Effie had said that if Peggy Gilchrist met Nigel it would be very interesting. So it would be if she herself met Peggy. What was insincere and immature in her moral and political attitudes would be shown up. Peggy worked very hard at trying to understand the human situation. Reading books like the History of the Crusades was part of her attempt. Effie just depended on superficial feelings.
‘Well, are we going to stand here all day?’ asked Mama.
‘Let’s have a special lunch at home,’ said Rebecca, the peace-maker. ‘Papa and Mama will be our guests.’
‘Good idea,’ said Jeanie. ‘You cook and we’ll help.’
‘In the dining-room,’ said Rowena, ‘not the kitchen.’
‘What about it, darling?’ asked Mama. ‘Shall we accept this invitation?’
It had occurred to Papa that a decent bottle of wine at Heatherfield Castle would be costly. He could afford it, but should he? Extravagance for other people’s sakes was permissible, but not for his own. It troubled him, as a theoretical socialist, that though he had done no paid work for the past ten years he was better off now than ever, owing to the profitability of his investments. Having lunch at a five-star hotel with water instead of wine would be a penance, but only if dry bread was eaten with it and not gourmet food. But to be fair it wasn’t to avoid that hardship which made him accept the girls’ offer. Last night, after his conversation with Diana, he had vowed to stop being sorry for himself and to start finding his own happiness in that of his family.
‘We’ll let you have one of your best bottles, Papa,’ said Jeanie.
He laughed. ‘Thanks very much. Right. Let’s go.’
‘What about Oxfam?’ asked Diana. ‘We were to hand in what money we had left.’
‘Salves for our consciences?’ sneered Effie.
Diana could not imagine Peggy Gilchrist ever sneering so cheaply.
The girls emptied their pockets and purses. It came to six pounds and sixty-five pence. Papa made it up to ten pounds. They stopped at the Oxfam shop. Rebecca ran in with the money. Then they headed for Kilcalmonell. Rebecca sat on Diana’s knee.
‘About the earrings, Papa,’ said Effie, not heeding Jeanie’s dig in her ribs, ‘do you think we should give them to Old Kirstie?’
‘If you don’t, I’ll have them,’ said Rowena.
‘Why on earth shouldn’t we give them to the old woman?’ asked Mama. ‘They were bought for her.’
‘Isn’t the shawl enough?’
‘Heavens, Effie, it’s not like you to be so niggardly.’
‘I’m not being niggardly, Mama. It’s just that I think too much is as bad as too little.’
They were passing Seal Rock. The seal was missing. That was nothing remarkable, thought Diana. No doubt it was enjoying itself somewhere else. She would see it again on her way back to Dunoon pier tomorrow evening. But she could not help having that premonition again. Her family was no longer protected by benign unseen forces. They were as vulnerable as any other family.
Jeanie felt she had to give her twin some support. ‘Old Kirstie might be embarrassed,’ she said.
Papa chuckled. ‘She’s long past being embarrassed.’
‘Her daughter then.’
‘Why not give her the earrings for Christmas?’ asked Rebecca.
‘She might not be with us at Christmas.’
‘Effie’s being silly,’ said Rowena.
‘What do you think, Diana?’ asked Papa.
‘Perhaps the shawl would be enough.’
‘So you agree with Effie?’
‘Not for the same reason,’ muttered Effie.
Mama laughed. ‘What a to-do about a pair of earrings.’
Papa stopped the car. ‘Shall we have a conference?’ he asked, making fun of them.
‘We’ve been having one,’ said Rowena.
‘Has everyone had her say? Good. Shall we take a vote? Who’s for giving both the shawl and the earrings?’ He put up his hand.
Mama put up hers. ‘I’m not sure I know what’s going on.’
‘It’s all very silly,’ said Rowena, putting up her hand.
All parts of that road were beautiful, but where they had stopped was particularly so. The loch glittered. Yonder was the lonely promontory called in Gaelic the place where herons nested. What was it like, thought Diana, to be a heron?
