So many are indignant that I sometimes hope for a reaction. We have got these people for five years, but a vacancy might occur and pressure might be brought to get her onto the Council again. Her speech has left the door open for friendliness and co-operation. Her son’s behaviour did not. His resignation was furious and abrupt, and left us in no doubt as to his feelings. But the humiliation of the whole business must have been unendurable and was intended to be so. It was intended that the Millwoods should be so much surprised and provoked that they would commit themselves in some way. No strategy could, I think, have saved them. But Lady Frances was saved by her great natural goodness, which impelled her to do the right thing.
I think it will be a comfort to you to know this, for much that I have written will distress you. And it is a comfort to me to write to you, for there are not many who feel about it quite as I do. You would be surprised how little most people seem to care. There is indignation on behalf of Lady Frances, but no sense of shame at the unworthiness of the whole transaction, no real grasp of the implications.
Thank you for writing to me, my dear Miss Carmichael. My wife joins me in sending you our kindest regards.
Owen Rees to Lucy
275 Dawson Avenue, New Ravonsbridge,
Severnshire, Nov. 17
I hope you are well and have got a good job. This night last year we opened in Hamlet, which is why I am writing, though it seems longer, doesn’t it?
I am putting on Čapek’s R.U.R. But it has got whiskers. It was quite a novelty when it was first put on, so they say. But a v. strong 2nd Act. In the new year I have a big scheme for light Opera. We have some good voices in the M.M. I thought of The Vagabond King, but the Drill Hall wouldn’t do for it.
Lucy, there have been some big changes at the Institute, as I expect you have heard. Personally I could not care less; you know what I said about it, especially after last summer. But I was surprised when I heard about the elections and I do not see how the new lot is an improvement. Why can’t they elect some people who know something about Art etc.? I do not see why Harris should be on — he is in cahoots with Adamson and helped him snitch the Drill Hall. Might as well have put on Adamson himself, everyone knows anything Harris does Adamson is behind it. And if they had to have some one from the M.M. there is plenty who know more about Art than Hugh Davis. And they say Wright is a Communist.
And I was really sorry about Lady Millwood. I think she had a right to be on. Lucy, I keep remembering her at the Xmas party; I suppose she will not be hostess any more. It is rather pathetic. But
What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba
That he should weep for her?
Do you remember I made you cry on that line? And you were shocked when I said I was not too sure who Hecuba was — I thought she was the same as Dido. So we had quite an argument about acting.
Well Lucy send me a line if you have time. Or are you too busy telling the fellows off? I shall not forget the Café Bar in a hurry. You should have seen yourself — if looks could kill! Which reminds me — what did you mean compare notes? Did somebody else get what-for beside me?
I should like to try McBeth but have to keep the girls sweet and got nobody in my Co. that fancies herself as Lady McB: except a girl called Fay Barnes which if you could see her you would agree that ‘discretion is the better part of valour’. It is not a lucky play anyhow. But I would like to have a try at Tomorrow and tomorrow and cetera.
It is 7 P.M. Curtain up a year ago. You were in the wings and you gave me a scarab for luck. I have got it still. I shall never forget that night. It was great.
Melissa to Hump
Drumby, Dec. 18
This is a Christmas letter, unilateral as usual, for I don’t expect to hear from you. I have some good/bad news. I shan’t be able to go to Paris in January so shan’t see you before you sail. John is making a most unheard-of fuss about my going all alone and has got the cretinous old doctor here to back him up and threatens an appeal to mother if I rebel! And I’ve got to cancel that gymkhana, so I really have nothing to look forward to and I’m perfectly miserable. Hump, how do you come to know so much about ‘girls’? There’s something not right about it, in an ostensible bachelor. But I try to believe that it’s just me you understand. That gymkhana idea was pure magic. Instantaneous!
