Near Neighbours

by Molly Clavering

  “Too late now,” said Rowan cheerfully. “And Mrs. B. isn’t a breaker, luckily. I say, Willow, about those coffee cups. I’m sure Miss Dorothea would lend us some.”

  She made the suggestion a little nervously, knowing how Willow rather scoffed at their affection for their next-door neighbour, but to her surprised relief Willow thought it a good idea.

  “I think we might ask Miss Dorothea if she would like to come,” she added, even more surprisingly. “At least for supper. She could go away whenever she liked—and I hope to Heaven we don’t break her coffee cups!”

  “Why should we? Are you going to ask her?”

  “No. I think it should be you,” said Willow. “You know her better than I do.”

  So Rowan, pausing only to untie her apron and throw it down in the hall, ran next door.

  She was back in a few minutes, carrying a basket and bubbling over with news.

  “Willow!” she called, as soon as she banged the front door behind her. “I’ve got them. And Miss Dorothea would love to come, and she asked if she could bring her brother-in-law, Mr. Milner, so, of course, I said yes, certainly. Anyway, we’d have been thirteen without him, so it’s just as well. But Willow! He’s the funny little man I told you about last week—I can’t believe he was Mrs. Milner’s husband!”

  “He must have been,” Willow said, unpacking the basket. “But I always thought Mrs. Milner was a widow—what pretty cups!” she added, putting a little pink and gold one on its saucer. “I’m afraid they must be good—yes, Dresden,” she ended in a tone of despair, after looking at the mark on the bottom of a cup. “We’re bound to damage them!”

  “Don’t be so gloomy, my Weeping Willow,” said Rowan. “Miss Dorothea said would we like Edna to help, because it would be a kindness to have her! Edna loves a party, it seems. So I said, yes, please. She’ll help with the pouring out and handing round and the washing-up afterwards, so if Miss Dorothea’s Dresden china does get broken, which Heaven forbid, with any luck it will be Edna who breaks it!”

  “Really, Rowan, it’s a good thing you aren’t as terrible as the things you say,” Willow remarked.

  But Rowan only laughed and said they must have some tea at once, otherwise she would not be able to leave the meringues alone.

  CHAPTER 10

  Parties, like pastry, need a light hand if they are to be successful. The Lenoxes had a real gift for entertaining, for much practice had made them all highly skilled in party preparations, from shifting furniture to arranging flowers and making good food. They did everything with much goodwill and apparently little effort, and so were able to receive their guests with unruffled pleasure, instead of looking, as too many hostesses and hosts are apt to nowadays, as if they had been working like slaves until the bell rang.

  “It was indeed kind of your young neighbours to include me in their invitation,” said Montagu Milner, handing Miss Balfour up the steps of Number Six with solicitous care.

  Greatly to his disappointment, Rowan had told him “not evening dress”; but he had compromised by putting on a plum-coloured velvet smoking jacket, his evening trousers, a soft shirt with a pleated front and a black bow-tie. His patent leather pumps shone glossily, and altogether he presented such a dazzling picture of days gone by, as Murray afterwards described it to his sisters, “that I damn’ nearly told the old boy he’d come to the wrong house.”

  However, as he held the door open, Murray concealed his delighted surprise and handed them on to the reception committee consisting of Hazel and Rowan. Willow, as the eldest and the married one, was waiting in the drawing-room, where the rugs had been lifted, and tables and chairs pushed into corners to leave the floor clear for dancing.

  Willow was enjoying herself hugely. Micky Grant, the first to arrive, was standing beside her, giving her the long slow looks which said things utterly at variance with his careless half-mocking remarks.

  When Rowan, at the door, said: “Here are Miss Dorothea and Mr. Milner, Willow,” Micky muttered, “Why can’t we be left in peace for a few minutes? I haven’t had a chance to talk to you yet.”

  Willow gave him a bewildering smile and went to meet the new arrivals. She was feeling elated, thrilled, delighted to think that she had this power to stir Micky, who had always been so wary and off-hand, even with her.

  “Miss Dorothea!” she said, holding out both her hands. “I’m so glad you have come! And Mr. Milner—”

  She gave Montagu a quick glance from under her long lashes, making him feel a gay dog at once and not a day over forty-five.

