Young Mrs. Savage, page 30
“Malcolm,” she said, trying to control her voice. “Malcolm we can’t forget it. We can’t leave it like that. You mustn’t give up the struggle.”
“Oh, I’m not giving up,” he replied with a little sigh. “It’s just that it doesn’t seem to matter, that’s all.”
“All battles matter,” urged Dinah, trying desperately to rouse him. “You didn’t give up the Championship. You fought for every hole—every putt—and you won through.”
He smiled at her. “You were there, willing me to win.”
“I shall be willing you to win this battle,” she told him seriously.
There was a little silence.
“I wonder why you wanted to see me,” said Dinah at last.
“I’ve told you Dinah. I was lonely and I wanted a little sympathy, that was all. It was terribly selfish of me. but you see I’ve become that sort of person,” said Malcolm bitterly. “The sort of person I’ve always despised, the sort of person who can’t take it. You thought I was a hero, ‘more than life-size’ (I remember you saying that), but now you can see for yourself that I’m not a hero, not within a hundred miles. It’s better for you to know the truth.”
“It isn’t the truth!” cried Dinah. “You’re safe and sure and strong!”
“Dinah!” he exclaimed in surprise.
Dinah looked away. She had not meant to say it . . . but of course it was true. Even in his physical weakness his strength of character was apparent and what was more important his honesty matched her own. One would never have to shut one’s eyes to anything Malcolm did or thought—Dinah knew that.
“What do you mean?” Malcolm asked.
“You’re strong inside,” said Dinah a trifle breathlessly. “That’s what matters. That’s the important kind of strength. You would never let any one down.”
Malcolm was silent.
“Listen, Malcolm,” continued Dinah in a low voice. “There’s something I want to know. Will you answer me honestly and truthfully? Will you promise to answer?”
“Of course, Dinah,” he replied.
“I must know,” she told him. “It’s—well it’s rather difficult. You said you were lonely and wanted someone to talk to, didn’t you? Any friend would have done.”
“Any friend?” repeated Malcolm in surprise. “But Dinah, I don’t know what you mean.”
Dinah hesitated, but only for a moment. She remembered her conversation with Pat. She remembered Pat had said “Show him that you like him.” Perhaps she wouldn’t have another chance of showing him . . .
“You wanted to see me, didn’t you?” she said. “Tell me why, Malcolm. You promised to tell me honestly and truthfully, didn’t you?”
“You’re so nice to look at,” Malcolm told her.
His eyes were on her face. She could feel the hot blush rising as he looked at her. “I know now,” she said in a very low voice. “I know the real reason.”
He didn’t speak.
She leant forward and took his hand, it was hot and dry. She held it tightly. “Malcolm,” she said breathlessly. “Malcolm, I know why you wanted to see me.”
“I don’t want you to pity me,” he said. He had turned his head aside and was looking out of the window.
“Nor to love you?” she asked. “Don’t you want me to love you?”
His hand tightened on hers. “But that’s impossible! I can’t believe it—a crotchety old cripple—it’s just that you’re sorry for me. You’re sorry. You want to comfort me.”
“I want us to comfort one another.”
“Listen,” he said. “It isn’t fair to you—”
“No, I won’t listen until you tell me the truth. Do you—like me, Malcolm?”
“Oh Dinah!”
“Please,” she said desperately. “Please Malcolm, I must know.” There was no other way. “You like me a little, don’t you?”
“I love you dearly—who wouldn’t love you!” he exclaimed.
“Really and truly?”
He pulled her towards him, “You darling,” he said gently. “Of course—really and truly—I wanted you and only you. Just once, I thought, just to see her once . . . to see her dear, lovely face and hear her voice . . . once more . . .”
She knelt down beside him and kissed him very gently. He put his arms round her.
“But this is all wrong,” he said, kissing her hair. “This is the last thing I meant to do. I meant to be so—careful. I meant to be cool and cheerful and talk about—about—”
“The weather,” she suggested, smiling at him through tears.
“Darling!” said Malcolm softly. “Darling girl!”
They stayed like that for a few minutes very quietly. Then suddenly Dinah drew away. “The children!” she exclaimed. “Perhaps you had forgotten about the children!”
“What children?” he asked in bewilderment.
“Mine, of course.”
He smiled. “Yes,” he admitted. “I had forgotten all about them. Somehow or other they don’t seem very real to me. They won’t mind, will they?”
She looked at him doubtfully. “Do you mean you don’t mind?”
“The only thing I mind is that they aren’t my children. Did you love him very much, Dinah?”
She sat back on her heels and thought about it seriously for she knew Malcolm wanted the truth. “I loved him madly,” she said at last. “I was nineteen and Gilbert was a sort of fairy prince. We were blissfully happy for a little while, and then gradually I began to realise that he was—not—not quite as wonderful as I had thought. There were things about him that I couldn’t . . .” she hesitated.
“Was he brilliant?” Malcolm asked.