We are very busy with the Club pantomime. No racing news. Lucy just larks about with Cobb and Brett and rides with Quinn so often that people are beginning to talk, which I regret. She is a little moody and unsettled. She has had letters from Ravonsbridge which have upset her, though, as far as I can gather, they only prove how right she was. The Institute seems to have collapsed and she was very wise to get out in time.
Oh Hump I am so very happy and so very wretched that I shan’t see you. Can’t you, can’t you, come?
Charles to Lucy
Cyre Abbey, Severnshire, Dec. 24
My dear Lucy, I want to tell you that the Christmas card you sent to us has given enormous pleasure to my mother. It always makes her happy to hear from people who have worked for the Institute. And this was an inspired choice of yours; she does not care much for pictures generally, but that Simone Martine is a great favourite with her. It is a lovely thing; the best they have in the Uffizi, don’t you think?
I know she will be writing to you herself, but it has occurred to me that you must be longing for news of her and unable to get it. I remember, with some remorse, your great affection for her and feel that I ought to have written before to tell you how she got through the shock that we have all had, for the news of it must have distressed you.
Other people will doubtless have written to tell you of what happened at the general meeting. Of course we all realised at once, when we arrived at the hall, that something of the sort was going to happen. But we never expected that my mother herself would not be re-elected. She tells me that she was in great doubt and dismay, when the voting was going on; she foresaw that her old colleagues would go and that she would have in future to work with a set of people whom she did not know or did not like. She could not be certain of her duty in the matter, or what my father would have wished her to do. So that the final blow came really as a relief. She realised that the choice was out of her hands.
She made a little speech before leaving the hall. I was sorry that she did; I was afraid that her motive would be misunderstood and that these people would think she was trying to conciliate them. But she is quite sure that my father would have wished it.
We got her home and I was very anxious about her. I thought she stumbled a little as we went down to the car. To tell you the truth I was afraid of a stroke. But she recovered in a wonderful way. She went to bed as soon as we got home, and when I went up later to see her she was very cheerful, sitting up in bed drinking egg-nog out of a little silver cup which my father always used, and reading the Bible.
Since then she has hardly ever referred to the Institute, though she insisted upon going with my sister to the Nativity Play and to the Christmas party, which I thought unnecessary. Penelope tells me that none of our old friends were there, but that she and my mother were very cordially received by several members of the new Council.
The thing which has most distressed her was a visit we had from Haverstock, just before the end of the term. He came to ask for her intervention in some trouble he has had with the Council and could not seem able to grasp the idea that she has now no power to intervene.
But I think she is enjoying herself very much this Christmas, for all my married sisters have come with their families. It is years since we have had the house so full, and her seven grandchildren are a great joy to her.
My dear Lucy, I don’t know where you are or what you are doing. I’m sending this to the Institute office which must have a forwarding address. But, wherever you are, I hope you are very happy. It was like you to send that card. Yours affectionately,
C. M.
Rickie to Lucy
278 Kings Road, Richmond, Surrey, D
ec. 26
Thank you for your Xmas card. I’m afraid I didn’t send any this year. As a matter of fact I wasn’t in the mood.
I am staying with my Aunt.
I am getting fed up with the Institute. I would leave if I could hear of anything else. Do you know of anything? I have written to the B.B.C.
It’s this new Council. Hayter says he can’t do anything with them. I can’t get anybody to back me up. Pidgeon is resigning. I went and saw Lady Frances. She says she has nothing to do with the Institute now, which is rot, the Founder’s wife must have some say, I should think. Most of the people in our orchestra have always been amateurs. They played because they thought it was rather jolly to be in an orchestra. We only paid the leaders and the soloists. The whole idea was that people played because they liked playing. If everybody has got in future to be paid at Union rates, look at the cost of rehearsals! I don’t get the idea that all voluntary work is wrong because some people can’t afford to play for nothing. The Institute was meant for amateurs. If everybody has got to be paid, look at the cost of rehearsals. And if I have to have fewer rehearsals, how can I get any standard? The whole idea was for people to enjoy themselves, not get money.
