Near Neighbours

by Molly Clavering

  When it got too dark to do any more, she was amazed to find that it was time for bed. She tidied everything, left a thermos of hot milk on the hall table for Willow, had her bath and crept to bed, where, to her surprise, she fell asleep quite soon.

  Waking the next morning with a sense of impending doom, and remembering at once what had happened, was bad. Trying to appear perfectly normal at the Hospital was worse, but somehow Hazel got through the day, and those that followed, and by night was too tired to lie awake.

  Adam was duly appointed as assistant to Mr. Sidney Prentice, and disappeared from Orthopaedic Out-Patients in a cloud of glory, congratulated by everyone, and Hazel was glad to know that she would no longer have to see him at frequent intervals during the long working day.

  Her own holiday would begin on Christine’s return to duty, and she was now looking forward to going to Kersland as eagerly as she had formerly dreaded it, and for the same reason. It would take her away from Adam Ferrier.

  She made no mention of her unhappiness to anyone, but went about in her quiet self-contained way. The only hint she gave was in a letter to Rowan, when she wrote that Adam was now working in a different part of the Hospital and she never saw him at all. Rowan would know what she meant without further explanation, and would spare her any allusion to him.

  So the days dragged on. Archie came home from sea and Murray from St. Andrews, and Hazel packed a suitcase and took the train to Kersland.

  CHAPTER 14

  Rowan, when she read Hazel’s letter, was very sorry. Something must have happened, but if Hazel did not want any questions asked or sympathy offered, then she should not be troubled by either.

  Rowan had a problem of her own just at the time. It annoyed rather than distressed her, but it took something of the gold from the warm harvest weather.

  When Angus Todd had gone North to do a month’s work on an Aberdeenshire farm with other agricultural students, he had said: “I suppose you won’t bother to write to me?” in his resentful fashion.

  “Of course I’ll write if you write to me. I always answer letters,” Rowan had said.

  A picture postcard giving his address had come, and Rowan, who felt that this could not be considered a letter, sent him a postcard in return, a picture of Melrose Abbey, which she and Holly had visited by bus.

  The response to this was startling. Writing savagely enough for his pen to make holes in the paper, Angus accused her of caring so little about him that she could only send him a picture postcard. In fact, she did not care for him at all, having said that all that mattered to her was his dancing; and for his part he hoped never to see her again.

  Rowan read this effusion as she walked slowly along the little dusty road between high hedges nodding with purple-black elderberries.

  “Goodness gracious!” she exclaimed aloud. “What an idiot Angus is! I wonder what’s bitten him now?” Then she laughed. “Midges, poor dear, I expect!”

  All the same, she thought, Angus really could not he allowed to get away with this sort of thing. When she wrote back, it was very coolly, and she made no comment on his hope that they would never see one another again.

  “What a nuisance men are!” she said to Hazel, one morning after the latter’s arrival. “I sometimes wish all the inhabitants of the globe were women.”

  Hazel laughed and told her to stop talking nonsense; and as Rowan’s main object was to amuse Hazel, she laughed too and changed the subject.

  The Lenoxes were staying, as they always did, at a big farm, Muirhouse, which faced south across a wide expanse of rolling ridges to the distant Cheviots. Mrs. Roxburgh, the farmer’s bustling, capable wife, was their friend, and made them feel as free as if they were at home, but without any household cares and tasks.

  This last fortnight of country days and cool, quiet nights drifted by, more quickly now that the holiday was coming to an end. The four Lenoxes spent them each in her own way.

  Mrs. Lenox, who had a few old friends in the neighbourhood, went out to comfortable talk and tea, with an occasional mild game of bridge. Hazel and Rowan wandered about the fields and side-roads, or picked plums for jam if they felt energetic, or lay in the orchard grass reading Victorian romances. Holly helped with the harvest, getting browner almost hourly, and for some unknown reason larger, unless it was her bursting health which made her look as if she were liable to split every garment she possessed.

