Lucy Carmichael

by Margaret Kennedy

“We-ell now …” pondered Mr. Meeker, “we-ell….”

  Matt could not ever have had a chip on his shoulder. Had he found one there he would have removed it and used it to wedge a rattling window. But it was difficult to see him in post-war Ravonsbridge.

  “He wouldn’t have liked it very much,” admitted Mr. Meeker. “But I think he’d have found something to do, because that was his way, you know.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Why … for one thing, if he was here now I don’t think there’d be this distrust between the two towns. It’s bad, and it’s getting worse. I think he’d have tried to tackle it, and seen to it that the people up the hill and the people down here got together more. And he’d have known what a lot of … of quiet looting is going on. Your father wasn’t an intriguer, but he always knew what was going on. He knew because he liked people, and was interested. And though he was so sweet-tempered, he had a good deal of pugnacity. When he was around, a certain type of person didn’t get away with things very easily.”

  “I don’t see what he could have done.”

  “Oh, he’d have been around. He’d have managed to know what was going on. He’d have been in on a lot of activities, and he wouldn’t have minded how Parish Pump they were, and he’d have known who’s on the make, and who’s two-faced, and who’s well-meaning but soft-headed, and who’s a good ally in a scrap.”

  “I daresay. But would anybody have listened to him?”

  “Oh, I think so. There’s a big break-up going on, here and everywhere. New people running things, who haven’t got all the experience they might have; and the old lot, who have experience, not always co-operating as they ought. And a lot of little things left lying about, don’t you know, for the wide boys to pick up because it’s nobody’s business to look after them any more. It’s a golden age for chisellers. There’s been nothing like it since the Reformation, and think how much the wide boys picked up then! Why, think of Cyre Abbey! Say those old monks did deserve to be sent packing; who got it? Your ancestor, Sir John Pulling, and nobody knows why. Scarcely in accordance with the Founder’s intentions.”

  “Bound to happen when everything is handed over to the State.”

  “No. Not bound to happen. But likely to happen. Why now … there’s Grace, my daughter-in-law. She’s on the Town Council, and she’s got very high ideals, but she just doesn’t know what a new fire station ought to cost. I think, if your father had been around, she wouldn’t have been able to help knowing how the Council was done over that deal.”

  “Some of them must have known,” said Charles.

  “Oh, yes. I’m afraid some of them must have known. But not poor Grace. She didn’t mean to waste ratepayers’ money, you know. Now your father, he’d have got on with Grace. I think he’d have liked her and respected a lot of her ideas. And sometime or other, when they were judging vegetable marrows at a cottage flower-show, he’d have managed to tell her a thing or two about fire stations, though she mightn’t have been aware of it. But when the estimates came up … well … Grace would have been wise to it.”

  Charles made no comment. If Mr. Meeker was suggesting that he ought to go and judge vegetable marrows with Mrs. Meeker, there was no comment to make. Ravonsbridge had elected that odious woman to lay out its cash, and Ravonsbridge could foot the bill.

  “And then,” said Mr. Meeker, after a moment’s hesitation, “there’s the Institute. That was very near to his heart.”

  “I know it was,” said Charles, rising to go. “But I’m afraid I can’t feel any enthusiasm about it. To my mind it was a hopeless scheme. It could never have succeeded.”

  “Perhaps. But it’s a valuable piece of property, Mr. Millwood.”

  “Completely wasted.”

  “At present … yes. It could be more useful to the public than it is. Or it could be exploited by private individuals, for their own profit.”

  “Not very likely,” said Charles, “while my mother is above ground.”

  He took his leave. Mr. Meeker came courteously with him to the door and stood there while his guest went down the garden path. At the gate Charles turned and made a gesture of farewell to the tall old man, standing up so straight in the doorway. It was not returned, and he remembered that Mr. Meeker was blind.