She nodded. “Fancy your remembering,” she said. “It was that first day we met at the bathing pool, wasn’t it? We talked about brilliant people and suddenly you asked me why I distrusted brilliance—or something like that. Yes, it was because of Gilbert; he could do everything superlatively well without effort, without taking any trouble. I believe that was the reason, or one of the reasons, why he was so intolerant of other people’s failings, and why he could never own himself in the wrong. He wasn’t—straight,” continued Dinah in a low voice. “I shut my eyes to it at first. I wouldn’t let myself see any flaws . . . and it wasn’t difficult to shut my eyes because he was away so much (he only came home now and then for a wild ten days leave), but in my heart of hearts I knew—even before I had solid proof—that he wasn’t—wasn’t—straight. So you see, Malcolm, you needn’t be jealous of poor Gilbert. You aren’t jealous, are you?”
“Of course I am,” he said.
After a little they began to talk about plans.
“I must ring up and put off the operation,” said Malcolm thoughtfully. “There are all sorts of things to be settled.”
“What things?” she asked. “No, Malcolm, let’s get it over quickly. I’ll come to Edinburgh with you. I want to be there.”
“Yes, of course,” said Malcolm with a little sigh. “Yes, of course I want you to be there, darling; but we must put it off for a day or two. I must see my lawyer for one thing. I shall have to tell him about this, of course, but nobody else must know.”
“Everybody must know.”
“No,” said Malcolm firmly. “Nobody is to be told until I’m better. It’s bad enough as it is—I mean it’s so unfair to you. Don’t you understand?”
“It’s you who doesn’t understand!” cried Dinah. “Everybody must know, because I want to be there, with you. I want to have the right to be there.”
“Oh well,” he said, smiling at her. “I suppose you had better have your own way. I had no idea you were such a strong-minded person.”
“But I’m not,” said Dinah earnestly. “I’m not in the least strong-minded. I want everything arranged for me, always. I want to be ordered about and taken care of for the rest of my life. This is the first and last time I shall want to have my own way—honestly Malcolm.”
Malcolm was laughing now and laughing quite heartily.
“But it’s true—really true,” she told him.
At this juncture there was a discreet tap on the door and after a moment’s pause Clarke came in with the sherry and biscuits on a silver tray. Dinah was standing at the window, looking out, and Malcolm was still laughing.
“It’s done you a lot of good having a visitor,” said Clarke looking at him.
“All the good in the world,” agreed Malcolm. “I’m a new man. In fact I’m thinking of getting married.”
“I was just hoping that,” declared Clarke with a beaming smile.
“You were hoping that!” echoed Malcolm in amazement.
“Yes,” said Clarke, looking from one to the other and beaming more brightly than ever. “I’ve been hoping it for some time. I was beginning to be afraid you’d miss the boat, Mr. Malcolm.”
“Well, of all the cheek!” cried Malcolm, seizing a small cushion and throwing it at Clarke with all his might.
Clarke caught it neatly in mid-air. “But you mustn’t get too excited, Mr. Malcolm,” he said in sudden anxiety. “We don’t want your temperature going up.”
“Oh damn!” exclaimed Malcolm. “First you fuss over me like an old hen because I’m depressed and then you tell me not to get excited. There’s no pleasing you, Clarke.”
“But I am pleased,” objected Clarke. “I couldn’t be more pleased, Mr. Malcolm. She’s just the right lady for you if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Malcolm did not mind in the least. “What a good thing our opinions coincide!” he said chuckling. “Clarke, you must drink our health. Bring the table nearer so that I can pour out the sherry.”
When the healths had been drunk with due solemnity Dinah took up her bag and said she must go.
“Need you?” asked Malcolm.
“I thought Mrs. Savage would be staying to supper,” said Clarke. “I’ve a duck in the oven and there are peas, of course, and—”
“You see!” exclaimed Malcolm. “Clarke has prepared for a party. You wouldn’t like to disappoint him, would you?”
“But you’re tired.”
“You can’t get out of it like that—it’s an order,” said Malcolm, smiling at her with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “It’s the First Order, Dinah. You must stay and have supper with me.”
Dinah had no wish to get out of it. She hesitated and looked at Clarke.
“It’s done Mr. Malcolm good,” said Clarke nodding. “As long as I can get him off to bed by nine or thereabouts it will be all right. I’ll go and telephone to Mrs. Anderson, shall I?”
When Clarke had gone Dinah sat down on a stool beside the sofa; she leant her head against Malcolm’s shoulder and for a little while neither of them spoke. Dinah was looking back and wondering about things; she loved Malcolm dearly and she felt as if she had loved him for a long time. It was a different sort of love from the wild, mad passion which Gilbert had inspired, it was peaceful and friendly. She had begun by admiring Malcolm and liking him and these feelings had grown gradually and imperceptibly into love.
“When did you begin to like me a little?” she asked him.
“I’ve loved you for years,” said Malcolm softly. “I didn’t realise it at the time, but I realise it now. I’ve loved you ever since you were a little girl with barley-sugar pigtails. When I saw you at the swimming-pool I knew I had been waiting for you all my life. That’s why I was lonely, because there was a hole in my heart that nobody else could fill, it was just the right size for you—neither too big nor too small.”