  The front door bell rang again, and Hazel looked at Rowan in mute appeal.

  “You go on down,” said Rowan. “I’ll come in a minute.”

  She had guessed that Adam Ferrier mattered far more to Hazel than Angus did to herself. Hazel must be given the chance of meeting Adam downstairs, and if it happened to be Angus who had almost pulled the bell out by the roots to judge from its impassioned jangling, well, Murray and Hazel could deal with him, until she could leave Miss Dorothea and her brother-in-law. They were so much older than anyone else who was coming this evening, and they must be made to feel welcomed and at home. With Micky Grant lowering in the background against a huge bowl of vivid mixed dahlias on a tall stand, Willow could not really be trusted to look after anyone.

  Rowan, however, did not know about Willow’s visit to Miss Dorothea, and the feelings of liking and respect it had engendered; and she was astonished as well as pleased to see her eldest sister devoting herself to them, though she introduced Micky and tried to draw him into the conversation without much success.

  It was only for a second or two, then a babel of voices on the stairs grew louder, and all the remaining guests, together with Hazel and Murray, burst into the drawing-room. Or no, not quite all. Rowan could not see Angus among them, and she was a little annoyed.

  “Tiresome creature!” thought Rowan, but comforted herself by remembering that as it was a buffet supper they need not wait for him.

  Standing alone behind the upright piano, with her arms resting on its cool polished top, Rowan looked from one to another of the guests whom her brother and Hazel had asked to the house this evening.

  Murray’s tennis-playing friends, John Drummond and his sister Pam, she knew, and she had met their friend, Susan Rattray.

  The interesting ones were Hazel’s lot. Christine Rennie, who had been at Greg’s and so was an old acquaintance, could be set aside. It was Hazel’s Adam Ferrier, the young surgeon, whom Rowan wanted to see. Which of the two strange young men was he? One was tall, with thick fair hair, the other was slight, good-looking, and brown.

  Rowan decided that the fair one was Adam Ferrier, he had a shy, abstracted air which seemed to fit what she had heard of him. And just then he raised his head and met her glance down the length of the room.

  “Goodness!” thought Rowan, momentarily shaken. “What a piercing stare! It’s the sort of look you’d expect from an eagle. Yes, that must be Hazel’s surgeon. I can just see him in the theatre, scalpel in hand.”

  She slipped from her vantage point and joined the group at the other end of the room in time to answer a loud cry of:

  “Where on earth has Rowan got to?” raised by Murray.

  “Here I am,” she said, quietly.

  “Look, Rowan, your young man’s never shown up yet,” said Murray, taking her by the arm and leading her aside. “And we can’t go on waiting for him.”

  “No, of course, we can’t. I think we should just go down and have supper. Angus can join us when he does come,” Rowan answered. “It’s very annoying of him.”

  “Supper, people!” cried Willow, leading the way with Mr. Milner.

  Murray followed with Miss Balfour, and they all trooped down to the dining-room.

  “The coffee! I’ve forgotten it! Look after Adam for me!” hissed Hazel, darting past Rowan on the stairs and leaving her beside the fair young man with the piercing eyes.

  “I’m Rowan Lenox, the third
of us. We’re called after trees,” said Rowan. “Isn’t it ridiculous? But, of course, you must know that already.”

  “I didn’t. Why should I?” he answered, in an amused voice, quite at variance with his shy look.

  “Oh, I thought Hazel would have been sure to tell you.”

  “Your sister Hazel hasn’t had much time to tell me anything,” he said. “I only met her about a quarter of an hour ago.”

  Rowan stood still, two steps above him, and looked at him. He was so tall that he was very little below her even so. “You only met Hazel quarter of an hour ago? But—you’re Adam Ferrier, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m Charles Ferrier, Adam’s cousin. I’d no idea whose house I was coming to this evening when Adam brought me,” he said. “And it was still more of a surprise to find an old client of mine here, your next-door neighbour, Miss Balfour.”

  “Oh, do you know Miss Dorothea?” Rowan was delighted. “Isn’t she a darling? We are all very fond of her.”

