Love Comes Home

by Molly Clavering

  “No, don’t go, Perry. I don’t have to make prattling conversation with you,” said Love, coming to stand by the fire. In its light her dress glowed like a ruby, but her face was in shadow still. She bent her head to look at the leaping flames, and now her face was lent a rosy glow not its own. He caught the dark eyes as she said wearily: “What a fuss a wedding makes! Aren’t you glad you’re not a marrying man?”

  “What gives you the idea that I am not a marrying man?”

  She put out her hand in a small, deprecatory gesture “Well, you aren’t really, are you? I mean, you don’t care much about women, and Mrs. Mallow makes you far too comfortable for you to feel the need of a wife in that utilitarian way,” she said. In manner and words she seemed oddly mature this afternoon; it was because of her poised composure which, when she displayed it, made her so entirely different a creature from the wayward child she so often aped. “There was Janey, for example, liking the same sort of things as you, and anyone could see that you were more at ease with her than with the rest of us. And I still think she would have had a much better chance of lasting happiness if she had married you—or if you had married her, rather. And yet—it all began and ended there, didn’t it? I’ve never seen you look at a girl except impersonally. That’s why I said I didn’t think you were the marrying kind of man. It—it doesn’t seem to be necessary to you, somehow, as it is to other men.”

  He was silent for so long that she began to wonder, not very anxiously, if she had offended him.

  “Why don’t you fumble for your spectacles as you always do when you’re embarrassed by a question or a remark?” she suggested.

  “I’ve had to give up being embarrassed by anything you said long ago,” he told her. “In fact, I think I’ve almost lost the habit, thanks to Jane and you. She did it by kindness, you by mockery and sheer impudence. It is only when people like Mrs. Graham accost me suddenly that it comes back. I still feel horribly unprotected when Milly is at her truly terrible best. A wife, I suppose,” he added thoughtfully, “would save me even from that.”

  “Worth thinking over, isn’t it?” came Love’s mocking voice. “But you are too late, Perry. You’ve lost Jane, and unless you try Althea Johnston I don’t know whom I can recommend in this neighbourhood. Violet is obviously out of the question in the circumstances—besides, she’s hunting for a bad man!”

  “Thank you for the suggestion,” he said gravely. “But I don’t believe Althea and I would ever hit it off. I like a girl to be well-dressed and interested in clothes, but I wouldn’t want her to be a walking quotation from Vogue. And as for Violet, even if she were not Mrs. Graham’s daughter I don’t expect to choose a wife by the ton as it were.”

  “Really, Perry, you’re being not only downright rude but very—very—oh, what’s the word? It begins with ‘ex,’ I know. Anyhow, you’re hard to please, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I am hard to please. So hard that I am willing to wait quite a long time for the wife I really want.”

  “And suppose she wouldn’t have you after all the waiting?”

  “Then I shall have to remain unmarried,” said Peregrine.

  “Perry!” Struck by something in his tone, Love peered at him, trying to read his expression, but the dancing firelight gave him a cynical smile one instant and removed it the next, so that she could not tell. “Perry! You’re talking about a real person, aren’t you? Not just some vague ideal?”

  “I’m talking about a real person. And I wish you would stop calling me Perry,” he said.

  “Oh!” Love was distressed, her composure had vanished, she looked absurdly young, its heart-shaped neckline showing her milky throat. “Oh, but, Perry—Peregrine, I mean—it isn’t any good at all waiting for Jane! I promise you it isn’t. Even if she isn’t happy with John she’ll never leave him. Never!”

  There was a short silence. Then: “My dear child,” Peregrine said in quite his normal, cool, amused voice, “I wish you’d get rid of this idea about Jane. I’ve never for one moment wanted to marry her, much as I like her.”

  “Then—all that talk about doing things ‘for Jane’s sake.’ What was that?”

  “You supplied most of it, after all,” he reminded her. “And in any case, as I say, I’m fond of Jane in a brotherly sort of way, and I thought she was having a damned poor time of it with you and little Mrs. Mariner struggling for her young man. I had to do something to help her keep her end up.”

