Fortune's Lead

by Barbara Perkins

  ‘Steward!’ He snapped his fingers, and gave an order to the rapidly appearing steward, adding, ‘You don’t want us to move, do you? Good,’ and turning back to me,

  ‘How wise of you to come to the last lunch. I always do. The food isn’t very much worse that when it started, and you’re not hustled.’

  I was feeling rather dazed, and a quick glance round the dining car showed me that it was almost empty: I must have, sat on for longer than I thought. Looking helplessly back at the man opposite me, I saw that he was watching me and smiling, so I smiled back. He said, ‘I disturbed your thoughts. I’m sorry. But you didn’t mind my joining you, did you?’

  ‘No, not at all—Mr. Thurlanger.’ I could only be as polite as he was: besides, he was rather nice. There was something very warming about being twinkled at. He said quickly, talking through the arrival of more coffee for both of us,

  ‘Call me Henry. Everyone does—even that odious nephew of mine. He only calls me Uncle when he’s angry with me—which is most of the time, come to think of it.’ The twinkle was even more pronounced. ‘A very boorish young man. I apologize for him. I hope you took no notice of him—I never do. You see—’ he leaned forward confidentially, ‘he was brought up to be serious. Terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, terrible.’ Suddenly I couldn’t help grinning: Henry Thurlanger’s air of mischief was infectious.

  ‘Good. I thought you’d agree with me. We’ll forget about Kevin.’ A wave of the hand dismissed Kevin and everything about him. ‘Now, what shall I call you?’

  ‘Charlotte.’

  ‘Pretty,’ he said approvingly. ‘But too long. I expect they call you Shah for short, don’t they? It suits you better. Charlotte’s such a very formal name. One should never be formal on trains—they’re quite gloomy enough already. Wouldn’t you say so?’

  ‘Very gloomy. And please do call me Shah.’ Smiling back at him, I was suddenly feeling an enormous lift of the heart, and with it a growing conviction that I was being picked up—Picked Up, by this small, smiley, mischievous-looking man who must be old enough to be my father. Whatever would Robert have said? I bit back a laugh, and said, ‘I hope I didn’t damage anything of yours when I fell over your luggage. It really was my fault.’

  ‘Those wretched rods. Quite impossible to pack properly. No, I’m sure you didn’t damage them. Anyway, it’s Archie’s fault for asking me to bring them down with me. He should have had them sent. Do you happen to know some people called Laird?’

  ‘No, I—I’m sure I don’t.’

  ‘Good. Then I can say what I like about them.’ He gave me his curly grin again, his grey eyes twinkling irrepressibly. ‘Dreadfully boring people. Relatives of mine. My nephew and I were spending a few days with them—my relations seem to expect me to tour them every so often, though I find it a regrettable exercise! And where are you off to, Shah?’

  ‘Hertfordshire,’ I said shortly, suddenly remembering that the family would go on being sympathetic with me about Robert, and feeling gloomy again.

  ‘Really? What’s taking you there? No, don’t tell me—let me guess. Ah—I know. The wedding of a school friend. And you’re to be bridesmaid. Am I right?’

  ‘No.’ He was making me want to laugh again, simply because he looked so cheerful. I tried fluttering my eyelashes at him, just to see if I could, and said demurely,

  ‘Guess again.’

  ‘Mm.’ He tilted his head to one side, regarding me. ‘It can’t be anything amusing. You were looking too sad. Now, what would make you sad, I wonder?’

  That was too noticing of him, even though his smile was still a teasing one. I said quickly, trying to sound light, ‘Why would a wedding be sad? Wouldn’t I have enjoyed being a bridesmaid?’

  ‘Ah, but you should have been the bride. Obviously. The young man changed his mind and chose your friend—plain but wealthy. You should never have introduced them. But then you weren’t to know he had no taste.’

  Henry seemed to be enjoying himself inventing an elaborate and brokenhearted background for me.

  ‘Quite distracting of him, but I think you’re well rid of him. Don’t you?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said grimly, thinking of Robert, and then remembered that we weren’t talking about Robert at all but about an imaginary man who was about to marry an imaginary plain-but-wealthy friend of mine. It was an extraordinary conversation to be having with a stranger. I caught sight of my reflection in the window, and said defiantly, ‘Actually I’m on my way home from seeing a film producer. I was after a role in a kitchen sink drama, but he said I didn’t look the part!’

