“Yes. I was going to take her through the house.”
“Indeed,” Mrs. Morley remarked drily. “She only told us you were going for a walk.”
Marcus felt he had made a mistake and he tried to cover it up. “I thought she might like to see over it. Of course, if she doesn’t want to, we’ll just go for a walk instead.”
At this moment Betty appeared. She was a chubby-looking schoolgirl of about fifteen. She had her sister’s colouring, and a bouncing, friendly smile. “Hazel’s getting ready,” she informed Marcus. “She says she’ll be down in a minute. You’re early, aren’t you?”
Marcus was beginning his explanation again when Mr. Morley interrupted. “Betty,” he said, “Run upstairs and tell Hazel not to get ready. She’s not to go out this morning.”
Betty obeyed, and returned a few minutes later followed by Hazel, looking rather puzzled and rebellious. “Who says I’m not to go out?” she demanded. As no one showed any immediate sign of accepting the responsibility she turned to her father. “Betty says you told her to tell me not to go out.”
Mr. Morley cleared his throat, and looked anxiously round for support. “Your mother and I. . . .” he began and paused.
Mrs. Morley went on for him. “We’re not stopping you going out dear, but it’s such a dreadful morning! We all thought you’d be better to put it off, and Marcus says he’d much rather wait till it’s fine.”
“Oh does he?” She gave Marcus a quick glance, to which he tried to return a smile which should be both explanatory and apologetic; but he was immediately aware that this rather sheepish compromise was a failure.
“You know, dear, you have a cold,” Mrs. Morley put in mildly.
“I have not,” Hazel declared.
“You were sniffing last night, and you know you were sneezing at breakfast.”
“I told you at the time that that was the pepper. It’s because Daddy can’t put pepper on his scrambled eggs, without peppering the whole room.”
“It made me sneeze too,” Betty chimed in loyally.
Marcus felt that here was an opportunity of retrieving his own position a little. “Pepper makes me sneeze like anything,” he announced, but the remark sounded fatuous.
Fortunately no one was paying much attention. Hazel and Betty were looking accusingly at their father, who finding himself again under attack, said severely, “Sneezing’s very good for you, clears your head—and pepper. . . . Most people don’t use pepper half enough.”
Mrs. Morley laughed and Marcus told them that his father took pepper on strawberries. For a little they discussed pepper and its uses. The atmosphere became quite friendly again and presently Hazel asked, “If we’re not going out, what are we going to do? We can’t just spend the rest of the morning flattening our noses against the window-pane.”
“Let’s go out to the loft and roll each other in the hay,” Betty suggested immediately. “There’s a loft full of hay above the stables in the farmyard. Bob and I were up there yesterday evening. There are holes in the floor above the mangers for putting the hay through. We pushed down a whole lot. They got extra rations.”
“Don’t be silly,” Hazel hissed in a low voice.
Betty looked aggrieved. “You didn’t seem to think it silly that year at Portballintrae when it was so wet. You remember, with Frank Davidson and the McMasters.”
Hazel apparently did remember, but her expression indicated that she was no longer interested in such childish frolics. Everyone indeed smiled at poor Betty in a very grown-up way so that she realized that she had said something foolish. Marcus joined in this smile, looking quite as superior as Hazel, though to tell the truth he had hoped for a fleeting moment that Betty’s suggestion would be taken.
“Why not get in Joanna and Bob,” Mrs. Morley said, “and play some game in the dining-room.”
“I’ll get them,” Betty volunteered immediately.
“Could I not go?” Marcus offered, but Betty was already half out of the room.
“Let her go,” Mrs. Morley said.
“She and Bob are very pally,” Hazel added. “They’re both going to be farmers when they grow up—so they say. Last year it was round-the-world fliers, but they’ve gone all bucolic. Bob’s Joanna’s younger brother.”
Ten minutes later the hall door burst open and Betty stuck her head into the sitting room. “Come on you two, we’re going to play racing patience.”
“Who says racing patience?” Hazel demanded immediately.
“We’ve voted for it,” Betty retorted.
“You couldn’t vote without us.”
“Yes we could. We all voted for racing patience: so it doesn’t matter what you say, racing patience it is.”
“I’m glad it’s not rummy anyhow,” Hazel pronounced, as they crossed the hall. “I hate it—the way everyone always tries to play to different rules.”
“I don’t like rummy either,” Marcus agreed, “but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten racing patience.”
“‘Demon’ you know,” Hazel explained, “but Mummy doesn’t like calling it that. That’s why we always say ‘racing patience.’”
They played one round slowly to show Marcus what to do and then the game began in earnest. Each player had a battered pack of cards. “Are we all ready?” Joanna asked.
Everyone was ready.
“Better let him start,” Betty said. She hadn’t quite decided what she ought to call Marcus.
“We’ll have to take it in turn,” Bobby insisted.
Marcus thought they all looked very desperate. He began to feel a little desperate himself. “Shall I say it?” he enquired, after an anxious pause, in which he found everyone staring at him.
“Yes, go on,” Hazel urged, “and remember, put out your cards as fast as you possibly can.”
