Near Neighbours

by Molly Clavering

  “Let us agree to be one another’s benefactors, then—or should it be benefactresses—or we shall never stop arguing about it,” said Mrs. Lenox. “Oh, dear! They’ll be sending out a search party for me. I must go!”

  She hurried home, to find them all a little indignant over her desertion of them, but easily smoothed when she told them about the prospective shopping trip with Miss Balfour.

  “Well, I can quite see you and Miss Dorothea having a tremendous day,” said Murray, standing with his hands in his trousers’-pockets looking down at the five feminine members of his family in lordly male superiority. “But I thought charity began at home. What about going shopping with your youngest daughter? She looks to me more in need of it than Miss D.”

  “I know she does,” Mrs. Lenox agreed. “But this is to be an outing, Murray darling. Shopping for Holly is a penance. It ought to be kept for Lent.”

  “Oh, Mummy!” shrieked Holly.

  “Well, my dear lamb,” said her mother sadly. “Just think what we always endure when I have to buy clothes for you! How you wriggle and writhe when you are being tried on—”

  “Well, they stick pins into me! Anyone would wriggle with pins being stuck into them! And those were school clothes,” said Holly, with such vehemence that Murray removed himself ostentatiously out of the line of fire, remarking that as far as he knew spraying ought to be carried out only in the garden or the field.

  Holly turned a contemptuous shoulder on him and continued loudly to assure her mother that she was perfectly willing to be fitted with ordinary decent clothes, promising to stand as still as a statue, and suggesting that she should make a third on Mrs. Lenox’s and Miss Balfour’s expedition.

  “No, Holly dear. Certainly not,” said Mrs. Lenox so firmly that Holly gave up, and announced in the voice of a tragedy queen that she would go to bed, and would Rowan please try not to waken her when she came in.

  “Misunderstood, by Florence Montgomery,” said Murray, whereupon Holly rather spoiled her exit by making a hideous face at him. “Never mind, old Prickles!” he called after her. “I’m not proud. I’ll take you to a movie to-morrow evening, if you like.”

  Holly’s face, wonderfully restored to good humour, reappeared round the door.

  “Oh, Murray! Will you, really?” she cried. “Oh, you are an angel! Thank you!”

  “Go to bed, Holly,” said Mrs. Lenox, and Holly disappeared once more.

  “Something will have to be done about that child,” remarked Willow.

  Mrs. Lenox murmured, “Don’t be unkind, Willow,” automatically; but she, too, thought that something would have to be done about Holly, and wondered just how it was to be accomplished. Even Madame Perrot, she felt, might find herself hopelessly discouraged by her new pupil.

  CHAPTER 15

  When Holly first saw Mr. Milner she wanted to giggle wildly. By an unfortunate coincidence the film which Murray, true to his promise, had taken her to see, had included in its cast a dapper little elderly gentleman who had provided a good many of the laughs. He was so like Mr. Milner that Holly had some excuse, especially as she was still at the latter end of the giggling age.

  Home upbringing and the honour of the school (a term much used by Miss Beadnell) prevailed. Holly did indeed turn absolutely purple and appeared to swell in her efforts not to laugh, and her reply to Mr. Milner’s greeting was a mumbled growl, but her mirth was invisible and inaudible.

  Mrs. Lenox observed her child’s demeanour, and not knowing its cause or realizing that she had much to be thankful for, felt despairing.

  Montagu merely supposed that Holly was shy, and as he had a kindly nature, he tried to set her at ease by talking to her without waiting for more than the minimum of reply.

  After a few agonized minutes during which she was sure she would burst, Holly began to yield to Montagu’s spell.

  With her mother, she was having tea at Number Four, to meet Miss Balfour’s brother-in-law, and also in order that the two older ladies might fix a day for their “outing” together.

  It was misery to Holly to have to balance a sandwich or piece of cake in her saucer. Her hands felt far too large for the delicate china, and at the same time she seemed unable to hold it without slopping tea or letting crumbs and larger pieces fall on to the carpet by way of her lap.

  Mr. Milner unobtrusively provided her with a little table, saying that he liked to be able to put his cup down, and gave her a plate as well, so that she was quite comfortable, and soon ceased to bother about the stream of crumbs which kept on dropping.

