The Hayburn Family

by Guy McCrone

  Stephen swallowed down his last mouthful, then once more he took up Phœbe’s letter. “She’s seen David. She feels Denise St. Roch must be mainly responsible. Older. All the experience and that sort of thing.” He handed the letter to Lucy.

  “What mother wouldn’t say that?” Lucy said, taking it up to read. “But I daresay she’s right. Oh? Hasn’t told Sir Henry yet? She wants us to talk to Denise, does she? But I’m not sure that I want to. Robin! My dear!”

  The sitting-room door had been thrown open. It disclosed Robin standing with one hand on the knob. Lucy folded the letter quickly.

  “Come in, Robkin. Glad to see you. Had tea?” Stephen called.

  “Had tea, thanks. It’s only a message from Denise. She says you’ve never seen her studio, and she has suddenly got it into her head that you had better pay her a formal call as Mister and Missis.”

  Stephen took a resolution. “Robkin, come in and shut the door for a moment.”

  “I’ve got to fly, Uncle Stephen.”

  “You fly too much these days, if you ask me. Shut it and sit down.”

  Robin shut the door and advanced, looking from one to the other, as he found a chair.

  “How are you getting on with Miss St. Roch?” Stephen asked, hoping, perhaps, to gain some advantage by putting the question abruptly.

  Robin smiled radiantly. “She’s sold my first story for me. Twenty pounds. I can’t believe it! I came to tell you that too.”

  “Oh, Robin, how splendid!” Lucy cried brightly.

  Her husband wondered if her fervour did not seem a little over-acted. “Congratulations, Robkin,” he said. “But it wasn’t her help with your stories I meant. How are you getting on with Miss St. Roch herself?” And then, seeing that Robin went red to the roots of his hair, he added: “Oh, don’t worry. Your Aunt Lucy knows all about it. She’s heard of—well—that kind of friendship before, you know.”

  Robin frowned in his confusion. He was still callow enough to be embarrassed that such things should be discussed before a lady. “I don’t see why we need to talk about this now.” He stood up.

  “No, Robkin! Wait! You came to me before I went away, if you remember. You wanted my help then.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Stephen. And you can help. But may we discuss this another time? The main thing is that I love Denise and she loves me. Today she promised to marry me.”

  “Promised. Robin?”

  “Yes. Why not, Aunt Lucy? Why this surprise? What would you expect?”

  Lucy’s face became overspread with a misty smile. “Tell her we’ll be up to see her very soon, Robin.”

  “But don’t you believe it, Aunt Lucy?”

  “I’ll believe whatever you tell me, Robin.”

  “Well, I daresay the idea takes some getting used to! I haven’t got used to it myself.”

  Stephen looked at Lucy as the door closed. “Do you believe that?”

  She shook her head. The smile was gone. She had been struck with Robin’s frail look as he stood there. Why should a woman like Denise St. Roch, who had fought for her independence, now tie herself to a consumptive boy? “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Robin, it seems to me, might as well be left to take what’s coming to him, m’dear. Part of his education.”

  For a time Lucy sat thinking. She had much to blame herself with. Much that she really regretted. If Robin were a strong young creature, then Stephen would no doubt be right. But now? “I had better see Denise alone,” she said at length. “Whether I want to or not.”

  IV

  Denise and Lucy sat beneath the striped awning of their usual pavement café, looking across the gardens towards the casino. The stream of visitors on the pavement was thinner. Although the gardens blazed with a triumph that belonged almost to early summer, the world of fashion was beginning to move northwards towards places where finery could be flaunted in cooler comfort. The century was still twenty-five years too young for brown-skinned virility and elegant nakedness.

  “It’s hot,” Lucy said.

  “Yes. Are you and your husband staying much longer?”

  “Some weeks. I’m not quite sure. Are you?”

  “I don’t know either. I’ve got some work to finish before I go.”

  “Robin told us yesterday he had a story sold.”

