irritate Penny. She said, “I feel like someone who can afford to refuse a thousand a year.”

  “Hyperbole Lorrimer,” Bennett said, with a laugh. “Either that or it’s the First Stage... Tomorrow, you will be scattering rue and rosemary from a little basket, and we’ll have to watch all ponds.” Her arms began to make the appropriate motions.

  Marston said, “See you tomorrow, Lorrimer.” She looked pleased, knowing now that the evening had indeed been a success. She caught Bennett firmly by the arm. “Look, will you stop being Ophelia and start imitating Lady Macbeth along that corridor?” The door closed, and the house was silent again.

  It was midnight now, and Gower Street was deserted. It seemed a dead street in a dead town. Yet, only a few hundred yards away, was a bright, noisy thoroughfare; in the centre of the city the lights and bright signs turned the night into an electric day; people in thousands, there, were walking slowly in the tightly jammed throngs.

  Penny turned away from the window, and began to pour cold water from the jug into the wash-basin on its hideous stand behind the faded cotton screen. The deep silence from the house all around her seemed to increase: each small noise in her room—the clatter of her toothbrush on the marble top of the wash-stand, the sound of the water as her hands dipped into the basin, the rattle of the soap-dish as its top slipped— was magnified into strange disproportion.

  She realised suddenly what frightened her about this house. Too many women. Too many women, crowded into the drawing-room and library, trying to look as if this were all a normal kind of life, as if they could go on living this way indefinitely. Too many women all shut into lonely little rooms. All pretending to be so gay, so unworried, so intelligent, or so earnest. All pretending that life was quite simple, easily solved either by hard work or by plenty of fun. Now, in the bleak, lonely rooms, the worries were being reviewed, for women always did their worst worrying at night. Strange how normal they could be all evening, and then as soon as they went to bed they lay and worried. Worries about work that was delayed and examinations coming soon; worries about men
and parties and complexions and clothes and figures and families and quarrels and pocket-money overdrawn; worries about what was going to happen after this June, or the next June, or whatever June ended this waiting period of their lives. That was the main trouble—this waiting, this terrifying feeling of uncertainty, all emphasised by the loneliness and the silence of night. Tomorrow morning the pretences would be back with the bright smile and casual greeting.

  Or perhaps the main trouble, Penny thought, as she undressed with expert speed to escape the coldness of her room, is that we try to be independent creatures, and we are not. We are dependent on others. And mostly, if we would only be honest enough to admit it, we are dependent on men. They give us the balance that we need. She smiled as she imagined the professional feminist’s retort to such an admission. She laughed as she realised she could no longer be convinced by that retort. Perhaps, she thought, I never really wanted to believe the feminists, and that is why I backslide so easily. Last year she had thought of her future mainly as a career of painting, with her family and friends and some rather attractive men— perhaps even one man in particular (she had always imagined him as someone with fair hair, blue eyes, very perfect features, and a terrific reputation as an athlete and sportsman)—forming an interesting background. But now she thought about David more than she thought about herself, and that was quite a lot judging herself as an average human being. Now the whole perspective had shifted. It was his career which now worried and excited her. Her own had become identified with his. “Oh, David,” she suddenly said aloud, and the darkness and silence deepened the emotion in her voice.

  She lay thinking about David, about the way he would look at her or speak to her, about all the things he had told her tonight. She laughed softly and hugged herself with happiness. No wonder she had forgotten to tell him about the Fanes’ party. That had been a small incident, a trivial one; she probably would never see or hear from them again. She dismissed them with a long, lazy yawn. She fell asleep thinking of much more important things.