Friends and Lovers (38 page)

He sat down beside his father’s bed. This too he had done a thousand times before … He stayed there for over an hour.

Margaret heard him as he was leaving. Perhaps she had been waiting for this moment. She came running downstairs, and caught his arm with some show of affection. Why hadn’t she done that when he had arrived, instead of treating him as if he had been an interfering stranger?

“Must you go back to Oxford tonight?” she asked half worriedly, half pathetically.

“If Miss. Rawson allows me to have my room I’ll stay here as I planned.”

“She has been such a good friend, David.”

“A better friend would have left the family alone tonight.”

“But she has been so wonderful. She made all the arrangements about the funeral this afternoon.”

David looked very hard at his sister.

“I came to town to do that,” he said briefly.

“And it was Florence who ‘phoned you this afternoon about Father.” “I know,” he said, and this time he could not keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“And she spoke with the Vicar too, didn’t she, when he came to call about the church service?”

“She was such a help, really, especially when there was no man in the household to take charge.” David said nothing.

“Look, David, I’ll make up a bed for you on the sitting-room couch.

After all we have a lot to talk about.”

“We can talk about business matters at the weekend. After Friday.”

Friday was the day that Rawson had arranged for his father’s funeral.

“I’ll make plans to stay in town until Sunday.”

There was coldness in his voice, and Margaret sensed his revulsion.

She drew apart from him, letting her strong white fingers drop from his arm.

“Don’t take it so hard, David. After all we both knew that some day soon he would die. It is a miracle that he did live so long. And he died so peacefully. David, don’t!”

David said harshly, “We might have been living on another planet for all the use we were to him when he did die.”

“But I’ve told you already that he seemed better this morning. He was all right when I left to go to the Bach Society luncheon. When Florence and I came back here we found him–-”

” When he became ill last Sunday evening, why did you not let me know?”

“I’ve told you already that I thought it was nothing serious. You know how he had these ups and downs. He would not let me even call a doctor on Monday. He seemed to be improving. And then, to-day …” “Yes, I know,” David said heavily. But all the telling in the world would not drive away this sense of guilt. Didn’t Margaret have it too? He stared at her. In her face there was more unhappiness than grief. And in that moment the last spark of affection which he had for her nickered and went out; “I’ll see you on Friday,” he said abruptly, and left her.

The lamplight shone meanly over Cory’s Walk, plunging the end houses in a dark pool of shadow. His footsteps echoed loudly on the lonely pavement, and quickened. But even in the busier street he still saw his father’s quiet face, so white and somehow so much younger with all its surface strangely smoothed out by death. He remembered the still room, the piles of magazines no longer to be read, the books and newspapers for ever abandoned.

His sense of failure grew. What he must do for Margaret, he suddenly realized, would be done not out of affection that had died too tonight but from this sense of having failed his father at a time when his father needed him. He must not fail with Margaret now. That would be another failure towards his father.

He began to see what must be done. Margaret’s secret grudge against life was that she never had a chance. She felt she had been cheated, first by her father’s illness, which had impoverished them, secondly by her mother’s death. Now she was convinced that she would have been a brilliant success as a concert pianist if only she had been given the opportunity. And the only way to stop a lifetime complaint of ‘might have been’ or ‘would have been’ was to give her the chance to prove to herself her real value. The Rawson woman would not be a problem then: she was only a part of Margaret’s present pattern of insecurity. Take away Margaret’s grudge against life, the feeling that she was the victim of a world dominated by men, and Rawson’s power to influence would be ended.

It was a theory at least, David decided, as he entered the Underground and joined the small queue for tickets, and i was a theory that might work.

Some theory had to be pu into practice.

Otherwise Margaret’s life would be permanently twisted. People who kept telling themselves that they nevei had a chance seemed to use up as much of their energie; excusing their failure that they had little power left t( surmount it.

He looked at the faces of the hurrying crowd around him wondering curiously what lay behind these masks. It see me the same kind of crowd which had jostled past him las Sunday. Then he had been happy and confident, and they ha appeared to him to be as carefree as himself. Now he realize they hid the knowledge of death and suffering as well as thi experience of joy and life.

It was strange how a human beinj could forget that so easily, perhaps because individual mai tended to think that his experiences were in some way unique He would admit that others had sorrow or happiness too, bu not in this way, or at this time, or even to such a degree; for this was the mark of his individuality. It was the reason, for instance, that a man who had never known any serious illness and who entered a hospital for the first time in his lift was shocked and amazed to discover that there were sc many rooms in so many long corridors, so many wards witt endless rows of beds, all filled with suffering. And not onl) during these days when he knew pain too, but during the days that went before and the days that came after, when he wa; well and unthinking of pain. Before, he did not allow himself member that the suffering was always there. For only by for to imagine, and afterwards, he tried very hard not to re getting unhappiness and by concentrating on hope could i man struggle through his life. The determined optimist or th potential suicide: there was only that choice.

A train roared with express speed into the station. A mar caught David’s arm roughly, and pulled him from the edg< of the platform as the train rushed past and the air suckec round their bodies.

“Bit too close there,” the man said. He watched David’s haggard face carefully.

David nodded.

The man released his grip on David’s arm and movec away. Probably it was only by chance that the young cha; had walked so near the edge of the platform as the express came through the station, but for a moment it had looked like one of those suicides you read about in the papers. The man, middle-aged, mildly prosperous, judging from his neat blue suit and well-fed body, turned at a polite distance to look at that young chap again. He was all right now: the young fool was keeping a reasonable distance from the edge; he was standing still, too, as if he had got a bit of a shock. Here was their train, anyway.

David, suddenly recovering from the paralysis which had attacked him as the express had disappeared with its high whistle into the dark circle of tunnel, moved forward to board the train with the crowd.

