“I’ve lost my religious faith,” he declared. “That’s a simply frightful thing to happen to me just now.”
“But you always knew He allowed other people to be unhappy,” Lucy pointed out. “And that never worried you.”
“Well, naturally, I didn’t think about that much. If I had I suppose I’d have lost my religious faith before. Do you believe in God, Lucy?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy. “I only know I can’t talk about Him. If I do I always feel I’m saying something false … not quite what I mean….”
“For me, personally, it’s the end if I can’t put my trust in God any more.”
For some days after that the Institute saw nothing of him. He lay upon his bed in his lodgings, much to the annoyance of his landlady, who could not get into his room to clean it and reported that he groaned and created up there, fit to be heard down in the new town. His students, already restive, became rebellious. There was talk of an appeal to Pidgeon, to Lady Frances; but Hayter, who always knew what was in the wind, staved off such a catastrophe by promising to tackle Rickie himself. He did so, at first kindly, then severely, but with little success.
Lucy’s kindness and patience with Rickie were well known, so Hayter sent for her and asked her advice. Could any steps be taken to cheer Rickie up?
“Nothing, unless he was asked to conduct at Covent Garden,” said Lucy, “or got some of his own compositions on the air.”
She was surprised to see that Hayter took this suggestion seriously.
“You think a broadcast might do the trick?”
“It would send him up to the stratosphere. He’d forget Melissa in a week. He’s always posting his songs to radio artists and it’s a shame they never get taken. But I suppose it’s all a matter of luck.”
“H’m,” said Hayter. “I think we might attend to Rickie’s luck a little. These songs … are they any good?”
“Oh, quite. I mean they’re very like good songs, only a little too like, so you keep feeling you’ve heard them before.”
“Are they for men or women?”
“Men, I should think. They’re too sentimental for women.”
Hayter laughed, and explained that he could pull some strings. He knew of several singers who would do him a good turn in exchange for his kind offices at Festivals. He thought he might persuade somebody to give a Haverstock recital in the autumn, not, he hastened to add, at nine-thirty in the evening, but at some less distinguished time of day. He would see Rickie at once and dangle this carrot before his nose.
Lucy thought him so kind to take all this trouble, that she stifled a carping distaste for the atmosphere of string-pulling in which Hayter seemed to thrive. He was really very good-natured, she decided, and there were no justifiable grounds for the faint distrust which he always inspired in her. Only a cynic would say that he was too nice to everybody — that his quick grin and friendly laugh were employed too frequently to give any indication of his real character. What if he were not perfectly sincere? A great many people, she reflected, are not only insincere but disagreeable into the bargain. It was rather hard on a man to dislike him because he was always pleasant.
In the warmth of her repentance towards him she accepted a cigarette and a drink before going back to the theatre. And when he asked how Twelfth Night was getting on she told him that it was going to be terrible, and told him why. Before she was half through her drink she had said much which might be construed as criticism of Mr. Thornley.
“But will it be so very much worse,” asked Mr. Hayter blandly, “than our productions usually are?”
Lucy pulled herself up and resolved to say no more. She began to perceive how it was that the Executive Director always managed to know everything, and as she rose to take her leave a fresh instance of this omniscience considerably startled her.
“Let’s hope,” he said, “that you’ll all settle down better now that Miss Meadows has gone.”
“Gone?” cried Lucy. “Where? When? She hasn’t gone away from Ravonsbridge.”
“I heard she went back to Yorkshire this morning.”
“She can’t have! She was in School yesterday. She said nothing about going away.”
“I may have been misinformed. But if it’s true it may be just as well for the Drama School.”
“A godsend,” agreed Lucy. “The Drama School is no place for her.”
“Nor the Art School either,” said Hayter, opening the door for her, “though I admire Angera’s portrait tremendously, don’t you?”
“Oh, but that was done in the vacation,” said Lucy. “She had no chance to upset the Art School.”
“Or the Art School to upset her?”
Lucy started, glanced at him, and met a very sharp look. He certainly knew everything, — knew what a snub Ianthe had got from Emil when her portrait was finished, knew of the spiteful vendetta which had gone on between those two ever since.