  When they got up to go, her gloves slid off her knee, and he picked them up and restored them to her with a little bow, in the most grown-up manner possible.

  Once again, Holly felt that she might burst, but this time with pride and gratitude. Never before had any man stooped to pick up something she had dropped. Indeed, as the youngest, she was more accustomed to being the picker-up of the family herself.

  Though she was so overcome that she could only reward him with a wide grin, Holly had no inclination to giggle now. With one stride she had stepped out of the giggling stage. She would have many lapses, of course, but no longer would she feel impelled to giggle on every occasion.

  The only grudge which Monty Milner’s easy-going nature had allowed him to harbour against Belle had been her refusal to divorce him, and so prevent him from re-marrying and having a family. He had always cherished a longing for daughters, and he would have made a very pleasant father to his girls. He had taken a fancy to all the Lenoxes, especially the girls, and something in Holly’s gawky puppy-like youth made a particular appeal to him. Now, as he held the drawing-room door open for Mrs. Lenox, he said on impulse:

  “I wonder, Mrs. Lenox, if you would allow me to give Miss Holly lunch, on the day when you and my sister-in-law are shopping? It would be a great pleasure to me.”

  “How very kind of you, Mr. Milner,” said Mrs. Lenox, rather doubtfully, glancing at her crimson-cheeked daughter, who was twisting her only good pair of gloves into a kind of suede rope in her emotion. “But do you really think you can be bothered with her?”

  “Oh, Mummy!” muttered Holly. She knew now why girls left home.

  But Mr. Milner smiled at her very kindly before turning to her mother to say: “If Miss Holly can be bothered with an old fogy like me is the question. But I hope—”

  “Of course I can!” Holly broke in, finding her voice with a roar. “I mean, you’re not an old fogy! Oh, Mummy, do please say I may!”

  “Certainly you may, my dear,” said Mrs. Lenox, surprised but acquiescent.

  Miss Balfour, who had taken no part in this discussion, but had watched and listened with interest, now remarked placidly that she was very glad to think that Montagu would also be enjoying himself while she was.

  “That was a good idea of yours, Montagu,” she said, when Mrs. Lenox and Holly had gone. “But wouldn’t you have preferred to take one of the older girls out instead of Holly?”

  “None of them would want to come so much,” he answered. “In any case, aren’t Hazel and Rowan working? I like Holly, and it will be good for her to lunch out by herself.”

  “I daresay it will,” agreed Miss Balfour, and said that they might go upstairs and look at the top floor’s progress before James Dunlop and his friend arrived to put the finishing touches. They expected to complete the job that evening.

  Holly could hardly wait until they were home before attacking her mother on the subject of clothes.

  “Mummy, I can’t possibly go out to lunch with Mr. Milner in my navy-blue suit!” she exclaimed in the hall. “It’s terribly babyish and far too short and tight and—”

  “We’ll go and look for a suit for you to-morrow,” Mrs. Lenox promised recklessly.

  For the first time in her life Holly was not only patient but wonderfully reasonable as she and her mother toiled in and out of shops seeking a ready-made suit for her. She even showed enough interest to make the business, tiring though it
was, much less so than usual.

  Perhaps as a result of this, they returned to Kirkaldy Crescent exhausted but triumphant, and very late for tea, in a taxi, surrounded by parcels and boxes.

  Murray, who was just putting his latch-key into the lock as their cab drew up, ran down the steps to help them.

  “Good Lord!” he said, when he saw the boxes. “You’ve bought up most of Princes Street!”

  The taxi-driver, handing out parcels, grinned broadly and winked at Murray.

  “Thae weemen! They’re a’ the same when they get amang the shops!” he remarked.

  Murray paid him, adding a handsome tip, and followed Mrs. Lenox and Holly into the house.

  “No, it’s far too late for a nice cup of tea,” he said, as Willow offered to make some. “What Mummy needs—and what she’s going to have—is a whisky and soda, and not too weak.”

  “What about me?” demanded Holly.

  “I think a glass of sherry,” Murray prescribed gravely. “As you are no longer a schoolgirl.”

  “Murray! She is only sixteen—” began Mrs. Lenox weakly.