  ‘You certainly don’t, and I don’t like kitchen sink dramas. Too dreary,’ Henry said, accepting my story so calmly that I had a pang of horrified guilt. ‘So you’re an actress, are you? Tell me some more about yourself.’

  ‘I’m not—I—I mean—I’m not very good at talking about myself.’ Somehow, since he had taken my statement seriously, I couldn’t go back on it and explain that I had been inventing a character as imaginary as the one he had invented. Flustered, I said hastily, ‘Tell me about you instead. That would be much more interesting.’

  ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t.’ He cocked his head on one side, regarding me. ‘Now, I should have put you down as a model rather than an actress. Perhaps it’s the way you carry your head. Do you do any modelling?’

  ‘No,’ I said truthfully, but feeling fiercely disinclined to tell him that if I carried my head any particular way it was from keeping an eye on thirty beds’ in a ward at once. ‘I—I might try it some time. But you—you haven’t said where you’re going.’

  ‘Epsom. Where I shall be put upon by my sister Catherine, who unfortunately suffers from the delusion that I need looking after.’ He made a quizzically sad face at me. ‘Now really, Shah, looking at me, would you say I looked as if I needed looking after?’

  ‘No, not a bit.’ I could feel my mouth turning up into a grin. He certainly didn’t look anything of the sort: he looked prosperous, alert, and very slightly wicked, sitting there with that leprechaun twinkle in his eyes. I began to feel that, since I wasn’t myself today, I could enjoy doing and saying whatever I liked, and I leaned back in my seat and smiled at him fully. ‘Why do they think you need looking after?’

  ‘Goodness knows,’ he said comfortably, ‘and I shan’t allow it. I think they’d like to see me in a bath-chair before I’m sixty as a penance for enjoying life. Never mind. I shall run away as soon as the meeting’s over. After that I needn’t visit my sister until next season, which will save a great deal of annoyance for both of us.’

  ‘What kind of meeting?’ I asked curiously, visualizing some kind of family firm, with Henry as Chairman of the Board.

  ‘Race meeting.’ He said it with a faint air of surprise, as if I might have known. ‘Don’t you bet?’

  ‘I—have occasionally.’ A hospital sweepstake on the Derby or the Grand National was as far as I’d ever gone in that direction. I added, ‘I’ve never won anything,’ and he looked surprised again.

  ‘Never? You must be very unlucky. I could give you some likely winners for tomorrow—but I won’t.’ He was twinkling at me again. ‘If you’re really unlucky you might cast a spell on them. I couldn’t have that.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I would. But don’t tell me, just in case. Do you usually win?’ I asked politely, since he seemed to be so interested in the subject.

  ‘Let’s say I usually end up with a profit. Enough to feed my daughter’s ponies.’ He paused long enough for me to register that he had a daughter, and then added,

  ‘Tell me, Shah, do you ride?’

  ‘No. I never have,’ I said apologetically. ‘I don’t actually know one end of a horse from another,’ and waited for him to lose interest in me, but instead he looked at me appreciatively and twinkled more than ever.

  ‘Good. I should have guessed. You don’t look at all like a horse.’ The wicked look in his eye deepened, and he leaned towards me confidenti
ally. ‘Horsy women always do, you know. It’s quite frightening. Esther—my daughter—is going to look exactly like a horse by the time she’s twenty-five if she’s not careful. I should never have let her be brought up in Ireland—it was quite fatal.’ I couldn’t help giggling at his expression—and at the mischievous delight he seemed to take in being rude about all his relations. ‘What about horsy men?’ I asked, grinning at him. ‘Why doesn’t it affect them? I mean, you don’t look like one, and...’

  ‘Ah, racing’s different. I’m talking about hunting, and showing. As far as I’m concerned a horse is something to be admired only in the flat-racing season—though a good many people I know would shoot me for saying so.’ His eyes laughed at me. ‘You mustn’t tell on me.’

  ‘I won’t. I don’t suppose I know any of the people you know, anyway,’ I added as an afterthought. ‘So it can’t matter, can it?’

