A friendship of this sort is a very delicate thing, lacking the durability of one based on actually seeing one’s friend and knowing what he or she is like in a bad temper or with a snuffling cold in the head. I think, really, that we shall have to start again as people meeting for the first time (as we shall be, after all), and build up from there.
As you know, I have never told any one here that I write regularly to you and hear from you. There seemed to be no reason why I should. Mrs. Keith was the only person who would have been interested; so it will be quite easy to meet as strangers. Would you like me to call on you? No. That would be carrying it rather too far, I think.
What I should like to do is to rush over to Corseburnhead and make sure that the house is being properly aired and fired, and that the beds are not damp, but I can’t. I must just wait and see what happens, and leave it to you to come and see me. Your ingenuity is quite equal to finding a sound reason for doing so.
This letter is going by air mail, as it is of a suitable length, or rather shortness. I only wanted to tell you that the three weeks until you arrive will seem very long, and that the countryside in its sober winter livery is looking most beautiful to welcome you.
(Later) I have opened my letter to add this conversation which I have just had with Miss Marchbanks. She stopped in the middle of cleaning the brass fender in the drawing-room to look up at me as I set a bowl of evergreen leaves on the desk, and say: “You’ll be real glad to have Mr. Jamieson at Corseburnhead this Christmas.”
I was completely taken aback. “Miss Marchbanks, who told you that I know Mr. Jamieson?” I asked feebly.
She gave me a pitying look. “Och, it’s well known you and him are acquaint. All these long letters you’re always writing to him. The postmistress knows your hand fine.” And she finished kindly: “Having him in Ravenskirk’ll save you an awful lot of writing, never to mention the postage.”
You needn’t ever tell me again about the way news travels among the natives in Darkest Africa! Ravenskirk grape-vine can beat it hollow!
CHAPTER XX
JANUARY, 1953
What a pity it is that you had to rush off to London on business so soon after Christmas, Hugo, and miss the Whitburns’ dance. I do think you might have been allowed to enjoy your leave in peace, and from a purely selfish point of view, I should have found the dance much more fun if you had been there. Everyone missed you; Catherine and young Sylvia Currie were loud in their lamentations, especially Sylvia, on whom you have made a great impression! (She told me so herself, with all the solemnity of her eighteen-and-a-half years.)
However, you must not imagine that either of the young ladies wore the willow for you to any noticeable extent. They appeared to be having the time of their lives, though Sylvia, who looked ravishingly pretty in billows of white tulle and pale blue ribbons, confided to me that she felt like a baby in its christening-robe; she had begged for black velvet, and her mother had refused to let her have it. I should never have given Mrs. Currie credit for so much firmness and sense where her precious child was concerned, and I promptly told Sylvia that she would be able to indulge in black velvet twenty or thirty years from now—if she still wanted to. “The odds are, though, that you will be pining for white tulle frills by that time. I only hope your husband will have enough sense to prevent you from wearing them,” I said. “Off you go and dance.”
If such a person as the Belle of the Ball still existed, Catherine would have been it—or her, I do not know which to put, and they both look wrong, but you will gather what I mean.
There was a sort of brilliance and glow about her that evening which made her outshine every other woman in the long, holly-decked drawing-room at Chapelwood. Neither Sylvia’s childish prettiness nor Joan Whitburn’s soignée smartness could stand against it, and she had so many partners that she was dividing her dances in halves to satisfy them. It is delightful to watch a girl enjoying a real triumph in these dull days. I wish you could have been there to see it.
Another person who missed you badly was Atty. “If Hugo had been here he could have tied my tie,” he said sorrowfully. For I have to confess that not being versed in the intricacies of evening ties, I had bought (oh horror!) a made-up clip-on affair, to which I felt sure we would be reduced in the end—and we were.
On your excellent advice I had hired an evening doublet and waistcoat from Edinburgh for him, and in these and his own kilt and buckled shoes he looked very well indeed. At first he felt sure that everyone would know he had on a made-up tie, but luckily forgot all about it as soon as he heard the music, so it did not spoil his evening.