  “She isn’t very fond of me at the moment, I’m afraid,” he said, rather ruefully. “I’m her lawyer, as I said, and I—I spoke my mind to her the other day and she didn’t like it.”

  “I can’t imagine Miss Dorothea being angry. Have you done something awful?”

  “If you mean, have I been embezzling her money, no, I haven’t,” he said, laughing, so that his whole face lighted up and the keen eyes almost disappeared. “It’s a long story, and, of course, I can’t tell it, being business.”

  “I didn’t mean to be inquisitive,” said Rowan, with dignity, for she thought he had not known her long enough to laugh at her. “The others are all in the dining-room. Let’s go on down, shall we?”

  “Please don’t treat me harshly,” he begged, as they went down the last few steps. “I seem to have no luck with the ladies. First Miss Balfour, and now you—”

  The bell rang just then, and Rowan said, “That must be Angus at last!” but before she could go to the door, Edna, in spotless frilled apron and cap, appeared from the pantry and crossed the hall.

  “Do go on in and have something to eat,” Rowan said to Charles Ferrier. “I’ll be with you in a minute, but this is my guest so I must wait for him.”

  He nodded, and went obediently towards the open door of the dining-room, slowly enough to see the young man whom Edna was ushering in, a dark, sulkily handsome young man in a kilt, with smouldering eyes and a petulant mouth.

  “Hullo, Angus,” said Rowan coolly, giving him her hand. “So you’ve got here at last. I began to think you must have forgotten the way.”

  “I hope you haven’t waited for me?” he said.

  “Dear me, no! It doesn’t matter anyhow, as there are one or two other people here and we are having a cold stand-up supper. Come in, if you’re ready.”

  “You never told me it was a party,” he said accusingly, hanging back.

  “Oh, Angus! Don’t be so difficult!” exclaimed Rowan. “It’s only a very small party, and when you do everything yourself it’s the easiest way to entertain people. Do come on.”

  “‘Do everything yourself’!” he sneered. “And a maid in cap and apron answering the door!”

  “Edna isn’t ours,” said Rowan, more patiently than she felt. “The people from next door lent her to us for the evening—”

  “‘Lent her’—as if she were a slave! And you wonder why the Communist Party has followers?”

  “Where you ought to be is at the foot of the Mound on a Sunday evening giving tongue,” said Rowan. “Go away if you like, then. I mustn’t stay here listening to you.”

  She turned to go into the dining-room, half-hoping that he would be offended enough to leave. In his present mood he could not be considered an asset to any party—“except, of course, the Communist Party!” Rowan thought angrily.

  But after a momentary hesitation he followed her and stood gloomily apart, glaring about him.

  “Mercy! Who is the Dark Stranger?” asked Christine Rennie, who was sitting with Willow and Micky Grant, Charles Ferrier not far off.

  “It must be Rowan’s,” said Willow.

  “She gets to know some very odd types at that country dancing of hers. I don’t mean they are all odd, but she manages to pick the oddest ones.”

  “Hamlet in Highland Dress?” murmured Micky Grant with a lazy lift of his eyebrows.

  “You’re jealous, Micky dear,” Christine said. “He’s quite fantastically handsome and romantic, I think.”

  “I must go and speak to him,” said Willow. “Rowan shouldn’t have left him alone like that.”

  She flitted away, and after a short silence Christine said, “What a kind heart our Willow has!”

  “Little ginger puss,” said Micky, looking down at her through half-closed eyes. “Your claws are sharper than ever, aren’t they?”

  “When I heard that you were to be here this evening, Micky dear, I sharpened them up specially.”

  “Clever puss! Let’s go and lend a hand with the Highland Chief, shall we?”

  “All right,” said Christine.

  It was extraordinary, Charles Ferrier thought, how so many women seemed to prefer bounders, either because they didn’t recognize them as such, or because they did and still preferred them. That fellow Grant, for example. It stood out a mile that he was off-key; and another was Montagu Milner, though his was a more restrained type of bounderishness. Any man could tell at once that both Grant and old Milner were potential wrong ’uns—yet the women fell for them with a crash.

