Mrs. Paley sighed. And then she thanked Mr. Siddal.
The chimes of Big Ben rang out over the terrace, for Sir Henry was listening to the nine o’clock news in the lounge, with all the windows open.
‘And I want to know about patience,’ said Evangeline timidly. ‘Do you think a person can be too patient?’
Mr. Siddal smiled. He did not often get such a respectful audience.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Patience must not be confused with submission. When we say that a person is too patient, we generally mean that he is not patient at all, but merely submissive….’
‘Then what is patience, exactly?’ she persisted.
‘Patience is the capacity to endure all that is necessary in attaining a desired end. The patient man is master of his fate. The submissive man has handed his fate over to somebody else. Patience implies liberty and superiority. Impatience nearly always involves a loss of liberty. It causes people to commit themselves, to burn their boats, to put it out of their power to alter or modify their course. Patience never forsakes the ultimate goal because the road is hard. There can be no patience without an object.’
Evangeline, in her turn, thanked him. To both ladies he had given, though he did not know it, advice on their own particular problems.
‘I think it’s getting chilly,’ said Mrs. Paley, getting up. ‘I’m going to stroll up and down.’
They all three strolled up and down the terrace while Mr. Siddal illustrated his thesis on patience by quotations from King Lear. But he paused as they passed the lounge windows to listen to a rich voice which rolled out into the dusk. It said:
‘Many of you will still be on your holidays or will have just finished them in this beautiful summer sunshine. God bless you all, you and your families. Get all you can of happiness and health and strength out of the sun and the sea and the fresh air….’
‘Sounds like a bishop,’ said Mr. Siddal as they passed out of earshot. ‘The news must have been over quickly.’
‘I daresay it’s the Government,’ said Mrs. Paley. ‘Well, thank you very much. It’s wonderful how you put things. You have always thought it out so clearly. I think it’s a pity you didn’t go into the Church, Mr. Siddal.’
‘So do I,’ he agreed. ‘I might have been a Dean by now. I’d have liked to be a Dean. Deaneries are generally such nice houses, and very good kitchen gardens. Good fruit trees.’
‘I shall never forget what you said on Sunday about innocence.’
‘Innocence?’
‘How it’s the innocent people who save the world.’
Mr. Siddal smiled, but did not commit himself to a sequel on his Sunday subject, which was as well for he was quite capable of taking the other side and proving that innocence is the source of all evil. He could make out a very good case for any side of any question.
After another turn they all went into the lounge where the rich voice was reaching its peroration.
‘… and so I say to you, as was said long ago: Only be thou strong and very courageous.’
Sir Henry was alone in the lounge. He was sitting beside the wireless and his face looked yellow.
‘Who was that?’ asked Mr. Siddal.
‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer. Broadcasting to the nation after the nine o’clock news.’
‘Was it? What’s he been turned on to tell us this time?’
‘American loan. Run out. No more dollars.’
‘Well. I’ll be … whitewashed! I’d rather hear Shinwell. He doesn’t quote the Bible at us when he tells us he can’t get any coal.’
‘I was sure it was the Government,’ said Mrs. Paley placidly.
6. Shake Hands for Ever
Hebe’s absence at supper was remarked, but it was supposed that she must be sulking somewhere and nobody troubled to go in search of her. They had all finished and dispersed before Bruce brought her back. He left her in the yard, in the car, and went to the scullery door where Nancibel, who had again stayed late, was still washing-up.
She was surprised to see him back from St. Merricks so soon, but she would not show her surprise and continued to scour saucepans with her nose in the air.
‘Nancibel, I must speak to you.’
‘How often must I tell you that I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.’
‘This isn’t about us,’ he explained. ‘It’s Hebe.’
‘Hebe? What’s she been up to now?’
‘I’ve got her in the car. I want to smuggle her into the house and put her to bed without anyone knowing.’
‘I’ve no use for Hebe. If she’s in a jam, let her get herself out of it.’
‘Oh, Nancibel, please! Don’t be too hasty. It isn’t her fault. When you understand you’ll be as upset as I am. Come and look at her.’
‘What’s she been doing?’
‘Well … she’s pickled, for one thing. Passed out.’
‘Hebe? No! How disgusting!’
‘It’s not her fault, I tell you. That kid’s been in enough trouble for one day. You know what they’re like in this hole … Miss Ellis … Mrs. Cove….’
‘I do,’ said Nancibel, softening a little. ‘Oh well, all right. I’ll come. We’ll smuggle her up the back stairs. Where’s the car?’
‘At the stables.’
As they went to the yard Bruce told her briefly what had happened. She heard him out in a stony silence. Between them they got the inert Hebe out of the car and up the back stairs and laid her upon her bed. Then Nancibel spoke.
‘I’ll undress her and put her to bed,’ she said. ‘And you can go. To-morrow I shall go to Sir Henry and tell him what you did, you and Mrs. Lechene. I’ll see that Hebe doesn’t get blamed. But if you don’t go now, at once, and if you say another word, I’ll go to Sir Henry at once.’
‘I didn’t …’
‘I’m giving you time to clear out, see? If you don’t want Sir Henry after you, you’d better clear out now.’