Like everything arranged by Joan Whitburn, the dance was perfectly done, the food and drink delicious, the band good, the floor not too slippery. I enjoyed it all in a quiet way, and would have been quite happy to sit and talk to Elizabeth and look at the younger people dancing without feeling a wallflower in the least. But as our hostess had in some mysterious way managed to produce enough men to go round and one or two over, I danced more than I have for years—and found I had not forgotten how to, what’s more! One dance is very like another except to those who have been present, and I think I have told you enough to let you know that the Whitburns’ party was a great success. If you really want to hear more, the best thing you can do is to ask Atty about it when you come back to Ravenskirk. He will tell you everything with a wealth of exhausting detail.
Elizabeth rang up just as Atty and I had finished our rather late breakfast, to ask how I had weathered the unaccustomed exercise of the night before, confessing herself to a certain stiffness in the joints. She seemed quite surprised when I enquired after Anthony, and said he was in his usual bounding health, adding “Why?”
“Oh, only because he seemed to be doing himself pretty well at the buffet,” I answered.
“Stuffing like a pig, I know. I saw him,” said his fond mamma with brutal frankness. “But Anthony could eat all day and all night without stopping and never be a penny the worse for it,” she ended rather proudly. “Well, it was all great fun, Sara, and I enjoyed it.”
“So did I,” I told her, and after a few more unimportant remarks we rang off, when I immediately remembered that I had not commented on Catherine’s beauty, nor on the fact that Elise Kilmartin had been there, shadowy and pale, but dancing occasionally with her host. If this gets to the ears of Miss Bonaly & Co. I am afraid Elise will be severely criticised.
I can hear you saying: “What does it matter if the old so-and-so’s do criticise her?” It is odd to think that I know now how your voice sounds, Hugo: deeper and a little slower in speech than Ivo’s, but sufficiently like his to be familiar. Just as when you walked into the drawing-room at Ladymount that afternoon a month ago, the resemblance to Ivo in face and figure struck me so sharply at first glance that I almost cried out.
Did you realise what a shock it was seeing you so like him, Hugo? Did I show it when Mrs. Keith introduced you as Ivo’s brother?
I think and hope that you did not, for it only needed a second look to show me that the likeness was not so marked as to make you nothing but “Ivo’s brother.” You hadn’t taken my hand before I was seeing you as yourself, as the friend with whom I had been exchanging letters for almost two years.
It was so wise and sensible of you to say at once: “Sara and I have never met until now, but we know one another well for all that.” I was taken aback, for a moment, and then I saw how it smoothed away any difficulties which might have arisen if I had been allowed to do as I wanted, and met you as a stranger. Dear Mrs. Keith, how pleased she was, though she did scold me a little for not having told her that we wrote to each other! And what a fool I felt, unable to explain why I hadn’t told her—I am not sure even in my own mind why, except that it seemed to concern only you and me, and it was all mixed up with Ivo, about whom I had spoken to nobody but you until so very recently.
How quickly you came to my rescue again, while I was still fumbling for something to say, by turning
to Mrs. Keith and saying:
“You must know Sara well enough to realise that she speaks very little about herself and her own affairs. It is the only fault I have to find with her letters.”
This letter at least does not err in that respect, for it is about nothing but me and my feelings and opinions; and yet, it is my first chance of telling you something of the pleasure it has been to see you and talk to you, Hugo. I still find it easier to write these things than to speak of them. It has been a perfectly happy Christmas for me, and Atty too noticed the difference your being at Corseburnhead has made these holidays. His great fear now is that you may not be home before he goes back to school, and I have been commissioned to tell you from him that he hopes you will try not to stay away any longer than you must.
So “haste ye back”, Hugo! We have all missed you since you left us, and I should like, instead of sitting here writing to you, to be starting out on one of those long tramps over the hills which we both enjoy so much.