‘We’re waiting for you, Di,’ said Jeanie. ‘It’s three against three so far.’
‘You can’t abstain,’ said Effie, dourly.
‘Why not?’ asked Papa. ‘Voting is not compulsory in this country or this family. We can toss a coin.’
‘You said a shawl should be enough,’ said Rebecca, ‘so you’re really on our side.’
‘Perhaps she’s changed her mind,’ said Rowena. ‘You’re allowed to change your mind.’
Diana wondered what Peggy Gilchrist would have made of this scene. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I vote to give only the shawl now, and keep the earrings for Christmas.’
‘The shawls have it,’ said Papa, and drove on.
‘I don’t think we should all go in and give it to her,’ said Rebecca. ‘You do it, Diana. Old Kirstie would like that.’
Since Diana’s engagement Old Kirstie and her daughter had looked on her as real gentry, not would-be gentry like the rest of the family. Kirstie’s husband had been a gamekeeper.
Effie said nothing. Perhaps it was because Jeanie was gripping her hand tightly.
‘I’d rather not,’ said Diana. ‘You do it, Mama.’
‘Mama’s tired,’ said Papa. He stopped the car outside Old Kirstie’s cottage. ‘Who’s it to be then?’
‘Rebecca,’ said Jeanie.
The others agreed. Rebecca was always the happy compromise.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll just hand it in.’
They watched her go through the gate. The black cat was sitting on the wall in the sunshine. It rose, hunched its back, and showed its teeth in a miaow that those in the car could not hear.
‘I hope she doesn’t try to pet it,’ said Mama, anxiously. ‘It looks quite dangerous.’
‘It’s just old,’ said Papa.
‘It’s got the reputation of being cantankerous,’ said Effie.
Rebecca came back through the gate. She was about to stroke the cat but changed her mind.
‘I think it’s ill and in pain,’ she said.
‘That certainly would account for its cantankerousness,’ said Mama.
Seven
ON WEDNESDAY evening, waiting to telephone home to learn what the specialist had said about Mama, Diana was in her room studying. She found it hard to concentrate, because of worry as to what she might be told, and also there was the problem of Peggy. Now and then she would steal a glance at her room-mate, trying to see in her the wisdom, tolerance, and understanding that her imaginary presence in Tarbeg had seemed to possess. Of course those rare qualities were not there, nor could they possibly be, in this very ordinary-looking girl in the cheap acrylic jumper and shabby jeans. What Peggy had was diligence and perseverance, and also a cunning ability to make a small store of knowledge seem great, by apt quotations and pertinent instances. Evidently she used it in her essays too with success, to account for the alphas they got. It was not dishonesty on her part: she was entitled to make full use of what few advantages she had. She had admitted that she belonged to a tribe that confused frankness with rudeness. It had many other faults. For all her cleverness she was inevitably affected by them. It was perverse of her not to improve herself wherever she could. She did not have to retain that coarse accent.
She deserved to be helped and for that reason the invitation to visit Poverty Castle must not be withdrawn. She would make sure she got full value out of it. Perhaps she ought to be introduced to Nigel. His arrogance would reinforce her prejudice against the upper class but his wit and polish and cultured accent were bound to impress and chasten her.
For the past two hours she had not uttered so much as a sigh or raised h
er eyes off her book, a history of Tudor England. Such absorption was admirable, but was she not being characteristically sly too. She knew why Diana had to telephone home and therefore must be thinking about Mama and the specialist as well as Mary Tudor and the burning of heretics, yet she gave no sign of it. Perhaps she just did not know what to say. Diana and her sisters knew instinctively what to say whatever the circumstances, but Peggy, afraid of confusing frankness with rudeness, had always to think before speaking and as a result often did not speak at all. All her life she would never be at ease in the company of people born into a higher and better educated class. It was not inconceivable that she might gain a brilliant degree and still end up working in a supermarket.
Diana looked at her watch. It was five to seven. She shut her book and rose.
‘I hope Sadie’s not telephoning,’ she said.
