Friendly Young Ladies (27 page)

T
HE FERRY-BOAT WAS
crossing laboriously, against the wind. As they waited for it on the river steps, Peter gazed at Norah with kindly approval. Bringing her here this evening had been an excellent idea. She had had an exacting week, poor child, before the death of her patient, and was looking quite washed out; the blow would do her good. It would be excellent, too, as he had just been telling her, if she and Elsie should get to know one another; her healthy common sense and normality were just what the girl needed, pitchforked as she had been from her impossible home into this rather eccentric
ménage.
Peter could not help feeling, now and again, a certain responsibility for this, together with a consciousness of not having, himself, got much forrarder with her lately. He had really had very little time. Contact with Norah would give her just the fresh impetus she must be needing. He had already talked of them to one another; at least, he had certainly discussed Elsie with Norah, and, he supposed, vice versa, though the precise occasion had slipped his memory.

Norah was wearing a simple cretonne frock, bare legs and sandals, a costume he approved. He disliked artificial-looking fashions, and had explained to her, convincingly, why they were psychologically wrong. (They had, of course, a superficial attraction when one was meeting a woman for the first time, but that was beside the point.) It had taken a certain amount of persuasion to induce her to come; her occasional diffidences were due, he supposed, to some unresolved inferiority complex. She had even asked whether they were expecting her, a suburbanism which he had gently but firmly laughed away. They were, in any case, expecting him, for he had met Elsie in Mawley during the morning and told her he was coming; she remained, he noticed, in spite of her efforts towards emancipation, painfully shy. It was not until an hour or two afterwards that the thought of bringing Norah had occurred to him. It had seemed an ideal arrangement, and still did.

Elsie occupied, indeed, a very convenient position in the foreground of all this reasoning. Somewhere further back was a less classifiable figure, presenting an issue not quite so clear. Quietly and by imperceptible degrees, whose progress he had not exactly graphed, the desire to give Leo’s psyche a helping hand had turned into something not unlike an urge to put it in its place. Norah was very dependable; amusing, when she got over her initial reserve, always ready to cap one’s anecdotes and to add the little extras which modesty forbade one to insert oneself, well supplied with entertaining London gossip which, because of the contacts she made in her job, was quite well-informed. She was, definitely, an asset. … Then there was Helen, a closed book so far, but very attractively bound. … Still further back in the recesses of thought, only a shy faun in the brushwood, so to speak, was a kind of suspicion that Norah herself had been growing a shade, a tiny shade too independent lately, nothing serious, but … in fine, Peter was sure that everyone would be very good for everyone else.

It was Helen who first saw the approach of the ferry-boat. She went up to tell Leo, who, because it was sunny and cool, was working on the roof, lying on her stomach with a cushion under her chest, a position not very favourable to writing but excellent for thought and for intervals of siesta.

“He seems to have someone with him.” Helen, standing, was visible from midstream, and returned as she spoke the cheerful salutation which Peter waved to her.

“Really?” Leo levered herself up a little on her elbows. She had an equally good view from between the bars of the balustrade, which, however, screened her effectively from sight. “Well, what do you know?” she said inelegantly, “He’s brought a bird along with him. His regular, by the looks of it. How rich.” Shading her eyes against the light, she looked again. “A bit on the sturdy side, but quite nice, don’t you think?”

“Elsie didn’t tell me,” said Helen thoughtfully, “that he was bringing anyone. I wonder if she knew.”

“Oh, good God. Elsie.” The suddenness of Leo’s movement dislodged a sheet of manuscript which she saved, just in time, from blowing overboard. “No, but really, you know, this is the limit. Poor little devil. This isn’t education, it’s butchery.”

“I expect,” said Helen, “he means it all for the best. She has to wake up sooner or later, you know.”

“But, damn it all. No, he ought to know better than this. It—it isn’t civilized.” Leo’s brows settled into a straight dark line. With sudden decision she said, “I’m not taking it.”

“It looks,” said Helen mildly, “as if none of us had much choice.”

“Does it? I wonder.” Leo propped her chin on her hands. Her eyes narrowed; a stranger might have thought her to be daydreaming.

“Think again,” advised Helen. “Think several times. And then don’t do it.”