I ran into Ma Meeker in the quad and tried to make her see. She said only rich people can afford these expensive hobbies, playing in orchestras. But that’s rot. Our orchestra isn’t rich. My 2nd fiddle is a railway porter. People grow roses and play darts in their spare time, nobody thinks they ought to be paid for that. Why shouldn’t they play in orchestras? But she says every voluntary worker takes a career out of the mouth of somebody who needs a job. Well, there aren’t enough professional musicians here for that to apply to. She says it is the principle. Of course we paid the harpist.
They don’t mind, of course they’re frightfully pleased to suddenly be paid for something they’d always done for nothing. But look at the cost of rehearsals! Where is the money to come from? So Hayter says if I could train a dance band that would bring in a lot and that is what the Council expects. I said I don’t train dance bands. I can’t. It’s not what the music school is for. I went out to Cyre Abbey and saw Lady Frances, but I couldn’t get her to do anything. If I could hear of any other job I would walk out. Nobody seems to realise. But if I could explain to you Lucy, I’m sure I could get you to agree with me that it is all wrong. You mayn’t have thought about it but I’m sure you would agree. Anyway I’m absolutely fed up and that’s why I didn’t make the effort to send any Xmas cards.
Hump to Melissa
Paris, Dec. 26
I’ve been so busy I forgot it was Christmas till I got your good/bad news. Dare I say how tremendously pleased I am? Or are you now occupied with a new set of gloomy forebodings? What’s wrong with happiness, and why are you so much afraid of it?
You are the only girl in my life, more or less, and I’d come and scold you into placidity if I wasn’t afraid of losing this African job. But I smell a plot to squeeze me out of it, which I mean to foil if I can.
I’m so sorry about poor Lucy’s Institute. No comfort at all to her to have been in the right. I found a piece in Wordy William which sums it up; like your Miss Bates he always ‘says everything’.
By superior energy, by more strict
Affiance in each other, firmer faith
In their unhallowed principles, the Bad
Have fairly earned a victory o’er the weak,
The vacillating, inconsistent Good.
2
“IF it wasn’t for you, my dotey dear,” said Melissa crossly to Collins, “I should be inside my nice warm house by my nice warm fire reading a nice warm book.”
Collins gave her a glance of reproach as he plodded beside her along the bleak high-road. He did not seem to like a north-eastern gale in his face any better than she did. The iron frost, which had held Drumby for a week, had depressed both of them quite enough. They had believed themselves to be cold until this wind arrived to teach them the true meaning of the word.
“I believe it’s all a myth that you like exercise,” grumbled Melissa. “But you’re a man and men are slaves to myths. You bark and jump about when I get your lead, because they told you at school that all Regular Dogs like walkies, and you’ve firmly believed it ever since, mutt that you are. How can this be advisable for man or beast?”
She said no more because the wind gave her toothache. She regretted the cowardice which had prompted her to choose the south-west road out of the town, where she had the wind behind her and could put off the horror of facing it until the second half of the walk. But she had hoped to get a lift on the way back from Lucy who had, she knew, gone in that direction to collect some eggs. They were to spend the afternoon in the Club, as soon as Collins had had his walk, preparing it for the New Year’s Eve party.
The air was full of noise, the scream of the wind and a deep drumming, as though the waves which thundered on the waste beaches, ten miles away, were audible over the fens. Sometimes she turned and walked backwards so as to get her breath and to wipe away the tears which froze on her lashes. But Collins had not the sense to do this; she tried to think of a dog walking backwards and could not remember ever having seen one. There was not even a hedge to protect them, for the road ran slightly raised through the fenny fields.
Presently, on one of her retrogressive interludes, she saw hope arriving. The cripple car was bucketing along with surprising agility for anything so decrepit. It drew up with a scream of its ancient brakes and Lucy put her head out. The wind blew all her curls straight backwards, making her face look very narrow, and her voice was inaudible. Melissa tottered with Collins to the rear door.