  “She’s had sherry before this, even if it’s only been in trifle,” said Murray. “It won’t do her any harm. We’ll all have some. It isn’t every day that Holly gets an outfit to go out to lunch with her boy-friend!”

  Mrs. Lenox murmured that they really should not go putting silly ideas into Holly’s head, but she was too tired to do anything but lean back and sip her whisky and soda, while the others drank sherry and asked when they were going to see the results of the shopping.

  “After supper,” Mrs. Lenox roused herself to say. “And not a moment before.”

  Accordingly, after supper, Holly paraded up and down the drawing-room under her family’s critical gaze, intensely selfconscious, but not giggling, as her mother noticed with pleasure, and trying her hardest to hold herself well.

  “I must say,” said Murray. “I would never have believed that old Prickles could look so decent! It’s miraculous!”

  “That really is a very good suit,” was Willow’s contribution.

  Hazel and Rowan were kinder to the wearer of the suit. “Holly looks quite pretty,” said Rowan, and Hazel added, “She has height, which Willow and I haven’t got, and her feet are so neat in those brown pumps.”

  “Yes, Prickles, if I’d met you in the street I wouldn’t have recognized you,” Murray concluded.

  “I think you ought to drop that silly nickname,” said Mrs. Lenox.

  “See what comes of indulging your fancy and calling your daughters outlandish names,” said her undutiful son. “Holly really asks for ‘Prickles’! Thank Heaven, there are no trees suitable for a man’s name.”

  Holly turned from the round mirror over the writing-table in which she was vainly trying to see her feet, and said with a slow considering look at her brother’s elegant form:

  “‘Spruce’ would have suited you nicely.”

  “Well done, Holly!” cried Rowan, while Hazel and Willow laughed loudly, Murray’s care for his appearance having always been a joke.

  “Ungrateful chit,” said Murray, who had joined in the laugh against himself with complete good humour.

  “Do you really and truly think I look all right?” Holly asked anxiously.

  “Not bad at all,” Murray assured her.

  “Yes, dear, you look very nice indeed,” said Mrs. Lenox. “And now please go and take them off, and do hang the suit up carefully and put the other things neatly in drawers.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Willow, suddenly. “I know what will give just the finishing touch.”

  She ran out of the room and was back again in a minute, carrying something in her hand.

  “Mummy, you know Archie gave me a pearl string when we were married,” she said. “Do you mind if I give Holly the little culture pearl necklace I got from you?”

  “No, Willow dear, of course I don’t mind,” said her mother. “It is a very kind thought and I’m sure Holly appreciates it.”

  “Oh, Willow! You don’t mean to give it to me?” said Holly, breathlessly, for Willow hated parting with her possessions. “Oh, it’s sweet of you, truly it is!”

  “There you are,” said Willow, pleased and excited. “Let me fasten it for you. Now look, isn’t that just what was needed?”

  Holly stood facing them in the suit of soft brown tweed and the coral-red jersey of thin wool, the plain brown felt hat on her dark brown hair, the glossy brown court shoes on her nylon-covered feet, the pale hogskin gloves on her hands, and the little string of cultured pearls round her neck.

  “You—you’re all so—so awfully nice to me!” she blurted out, and huge tears suddenly began to roll down her flushed cheeks.

  “Too much excitement, and tired out,” remarked Mrs. Lenox briskly. “Now, Holly, don’t cry all over your new clothes, my pet. Come and I’ll help you to change. In fact, I think you’d better go straight off to bed.”

  She led Holly, still weeping silently into her handkerchief, away, and the four older ones stared at one another, uneasily conscious that they were not always “awfully nice” to their young sister.

  “Poor Prickles! I’ve never seen her so overcome,” exclaimed Murray, lighting a cigarette to hide the fact that he himself was not untouched by Holly’s unexpected tears.

  “Prickles or not, Holly has a heart as soft as—as butter,” declared Hazel.

  “The pearls did add the finishing touch, just as you said. She’s terribly pleased with them, Willow, and I do think it was nice of you to give them to her,” said Rowan.

  “Oh, it wasn’t anything, really,” Willow protested. “After all, I’ve got the real ones that Archie gave me.”