The man in the blue suit followed him, found a seat, and, after one last glance at the chap who had nearly got himself killed, opened his newspaper.

He had almost begun reading it while he was waiting on the platform. Good job he hadn’t.

David, grasping the chromium rail by which he stood, felt the reaction strike him. What a damned silly thing to do, he thought. He could feel, even now, the rush of the train bearing down on the platform, the violent breath of wind which pulled at him as that middle-aged man had held him by the arm. He hadn’t even thanked the man properly; but it was only now that he fully realized the danger and only now that he could be properly grateful. He looked at his taut hand grasping the rail, sensed the tenseness of his body.

“Well, you are still here,” he told himself, ‘and all in one piece.” He must be one of the determined optimists of this world after all, for there was relief in his words.

He telephoned Penny from Paddington. The maid at Baker House was not very forthcoming. It was too late for any messages to be delivered to any room.

Too late. Against the rules. Too late. She wasted more time and energy in telling him about the rules of the house than she would have done in going to fetch Penelope.

He caught his train with a minute to spare, settled himself gloomily in the corner seat of an empty compartment. It was unheated and draughty, and under the poor light the dusty upholstered seats looked a stained and dirty grey.

He had a book with him, but he didn’t even try to read. He stared out of the window, his eyes noting the crowding shapes of the tall houses almost edging on to the railway line: the made more ugly by their desolation at this time of rows of poorly lit houses giving way at last to groups of suburban cottages and villas with thei windows confidently pricking the darkness.

Then black stretches of fields and hedgerows, lengthen) houses became more scattered, until the shapeless sl the night blotted out distance and outline.

The c< came anonymous, and the window was a dark ruining his white, set face and the dim compartment be On Sunday he had looked at these same fields. C his father had been alive.

“We both knew that soon …” Margaret had said tonight.

Yes, we b and our minds were prepared. But sudden death v a. grim shock, for its swiftness proved to those will how insecure life was.

That was something one’s never fully prepared to face. And with that knowie security there came a sense of urgency. What you came doubly valuable: what you possessed was to b Your life then became a battle against time.

He closed his eyes wearily … All right, be prac thinking of anything except the things you must and arrange in the next few days.

You cou think in peace about those who had died. All ri Practical things. First he must arrange with Geor; row his flat for this weekend to give him a pl act Then Chaundler. He had to talk to Chaundler. The one else to ask for advice. He was searching for a re) had decided already what must be done about Mai he was still hoping that some other suggestion could which would be easier for him to follow. For not separate Penny from him. He was not going to lose His body was tired and heavy. He was heartsick a Nothing is going to separate us, he thought des per train wheels under his feet caught the rhythm of mockingly. Nothing is going to separate us, nothin to separate us.

And nothing is, he told himself. Nothing, he addec Yet the fear which had haunted him since he had t, Margaret would not lift from his heart.

Chapter Twenty-eight.

DECISION.

David had decided against Marinelli’s tonight. For one thing, it was Saturday, when the restaurant was most crowded. And, for another, Marinelli’s was enjoying success. What had once been a delightful informality was now becoming a pattern of behaviour: the newcomers, having discovered that conversation and laughter were interchanged between various tables, made a determined habit of it. So David had chosen another restaurant in Charlotte Street, where people were less numerous and prices were more expensive. Privacy was always a luxury. Tonight, even if he could afford it less than ever, he must see Penny alone.

He glanced round the dimly lighted room when he had ordered dinner.

Penny, after one glance at the menu and its price-list, had decided she wanted only an omelette. David, avoiding her look of refusal, had added hors d’oeuvre to precede the omelette, and a salad with Camembert to follow. ) He was thinking that the definition of privacy had taken on a strange meaning for him. In order to sit and talk to Penny in some peace and comfort he must share her with at least thirty other people, the sound of their voices, the subdued clatter of their plates.

Penny, watching him, saw him frown suddenly as if to cover some emotion. She became aware of the deep unhappiness and strain in his face, which until this moment he had disguised very well. But, as if he felt her sudden scrutiny, the frown was forced away and his face became expressionless once more, calm and serious above the dark suit and the black tie. She stretched one arm impulsively across the small table and let her hand rest on his for a moment.

“David,” she said, and then could not say anything more. Only a few minutes ago she had almost begun totell him her own troubles. But that would have been a mistake. He must talk first, and once he told her all his worries she could judge how much she could add to them—if at all. It began to look as if her description of job-hunting, which she had planned to make as amusing as possible in the telling, was going to be quite unnecessary.

David’s hand caught hers as it moved away, and held it.

“Darling,” he said gently. And as his grip tightened, crushing the signet ring he had given her at Christmas into her little finger so that she winced, he said with a sudden rush of emotion,

“Penny, I need you. God, how I need you.” He dropped her hand then, and looked away as if his own vehemence had embarrassed him. Or was he afraid?

And of what? He had spoken as if he had been saying goodbye.

Penny, easing the ring on her finger, felt an echo of his fear.

“But you will always have me, David.”

“No matter what happens?” His eyes searched her face. His voice sounded almost desperate.

“No matter,” she said. She tried to smile.

“You will always be stuck with me. Poor old David.”

He caught her hand again and held it. Gently this time, but firmly.

“Every day I am away from you I keep imagining you as I last saw you.

I keep remembering how wonderful, how truly wonderful, you are. Then I meet you again, and you look the way you do, and you speak, and your eyes light up for me; and I realize that when I was thinking of you, wanting you, I never had imagined how wonderful you really are. You are better than any dreams of you.”

There was a pause. Penny’s hand stirred in his, and then relaxed.

“What were you thinking?” he asked, watching her eyes.