“I said you’ll have to come in in front,” screamed Lucy. “The back is full.”
There was scarcely room in front for Lucy, Melissa, Collins and the gears, but the car was agreeably stuffy. It smelt of petrol and kippers.
“Oh, heaven! Oh, bliss!” gasped Melissa, as they bucketed off again. “What is all that in the back?”
“Eggs, beer, kippers and a barrel of smoked oysters.”
“Smoked oysters? What fun! But aren’t they fearfully expensive?”
“They’re a present to me really. But I can’t eat a barrel of smoked oysters all by myself. I thought I’d brighten the Club supper with them.”
“Who gave them to you?”
“Larry. And he gave me a bottle of rum too. I shall hang on to that. We might stop off at your house on our way through the town and have some; it would warm us up before getting to work at the Club.”
“Rum? Oysters? Lucy, are you sure he means to do right by you?”
“I’m sure not.”
“A nice girl wouldn’t accept.”
“Not pearls or a cabochon emerald. But oysters … think of seagulls, Melissa. They always offer shellfish to their flames when they go courting.”
“Seagulls are nicer than Captain Quinn.”
Melissa was becoming seriously perturbed by Captain Quinn. Drumby was talking. Nobody supposed that he meant to marry Lucy, yet they were constantly together and Melissa suspected him of the kind of vanity which likes to vaunt a conquest. As long as Drumby believed that he had prevailed, he would probably be quite content, though Lucy took his oysters and kept him at arm’s length. Such an impression would inevitably damage the Club, which would lose its cachet if run by a rackety girl who might or might not be Quinn’s mistress.
On their way through the town they drew up at 17 High Street, fought their way into Melissa’s house, and made themselves rum cocktails.
Lucy is getting rather hard, thought Melissa. I suppose she is really very lonely. Why isn’t she married, when she is so beautiful?
Lucy’s beauty had stood up to the inclement day better than her own had. She alone in Drumby had escaped a red nose. She sat on the hearthrug, sipping her rum, with the firelight on her bright, wild hair.
“I really bar Quinn,” insisted Melissa.
“You’re drinking his rum.”
“There are plenty of nice men in Drumby. Why pick up with a garrison Lothario from Breenho?”
“Because he doesn’t fall off his horse.”
“I believe you’re still moping over Ravonsbridge. I can’t understand it. You weren’t so very happy there.”
“One gets ties with a place one has been unhappy in.”
“It’s time you got ties here.”
“What sort of ties?” asked Lucy dangerously. “You’re cross with me, I believe, because Birkett came to nothing. He was quite struck with me. ‘Some of those little attentions and encouragements, which ladies can so easily give’, would have fixed him.”
Melissa laughed, mollified by the quotation.
“Well, I did my best,” protested Lucy. “I plastered his bottom when he fell off his silly horse, after which he seemed to take against me. You weren’t so anxious for me to fix people at Oxford.”
“Ah, but we’re both older.”
That was the trouble. They were older and the current of time had carried them in diverging ways. The Lucy-Melissa partnership had broken up and, though still exceedingly fond of one another, they were aware of it. As girls they had exerted an important mutual influence and each might have turned out a little differently had they never met. Melissa had gathered courage from Lucy’s gay vitality. Lucy had learnt to discriminate as well as to enjoy. Now, for the moment, they could do no more for one another, though it was possible that at some later stage in their lives they might again be able to pool experience. Each had traversed her own range of emotional territory during the past two years. Lucy had been obliged to rely on herself while Melissa had learnt to rely on John. Lucy was less confident than she had been, Melissa more so. The last wish of Melissa’s heart had been granted; she was with child and perfectly happy. But Lucy’s heart was unoccupied, since the sorrowful ghost of Patrick had ceased to haunt it. Friends lodged there and enjoyed its generous hospitality, but no one called it home.
Lucy Carmichael Page 35