  The results of the Highers were out, and Holly, though without distinction, had obtained a reasonable number of credits. She seemed to consider that this justified her going about like a tramp from morning till night and said so every time her appearance was criticized, until Mrs. Lenox lost patience.

  “I can’t see what passing your Highers has got to do with it,” she said one evening when Holly had sat down to supper wearing a pair of grey flannel trousers so tightly stretched over her exuberant form that they looked as though she had been poured into them, and a faded yellow shirt with a large rent under one arm. “And in any case, Miss Beadnell said in her letter to me, that you could have got distinction in several subjects if you had worked a little harder.”

  “For a product of higher education,” said Rowan, laughing, “you do look a bit uncouth, I must say, Holly.”

  “I don’t bother about what I look like,” Holly answered, unnecessarily. “I’m going to be a nurse, so my looks don’t matter.”

  “Holly dear, when you talk like that you sound as if you were twelve years old,” said her mother, and went on rapidly:

  “And it will be at least a year before you can start nursing, so I have arranged for you to go to classes this winter.”

  Mrs. Lenox, thankful that she no longer had this announcement hanging over her, hurried on before her youngest daughter could break into loud expostulation.

  “I know this may come as rather a surprise to you, Holly, but please think before you begin to make a fuss about it.”

  Holly bent her face, on which the crimson of mortification joined with sunburn to produce an alarming purple effect, over her plate, and muttered sulkily: “Think? How can I think? All I know is it’s beastly. I’ve left school. Why should I go to another one?”

  “This isn’t school,” Mrs. Lenox said with patience. “You are going to classes in a private house, with Madame Perrot, the wife of one of the professors at the University.”

  “French?” cried Holly, in tones of scorn and loathing. “It would be. I hate French worse than anything—”

  “French conversation,” said her mother. “It will be quite different from learning irregular verbs. And Madame Perrot will take you to concerts and theatres too. She is a charming and cultured woman, and I am sure you will enjoy being with her.”

  Hazel said suddenly, “I think you’re jolly lucky. We never had anything like this.”

  If one of the others had spoken, Holly would have retorted angrily without hesitation; but somehow Hazel could say these things and not give offence, perhaps because she attached no hidden meaning to them.

  Mrs. Lenox snatched at this life-line, with a grateful look at its thrower.

  “I couldn’t manage it for you older ones,” she said, with real regret. “Holly just happens to be lucky because she is the youngest.”

  “Lucky!” growled Holly, twisting her round face horribly in an attempt to sneer. But the first fury at the proposal had left her, and her mother and sisters recognized this as a conventional expression of disapproval, and prudently began to talk of other matters.

  Holly cut a generous slice of fruit-cake, and with it in her hand, mumbled a perfunctory “’Scuse me, please,” and crashed out of the room.

  A moment later they saw her pass the window, cramming cake into her mouth as she went, and slouching along in faithful imitation of the ploughman’s stride.

  “Off to the stackyard again, I suppose,” Mrs. Lenox said, despairingly. “If Madame Perrot could see her now she would never have accepted her as a pupil!”

  “Oh, Holly’s
all right, Mummy,” said Rowan, with the easy confidence of youth. “She’s at the awkward age. She’ll tone down.”

  “It is to be hoped so,” replied Mrs. Lenox.

  Loud and long were Holly’s lamentations when the day of their return to Edinburgh came. She wanted to stay on at Kersland and work on the land; she hated town and didn’t want to go to Madame Perrot’s stuffy classes; she liked Muirhouse, where at least she had a room of her own.

  “Rowan’s quite decent, but I don’t like having to share a bedroom with her,” she announced, as Mrs. Lenox was packing.

  “I don’t suppose Rowan likes sharing a room either, though she is very good about it,” said Mrs. Lenox. “—No, Holly, I am not going to take those dreadful trousers home. I shall give them to Mrs. Roxburgh for the first tramp who comes to the door—and it is worse for Rowan, not only because she is older, but because you are so terribly untidy.”

  “I’d keep a room of my own tidy. At least, I’d try to,” said Holly.

  Mrs. Lenox agreed that Holly had some grounds for grievance in this respect and was too honest not to admit it.