“Do what?” asked Leo absently.

“Anything you think of doing when you look like that. This is going to be embarrassing enough, without any sideshows from you.”

Leo emerged from her meditations.

“Have we got any of that face-pack left?”

“I think so. But surely you—”

“Well, go and spread some on Elsie and make her lie down with it for twenty minutes. Do you want to change?”

“No, why? Is anything the matter with me?”

“You were never lovelier. But if you don’t, run along and be there when they arrive, because I do.”

“I don’t fancy any of this. I don’t like you when you behave badly.”

“Really I won’t. I’ll be almost imperceptible. Go and do your stuff. Please. There’s a honey.”

Helen was unmoved by this, and by the smile which went with it. But the ferry-boat was nearly half-way across. She went, reluctantly.

“I’ll show him,” said Leo under her breath.

Elsie had just finished her face when Helen arrived in the room. Absorbed in the task, she had not noticed the boat in midstream. She had drawn a cupid’s bow which overlapped the line of her mouth in three places, and had attempted to rouge her cheeks with her lipstick, the result being not quite symmetrical either in shape or shade. Seeing that it would all have to come off in any case, Helen reflected that the pack would make a good pretext without hurting her feelings. Elsie accepted it readily. In its cloudy pink jar it looked and smelt exotic, and she found in herself a curious lack of objection to the delay. It was pleasant to lie with the glossy film on her face, feeling it tighten and crackle interestingly here and there, knowing that by now Peter was probably here, within twenty yards of her, but freed from the responsibility of having to do anything but think beautifully about him. Now and again she would anticipate the moment when, all preparations over, she would go downstairs, open the door, be face to face with him; and her heart felt mixed uncomfortably with her diaphragm, both of them throbbing like machinery.

A footstep outside made her open her eyes, the only part of her face at her disposal. Leo was passing the open door, and had paused for a moment to look inside. What a number of clothes she had, thought Elsie, sighing. Here were still more that she had never seen. Leo had on a plain cream shirt of dull heavy silk, beautifully cut, with the top button open; trousers of cambridge-blue linen with turn-ups and a knife-edge crease, a broad hogskin belt with two gilt buckles and sandals to match. She smiled encouragingly at Elsie, saying at the same time, “Don’t move your face, you’ll crack it.” She looked quite dashing, thought Elsie (trying unsuccessfully to smile back without moving anything but her eyes) with that brown-gold make-up and russet lipstick. The whole outfit looked quite expensive; how odd to spend money on such things when one could have bought a really lovely frock. Leo waved to her, and went on downstairs.

Meanwhile, the ferry-boat had delivered its load. Peter effected introductions and apologies gracefully, but with that ghost of proprietorship which trickles through good manners, unaware, from the inward soul. Norah was evidently used to it. Helen felt for her, and took to her at once. She led them inside, and produced some beer.

“I’ve been telling Norah about your work,” said Peter, “and she’s very interested. We were hoping you’d show us some. Both the technical and the non-technical, of course.”

“I don’t do any non-technical work now,” said Helen untruthfully. She was shy of her efforts, for her standard was high and self-critical, and she had a horror of appearing to pose as a serious artist; she had penetrated a few Bloomsbury backwaters in her day. Especially she did not intend to pose with the object of impressing Norah, who struck her as likeable and genuine. She brought out a file. “These are for a book on eye surgery, by Bryn-Davies. It’s coming out next month.”

“Bryn-Davies? Do you work for him?” Norah looked up, the last of her shyness gone. “I’ve taken his cases in the theatre sometimes. He was a houseman when I was training.”

“You don’t mean to tell me,” said Helen, delighted, “that you trained at Hilary’s? But this is marvellous. So did I.”

“Not really? When did you leave? But I was actually there that year. … Not till October? … Oh, night duty, that accounts for it, of course. … On Kingston? Then do tell me, what was the real truth about that Meredith business? I was too new a pro. to hear the inside story.”