  “Oh. So that was it?”

  “That was it,” he agreed.

  There was another silence.

  “Then—no, I suppose I oughtn’t to ask who the girl is, but I should so like to know,” Love said wistfully.

  “I’m half-afraid to tell you in case you start making plans for us,” said Peregrine.

  “Perry! You utter pig!”

  “That name again!”

  “I did it to annoy you, specially.”

  “Ah!” said Peregrine. “That sounds more like yourself. Well, I’ll tell you, though I think it is very unwise of me to put myself into your—rather unscrupulous little hands, darling—”

  “What?” Love almost shrieked.

  “I said your unscrupulous little hands.”

  “That wasn’t—never mind, go on. No, don’t tell me another word. Perry! I hate you!” cried Love.

  “I was waiting to hear that. You don’t, really, you know, but, anyhow, it isn’t a bad foundation for loving,” Peregrine said. “Of course it’s quite ridiculous, because we never see eye to eye about anything, and as far as I can make out, never will, but—yes, my bad, tiresome, sherry-drinking Love, it’s you.”

  His voice was light, but the fire, suddenly falling apart, sent up a brighter flame than usual in time for Love to see his face clearly at last.

  “Oh—oh, Perry!” she said.

  “If you go on calling me that,” he warned her, “it will be over before it’s begun.”

  “Oh, Perry darling, I can’t help it!”

  “That’s worse. I don’t know how I shall wait that year I promised myself I would,” he said.

  “Why were you going to wait a year?”

  “To give you time to grow up a little, Love,” he said. “This is the sixth of December. Exactly a year from to-day I shall ask you to marry me.”

  “Oh, Perry, do ask me now!”

  “Certainly not. You’re much too young for that kind of thing. Look at the mess you made of it with poor Marsh after enticing him into it.”

  “Oh—John!” There was inimitable scorn in Love’s voice. “That was just nonsense—sort of practice, you know.”

  “Well, you shall have another year for nonsense and to help your father with his book, and after that life will begin. Real life.” He took her suddenly in his arms, looked at her long and earnestly, then very gently kissed her on the lips.

  “I’ll have to go,” he said. “Or I won’t be able to keep my resolution at all.”

  “Must you keep it, Perry?”

  “Yes, love, I must, for your sake certainly, for my own very likely. Good night, my sweet. God bless you.”

  “Wait, I’ll ring for Gunn to find your hat and coat!” cried Love, to keep him a little longer in this magic half-light. By to-morrow he might have receded again to the distance from which she usually saw him; and then she felt his lips on hers again and knew that no distance could ever divide them now.

  Her hand was on the bell when Gunn came in, a silk hat in her hand, an overcoat on her arm.

  “The guests is nearly gone, miss,” she said, but with no disapproval in her tone. “I brought your hat and coat, sir, thinking to save you the trouble.”

  “Er—thank you, Gunn,” said Peregrine with all his old embarrassment.

  “Gunn!” cried Love sharply. “Do you listen at doors as Mr. Maggie says? Or is it second-sight? Do tell me, and don’t be cross!”

  “Well, miss,” said Gunn thoughtfully. “I’ve never had much time for listening at doors, if you come to t
hink of it. It’s more a matter of putting two and two together, as you might say, and listening to odd bits of talk here and there, and then, being in the family so long, you get to know just how things will take them. But I won’t deny that there has been occasions when I’ve reached the door just in time to overhear a little conversation.”

  She held out Peregrine’s coat invitingly, and as she helped him into it she said, with a coquettish look at Love over his outstretched arm: “They always say, Miss Love, don’t they, that one wedding in a house leads to another? A romantic notion, sir, don’t you think?”

  “Gunn!” cried Love.

  “Yes, Miss Love?” said Gunn, all innocence.

  “Nothing, Gunn. You may go now, I’ll see Mr Gilbert out myself.”

  “Very good, miss.”