“Go!” Marcus said. “Of course I have played before, you know,” but these words were drowned by a frenzied thump, thump, thump, as the others put out their cards.
Marcus began to count out his own, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven: one, two, three, four, five, six: one, two, three, four, five.”
Goodness Betty had all hers out, and so had Bobby—and Hazel. Only Joanna lagged a little. “One, two, three, four: one, two, three.” Joanna had started to build. “One, two: one.” And now for his bank; thirteen in the bank, that was it. Hands were shooting backwards and forwards across the table. Betty was building on his cards, and Hazel, and Bobby. Was that allowed? He felt almost inclined to protest.
“Out!” shouted Betty.
The flurry ceased.
“I’d three kings in my bank,” Bobby grumbled, “—and at the very top. Did you ever see such rotten luck?”
“I’m five,” Hazel announced.
“And I’m eight,” Joanna sighed.
Bobby had four cards left in his bank, while Marcus had the whole thirteen. He felt slightly ashamed of himself.
“It takes practice,” the others reassured him comfortingly. “You’ll improve after a hand or two.”
It was true. The next time he got two cards out, and the time after three: but he never succeeded in getting his score below nine, while even the lethargic Joanna twice got as low as four. Obviously he would be the first to reach a hundred.
They played on. Presently Marcus dropped out and then Joanna. Marcus was glad to be out. He didn’t really enjoy playing, but he liked watching Hazel. She was doing better now. Her score was forty, with Betty at thirty-nine and Bobby at forty-four.
It was quite clear they wouldn’t have time to finish, and when Bobby had reached fifty-seven a maid came in to lay the table for lunch.
Marcus got up to go, but as he was taking his coat from the stand in the hall Mrs. Morley came out of the room
opposite. She whispered something to Hazel and went upstairs. “Mother wants you to stay to lunch,” Hazel told him.
After a slight hesitation Marcus refused. He explained that he was expected at The Garrison—he never called it home—and that he had no way of letting them know.
“I wish you would stay,” Hazel urged. “Could you not send a message; or go up and tell them, and come back?”
“I’m afraid not. They’ll have it made, you see, and they mightn’t be pleased.” He had a feeling that Mr. and Mrs. Morley didn’t really want him, even if Hazel did—and he wasn’t quite sure of that.
She didn’t press him further and he put on his coat. At the door he paused. “You’ll come this evening, won’t you?” he asked. “I could call for you at half-past seven.”
“Thank you very much. All the same I’ve got a crow to pluck with you, or a bone to pick.” She smiled as she spoke; yet he could see that she was a little displeased with him.
“Oh! What have I done?” Marcus enquired. He made an effort to sound innocent though he had a good idea what she meant.
“Don’t you go arranging what I’m to do and not to do, with Father and Mother when I’m not there. I’ve forgiven you this time, but I won’t forgive you again.”
“But there was a reason,” Marcus protested. “Give me a chance to explain.”
“You don’t need to explain. I told you I’d forgiven you—and anyhow I know your reason. I was supposed to have a cold or something.”
“It wasn’t that at all,” Marcus said triumphantly. “It was something quite different—something secret.”
“What?”
“I’ll maybe tell you this evening.”
“I won’t come this evening unless you tell me now.”
Marcus hesitated. He had thought he was being rather cunning in providing a bait for her curiosity, so that she would look forward to meeting him in the evening and hearing what he had to say. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would act so unfairly.
“I can’t tell you now,” he was beginning, when the dining-room door opened and Betty appeared in the hall.
“Oh, hullo!” she exclaimed. “I thought you’d gone. Sorry.”
Hazel looked annoyed. “All right then,” she told him. “Keep it till this evening, but it had better be a jolly good explanation.”
Marcus went away rather doubtfully. The rain had eased off to a thick, Donegal drizzle. The sea was very smooth, and the harbour and village had a clean, washed look. He was inclined to be happy. As he thought over the morning he felt that he had enjoyed himself a great deal. He recalled the expressions he had seen on Hazel’s face—the look of concentration as she dealt out her cards, the little flush of triumph as she called, “I’m out!” No wonder he had played badly. It had been impossible not to watch her—and she had smiled when he was going. She wasn’t seriously annoyed with him.
He called for her again at half-past seven. The rain had stopped completely and for the last two hours the sun had been drying up the wet country-side, raising steamy clouds of haze from the puddly road, and the soaking hedges and fields.
Hazel had evidently been looking out for him and came down the short cement path to meet him as he reached the gate. “Quite wrong of course,” she announced. “You should have been kept waiting for a little, making polite conversation with Papa and Mamma. But Pop’s gone fishing and Mamma’s watching him—and Betty’s down at the harbour with Bobby. So really I’ve been awaiting your arrival with impatience. I wish I’d asked you to come sooner, but of course I didn’t know we were going to have such a lovely evening.”
“I wish you had,” Marcus replied fervently.
“Oh well—here we are.”