  PART III

  MELISSA’S WEDDING

  1

  LUCY moved to her new rooms in Sheep Lane at the end of term, and remained in Ravonsbridge during the vacation. Stephen came to spend his holidays with her, for their mother had gone on a long promised visit to some cousins in Canada and the house at Gorling was let. But neither Rickie nor Mr. Finch, the curate, went to the Angeras. Rickie stayed where he was, and Mr. Finch declared that he would prefer to live ‘among the People’ in the lower town. Lucy’s attic was eventually occupied by two art students for whom there was no room at the boys’ hostel, an arrangement which was agreeable to the Angeras and, indeed, to everyone except Lady Frances, who thought that Mr. Finch would never get rid of his silly ideas if he was allowed to go and live down the hill.

  During the vacation Melissa came to spend a couple of nights in Ravonsbridge. She had not seen Lucy for more than six months; she was upon the point of announcing her engagement to John Beauclerc, and she wanted her friend to know of it in advance. Also there was a delicate point to discuss; in their Oxford days they had agreed that the first to be married should be attended by the other as a bridesmaid; this, to Melissa’s mind, was no longer desirable. She could not ask Lucy to follow her to the altar so soon after the fiasco at Gorling. She was sure that Lucy would not wish it, but she did not know how to phrase that assumption in a letter. It was the sort of thing which could only be settled, in half-sentences, during a conversation.

  Unhappy memories smote her as the train drew into the station and she caught sight of Lucy waiting for her. Lucy was not rushing about any more; she stood calmly by the exit, clutching a large handbag and looking, thought the shocked Melissa, at least forty-five years old. They met, smiled and went out to find a taxi. Lucy explained that they would go first to the Swan, where she had taken a room for Melissa, and then for a tour of the Institute. Stephen, she said, had gone to Gloucester for the day, but he would be back for supper, which they would have in Sheep Lane, and he was delighted at the thought of seeing Melissa again.

  As she talked, Melissa watched her and tried to define the change. A certain roundness of face and limb was gone, and a bloom, the last soft bloom of childhood which had lingered late with Lucy and had been there a year ago. But more than these had been lost. Lucy could, Melissa thought, have lived to be a very old woman and have still kept a certain quality, a sparkle of the eye, a note in the voice, which would always have been young and would infallibly have captured attention. Now it was extinguished. She was like a handsome unlit lamp, pleasant enough to behold but easy to overlook. And this change had come about since they parted; during those dire first weeks, when she had been in London, she had burnt with a flame so tragic that nobody could have overlooked her. Now she was just one of those nice girls whom everybody likes and nobody remembers.

  The taxi raced through the new town and crossed the bridge. Melissa decided to take her fence immediately. Any long discussion of her present happiness must be avoided, and arrival at the Swan would give them an early opportunity to change the subject.

  “I have a piece of news about myself,” she said, “that won’t wait another minute.”

  Lucy looked at her and said quickly:

  “You’re going to be married?”

  “Yes. To John Beauclerc. You met him once at supper.”

  “That night Rickie came? I remember. Oh … very nice! I rather wondered then … Oh, Melissa! I did think he was very nice. I am so glad.”

  Lucy asked all the right questions, with just the right amount of pleased interest. Before they reached the Swan she had learnt that the engagement would be announced in May, the wedding was planned for July, and that John had found a little hous
e in Lincolnshire.

  “July …” she mused. “Oh … I do hope I shall be able to come. But we’re putting on Twelfth Night and I might not be able to get away. I might be able to dash up to London, just for the day, but I shan’t know till the last minute. I know Mr. Thornley will be nice about it if he can.”

  Which told Melissa that she perfectly understood the bridesmaid quandary, and was not expecting to officiate. So that was settled, and when they reached the Swan they were able to talk of something else. But she reverted to the topic again for a moment when, in Melissa’s room, she once more watched the unpacking of those familiar shoe bags. She said that poor Rickie would probably drown himself in the Ravon. Melissa laughed and refused to take Rickie seriously.

  The Institute was closed for vacation, but they went to see the theatre and amused themselves with the light switches while Lucy described the Nativity Play, which she had been too ill to do when it was produced. They then went to the Art School, in the north wing of the second quadrangle.