*
I had got just to that sentence when the animated conversation in the passage suddenly stopped, and there was a moment’s absolute silence. It was like the terrified hush that falls on a bush full of chattering finches or sparrows when a kestrel’s shadow passes over them. Wondering what had happened, for I had become used to writing to this obligato of talk outside the door, I laid my pen down and was going to see for myself, when the door opened stealthily and Atty put his tousled head round it.
“It’s her! Miss Bonaly!” he muttered.
“Oh, Atty! No!” I looked wildly about, but apart from climbing out of the window, which would land me practically in her arms, I could see no escape unless I hid behind the sofa. The temptation to do so was almost overpowering, but I knew I couldn’t really—in any case she was quite capable of marching in and discovering me, so I sat in frozen dismay while Miss Marchbanks could be heard saying reluctantly:
“Oh, ay. She’s in, all right—”
In an instant Atty had darted into the room and jumped out of the window, while almost at the same moment Miss Bonaly’s face appeared where his had been and she followed it into the room. It was like a disagreeable conjuring trick. Why she comes near Piper’s Cottage when she disapproves of me so greatly I have never been able to fathom—unless she hopes to catch me doing something in keeping with the character she has given me? Anyhow, there she was, and I had to get up and offer her a chair near the fire, sorely against my will.
“Perhaps you would make us some tea, Miss Marchbanks?”
I suggested to Aunt Nettie’s gloomy back as she withdrew.
“I’m just after cleaning the cooker. It’s all to bits,” she responded at once.
I knew that this could not be true, since she had been in the passage for the last half-hour, but I could hardly say so, and Miss Bonaly of course had to pretend that she did not want tea or anything.
As usual, she was “just passing”. I don’t quite know how one “just passes” Piper’s Cottage when it is a hundred yards off a road only leading up to Carmichael and some other scattered houses; but Miss Bonaly is constantly passing. She had come to pump me about the Whitburns’ dance, of course. There was no one else within easy reach whom she could ask, because the Curries were to be away from home all day after the dance; Sylvia had been bewailing the fact that she would hardly have got to bed before she had to get up again, her father was insisting on such an early start. It must have been galling to Miss Bonaly to have to come to me for information, but I suppose she would mind more not knowing, that being her curious nature. I wondered how she would approach the subject, but she had no difficulty at all. Fixing me with her piercing stare, she announced that I looked just a little tired this morning; paler than usual she thought, a trifle heavy-eyed.
I said that I felt quite well, and not at all tired.
“Ah!” she exclaimed with quite dreadful roguishness. “A little bird told me that you were keeping very late hours last night!”
“What a clever little bird!” said I. “Did it tell you where I was too?”
“Oh yes, indeed!” she cried, laughing heartily. “How amusing of you! It told me that there was a dance at Chapelwood, and that you had a very pleasant evening in spite of Mr. Jamieson’s not being there!”
Really, Hugo, that arch reference to you made me see red. I suppose it was my own fault for trying to be funny with her; she was paying me back, and I was no match for her, I gave in. If I answered her questions as plainly and shortly as possible, I would get rid of her all the more quickly. What I would not do was volunteer information. She would have to ask what she wanted to know. And she did.
At first it was plain sailing.
Was there a sit-down supper? Oh, a buffet. Indeed . . . but of course there would be everything one could wish for, Miss Whitburn did things so well: Champagne, no doubt? No champagne? Claret-cup and lemonade . . . whisky and soda for the gentlemen, quite so . . . and a good orchestra? From Edinburgh? Dear me, a big expense. . . .
From this we passed on to what everyone was wearing, and so by degrees, to the wearers of the gowns I was doing my best to describe. I could see that this would very soon lead me into disagreeables, but there seemed to be no avoiding it; and sure enough, just as I had come to the end of telling her what a good time Catherine had had and how lovely she had looked, Miss Bonaly pounced.
“And who were all there?” she demanded.