Nor had he been misinformed concerning this latest event. On returning to the theatre Lucy discovered everybody whispering in corners. Ianthe was gone. There had been an explosion of some kind on the previous night. Somebody had heard her sobbing in Mr. Thornley’s office. Somebody else had seen H. E. marching her out of the Institute and home to the Rectory. Nobody had actually seen him putting her into the train that morning, but a belief prevailed that he had done so.
Mr. Thornley’s aspect forbade any questions. Neither Miss Frogmore nor Miss Payne could elucidate the mystery.
“The most promising pupil I ever had,” mourned Miss Frogmore. “Such a wonderful voice! She’d have made the school famous. Now, I suppose we shall lose her to the R.A.D.A. It’s too bad of H. E. From the start he did nothing but discourage her and now she’s gone.”
“It’s my belief,” said Miss Payne, who inclined to the other party, “that he had no choice. I expect she’s been spinning one of her yarns. Probably accused Robin or Peter of making a pass at her.”
This would have been so like Ianthe that neither Lucy nor Miss Frogmore could quite reject it.
“Even if she did,” protested Miss Frogmore, “he needn’t have made such heavy weather of it. He could have snapped her head off … but to send her away … what do you think, Lucy?”
Lucy did not know what to think. She never liked thinking about Ianthe, for the memory of Slane St. Mary’s could still make her wince. And she felt a little guilty over the break-up of their friendship; if Ianthe had told any other lie on that sinister afternoon she would have been able to forgive it. Her anger and repulsion were the consequence of an accident.
“Perhaps he didn’t send her,” she suggested. “Perhaps he just annoyed her, and she went off in a huff.”
“Then why is he looking so black about it?” asked Miss Payne. “I’m sure she did something outrageous.”
Lucy was sure of it too, really, but she would not try to think what it was. The pieces of the puzzle lay on the table before her — Hayter’s broad hint, Ianthe’s grudge against Emil, and Thornley’s drastic action — but she would not put them together or speculate on the nature of the lie which Ianthe had probably now told.
“I’m afraid it’s too late to save Twelfth Night,” she sighed. “We’ll never pull them together before the opening. What a foul term it’s been! Between Rickie and Ianthe my work has gone completely to pot and I expect I shall get the sack.”
She spoke lightly, but she really did feel anxious when, after a disastrous opening, Lady Frances came storming in from Cyre Abbey to know the reason why and to confer with Mr. Hayter. That conference lasted for close on three hours, as all the Staff were uneasily aware.
Nobody could pretend that the Drama School had not disgraced itself. Even Mr. Thornley was obliged to refer to Twelfth Night as ‘one of my few disappointments’. The Ravonsbridge Echo, always tepid about Institute productions, came into the open with a frankly hostile notice. It seemed inevitable that some heads must fall and Lucy supposed that her own might be the most expendable. Her lecture
s had suffered from the demands made by Rickie, and she could not feel that she had contributed anything to the work in the theatre.
To her surprise, the idea of leaving Ravonsbridge was extremely unwelcome. She did not like it much, but she had got used to it, and her heart sank when she thought of going somewhere else and starting all over again. Tears rose to her eyes when, crossing the quadrangle from the theatre to the canteen, she saw Lady Frances stumping back to her car, respectfully escorted by the Executive Director. He looked cheerful enough, as cheerful as a cat with a saucer of cream, thought Lucy, and the smile he flashed at her was particularly sunny. But there was no trusting his smiles. He had probably been signing her death warrant.
She did him less than justice. From the post-mortem which had been held during that three hours’ conference only one person had emerged with enhanced credit and an assured future. Mr. Hayter, who knew everything, knew nothing save good of Miss Carmichael.
“It’s not only her work in the Drama School,” announced Lady Frances to her family at lunch. “She’s a really useful, loyal member of the Staff. Just the sort of girl we want. Mr. Hayter discovered her, you know, and I can’t be too grateful to him. It seems that she’s been endlessly kind to poor Mr. Haverstock. He thought he was engaged, you know, and then found that he was not, and really, Mr. Hayter says he might have quite gone to pieces if it hadn’t been for Miss Carmichael. Between them they got him to pull himself together, and he’s quite all right again now.”