  “I don’t know if we can get in,” said Lucy, as they went. “It may be locked, but it’s generally open, as Emil often works there in the vacation.”

  “Will he be there?”

  “No. He’ll have gone home for tea, but I hope he’s left the door open. Oh, good! He has. Come in.”

  The stove in the big studio was lighted and a great many empty beer bottles stood about everywhere.

  “He must be working quite hard,” said Lucy. “I never knew such a man for beer; when he’s working really hard he sluices beer down his throat with one hand and paints with the …”

  She broke off to stare in amazement at a half-finished picture on an easel.

  “Is that his?” asked Melissa.

  “Yes,” said Lucy slowly. “It … it must be.”

  “It’s extremely good. The hands are wonderful. But I wouldn’t care to live with it. Oh, Lucy! Is it Ianthe?”

  “Yes. I never knew he was … but how did you guess?”

  “She’s so like your descriptions. Your letters are good, you know, Lucy.”

  They both studied the portrait and Melissa again commented on the hands. Lucy had not hitherto perceived the oddness of Ianthe’s hands. Though vivid in gesture they were, in repose, very ugly, mere bunches of limp fingers which did not look capable of holding anything or doing anything.

  “No allure at all,” said Melissa. “Not for men, anyway. I see why she has to live in two places. In Ravonsbridge she can talk about her beaux in Yorkshire, and in Yorkshire she can boast of Ravonsbridge conquests.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” said Lucy.

  “Well, do the boys here ever take her out?”

  Lucy shook her head. She had never known Ianthe to have a date, and Robin’s admiration had been short-lived, for Wendy had reclaimed him almost instantly.

  “It’s odd,” said Lucy, “for really she’s very good-looking and amusing, when she likes to be.”

  “Not odd at all. Men don’t like neurotic women. They’re scared of them. That’s why Hedda Gabler had to marry old Tesman.”

  “It’s queer you should mention Hedda Gabler,” said Lucy. “For I was thinking the other day how well Ianthe could play that part. How do you come to know more about her than I’ve found out in six months?”

  “The picture tells a good deal. Look how she’s standing outside that door planning to go in and make somebody jump. By herself she’s nothing … she’s an empty icebox. She has to make people jump in order to be sure she exists. She can’t feel. Neurotic people can’t.”

  “How do you know all this about neurotic people?”

  “A man called Armitage, a medical friend of Hump’s; he’s a neurologist. He was talking about girls with nervous breakdowns because of unhappy love affairs. He said nobody with a real love affair gets a nervous breakdown; they go haywire because they haven’t had any love affair at all, and couldn’t — they’re so wrapped up in themselves.”

  “Well, anyway,” said Lucy, “if Emil is painting Ianthe he isn’t pinching her, which takes rather a load off my mind. He’s perfectly sexless when he paints. Venus of Milo or a coal-scuttle, it’s all the same to him. In the Art School he’s a different man … never silly, never lupine. Really he makes one feel he’s a great man, when he’s on his job.”

  “And how much of that does Ianthe understand, do you think? I expect the poor girl thinks she’s got a man at last.”

  “Then she’ll have a rude awakening. ‘Tomorrow I finish, thank you very much. I shan’t need you any more because I now paint a portrait of Miss Foss.’”

  “And what will Ianthe do? Fire off a gun, like Hedda Gabler?”

  “Probably. But everybody is used to that.”

  “Even Hedda fired off one too many,” said Melissa, turning to examine some of the students’ work.

  They then went to the library and Melissa was introduced to Mr. Mildmay. He gave them a warm welcome and displayed all his especial treasures. On their way to Sheep Lane they caught a glimpse of Mr. Hayter going into his office, and in Market Square they met Miss Foss. Everybody came up to Melissa’s expectations, and she felt that she knew exactly what they were like; they emerged intact from Lucy’s letters. And this seemed strange to Melissa, because she was quite sure that not one of them could have the least understanding of Lucy or any means of knowing what Lucy was like. If the lamp should ever be lit again, Ravonsbridge would get a shock.