“Oh—” I said vaguely. “Everyone, more or less, you know. A great many who were strangers to me, but then the Whitburns seem to have acquaintances all over the south of Scotland, don’t they?”
It was useless to try to side-track her. “I hear that your next-door neighbour was there,” she said.
“Mrs. Kilmartin?” I said, still hedging.
“Exactly. Mrs. Kilmartin. At a dance, a few months after her husband committed suicide! I find it almost impossible to believe, even though I was assured on the very best authority that it was so!”
“Ronald Kilmartin had the accident which caused his death early last May, and this is January,” I said, and she gave me such a withering glare that I could almost feel my skin beginning to shrivel! Before she could follow it up, the door opened and Atty’s face appeared again.
“Here’s Lawrence,” he announced.
“I do wish you wouldn’t call older people by their Christian names quite so much,” I said. “Where is he? Have you asked him to come in?”
“He said I was to call him Lawrence,” replied Atty, unabashed. “Here he is.”
And Lawrence Whitburn walked in, bringing a blast of cold air with him which seemed to blow away the miasma caused by Miss Bonaly’s presence.
“Good morning, Sara. How are you?” he said cheerfully. “I thought I’d call and see if you had survived yesterday evening. You’re looking very fit and fresh. Oh, how are you, Miss Bonaly? Has Sara been telling you about the dance?”
“She has,” replied Miss Bonaly with an ominous sniff.
“Great fun, wasn’t it, Sara?” said he. “I’ve just looked in on Mrs. Kilmartin.” He turned to Miss Bonaly. “My sister managed to persuade her to join us. A good thing, don’t you think? She ought not to sit there brooding alone. Pining in a green and yellow melancholy, as somebody said—Shakespeare, was it, Sara? You’ll know.”
“Viola,” I murmured, wondering what remark Miss Bonaly was about to blast him with. I might have known that to her and her kind “the gentlemen” are privileged to say what they like without being disapproved of! If I had dared, I doubt if I should be alive and writing to you now, but because it: was Lawrence Whitburn who appealed to her, all she could find to say was that perhaps she was old-fashioned—which he was intended to contradict and did not!—but she felt that for a woman so recently widowed it seemed a little, just a little, unseemly, to go to a dance.
“Oh, she would never have gone to a ball, of course,” said Lawrence easily, “But a small private affair is rather different, don’t you think?”
“Atty,” said I meanly. “Miss Bonaly wants to hear all about the dance, and you can tell her much better than I can—”
Atty does not care for Miss Bonaly, as you know, but a new audience he could not resist, and he sat down at once on a stool close to her and embarked for about the seventh time on a full true and particular account of the previous night’s entertainment.
“We began with a Paul Jones,” he said. “Do you know what a Paul Jones is, Miss Bonaly? I’ll tell you. It’s—”
He was off, and even Miss Bonaly would not be able to stem the flood of his narrative for at least twenty minutes, so I was able to have a pleasant talk with Lawrence undisturbed.
Yes, Hugo, I know it was unfair of me, but consider how I have suffered from her conversation and her disapproving sniffs! It is high time you came back, indeed, to prevent my character from deterioriating further.
CHAPTER XXI
LATE APRIL, 1953
Dear Hugo, Atty and I feel quite lost without you. This morning Monsieur le patron came toddling out of the den where he lurks like a benevolent spider, to say sympathetically that Madame must find it un peu triste now that Monsieur had taken his departure. And we do; it is quite true. Atty said, “It seems ages since Hugo went, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, for it is hard to believe that you only left yesterday afternoon, that just twenty-four hours ago the three of us were setting out to explore Good King Rene’s Castle of Angers. . . . Monsieur suddenly exclaimed: “Attendez un instant, madame, je vous prie!” and darted into his office again, to emerge bearing with tender care a handsome pink carnation.
“Pour madame!” he said, beaming and bowing, as he offered me the flower. “Une boutonnière.”
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