“But who wrote that disgraceful notice in the Echo?” asked Tish, who was lunching with them. “Does Mr. Hayter know?”
“He says it’s some young man in the gas works, who does journalism. Basil Wright, I think he’s called. But the Echo has a perfect right to criticise, Tish. The newspapers must say what they think. Twelfth Night is very bad, and Mr. Thornley ought to be much more ashamed of it than he is. And he’s been very tiresome about Ianthe, I gather. It was so nice that she wanted to work steadily at something, but he seems to have discouraged her so much that she gave it up. Miss Carmichael has had such a very good influence on Ianthe. I think we are extremely lucky in Miss Carmichael. I think, and Mr. Hayter thinks, that she will be perfectly capable of taking on the theatre when Mr. Thornley goes.”
Charles, who never attended when Institute chatter was going on, came out of a reverie to ask why Thornley was going.
“Oh, he isn’t going just yet,” said Lady Frances. “But I feel it might become advisable. His heart isn’t really in the Institute nowadays, you know, and that is why the productions have fallen off so much. He has so many outside interests. He’s always away, lecturing and judging drama competitions. He might prefer to give up all his time to this outside work. He might want to retire.”
That Mr. Thornley should ever want any such thing seemed unlikely to Charles, but it was clear that his stock had fallen.
“He’s very tiresome on the Council meetings,” said Tish. “He never pays any attention to what Mamma says. Mr. Angera, you know, resigned at the beginning of this term; he’d taken offence over some ridiculous trifle. He’s always resigning. We wanted to give him a good fright — accept his resignation and force him to eat humble pie. But Mr. Thornley went off then and there and got him to apologise while the Council was sitting, so we were forced to overlook it.”
“One wouldn’t have Miss Carmichael on the Council,” mused Lady Frances. “She wouldn’t expect it.”
Thornley’s days were numbered. For years he had spent half his time lecturing up and down the country without any protest from Lady Frances. Twelfth Night was not very much worse than his other productions. But if Hayter wanted him out, out he would go. Charles, who rather liked the old fellow, felt an impulse to protest, but thought better of it. Hayter must either be allowed to rule the roost or be flung out neck and crop. Thornley would go, and the enigmatic Carmichael would get his job. For enigmatic she had seemed to Charles, ever since that curious encounter in Severnton. Not a poor, nice, dull girl with a sad story at all, but one-half of a most disturbing combination. He had thought about her several times and had decided that she was neither poor nor dull. And now, if she was really making for Thornley’s job, he doubted if she could be nice.
“Perhaps,” said Penelope, who was also remembering Severnton, “Mr. Haverstock will marry Miss Carmichael, if this other girl has jilted him.”
“Oh, I hope not,” cried her mother. “He’s not nearly good enough.”
“Good heavens no!”
Charles said this with so much vehemence that all his family were startled. Tish began to laugh.
“I don’t believe you even know her by sight, Charles! I don’t believe you’d recognise her if you met her in the street.”
“Oh yes I should,” said Charles. “She … she has a very pretty friend.”
At which even Lady Frances laughed.
3
TURNING a corner on their way from the Underground station, Rickie and Lucy were confronted unexpectedly by the church, the awning, the red carpet and the little crowd.
“What are you hanging back for?” asked Rickie. “It’s quite time we went in. Come along.”
Lucy came along, thankful for his company. If he had not, in a sudden wave of heroism, decided to attend the wedding, she might never have got herself into the church. She was braced for an ordeal inside, but she had not supposed she could be put out by so small a thing as a red carpet. She settled her big hat on her curls and sailed into church beside Rickie, looking more serene than she felt — looking indeed like everybody else. The moment of panic was behind her. She was in the dusk and rustle of the nave, where a flower-garden of summer hats turned this way and that on a tide of soft music.
“Bride or bridegroom?” whispered somebody to Rickie, who was so much interested by the discovery that the music was Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring that he took no notice.