  “I know it is very awkward,” she said. “And I am truly sorry about it, Holly. I mean to try to do something, if you will just have a little patience.”

  She spoke as she would have spoken to Rowan or Hazel, and Holly, feeling agreeably mature, said, “All right. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

  But it was high time that she did do something definite about the crowded condition of Number Six, Mrs. Lenox thought. She must harden her heart and tell Willow and Archie to look for somewhere to live, and with this resolution as her companion she walked into the hall of her house and greeted her married daughter.

  Everyone knows what a shock it is to think that there is one more step than really exists on the stair, and having the floor come up with jarring suddenness underfoot. Even worse is to lift some object which one expects to be heavy, and which rises and hits one in the face because of its lightness. Mrs. Lenox felt as if either or both of these things had happened to her, when, as she kissed her, Willow said rapturously:

  “Oh, Mummy! Archie and I have got a flat! Isn’t it marvellous? The top floor at Miss Dorothea’s!”

  It was like an answer to prayer, in Mrs. Lenox’s opinion, but the surprise left her without a word to say.

  “You don’t mind, Mummy, do you?” Willow sounded a little dashed. “We shall only be next door, after all—”

  “Of course not, my dear,” said her mother, heartily. “I think it’s a splendid plan. How clever of you!”

  “It was Miss Dorothea’s idea, and partly Mr. Milner’s,” Willow answered. “You haven’t seen Mr. Milner yet, of course.”

  Before Mrs. Lenox could speak, Holly, who had gone in search of something to stave off the pangs of hunger until supper, emerged from the pantry with a handful of biscuits.

  “Who’s Mr. Milner?” she asked.

  “Miss Dorothea’s brother-in-law,” said Willow, rather impatiently. “I told you about him in my letters.”

  “You never told me,” said Holly, with her mouth full.

  “Well, never mind,” Mrs. Lenox said. “Here’s something much more interesting. Willow and Archie are going to live next door, on the top floor of Number Four.”

  “You’ve made a poem, Mummy, or at least a rhyme,” said Holly, interested. “Live next door, on the top floor, of Number Four.” Then she suddenly grasped the significance of Mrs. Lenox’s rhyme.

  “I say!” she exclaimed. “Then I’ll be able to have a bedroom of my own!”

  Willow was offended. “That’s all you think about,” she said, crossly. “I don’t believe you’re a bit sorry that I’m going away.”

  “What is there to be sorry about?” asked Holly, opening her eyes wide. “Married people always have houses of their own. And anyway, you’re only going next door.”

  It was exactly what Willow had just said to her mother, but somehow it sounded quite different when Holly said it in such a matter-of-fact way.

  “Please don’t start quarrelling the moment you see each other,” said Mrs. Lenox rather wearily. “Holly, you can spend the time until supper unpacking, and please put your things away tidily. Willow dear, come with me and tell me all about the flat and how you have been getting on, while I unpack my own cases.”

  What Willow had to tell pleased her mother very much. Miss Balfour had evidently proved a most kind and helpful neighbour; and this offer of the flat had come just at the right time.

  “You have managed wonderfully, dear,” said Mrs. Lenox, when Willow had reached the end of her account. “I think you have been extremely clever and hard-working.”

  “I didn’t do such an awful lot of work. Hazel and Rowan helped—more than their share,” said Willow, impelled to confession. “And I—I was very extravagant to start with, Mummy. Miss Dorothea helped me or I wouldn’t have managed well at all.”

  “You didn’t have to borrow money from Miss Dorothea, I hope?”

  “No, Mummy.”

  “And you aren’t owing the shops, are you?”

  Willow shook her head. “No. I got out of the mess once Miss Dorothea talked things over with me.”

  Again Mrs. Lenox felt a wave of gratitude to her neighbour sweep over her. She had no intention of probing further into Willow’s difficulties. They were over—Willow would never have said they were if this had not been the case—and the child might have said nothing about them at all if she had chosen.