Helen knew the inside story, and several others. Norah knew, and was delighted to relate, what had become of dear old Eliot and that bitch of a Sister Tutor. The drawings slipped to the floor, forgotten. Peter picked them up, and studied them with critical aloofness. The godfatherly benevolence he had felt at the start of the reunion was beginning to wear a little thin. He thought poorly of Hilary’s, as a Jerome’s man should, and Norah rarely mentioned it to him. This sort of thing, he felt, was well enough to set the ball rolling, but was outlasting its function. The number of people, of whom he had never heard, that Norah appeared to have known intimately before she met him, seemed unnecessary, even superfluous. He picked up another drawing, and scrutinized it austerely.

“The other way up,” said Helen, interrupting her narrative to turn it over for him. “Well, after some weeks even Matron got to hear about it, so …”

“A friend of mine,” said Peter with determination, “is thinking of writing a thesis on the psychopathy of matrons.” He developed the idea, rather amusingly. They ran it along politely for two or three minutes, and, rounding a corner, were back at Hilary’s again.

Behind the screen of the portfolio, Peter glanced unobtrusively at the door. Elsie was most uncharacteristically late. And Leo; could she be out? He had, after all, said that he was coming, so it seemed hardly credible. But he had barely been here ten minutes, though it seemed longer. More probably—much more probably—she was getting herself up a bit. He was seldom wrong in guesses of this kind.

He had scarcely formed the thought when a long light step, definitely not Elsie’s, sounded outside. Peter buried himself in the portfolio. After her behaviour last time, he felt that a little initial reserve would not be out of place. He looked up just in time to catch the tail-end of a cursory smile and nod. Leo’s eyes were already travelling on. Lounging debonairly in the doorway, in a pose that made the most of very good tailoring, she remained fixed for a moment, returning, under dark half-dropped lashes, Norah’s fascinated gaze. Her own stare conveyed a calculated reticence, like that of a poker player trying, without complete success, to suppress his feelings at the sight of a straight flush, or of a bibliophile who has spotted a priceless first edition in a twopenny junk-box. Then, like one awaking from a momentary trance, she turned on Peter a face which was the most formal of interrogation-marks.

Up to this moment, Helen had been making up her mind to disapprove of Leo altogether. It was all somewhat excessive and transpontine, and, besides, she felt she had been managing very adequately on her own. But the brittle
bonhomie
of Peter’s introduction, stretched so tenuously over a sulk, was too much for her sense of humour. He had asked, she decided, for what was coming to him. On Norah’s account her qualms had disappeared; Norah was quite well able to look after herself, and would be none the worse for a little encouragement to do so. And, looked at from another point of view, her neck was slightly, but reassuringly, too thick. Necks were a matter on which Leo was fastidious.

Taking one thing with another, Helen decided to stand from under. She got up to dispense more drinks, leaving the seat beside Norah vacant.

Leo sank into it, giving her trouser-knees a neat hitch to ease the crease. As she settled herself, she sent Norah a private little smile, as who should say, “We managed that rather well, didn’t we?”

Helen came to rest beside Peter, took up the drawings, and said with confiding charm, “Do these really interest you? The best ones are a little further down. Now here’s something that really was rather fascinating to watch, though you’ve often seen it I dare say….”

Peter, his field of vision thus circumscribed by good manners, went through motions of eager attention and shifted restlessly in his chair. His temper was not improved by a clink of glasses at the other side of the room, accompanied by Leo’s voice saying, softly but audibly, “To our better acquaintance.”

“… and these,” said Helen, “I did for an American who came over here….” She described, in detail, the surgical procedure, contrasting English with American technique, and trustfully inviting Peter’s opinion. Her deference would have been quite gratifying, at almost any different time.

Over in the other corner, things were going like a song. Not for nothing had Leo been meeting Helen’s friends, in and out of hospital, for rather more than six years. The time being over-short for finesse, she led with the ace of trumps. “You know,” she said, “if I hadn’t heard you and Helen talking as I came in, I’d never have guessed, in a thousand years, that you were a nurse.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Norah’s candid face warmed with pleasure. For reasons opaque to the lay mind, but crystal-clear to young women whose names appear on the State Register, she would have taken this as a compliment even if spoken in rebuke. As delivered by Leo, it was devastating. Peter himself had never paid her this tribute; though, as their acquaintance had ripened in the anaesthetic lobby of the theatre, the omission was reasonable.