  Denise displayed her dazzling teeth in a wide smile. “Poor child! He’s walking in the clouds about it.”

  “Why do you say ‘poor’, Denise? He’s very lucky to have you to help him.”

  “Me? Well, maybe I can help him to sell his work.”

  “He’s been talking to his Uncle Stephen, Denise.” Lucy saw her companion’s quick look. “He doesn’t want to go home. He wants to stay in France writing.”

  “Yes.” Denise turned to stroke Paul Morphy’s ears as he sat beside her, then she turned back to Lucy. “But I didn’t know he had been talking to his uncle.”

  “He’s worried. He knows the people at home won’t like it. He can’t make enough to live on, can he?”

  Denise shook her head. “No. Not at once, anyway.” Then she waited before she said: “Still, I believe in doing what you want, whatever the consequences. Don’t you?”

  “I suppose so. If you’re young and strong.”

  Denise sat considering this. “Are Robin and your husband good friends?” she asked presently.

  “My husband tries to help and advise.”

  Denise stroked Paul Morphy again. “I wonder what kind of things Robin tells him?”

  Lucy bent towards her companion. “Do you remember once I talked to you about the stuffiness of the Moorhouse family, and suggested you might educate Robin a bit?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’m sorry I did it now.”

  “Why?” Denise asked sharply and, as Lucy seemed to hesitate: “Has he told his uncle about—that, too?”

  “It depends on what you mean, Denise.”

  “No. It doesn’t depend on what I mean. You know very well what I mean! That boy’s tongue’s too long! That I’m—?”

  “Sit down again, Denise, please. He told us yesterday you had promised to marry him.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Having sat down again, Denise considered Lucy’s word gloomily. Then she went on: “Oh, I may not have denied it! What do you expect? But he can’t be such a child! Or I guess he is, if he goes jabbering to everybody! But how can a woman like you—”

  “My dear girl, I didn’t believe you had said it. Oh, I don’t know what to say! I suppose you’re fond of him?”

  “Of course I’m fond of him! I’m not a street-walker!”

  “Then remember you hold the happiness of a foolish, fragile boy in your hands. Please, Denise! I’m not blaming, I’m pleading!”

  “Pleading for what?”

  “Use him gently.”

  “Have I ever done anything else? Goodbye. You know how much I like interference!” She had jumped up once more and was dragging the great dog to his feet.

  “Denise! But of course I see your side of it! How can you think I don’t? No, please! We can’t leave it like this.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t see how else we can leave it. I’ve got to go now. Look, that’s our chocolate paid for.” She gave a coin to the waiter, raised a hand in sullen salute and went.

  Now, as Lucy sat watching Denise go, she found herself forced to ask herself what had been accomplished by this meeting she had put herself to the trouble of contriving. Disturbed and angry, she had to admit she had accomplished nothing.

  V

  Denise wondered at the change in Lucy, as now Paul Morphy pulled her home, ploughing, as he went, through the late afternoon rabble of visitors, peasants, fishermen, and work-people that almost blocked the narrower streets.

  Lucy Hayburn, of all people! The Lucy Hamont she had known in Paris, who was admired and accepted by their friends for her charmingly broad mind and her gay understanding of their ways. Now this disapproval, these provincial family judgments!


  But she must talk to Robin at once. Disabuse his mind of this nonsense. Tell him to be a man.

  She had left him working on the balcony. For a moment she halted on her landing to fetch breath, then she took the large, old-fashioned key from her satchel and turned it in the lock. Released, Paul Morphy sprang into the room in front of her.

  Robin was outside scribbling as though his life depended upon it, his hair dangling over brows that frowned in concentration. But now, the dog having run to him, he looked up. “Hullo!” he shouted. “Got back? I’ll finish this, if you don’t mind. Just a minute.”