  “Tell me more about the flat,” she said, sitting down in front of her dressing-table, once more covered with her familiar tortoiseshell brushes, combs and boxes, and beginning to tidy her hair. “Will it be long before it’s ready for you?”

  Willow was only too pleased to embark on a detailed description of the flat—“all pale grey and pale yellow and white”—and she didn’t think it would be long now, because two painters were doing the work in their spare time. “I don’t know why,” she ended. “They seem to want to pay Miss Dorothea back for something she did. She does do kind things, you know, Mummy.”

  “I know she does,” said Mrs. Lenox, and meant it.

  She lost no time in going next door to see Miss Balfour. When supper had been eaten and washed up, and the younger members of the family, all at home for once, had sat down to play canasta, Mrs. Lenox took the dozen new-laid eggs and the pat of fresh butter churned that morning by Mrs. Roxburgh, and went to Number Four.

  Miss Balfour welcomed her with evident pleasure, and was full of regret that “Montagu” was not in; but Mrs. Lenox, however curious she might have been to see this brother-in-law who had so suddenly and it seemed mysteriously appeared on the scene, was glad to know that she could talk to Miss Balfour undisturbed.

  Miss Balfour accepted the eggs and butter very gratefully, and asked how Kersland was looking with interest, but not at all wistfully.

  “As lovely as ever,” said Mrs. Lenox. “I don’t think there can have been much change there since you saw it.”

  “Ah, my dear! The place may not have changed, but the people must have. I doubt if I would know a soul there now.”

  “Some of the old people have died, of course,” said Mrs. Lenox. “And a few—surprisingly few—of the younger ones have left. But I’m sure you would find some there who were children when you used to stay at Kersland.”

  And she leaned forward and said, as impulsively as any of her daughters might have spoken, and with the same eager friendliness:

  “Miss Dorothea, do forgive me, but why do you always talk as if you were eighty?”

  “Montagu asked me that the other day,” said Miss Balfour with a smile. “And what I said to him was that I had no idea I did. After all, sixty-eight is quite a good age.”

  “Sixty-eight? Why, it’s nothing! You are so well, and your mind is so clear and young, and you aren’t a bit old-fashioned in your outlook! It’s just—don’t be angry with me!—it’s just your clothes and your hair that make you look like a
n old lady, and that’s why you talk as if you were one.”

  “My sister was always very severe about mutton dressed as lamb,” said Miss Balfour.

  “Yes, and she was right. But there is a happy medium,” suggested Mrs. Lenox hopefully. “I wish you’d let me help you to choose some nice clothes, Miss Dorothea, to make the best of yourself.”

  Miss Balfour was silent long enough for Mrs. Lenox to fear that she had offended her, and to remember that this was not what she had come to talk about at all.

  “Do you know, I think it would be great fun,” said Miss Balfour suddenly. “I mean, to buy some nice clothes with you to advise me. But one thing I am absolutely determined about,” she added, so firmly that she sounded quite fierce. “I will not have my hair chopped about and given a ‘perm’ or whatever the thing’s called. I have no wish to look like an elderly Jezebel.”

  “I didn’t know that Jezebel had a perm,” said Mrs. Lenox.

  “Possibly not, but you do know perfectly well what I mean,” replied Miss Balfour in a stately manner. “After all, I wonder if I really would care to go shopping with you when you make a mock of me like this?”

  “Of course you would! We’ll have a lovely time, and I’ll give you lunch somewhere really good and much too expensive,” Mrs. Lenox said.

  The grandfather on the stairs began to strike, and Mrs. Lenox, with a glance at the little French gilt clock ticking fussily on a marble-topped table, exclaimed in horror: “Ten o’clock! And I’ve never even begun to say what I really came for! I must do it now, and then fly home to my neglected family. Dear Miss Dorothea, I do thank you so very, very much for your goodness to Willow. I know you helped her over the housekeeping, for she told me so, and now the flat! What would Number Six do without you? I am most truly grateful.”

  “There is no need, my dear,” said Miss Balfour. “You and your family have brought so much gaiety and brightness to this dull house and to me, that the boot is on the other foot.”