  ‘Oh, you may do. In fact you quite probably do. I know far too many people,’ Henry said, not looking as if he minded. ‘our home’s in Hertfordshire, you say?’

  ‘Yes. But—’

  ‘Now let me see ... Tom and Mary Wythenshawe? Or that daughter of theirs—what’s her name...’

  ‘No.’ I couldn’t imagine my leprechaun-man amongst any of the people at home: he was not at all the type for my father’s busy town parish. ‘Hertfordshire’s quite a large county,’ I said repressively, and then wondered if I’d sounded rude.

  If I had, Henry didn’t look as if he minded. He just grinned at me, raising an eyebrow, and said, ‘I think you’re determined to be a mystery, Shah.’

  ‘No, not at all.’ A small warning bell rang suddenly in my mind: if he had a daughter he had a wife, and—although he wasn’t exactly flirting with me (was he?)—he had come over and started talking to me when he didn’t know me at all... except that there had been that business about my coat ... I began to feel confused again, and looked across at him to find he was watching me with a waiting expression, which changed to a smile as I looked.

  ‘You were thinking?’ he prompted amiably.

  ‘Nothing very much.’ No, of course he wasn’t flirting with me. (I was shocked to find that this caused me a small pang of disappointment). I sought for a subject, and asked very politely, ‘Why was your daughter brought up in Ireland? Is that where you live?’

  ‘No, I live in Suffolk. I sent her to my brother and sister-in-law after my wife died. Esther was—let me see, five or six. I might have known, I suppose. As far as I can see, they put the horses in the drawing-room and live in the stables themselves. And—unlike stage-Irish—they’re a very serious family. Particularly about their horses.’ Henry pulled a face—the word serious seemed to affect him that way. ‘For instance, I remember a time...’

  He started an anecdote which soon had me laughing—as much in response to the twinkle in his eyes as to what he said. Then he began another—about some neighbours of his in Suffolk this time, who were mad keen on hunting. He was an amusing talker—and he definitely was, in the lightest possible way, flirting with me. But, whether it was ethical or not to be flirting with a middle-aged man I’d picked up in a train, I was enjoying myself very much; and I was also hearing quite a lot about Henry’s home in Suffolk. It sounded like some kind of manor house: he mentioned the park, and the stables, all in a casual way, and certainly he had the air of a man who owned a lot of things without being particularly conscious of it. I began to add him up as wealthy, a country gentleman though not a farmer, and he had obviously travelled widely—the conversation turned more than once to places he’d visited abroad. Whatever else he was, he was certainly good company.

  It was amazing how easy he was to talk to—or be talked to by: he was doing most of it, occasionally appealing to me to agree with him, or asking for my opinion. At one point he demanded a piece of paper from me on which to play noughts and crosses, to make me bet on the outcome of each game just to see (he said) if I was really an unlucky gambler. Then he started drawing strange shapes on the other corner of the envelope (it was an old one I’d found in my bag for us to write on) and told me to say what they reminded me of: influenced by the fact that he had been making me laugh, I made as many unlikely suggestions as I could, until he rapped me lightly over the knuckles with the gold pencil in his hand.

  ‘No, be serious! Tell me what you think these are.’

  ‘Just shapes! Oh, all right. That’s ... a box with something coming out of it. That’s a—a buckle. That’s a star—or a face, this way round. That’s a piece of rubber tubing. That’s a man standing up—oh, it’s not fair, you keep on drawing more.’

  ‘Go on. The answers are interesting.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked suspiciously.

  ‘I’m psychoanalysing you. What’s this?’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘It’s your own fault.’ He twinkled at me. ‘You will be such a mystery! I’m learning a lot about your character. What’s this one?’

  ‘I—I’m not really a mystery at all. I’m a—’

  ‘Ssh! I’m going to guess! Now come on—tell me what this is.’

  ‘The sun,’ I said, feeling suddenly as if this wasn’t a game any more. ‘But you don’t—’

  ‘It can’t be the sun. It’s black. Guess again.’