  Silent as a shadow Gunn withdrew, but as she closed the door after her, she sniffed disdainfully. “Wait a year before he proposes, indeed!” she said. “If Miss Love lets him wait more than a week my name’s not Hannah Gunn!”

  T H E E N D

  About The Author

  Mary ‘Molly’ Clavering was born in Glasgow in 1900. Her father was a Glasgow businessman, and her mother’s grandfather had been a doctor in Moffat, where the author would live for nearly 50 years after World War Two.

  She had little interest in conventional schooling as a child, but enjoyed studying nature, and read and wrote compulsively, considering herself a ‘poetess’ by the age of seven.

  She returned to Scotland after her school days, and published three novels in the late 1920s, as well as being active in her local girl guides and writing two scenarios for ambitious historical pageants.

  In 1936, the first of four novels under the pseudonym ‘B. Mollett’ appeared. Molly Clavering’s war service in the WRNS interrupted her writing career, and in 1947 she moved to Moffat, in the Scottish border country, where she lived alone, but was active in local community activities. She resumed writing fiction, producing seven post-war novels and numerous serialized novels and novellas in the People’s Friend magazine.

  Molly Clavering died in Moffat on February 12, 1995.

  Titles by Molly Clavering

  Fiction

  Georgina and the Stairs (1927)

  The Leech of Life (1928)

  Wantonwalls (1929)

  Susan Settles Down (1936, as ‘B. Mollett’)

  Love Comes Home (1938, as ‘B. Mollett’)

  Yoked with a Lamb (1938, as ‘B. Mollett’)

  Touch Not the Nettle (1939, as ‘B. Mollett’)

  Mrs. Lorimer’s Quiet Summer (1953)

  Because of Sam (1954)

  Dear Hugo (1955)

  Near Neighbours (1956)

  Result of the Finals (1957)

  Dr. Glasgow’s Family (1960)

  Spring Adventure (1962)

  Non-Fiction

  From the Border Hills (1953)

  Between 1952 and 1976, Molly Clavering also serialized at least two dozen novels or novellas in the People’s Friend under the names Marion Moffatt and Emma Munro. Some of these were reprinted as ‘pocket novels’ as late as 1994.