  But on the next day Lucy appeared to be in much better spirits. They went with Stephen into Severnton, and she kept smiling to herself, as the bus drove through Slane forest, as though she was thinking of something very pleasant. She seemed to be on much better terms with Stephen than formerly. Melissa had noticed it at supper the night before. She had stopped scolding him and treated him as though he were grown up. He, for his part, treated her with an anxious, almost protective, care, which was rather touching.

  On arrival in Severnton Lucy announced that she had some shopping to do, and despatched the other two to look at the Cathedral without her. They spent half an hour admiring Norman pillars and peering at tombs and trying to identify the Pentecost window. And then they went into the cloisters, which led to the Chapter House where the whole story of the Bible was carved in high relief round the walls. Melissa had got as far as the Drunkenness of Noah, that great topic of the Middle Ages, when Stephen abruptly exclaimed that he wanted to consult her. She turned and saw that he was swallowing rapidly.

  “You know all about women,” he said. “I mean, you are one. I want to consult you about Lucy.”

  Melissa smiled and sat upon the Dean’s throne, beckoning Stephen to sit beside her.

  “You see … I … I’ve been seeing Patrick Reilly.”

  “Oh? When?”

  “About a fortnight ago.”

  “Does Lucy know?”

  “Oh, no. You see I thought I ought to thrash him.”

  “And did you?”

  “Partly.”

  “How do you mean … partly?”

  Stephen explained that he had been determined to thrash Reilly for months but had not known where to find him. At last a gossip paragraph in a newspaper informed him that Reilly was in London and that he lunched, more often than not, at the Black Tulip.

  “So I went to London and I went to the Black Tulip,” said Stephen. “I’d meant to take a horse-whip, but I didn’t know where to get one, and anyway it was an awkward sort of thing to carry about. I said: Is Mr. Patrick Reilly here? And they must have thought I was a guest, for they took me to his table and he was there lunching with a lot of women. I’d meant to tell him to come outside with me, but when I saw him I felt so angry I suppose I lost my head. I went up to him and slapped his face and said: Sir! You are a coward and a cad.”

  “You didn’t!” cried Melissa, enraptured. “Well? Then?”

  “Then all the waiters rushed up and M. Benoit … you know … the manager …”

  “Don’t I know him! He’s a lamb. W
ell?”

  “So Reilly’s nose was bleeding. But he was really very nice about it, Melissa. He said: This gentleman and I have something to discuss; can’t we go somewhere more private? So M. Benoit was marvellous. He made it all seem quite ordinary and natural, so everybody stopped staring and went on with their meals, and he took us up to his office.”

  “Darling Benoit! He would.”

  Melissa was very fond of Benoit, and he was very fond of her, and always came forward to welcome her in person when her young men brought her to the Black Tulip. She was the kind of girl he liked to see in his restaurant, — très bien élevée, trés comme il faut. He knew that the Reilly clientele might desert him at any time for some newer haunt; and he knew that loyalty often goes with good manners.

  “So we mopped up Reilly’s nose. And then he asked how Lucy is.”

  “He dared?”

  Stephen had always supposed that Melissa was a sweet gentle girl. Her blazing eyes quite alarmed him. He explained hurriedly:

  “He … he did it quite nicely. And he was really very nice to me. I mean, he said he quite saw why I had to hit him, only he said he thought honour was satisfied. And you know, Melissa, he’s very cut up about it all. He explained some things I’d never understood. He’d never meant her to go to Church like that. He didn’t know about that till afterwards. He’d thought she’d had a message … he didn’t exactly say so, but I think it was that … that woman … who promised to send the message and didn’t.”

  “I’d always suspected that,” agreed Melissa.

  “He’s left her, you know.”

  “Has he? Did he say so?”

  “Yes. He left her when he found out what had happened, and he’s never seen her since. So then he asked, rather hesitatingly, how Lucy is. And I said: She’s quite all right, thanks.”

  He paused, and Melissa nodded approvingly.

  “So then he said if there was ever anything he could do for her would I let him know. So I said yes I would. So that’s what I wanted to ask you. Do you think there’s anything he can do for her?”