  ‘A black sun.’ I was coming abruptly back to a consciousness of who I was and where I was going—and about time too. A quick glance at my watch and another out of the window showed me where we were, and I jumped up quickly. ‘We’re nearly into London. I must go and get my luggage. I’m sorry—’

  ‘I’ll come and help you.’ Henry came to his feet in a quick neat movement, flipped the envelope over on the table, and put it away in his pocket. ‘What a pity we have to part so soon. I’ve enjoyed your company, Shah.’

  ‘Oh, yes—I—’Now we were standing up, I found myself looking down at him, which made me feel large and awkward. I smiled at him doubtfully, and said, ‘Please don’t bother—I’ve only got one suitcase, and you’ve got your own things to collect up—’

  ‘Nonsense, of course I must. Show me where you were sitting. There’s always plenty of time—the train doesn’t go on anywhere. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you to manage on your own.’

  With him standing waiting, smiling at me, I could only lead the way along the corridor to my carriage, and let him get my suitcase off the rack for me. I was suddenly miserably conscious of everything: the way I had been chattering and laughing with a perfect stranger, and letting him call me a silly short nickname which no one else would have dreamed of using; the need to decide on a new job; the future; Robert; everything. Most particularly I was feeling agonizingly shy of Henry Thurlanger as the train drew into the station—supposing he asked to see me again? Supposing he thought I always picked people up on trains? Supposing he thought I was really somebody quite different—as he must ... I opened the carriage door quickly, and jumped out, holding out my hand for my suitcase, and looking up into a pair of smiling, quizzical grey eyes above me.

  ‘Th—thank you very much, Mr. Thurlanger. I’ve enjoyed meeting you very much. And as—as a matter of fact I’m not a mystery at all, and I’m not an actress either, I’m a nurse! Goodbye!’

  I turned and fled quickly, and as I made for the platform barrier I was mentally kicking myself. I couldn’t, I thought bitterly, have made a more undignified exit. In fact I couldn’t have behaved with less dignity altogether. But he was nice, I thought stubbornly, and why shouldn’t I have talked to him, when there was absolutely no harm in it? After all, he had a daughter of—what had he said she was? Seventeen? And he hadn’t shown the least sign of thinking I was disreputable, nor was he in the least disreputable himself, quite the reverse in fact—if you discounted that amused, faintly wicked look he wore. He must have thought me idiotic, saying I was one thing and then another, and then running away like that with the barest of goodbyes—if he bothered to think about me at all.

  The trouble was, Old Charlotte was back—she was closi
ng in on me. I almost reached up to pat my hair into its usual neat bun, and I could feel my mouth primming into a straight line. Staff Nurse Armitage, quiet, efficient, dull, and very much a vicar’s daughter, was taking me over, with all Robert’s cautious attitudes behind her.

  With a last kick of rebellion, as I walked decorously down to the Underground, I told myself bitterly that Henry Thurlanger would be shocked if he knew he had been talking to anyone so serious.

  Not, of course, that I was ever likely to see him again.

  CHAPTER II

  I arrived home to find everyone busy organizing a jumble sale. My mother said, a little dubiously, that I looked very nice, but I’d better change into something old to help. My father (whose mind was rarely on externals) patted me unnoticingly on the shoulder and said it was lovely to have me home. My elder sister Jill, who was pretty and smart and might have appreciated the difference in me, was away on holiday with her husband and two children; and my younger sister Cleo was round at a friend’s house practising life-drawing (she was an art student) and avoiding the Jumble. After odd looks from one or two parishioners, I decided to wash my hair back to its usual nondescript blonde in the morning. By the time Cleo finally came home it was screwed back in a bunch, anyway, and streaked with dust from the effort of putting up stalls, so my sudden attack of smartness was already a thing of the past.

  It seemed to have been decided that Robert’s name shouldn’t be mentioned, but the family was noticeably extra nice to me. Cleo even roused herself to the extent of bringing me breakfast in bed, which was very unlike her, and made me feel as if she was expecting me to go into a Victorian decline. (I had put my new clothes away without showing them to her, because, with a touch of New Charlotte stirring, I was unwilling to find her appropriating the lot.) It was generally taken that I was going to have a holiday while I looked round for another job, and I found myself steadily slipping further and further into what people expected me to be. I had been the quiet, sensible middle sister for years, and the family and the parishioners were too used to the image to expect anything different.