  “All the same,” as Rowan said later, when Willow was not in the room. “A little time ago Willow would never have thought of lending those pearls to Holly, far less giving them! Willow’s got much nicer since she knew she was going to have Miss Dorothea’s flat. Don’t you think so?”

  Murray and Hazel, to whom she was speaking, agreed.

  “I expect it’s because she feels happier and more settled. It’s much easier to be nice when you’re happy,” said Hazel, stifling a sigh.

  Rowan, the only one to guess that Hazel was not happy, said quickly. “That applies to a lot of us, but people like you are just the same whether you’re happy or not.”

  “Hullo! Haloes being dished out?” Murray said with lively interest. “What about one for me? I’m sure I’m always sunny and sweet.”

  “You, you stony-hearted ruffian!” Rowan cried, dealing him an affectionate thump; “I don’t believe anything makes you really unhappy.”

  “Well, I’m sure I hope not. I’d just as soon be happy,” said he.

  Then, as Hazel quietly left the room, he looked at Rowan. “D’you mean Hazel’s unhappy?” he asked, uneasily.

  Rowan nodded. “I’m afraid so. But don’t let her see that you know it, Murray, please. She would simply hate that, and she’s battling on—”

  “A young man?”

  “Yes,” said Rowan, and now it was her turn to sigh. “First and last, your sex causes us poor females most of our troubles.”

  “Here, not you too, my Rowan-tree?” cried Murray, in alarm.

  “Not badly like Hazel,” Rowan admitted.

  “What’s wrong? Lord Byron cutting up rough?”

  “Poor Angus! He is being terribly difficult.”

  “I must say if I knew my young woman was calling me ‘poor Murray’ in that smug pitying way I’d be difficult myself,” said Murray, severely.

  “You don’t know anything about it,” Rowan told him. “And I’m not Angus’s young woman.”

  “I’m hubbled, I’m bubbled, bamboozled and bit,” declared Murray. “I thought you were.”

  “So does Angus, that’s the trouble.”

  “Well, do you want to tell me about it? Bring all your little problems to Auntie Heartsease, and she’ll solve them for you.”

  “Murray
, you are an idiot!” said Rowan, laughing, but thinking how much easier Angus would be to deal with if he could only fool like Murray now and then. “I don’t mind telling you, but it’s all so silly!”

  “It always is,” replied the oracle austerely. “Go on. Cough it up.”

  “Murray, I don’t know where you collect all these—these—out-of-date vulgarisms! Yes, well, I’m going to tell you. When the dancing team was picked,” began Rowan, “Angus and I were made partners, and the girl he used to dance with wasn’t picked at all. I think she was jealous, for she said some rather nasty things about Angus to me, and I said that as long as he was a good dancer, nothing else about him mattered much. I’d only seen him that one evening, and I didn’t know him at all.”

  “Fair comment. The dancing was what mattered,” said Murray. “Go on.”

  “After I went to Kersland Angus met this girl somewhere and she told him what I’d said.”

  “Good Lord, what a storm in an egg-cup! Is that all?”

  “It would be nothing,” Rowan said, sadly, “if it weren’t that Angus has this inferiority complex or whatever it is, and I dare say she made it sound as bad as she could.”

  “‘Nor Hell a fury’, etc. All right, go on.”

  “Angus wrote me an absolute stinker,” said Rowan. “It made me simply furious. One of the things he said was that he hoped he’d never see me again.”

  “So the first thing you did when you got home was to ring him up and arrange for a meeting,” said Murray. “In order to quarrel.”

  “No. I didn’t. He did,” Rowan answered simply. “I said I thought we’d be better to keep away from each other—at least for a bit. Only—you see, the dancing classes begin soon, and we’ve enrolled in the Mixed Advanced as partners, so it’s very awkward.”

  “Well,” said Murray. “My advice to you is—don’t turn up at it.”

  “Murray!” Rowan was aghast. “But it would mean Angus couldn’t dance!”

  “What of it? Perhaps it would teach him not to be such a baby,” said Murray, hard-heartedly. “Anyhow, that’s what I’d do if I were you. Trust your Auntie Heartsease, ducky. Auntie knows.”