‘I can’t see that it was my fault. I didn’t know she was in the car.’
‘There’s telephones, isn’t there? When you did find out you could have rung him up from there. If you’d so much as threatened to ring him up she’d have sent Hebe back right away, and this would never have happened. Now go, and don’t let me see you again.’
Bruce went. In the stable loft he packed his suitcase. Before he left Pendizack he wrote two letters.
The first was to Anna. It said:
Your car is alright. It’s in the garage. You taking Hebe to that house finished me as far as your concerned. I hope I will never see you again.—BRUCE.
The letter to Nancibel was harder; he re-wrote it several times and it was late in the evening before he had finished it.
DEAR NANCIBEL,
I’m going to do what you said and get a job as a bus driver. But not in these parts you need not be afraid of seeing me about on the roads. Not for a long time anyway. When I think a bit more of myself, I shall ask you to think more of me, but not till then.
I am almost sure I would have left her after today, and the way she took Hebe off, even if it had not been for you. It makes me sick.
Nancibel I love you and you must not be angry with me for saying so. I have a perfect right to do so, and it is natural for any man that meets you to love you, whether he is deserving or undeserving, just as good and bad together like a lovely piece of music if they hear it. You are the sweetest and dearest girl in the world and I am very lucky to have met you, for it has changed my life, even if you will never look at me again. I hope you will be very happy. You will probably marry some nice chap, you have too much sense to pick a rotter. And you will make him very happy. But you won’t do more for him than you have done for me.
There is one thing she knows about me that may come out. I pinched a car for fun, I meant to return it, but I got in a smash and a cyclist was killed. She knows about it, she got me out of a hole there. But sometimes, if she is annoyed, she talks as if she meant to give me away. I do not thin
k she will, but if she does and it all comes out I would like you to have known first.
Well, that is enough about me. God bless you my darling Nancibel and give you a very happy life. Knowing you has made me sure that there can be a great deal of happiness in the world.
Your loving
BRUCE.
P.S.—I enclose 5/- and my sweet points for the Feast. Friday night, isn’t it? I’ll think of you all. But don’t you think of me unless you can think kindly.
7. Bond or Free?
Gerry had not known that Duff and Robin meant to sleep upon the cliff. He was much put out to find them when he took up the tea basket. Not that he was quite sure that he intended to remain himself for a third night in succession; prudence had suggested to him that it might be better to return to the stables as soon as he had settled his ladies for the night. Affairs between himself and Evangeline were going too far for safety. He must not allow himself to become attached, and he ought to have remembered that before.
Usually it was his first thought, whenever he encountered an attractive girl. He could not sit behind one on a bus without a certain pang of self-sacrifice; for an instant he would see her in a flowered overall, busy at a cooking stove, and then, with a sigh, he would relinquish her. For it was thus that he always imagined a wife, not as a bed-fellow or as a play-fellow, but as a cook, decoratively preparing his favourite dinner, setting it before him with a smile, watching him eat it, and listening while he talked about himself.
When introduced to a pretty young woman he was always excessively guarded in his manner, for fear that he might raise false hopes. Since he could marry no girl he was able, unchecked, to indulge in the fantasy that all would have been ready to cook for him, if invited to do so. A mild flirtation might have taught him better, but he had never dared to embark upon one for fear of becoming attached.
If Evangeline had been pretty, if she had possessed any of the attractions which made him sigh after girls in buses, he would have taken fright before. But he had begun by disliking her and had grown fond of her in a disinterested attempt to do the poor thing justice. Never for a moment had he visualized her as a possible wife-cook. She had stolen into his heart so imperceptibly that he did not know she was there until faced with the prospect of losing her. His mother, at supper, had casually thanked heaven that the Wraxtons were going on Saturday, and the pang which he then experienced was his first intimation of danger. He could not bear the thought of never seeing Evangeline again. There was a note in her voice to which he had not listened nearly long enough. He had learnt to like it unawares, while telling himself that she was really quite intelligent.
So he toiled up the hill in a mood of melancholy decision, meditating a break. He did not want to hurt her feelings. But while they drank their tea he would drop a hint or two about his position. And, for the rest of the week, he would avoid her.
Before he reached the shelter, however, he was startled by strains of song; Duff’s baritone and Robin’s lusty tenor were raised in a catch. And all his melancholy evaporated in a gust of anger. How could he drop any hints while those young brutes were roaring their heads off? Was he never to be allowed any intimacies of his own?
Standing still upon the cliff path he silently cursed his entire family. Nor was he inclined to be pleased with Mrs. Paley and Angie for having admitted these intruders. If they had valued him as they ought they would have kept this twilit hour for him, and him alone. Angie had no business to be singing rounds with his brothers; no business to be singing at all. He had never known that she could sing. It was intolerable that Robin and Duff should have discovered this about her before he did. She had a high, sweet voice which toned well with theirs, and as Gerry came round the boulders she gave out the first line of a new catch, singing alone in the quiet summer dusk:
Wind, gentle evergreen! To form a shade
Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid….