“Bride,” stated Lucy.
They were put into a pew which was some way back. Rickie, although he had lost his religious faith, immediately knelt down and buried his face in his arms. Lucy also knelt. She thought it bad manners to enter a church without doing so. She shut her eyes and launched a command into vacancy:
Make Melissa happy! Make Melissa happy! Make Melissa happy!
When she sat up, she saw that somebody in the pew just in front was making faces at her. Lucy grimaced back, recalling the name with difficulty: Sylvia Stoner — Oxford — looking years older and much smarter than she had looked when she was cycling frantically down St. Giles’ with a lot of books falling out of her basket.
Rickie was taking an unconscionable time over his prayers and making himself conspicuous. Lucy stared round and recognised other Oxford faces. Everyone looked older and smarter. But then they were all wearing their best clothes, and most of them had been exhausted by Schools when she last saw them.
A plump, eupeptic-looking young couple bustled up the aisle — Cressida and fat Alan, who had a baby now, which they must have left at home. Rickie sat up at last, his face fixed in an agonised grin which he meant to keep up during the whole ceremony in order to prove that Melissa’s happiness was more important than his own. But it flickered a little when he looked at the white and silver Order of the Service which had been handed to him. Proceedings were to end with the Trumpet Voluntary.
Lucy studied one and wondered if hers had looked so impressive. Had she had any? She could not remember. It was probable that she had; all that sort of thing had been done very correctly at her wedding. But what, she wondered, had become of them afterwards? Had people taken them home? In how many houses were they lying about now, tossed away with Christmas cards and other undestroyed rubbish — those hymns and psalms for Lucy Angela Carmichael and Patrick Reilly?
She craned round the forest of hats in an attempt to catch sight of John Beauclerc. He was invisible, but he must be there, by now, waiting for Melissa.
Mrs. Hallam, competent and graceful, walked up the aisle nodding at friends. J
ulius followed her. It could not be long now. Melissa, at home, had waited the prescribed ten minutes, and must have started for church. What a pity Hump could not be there! That must be the one bitter drop in Melissa’s cup. Where was he at this great moment? In the Orchard Bush, whatever that was. Lucy pictured a vast apple orchard, and a man in a pith helmet crawling about looking for a fly, ‘just one little fly in the whole of Africa’.
“Pum, pa pum-pum!” hummed Rickie, unable to keep silence while Bach was going on.
She nudged him and he shut up, blushing.
Oh, you Hump, stop crawling and looking for flies! Think of Melissa. Pray for Melissa. For, next to John, she loves you better than anyone in the whole wide world.
Hump turned and ran towards her, not a man in a pith helmet, but a boy who had just won a race — a schoolboy in shorts and a singlet, whose photograph had stood on Melissa’s mantelpiece all the time she was in Oxford. It was an enlargement of a snapshot taken at Winchester. The tensity and strain of the race were still upon him; his head was thrust forward and his mouth was grim. But in his eyes was the dawn of exultation. He ran towards her and dashed past her, shouting: In Millwood’s bed!
The music faded. The agitated rustle of suspense was rising. Heads were constantly turned towards the door. Unseen events were taking place out there in the sunshine. Everyone knew that the bride had arrived.
The organ pealed, the choir burst into song, and the congregation surged to its feet.
“Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven!”
Ah, now! There was John! There he was with his kind, slightly worried young face; he had stepped into view with a very tall, very fair, best man. He was up there, waiting for Melissa, while the choir paced onwards, two by two.
“Praise Him, praise Him!” sang the altos.
“Praise Him, praise Him!” chanted the tenors.
“Praise the everlasting King!” rumbled the basses.
Rickie gave a convulsive gasp, for Melissa was coming now. She passed them slowly in her misty white, touching and grave, upon her father’s arm. Her lovely little head was bent beneath her veil, and yet she was steadily offering to the world’s view her resolution, her hopes, her love. A stir of emotion, a strange compassion, accompanied her passing, as of wind blowing over a field of corn. The receding choir was singing softly:
Lucy Carmichael Page 17