  FURROWED MIDDLEBROW

  FM1. A Footman for the Peacock (1940) ... RACHEL FERGUSON

  FM2. Evenfield (1942) ... RACHEL FERGUSON

  FM3. A Harp in Lowndes Square (1936) ... RACHEL FERGUSON

  FM4. A Chelsea Concerto (1959) ... FRANCES FAVIELL

  FM5. The Dancing Bear (1954) ... FRANCES FAVIELL

  FM6. A House on the Rhine (1955) ... FRANCES FAVIELL

  FM7. Thalia (1957) ... FRANCES FAVIELL

  FM8. The Fledgeling (1958) ... FRANCES FAVIELL

  FM9. Bewildering Cares (1940) ... WINIFRED PECK

  FM10. Tom Tiddler’s Ground (1941) ... URSULA ORANGE

  FM11. Begin Again (1936) ... URSULA ORANGE

  FM12. Company in the Evening (1944) ... URSULA ORANGE

  FM13. The Late Mrs Prioleau (1946) ... MONICA TINDALL

  FM14. Bramton Wick (1952) ... ELIZABETH FAIR

  FM15. Landscape in Sunlight (1953) ... ELIZABETH FAIR

  FM16. The Native Heath (1954) ... ELIZABETH FAIR

  FM17. Seaview House (1955) ... ELIZABETH FAIR

  FM18. A Winter Away (1957) ... ELIZABETH FAIR

  FM19. The Mingham Air (1960) ... ELIZABETH FAIR

  FM20. The Lark (1922) ... E. NESBIT

  FM21. Smouldering Fire (1935) ... D.E. STEVENSON

  FM22. Spring Magic (1942) ... D.E. STEVENSON

  FM23. Mrs. Tim Carries On (1941) ... D.E. STEVENSON

  FM24. Mrs. Tim Gets a Job (1947) ... D.E. STEVENSON

  FM25. Mrs. Tim Flies Home (1952) ... D.E. STEVENSON

  FM26. Alice (1950) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT

  FM27. Henry (1950) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT

  FM28. Mrs. Martell (1953) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT

  FM29. Cecil (1962) ... ELIZABETH ELIOT

  FM30. Nothing to Report (1940) ... CAROLA OMAN

  FM31. Somewhere in England (1943) ... CAROLA OMAN

  FM32. Spam Tomorrow (1956) ... VERILY ANDERSON

  FM33. Peace, Perfect Peace (1947) ... JOSEPHINE KAMM

  FM34. Beneath the Visiting Moon (1940) ... ROMILLY CAVAN

  FM35. Table Two (1942) ... MARJORIE WILENSKI

  FM36. The House Opposite (1943) ... BARBARA NOBLE

  FM37. Miss Carter and the Ifrit (1945) ... SUSAN ALICE KERBY

  FM38. Wine of Honour (1945) ... BARBARA BEAUCHAMP

  FM39. A Game of Snakes and Ladders (1938, 1955) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE

  FM40. Not at Home (1948) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE

  FM41. All Done by Kindness (1951) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE

  FM42. My Caravaggio Style (1959) ... DORIS LANGLEY MOORE

  FM43. Vittoria Cottage (1949) ... D.E. STEVENSON

  FM44. Music in the Hills (1950) ... D.E. STEVENSON

  FM45. Winter or Rough Weather (1951) ... D.E. STEVENSON

  FM46. Fresh from the Country (1960) ... MISS READ

  FM47. Miss Mole (1930) ... E.H. YOUNG

  FM48. A House in the Country (1957) ... RUTH ADAM

  FM49. Much Dithering (1937) ... DOROTHY LAMBERT

  FM50. Miss Plum and Miss Penny (1959) ... DOROTHY EVELYN SMITH

  FM51. Village Story (1951) ... CELIA BUCKMASTER

  FM52. Family Ties (1952) ... CELIA BUCKMASTER

  FM53. Rhododendron Pie (1930) ... MARGERY SHARP

  FM54. Fanfare for Tin Trumpets (1932) ... MARGERY SHARP

  FM55. Four Gardens (1935) ... MARGERY SHARP

  FM56. Harlequin House (1939) ... MARGERY SHARP

  FM57. The Stone of Chastity (1940) ... MARGERY SHARP

  FM58. The Foolish Gentlewoman (1948) ... MARGERY SHARP

  FM59. The Swiss Summer (1951) ... STELLA GIBBONS

  FM60. A Pink Front Door (1959) ... STELLA GIBBONS

  FM61. The Weather at Tregulla (1962) ... STELLA GIBBONS

  FM62. The Snow-Woman (1969) ... STELLA GIBBONS

  FM63. The Woods in Winter (1970) ... STELLA GIBBONS

  FM64. Apricot Sky (1952) ... RUBY FERGUSON

  FM65. Susan Settles Down (1936) ... MOLLY CLAVERING

  FM66. Yoked with a Lamb (1938) ... MOLLY CLAVERING

  FM67. Love Comes Home (1938) ... MOLLY CLAVERING

  FM68. Touch not the Nettle (1939) ... MOLLY CLAVERING

  FM69. Mrs. Lorimer’s Quiet Summer (1953) ... MOLLY CLAVERING

  FM70. Because of Sam (1953) ... MOLLY CLAVERING

  FM71. Dear Hugo (1955) ... MOLLY CLAVERING

  FM72. Near Neighbours (1956) ... MOLLY CLAVERING

  A Furrowed Middlebrow Book

  FM67

  Published by Dean Street Press 2021

  Copyright © 1938 Molly Clavering

  Introduction copyright © 2021 Elizabeth Crawford

  All Rights Reserved

  First published in 1938 by Stanley Paul & Co

  Cover by DSP

  Shows detail from Comrie, 1916 (1916) by Samuel Peploe

  ISBN 978 1 914150 46
3

  www.deanstreetpress.co.uk