Sadie Meiklejohn had many boyfriends. She spoke to them on the telephone for an hour at a time.
‘Good luck,’ said Peggy, rather oddly.
All the same it was luck that was needed.
Diana did not hurry. There were girls in the house who would have rushed downstairs, lamenting to anyone they met. They believed they would have been showing how human they were. They thought that Diana put being ladylike before being human. Effie had come to think that too.
It was so untrue as not to be worth denying. Vulgarity cheapened emotion, dignity enhanced it.
Sadie was telephoning, and from her animated gestures seemed to be in the throes of a conversation not likely to be cut short. Her cronies would have cried, ‘Pack it in, Sadie, you’ve had your ten minutes,’ and they would not have discreetly retreated. Diana said nothing. On her way to the breakfast room to wait there she heard Sadie say: ‘For fuck’s sake, Rab, you can’t hold that against me.’ She was not wearing a brassiere, though her breasts were large. Her boyfriends were mostly rugby-players who, according to her accounts, were boisterous lovers. She sometimes entertained the other girls with tales of her sexual adventures. Their hilarity could be heard all over the house. She always shut up whenever Diana or Ruth Brodie appeared. Ruth’s father was a Baptist minister and Ruth herself a pious prude, but what in Diana caused the sudden reticence was not so obvious. Diana herself thought it was because she made Sadie realise she wasn’t being just immoral, but vulgar too.
But Diana was ready to admit that vulgarity did not necessarily exclude decency. Sadie was goodhearted. In a minute she came and told Diana the telephone was free.
Diana smiled and thanked her. She had often noticed how graciousness on her part caused others, even promiscuous girls like Sadie, to be gracious too.
‘It’s my way of helping people,’ she had once said to Effie, making fun of her. Effie was not quick at detecting irony, especially if her own principles and ideals were being mocked.
Diana asked for the charge to be reversed. It saved the bother of putting in coins. She imagined her sisters gathered round the telephone in the playroom, ready to snatch it up. She thought it would be Jeanie who would answer. Effie might be in one of her high-minded huffs.
It was Jeanie. ‘Hello, Di. Well, he’s been but he might as well never have come.’
‘What do you mean? What did he say?’
‘He said he couldn’t give a definite opinion unless Mama went into his nursing-home in Glasgow for some tests.’
‘That seems sensible.’
‘Do you know how much it would cost? A hundred pounds a day!’
Diana frowned. Jeanie was voicing Effie’s indignation, not her own. Effie was opposed to private medicine and made unfair charges against it. A hundred pounds a day was steep but it would bring not only expert and immediate medical attention but also comfort and privacy.
‘Surely expense doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘What does Papa say?’
‘Well, you know what his opinion of the medical profession is, after his botched vasectomy. I must say Effie and I didn’t think much of the specialist. We stayed off school so that we could speak to him. He wouldn’t tell us anything. He said we’d to ask Papa.’
‘Did he say what could be causing her pain?’
‘Pain? What pain? Mama’s never said anything about having a pain. Not to me, anyway: or to Effie. Did she tell you?’
‘No, but I’ve noticed her wince several times.’
‘We’ve noticed how she sometimes turns pale.’
‘It’s just as well then that she’s going to have these tests.’
‘But she’s not, Di. She absolutely refuses. She’s afraid they might take the baby from her.’
‘But they would only do that if her own life was in danger.’
‘She doesn’t care if she dies, as long as the baby lives.’ Suddenly Jeanie could not speak for crying.
Effie now spoke, her voice cold. ‘Hello, Di. We’d like to know more about this pain of Mama’s. How do you know about it if she didn’t tell you? Is it a secret that the rest of us are not allowed to share?’
Diana then heard Rebecca speaking.
Effie’s voice was a little less cold. ‘Rebecca’s just explained. Poor Mama. She didn’t say a word to the specialist about any pain. We shouldn’t blame him. How was he to know? I do blame him though for charging exorbitantly. Are you coming home this weekend?’