  But inconveniently, as she stood watching him, Denise was assailed by feelings of tenderness. Lucy Hayburn’s words came back to her. “I’m not blaming, I’m pleadingl Remember you hold the happiness of a foolish, fragile boy in your hands.” Now on the balcony, her eyes following the movement of the thin hand, nervously writing, she had to admit that her lover was no pillar of robust young manhood. But what was she to do? He had deceived himself. It had not been she.

  Annoyed by Paul Morphy’s large gambollings, Robin threw down his pen and got up. “Oh, look here! I can’t do any more with that beast jumping about!” Then, turning to Denise: “How are we? See anyone?”

  She wondered, as he blew her a young, self-conscious kiss, how, despite experience shared, Robin could still remain so immature, so uncertain of himself. Yet his nearness troubled and confused her. She turned from him, back into the room. “I saw the new Mrs. Hayburn,” she said.

  “Aunt Lucy? I still feel funny when I say that. Doesn’t come natural.” He laughed as he followed her.

  “Oh, she’s your aunt all right. One of the family!”

  “What do you mean, Denise?”

  “I had quite a little talk with her.”

  His colour rose. “Did you? Good.”

  “Yes. And you seem to have had quite a talk with her too. Or your uncle, which is the same thing, I suppose?”

  He straddled a chair in front of her, leant his folded arms on its back, and looked up at her nervously. “My dearest, what is it that you want to say to me?”

  She had meant to tax him with disloyalty, with lack of sense or feeling, in blurting out their secret to the Hayburns. But now, looking down upon him, she could not. On an impulse, she bent down to caress his dark head. It would be easier thus, perhaps, for what she had to say. “Sweetheart, you’ve been talking to them about you and me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, why?” She stood quite still, her hand on his hair, awaiting his answer.

  “It was the first morning, after—it was before he went away to be married.”

  “But why?”

  “I was worried. Worried how it would all work out. But that’s past. My stories are selling. It’s going to be all right.”

  “All right?” But she knew what was coming.

  “Yes. I’ll work hard. Soon I’ll be earning quite a lot, I hope.” Then, before she could reply to this, Robin added in a voice that shook a little: “My very dearest, I promise you here at once you won’t ever find yourself married to a lazy good-for-nothing!” He stood up, came behind her, and put his hands upon her shoulder.

  She burst into tears.

  “Darling, what is it?” He turned her round, towards him.

  “Robin, I can’t, I won’t, I never intended to marry you! No, no! Don’t go away from me! I’m not hard. I’m not cruel. I thought you always knew!”

  “But the other day you said—?”

  “I thought that was just a game.”

  He sat down beside her on the sofa. So this, Denise reflected, was the firm, woman-of-the-world’s talk she had determined to have with him? So this was the progress his so-called education had made? She could feel that the hand he had placed over her own was trembling. At last he got up and began to pace the room. What was he thinking? She must know. “Robin,” she began, “I thought my love was helping you; that you were unhappy. That it was—oh, what can I say?—untying emotional knots. I saw us together in my mind in a wonderful kind of idyll. That was all.”

  He stood looking down on her and he said: “Pity I didn’t know that.” Then he turned aside as though he were struggling for calmness enough to say: “But I come from queer, puritan sort of people, I daresay.”

  She looked at him with curiosity, wondering even now which people he meant. The people of his adoption, or the people he believed to be his own.

  “It’s a pity I didn’t understand either, Robin,” she cried. “But must you hate me now?”

  He stood before her, dishevelled and unhappy. And yet, as it seemed to her, considering what to do. “My darling! How can I hate you?” He had dropped on his knees and his face was in her lap.

  VI

  Robin had stayed for supper, but it was not yet late when he got back. Now, alone, in his room, he went to his window, threw back the shutters, and stepped outside. The air was warm and caressing. Lights in the garden, shining up through shrubbery and palms, made fantastic shadows. He heard the high-pitched hum of a mosquito. Looking into the shapeless blackness of the nearby pine-tree, he saw two eyes of golden-yellow fixed upon him. He called Grimaldi’s name, but the eyes disappeared. Down on the promenade young men and women were walking arm in arm.