Robin and Duff took up the air. They were sitting in a row on a rock, looking ridiculously pleased with themselves, while Mrs. Paley occupied her usual seat, some distance away, at the end of the headland. The singers did not stop when they saw Gerry; they merely grinned and signed to him to join them. He put down the basket with a bump and stalked off to join Mrs. Paley, from whom he learnt that his intolerable brothers were really intending to stay the night.
‘Then I shan’t stay,’ announced Gerry sulkily. ‘I shall go back to the stables.’
But he did stay. He sat down beside Mrs. Paley and fumed for a little while. Then he said:
‘I’m in a hopeless position.’
Mrs. Paley nodded. Bruce had sat on the very same spot, last night, and had used the very same words. He had told her a long story. So was Gerry going to tell her a long story. They could tell her nothing which she had not guessed. And for Bruce she believed that she had been able to do nothing, since it was said that he had gone off up the coast with Anna. It was improbable that she would be able to do anything for Gerry. These people in hopeless positions all seemed to be intent upon their own ruin. She wanted to sit by herself and watch the stars come out.
‘I suppose it began when I was born,’ said Gerry, mournfully, but settling down to it with a certain zest. ‘I …’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Mrs. Paley, ‘it began ages before that. It began when your father was born.’
‘Perhaps it did,’ agreed Gerry. ‘You see, he …’
‘I’m sure. But I don’t want to sit here all night. Let’s skip a bit. Are you quite sure that you want to marry Angie?’
‘How on earth did you guess …?’
‘Plain as a pikestaff. But are you sure you want to marry her?’
‘No. My trouble is that if I did, I couldn’t.’
‘But that must apply to so many girls. All of them really.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Gerry. ‘I suppose it does.’
‘And you can’t marry them all. So you aren’t in any position, hopeless or otherwise, until you want to marry one in particular.’
‘I’d like to be married.’
‘I don’t wonder. But what has Angie got to do with that?’
‘I … I like her very much.’
‘Umhm?’
‘But philandering is no good.’
‘I don’t agree. I think a nice little philander would cheer you both up considerably.’
‘Oh, Mrs. Paley!’
‘Don’t look so scandalized. It won’t get you anywhere, I agree. But it will pass the time agreeably and that’s all that anyone in a hopeless position can expect to do.’
‘But she mightn’t understand.’
‘Oh, I think she would. She’s in a tolerably hopeless position herself, isn’t she?’
The party on the boulders were now singing Shenandoah, a sad song at any time and not likely to enliven anybody in a hopeless position. Angie sang the solo lines while the boys joined in the chorus:
’Tis seven long years since last I saw you …
Away you rolling river …
‘And if I philander much longer,’ explained Gerry, ‘I shall kiss her.’
Away! We’re bound to go!
Across the wide Missouri….
‘And if I kiss her I shall marry her.’
‘I thought you said you couldn’t.’
‘Well … I could, if I go to Kenya.’
Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter …
‘Then, my goodness,’ cried Mrs. Paley in exasperation, ‘what is all the fuss about?’
‘I’m in a hopeless position.’
Away! We’re bound to go …
‘I can’t bear this,’ protested Mrs. Paley. ‘I really can’t. I never heard such a depressing song. Nobody’s bound to do anything. We’re not black slaves. You take Angie for a little stroll along to Rosigraille, and don’t come back until you’ve made up your mind. Take care of rabbit holes.’
Gerry obeyed her. As soon as Shenandoah had been wailed to its last stanza he got up and joined the singers.
But his excitement was so urgent that he could not issue the invitation as casually as he wished; he barked an abrupt command at Evangeline.
‘Come for a walk.’
She jumped up at once.
‘A walk!’ said Duff. ‘At this time of night? Where to?’
‘To Rosigraille cliffs,’ said Gerry, seizing Evangeline by the elbow and dragging her away.
‘We’ll come too,’ said Robin. ‘No need to run.’
But Mrs. Paley joined them at this point with a counterattraction, announcing that she had strange news about Mrs. Cove’s soapstone. Gerry and Angie escaped while the boys remained to listen.
Robin was much delighted by the poltergeist story and disposed to commend the little Coves. He leant a kindly ear to Mrs. Paley’s plans for the feast and promised his help. But he soon returned to the drama of the soapstone, and while Mrs. Paley made tea he planned further adventures for it.
‘I’ll get it out of my father, if he’s got it now,’ he said. ‘Oh yes, I’ll certainly return it to Mrs. Cove. I know it’s hers. Don’t worry, Mrs. Paley. She shall find it again.’
‘Ssh!’ said Duff. ‘Listen! What’s that?’
A distant bellow had for a moment shattered the quiet dusk. They fell silent, listening, and heard the gurgle of the sea against the rocks far below.
‘A bull, somewhere,’ said Robin.
It came again, nearer.
‘No,’ said Mrs. Paley. ‘It’s Canon Wraxton calling his daughter.’
Presently the Canon appeared, massive against the sky-line, and Mrs. Paley informed him that Evangeline had gone for a walk with Gerry Siddal.
‘Then she’ll find me waiting for her when she gets back,’ said the Canon, sitting down upon a rock. ‘I’ve had enough of Gerry Siddal.’
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