‘Yes, of course. I’m depending on you all to take care of Mama.’
‘She looks so well and happy, Di. Perhaps this pain means nothing. Perhaps it’ll go away as lots of pains do. By the way, we’ve got a servant who lives in. Papa engaged her through Mr Patterson. A Mrs McDougall. She’s a widow who lives in Tarbeg. She seems very competent. She and Mama get on well. Another thing, Di. Papa wants us to spend the summer in Spain, in that villa he nearly bought. He thinks the sunshine and warmth would do Mama good.’
Diana wondered how skilful and reliable were Spanish doctors.
‘Edwin could come with us. So could your University friend Peggy what’s-her-name. Jeanie and I are sorry we were so beastly when you told us you’d invited her to Poverty Castle. Please insist that she comes.’
‘All right. But I can’t see her coming to Spain with us. In the first place she couldn’t afford the fare.’
‘We’d pay it. Papa wouldn’t mind.’
No, but Peggy would. ‘In the second place she’s going to be working in a supermarket during the summer.’
‘I see. Well, invite her here anyway. See you on Dunoon pier Friday evening. Here are the others wanting to say goodnight.’
First Rowena, then Rebecca, then Jeanie, and finally Effie herself said goodnight.
Feeling lonely and useless, Diana went slowly upstairs; she should be at home helping to look after her mother. Compared to that her University career was unimportant.
Peggy was still poring over her book. No wonder her eyes often looked tired.
They were sharp enough to detect Diana’s pessimism.
‘Bad news?’ she asked.
‘No news at all, really. The specialist didn’t commit himself. He wants my mother to go into a nursing-home for some tests. She refuses.’
‘Perhaps she feels they aren’t necessary. She’s all right, isn’t she?’
‘She seems well and happy.’
‘Why look for trouble then? My dad says: leave well alone.’
‘My father says so too.’
Diana sat down and opened her book, but she soon found she could not face the jargon of economic theories. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk in the Gardens.’
‘Do you mind if I go with you?’
‘I’d be pleased.’
So she would, even if such an incongruous pair as she, tall and well dressed, and Peggy, small and scruffy, drew puzzled glances among the early roses.
Eight
WITH THE examinations past and also her visit to Peggy’s parents Diana wrote a long letter to Edwin. She did it in the Mitchell Library Reading Room. She would not have felt comfortable in the boarding-house with Peggy present, though she had no inten
tion of writing anything contemptuous or malicious.
She was as serious-faced as any of the students around her, who still had their examinations in front of them. She never found it easy to express affection, whether on paper or in speech. It bothered her a little that her letters must be a disappointment to Edwin, though he had never complained. His to her, brief and composed of boyish clichés, were nevertheless more affectionate. She had a feeling, foolish but persistent, that certain things had to be done, and certain positions had to be reached, before she would be able to declare her love freely.
But what she was about to write now was not a love letter, since it would be mainly about her visit to Peggy’s parents.
Therefore she was able to begin without the usual hesitations.
‘Dearest Edwin,
‘This will be the last letter I’ll write to you from Glasgow for some time, because in a day or two the long vacation begins and I shall be going home to Kilcalmonell.
The examinations are over. I think I have done well. I seem to have the knack of spotting questions. Peggy, my roommate, never even tries to “spot”. She studies a subject for its own sake, more widely and intensively than is required for examination purposes. Also she reads books simply because they interest her. But she seems to be very skilful at displaying her knowledge, so that examiners are impressed. It’s very important for her to do well. I think of her as climbing a very steep and slippery cliff. One false step, represented by poor marks and a failure, and down she would fall, making the next ascent all the harder.’
She paused then, for it had occurred to her that what she had written might hurt Edwin who had not passed many examinations. Effie had once said, cruelly, that the Camptons had consented to Diana’s engagement because ‘they badly need an infusion of brains, that lot.’ That was unfair to Edwin. He might not say anything original or brilliant – few people did – but he had a shy commonsense that suited his nature.
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