Marcus hoped she would enquire why he had wanted to take her over The Garrison in the evening instead of the morning, but she seemed to have forgotten all about his promised explanation. Instead she talked about her father. . . . “I do hope he catches something tonight. He should—with any luck. The fishing’s been rotten all summer—it’s been so dry: but they should be rising tonight.”
She sounded very gay and carefree, and her light-heartedness infected Marcus. They made silly jokes and laughed a good deal. The people they passed gave them friendly glances, so that Marcus felt that the whole world was sharing their happiness. “All the world loves a lover,” he remembered, and it pleased him to think that perhaps, seen together like this, they looked like lovers.
All the same he did wish she would demand again the explanation he had withheld from her in the morning. He wondered if she was teasing him by pretending to have forgotten about it—or had she really forgotten?
At last he brought up the subject himself. “Do you not want to know?” he said.
“Know what?”
“Know why I wanted you to come this evening instead of in the morning.”
“Oh yes. Why?”
Now he knew she was teasing him, but he went on stolidly like a child eating up its porridge. “It was what you said yesterday about ‘Roaming in the gloaming. . . .’”
“ ‘By the bonny banks of Clyde,’” Hazel sang.
But Marcus was determined not to be put off. “You said people held hands when they were ‘roaming in the gloaming.’”
“Yes, but I wasn’t intending to do any ‘roaming in the gloaming’—and I don’t intend to. You’re going to show me over The Garrison, and then I’m going home.”
“I’ll see you home, but—”
“That’s very nice of you. As a matter of fact I rather expected you would, but that doesn’t imply any roaming. It’ll be ‘Home James and don’t spare the horses.’”
For a moment Marcus was half inclined to be huffy, but he suddenly saw that that would be silly. Why spoil the happiness he had, because he wanted just a little more happiness? He would abandon himself to the pleasure of the moment. And then he wondered if there was any pleasure in the moment, in being with Hazel like this. He loved her. He knew that as an absolute certainty—and each time he saw her it seemed to him that he loved her more. Yet tonight he would only be with her for an hour or two, and this was the most he could ever hope for, this was the culmination of his love. He looked at her, so blithe and carefree; if he had touched her heart it was only with the lightest of fingers. Of course he should be glad of that. If he could not marry her, it was better that she should not be in love with him. All the same he wished that she had been, partly for the sake of his pride, partly because it might have made her more willing to kiss him, partly that he might have had the luxury of feeling that they were miserable together. Perhaps secretly she did love him; perhaps really she too was feeling miserably that time was flying away from them.
“Are you happy?” he said abruptly.
Hazel received the question with suspicion. It was quite clear that she didn’t like it. “Yes, thanks, quite happy,” she answered coldly.
Marcus felt he ought to explain. “I mean I like being with you, and if only I thought we could go on seeing each other every day and being . . . being . . . being friends, I would be happy. You know I like being with you more than anything, but each time it’s one time nearer the last, and they’re each so short, and there can’t be very many.”
“Maybe I’ll be back next year. Maybe I’ll see you when you go home on holiday.”
“Maybe you will,” he responded heavily.
“I like being with you too, you know—I told you that. If only you’d do what I say and go back home we could see quite a lot of each other. Let him get another secretary.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he told her glumly.
“I’m not asking,” she retorted. “I’m only making a suggestion for your own good.”
“I know you’re not asking,” he agreed has
tily. “I didn’t mean that. I know it doesn’t matter to you what I do. I wish it did,” he added in a lower voice.
“You know quite well it does,” she said. “If it didn’t I wouldn’t be saying all this—and I wouldn’t be here with you now. Just look at it from my point of view for a change. Here you are practically telling me that you’re miserable, but that you’re determined to go on being miserable, to do absolutely nothing about it. If we can’t see more of each other, whose fault is it? I’ve told you I like you, and I don’t think I’ve ever said that to anyone else. I don’t mean that I don’t like anyone else—that would be stupid. I like lots of people, but I’d like you a lot more if you were more cheerful. I think you’re nice, but sometimes you’d almost think you were hypnotised or something—as if you’d no will of your own, just Mr. Burnaby’s will. It’s you that are making everything temporary. Well it should be a very nice temporary. It’s lovely here: we get on very well together, so long as you stay sensible. Let’s enjoy it. Give me a start and I’ll race you to the house. Count seven and then run.”
She began to run herself as she spoke and Marcus after a moment of indecision began to count as she had told him. As he saw the distance between them increasing he counted more quickly and then went after her.
Going about with Mr. Burnaby he had almost forgotten how to run. It took him a moment or two to get up speed, but soon he began to overtake her.
He came abreast of her on the sweep of drive in front of the house. He touched her shoulder with his hand as he passed, and getting to the door before her, put himself in front of her, barring the way. She hurtled into him and for an instant he held her. Her face was flushed: her eyes were sparkling: her hair was slightly dishevelled. She had succeeded in taking him out of his gloom. As they entered the house the knowledge that for the moment he was gay and happy flitted through his mind. He brushed it away from his consciousness: he knew that to go on being happy he must not consider his happiness too closely.
The Burnaby Experiments Page 23