  Did the loves of those down there run smooth? Were their emotions simpler? Easier of fulfilment? Less mixed, as they were at home with conscience and regret? It seemed so. Their tradition of behaviour was said to sit more lightly, to allow a wider freedom to their blood.

  He thought of himself now. Was that his trouble? Had he sprung from warmer, more passionate soil than Hayburns and Moorhouses? Was his Viennese blood at war with his Scottish upbringing? This pleased him; made him interesting to himself. And Denise, of course, was French. That was why—

  Why what? He sighed, then turned to go inside. This did not help him in his present trouble. He loved Denise St. Roch with all the wildness of a boy’s first love. He could not bear the thought of ever losing her. He had never dreamt that she did not mean to be his wife. Now she had told him that she could not. And yet, did she not love him? Not desire him? She must be shown she could not turn away like this.

  He flung himself down in his chair by the window. The tensions of the day had left him very tired. But he must fight, must think of something! Work out a plan.

  As he sat thus slouching and exhausted, Robin felt resourceless and confounded. At twenty the flesh may be adult, while the mind continues adolescent. Robin’s feet had never yet stood on the ground. The story that Denise had sold for him would yield the first moneys he had ever earned.

  He stretched out his legs in front of him. Drew them in again, sat forward, and threw back his hair. Flung himself back again, then recommenced these antics. But all this did not help. Was there to be no way out? Might Denise go at any time without a struggle? That was impossible. He could not allow that. What then?

  But insensibly his instinct had been swinging on its pivot. There was one way he could take. In all the troubles he had ever known, he had turned to his Scottish parents. They had never failed to help him, even although along with help might come a sharp reproof.

  There was nothing left, it seemed, then, but to beg of them to help him now. He would hide nothing. He would say exactly what had happened. He would tell them of his love for Denise; how wonderful she was; of her love for him; and how, already, and however she might see it, their lives were bound together. Tell them that somehow she must be made to see that marriage was the only thing. That this new cult of irresponsible freedom would end in breaking his heart! Now, in his pain and fear of losing her, Robin was even prepared to say that, despite encouragement and promise, he would give up all thought of being a writer; that he would come home and, without another word, try to fulfil his father’s plans.

  In his trouble, he had quite forgotten his romantic blood. His Viennese beginnings. These dreams were sweet and flattering to dream of. But such dreams do not always help their
dreamers. They cannot force reluctance. They cannot take up pens and sign paternal cheques. Nor are they always there, when young bewilderment would turn to them for refuge.

  His Scottish parents could not like his letter. His father would at first be swept by a storm of anger. But, as Robin now told himself with self-dramatising weariness, for the sake of Denise, there was nothing left for him to do but brave this angry storm. And in the end even his father would come to see he had no choice but help him.

  And Denise meanwhile? He would treat her fondly, and with understanding. Gently try to prove to her that they were made the one for the other, that it was impossible to think of ever parting.

  The soft night wind ballooned the net curtains at the open window. Down in the garden Grimaldi was spitting at an enemy. The clock in the Cathedral of St. Michel struck twelve long strokes. Was it as late as that already?

  Robin drew himself slowly to his feet, crossed to his table, and sat himself down to write a letter to Sir Henry Hayburn.

  Chapter Nineteen

  AS she happened to be out in front of the new house, Lady Hayburn took the letters from the postman.

  The old man was glad to have a look at this new mistress of Whins of Endrick, standing thus bareheaded in the morning sunshine. “Ye’ll be richt pleased to be oot here in this bonny place, Mum, after leevin’ in a dirty town like Glesca.”

  Phœbe laughed. “I’m very fond of Glasgow. Even if it is dirty. I’ve lived there most of my life. But I know all about the country. My father was a farmer in Ayrshire.”

  “Aye. So I’ve heard tell.”