  To be fair, Charles had to admit to himself that while all he wanted in Micky Grant’s case was to land him a hearty kick where it would do most good, he could not help liking old Monty, scalawag though he was.

  “It must have taken quite a bit of doing, coming back to the office that afternoon,” he thought. “Perhaps all he wants is a home, as he says, and if he doesn’t start monkeying with the money too much, it may be all right. And he’s company for Miss Dorothea.”

  “My dear boy! This is the first opportunity I have had of getting near you. I had no idea that you would be here tonight!”

  Beaming, dapper and unquenchably friendly, Mr. Milner had bobbed up at his elbow.

  “I am equally surprised to see you, sir,” Charles replied politely. “As a matter of fact, my cousin brought me, and until we arrived, I didn’t even know I was coming to Kirkaldy Crescent.”

  “It is a delightful party. Such charming young people,” said Monty. “Did you ever see prettier girls than the Lenoxes? The only difficulty is to decide which is the most attractive. A problem even for Paris!”

  Charles thought he would give the golden apple to Rowan, and looked across at her, where she stood holding a cup of coffee.

  But something had happened to her. She had withdrawn into some secret place of her own, and it was as if a lamp had gone out or a fire died. She was just an ordinary girl with good colouring and rather irregular features, the mouth too big, the nose too short. . . . He had never seen such a change in anyone, and he wondered how the sulky boy in the kilt could go on talking to her as if he had not noticed anything—for Angus had detached himself from Willow and her followers with haste and without ceremony.

  “If everyone’s had enough to eat, shall we go and dance?” suggested Murray. “Or there’s ping-pong in the old scullery in the basement. You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

  “Dance, please!” said several voices, and with the words Charles saw Rowan come to life again. The shell was occupied, the lamp alight. “Lovely!” he heard her say.

  Miss Balfour heard her too, and thought that the word described Rowan herself that evening. Though slightly dazed by the babble of loud young voices and the rapid movement of all about her, Miss Balfour was enjoying the party as much as anyone.

  They were all so kind and attentive, and now that she had returned to the drawing-room, a comfortable seat was found for her in a corner where she could watch without any fear of having her toes trodden on.
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  Since one or two unsuccessful appearances at Edinburgh balls as an awkward girl during the first decade of the century, Dorothea Balfour had not seen any dancing. She found the performance at which she was now looking on monotonous and shuffling, and the dance music sounded harsh to her ears:

  “But, of course, it all depends on what one is accustomed to, and I am afraid I am very old-fashioned,” she said. “They are all enjoying themselves, and my brother-in-law as much as the younger people.”

  Indeed, Monty was sliding round the floor most expertly, his plum velvet arm encircling Christine Rennie’s waist, his pumps flashing, his face rosy with pleasure and exercise.

  “I think modern dancing is more for doing than for watching,” said the young man who had come to sit beside her.

  It was Charles Ferrier, and he had approached with less than his usual confidence.

  Miss Balfour, however, had forgiven him, not, as he would have expected, because she had come to see that he had been trying to guard her interests, but for the excellent feminine reason that he looked so young and shy with his hair a little ruffled.

  They talked amicably if impersonally until he went off to dance, and his place was taken by Monty, who lowered himself into a chair with a loud gasp, and mopped his brow with a fine white silk handkerchief.

  “I’m getting too old for this, Dorothea,” he said. “Short of puff!”

  “Nonsense. You were gambading like a boy,” said his sister-in-law, knowing that he was longing to be contradicted. “How well you dance, Montagu!”

  He gave a small deprecatory shake of his head, but he was pleased. Then he said: “I’m not up in these Scottish country dances, though.”

  Miss Dorothea realized that they were forming a set of two lines, and hoped privately that this would be more interesting to watch.

  For all her engrossed appearance, she was not really following the dances themselves, but the movements of two dancers, Rowan and her partner. The others knew enough to do their share without mistakes, but those two, moving like waves of the sea, like flames running through dry grass, were in some way fulfilled and released by this art that they practised with such grave delight. Rowan only became more vivid, more brilliant, but her partner was transformed. Miss Dorothea could see what his attraction was for Rowan; and when, later, he danced alone for them, she understood it even better.