“But what about Edith? You were engaged to her.”
“We all make mistakes. We all stray from the path now and then; we shouldn’t be human if we never strayed from the path. You aren’t jealous of Edith by any chance?”
“Not a bit,” replied Dinah, turning her head and smiling at him.
“That’s a pity,” said Malcolm with an elaborate sigh. “When did you begin to think you would like to marry me?” Dinah wanted to know.
“Never,” said Malcolm seriously. “I never thought there was any hope of that. I had given up the idea of marriage long ago. Why should any woman want to marry a crock?”
“She might love you,” suggested Dinah. “She might love you so much that she couldn’t bear the idea of going on living without you; she might haven hole in her heart that fitted you.” They were silent for a little while.
“Dinah,” said Malcolm at last. “Just supposing I don’t come through—”
She leant over and put her finger on his lips. “I shall be there, willing you to win,” she whispered.
“So I can’t lose,” he agreed, taking the finger and kissing it. He hesitated and then added, “I shan’t lose—I feel quite different already—so don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying,” Dinah replied.
It was not quite true, of course, but it was one of those lies that the Recording Angel overlooks.
T H E E N D
Note
NOTE (from Chapter 39). For the benefit of those born south of Tweed it may be explained that a causey doo is one who coos like a dove on the causeway but shows undovelike qualities at home. [RETURN TO CHAPTER 39]
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
by D.E. Stevenson
Edinburgh was my birthplace and I lived there until I was married in 1916. My father was the grandson of Robert Stevenson who designed the Bell Rock Lighthouse and also a great many other lighthouses and harbours and other notable engineering works. My father was a first cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson and they often played together when they were boys.
So it was that from my earliest days I heard a good deal about “Louis”, and, like Oliver Twist, I was always asking for more, teasing my father and my aunts for stories about him. He must have been a strange child, a dreamy unpredictable creature with a curious fascination about him which his cousins felt but did not understand. How could ordinary healthy, noisy children understand that solitary, sensitive soul! And as they grew up they understood him even less for Louis was not of their world. He was born too late or too early. The narrow conventional ideas of mid-Victorian Edinburgh were anathema to him. Louis would have been happy in a romantic age, striding the world in cloak and doublet with a sword at his side, he would have sold his life dearly for a Lost Cause—he was ever on the side of the under-dog. He might have been happy in the world of today when every man is entitled to his own opinions and the Four Freedoms is the goal of Democracy.
My father was old-fashioned in his ideas so my sister and I were not sent to school but were brought up at home and educated by a governess. I was always very fond of reading and read everything I could get hold of including Scott, Dickens, Jane Austen and all sorts of boys’ books by Jules Verne and Ballantyne and Henty.
When I was eight years old I began to write stories and poems myself. It was most exciting to discover that I could. At first my family was amused and interested in my efforts but very soon they became bored beyond measure and told me it must stop. They said it was ruining my handwriting and wasting my time. I argued with them. What was handwriting for, if not to write? “For writing letters when you’re older,” they said. But I could not stop. My head was full of stories and they got lost if I did not write them down, so I found a place in the box-room between two large black trunks with a skylight overhead and I made a little nest where I would not be disturbed. There I sat for hours—and wrote and wrote.
Our house was in a broad street in Edinburgh—45 Melville Street—and at the top of the street was St. Mary’s Cathedral. The bells used to echo and re-echo down the man-made canyon. My sister and I used to sit on the window-seat in the nursery (which was at the top of the house) and look down at the people passing by. I told her stories about them. Some of the memories of my childhood can be found in my novel, Listening Valley, in which Louise and Antonia had much the same lonely childhood.
Every summer we went to North Berwick for several months and here we were more free to do as we wanted, to go out by ourselves and play on the shore and meet other children. When we were at North Berwick we sometimes drove over to a big farm, close to the sea. We enjoyed these visits tremendously for there were so many things to do and see. We rode the pony and saw the farmyard animals and walked along the lovely sands. There were rocks there too, and many ships were wrecked upon the jagged reefs until a lighthouse was erected upon the Bass Rock—designed by my father. Years afterwards I wrote a novel about this farm, about the fine old house and the beautiful garden, and I called it The Story of Rosabelle Shaw.
As we grew older we made more friends. We had bathing picnics and tennis parties and fancy dress dances, and of course we played golf. I was in the team of the North Berwick Ladies’ Golf Club and I played in the Scottish Ladies’ Championship at Muirfield and survived until the semi-finals. I was asked to play in the Scottish Team but by that time I was married and expecting my first baby so I was obliged to refuse the honour.
Every Spring my father and mother took us abroad, to France or Switzerland or Italy. We had a French maid so we spoke French easily and fluently—if not very correctly—and it was very pleasant to be able to converse with the people we met. I liked Italy best, and especially Lake Como which seemed to me so beautiful as to be almost unreal. Paris came second in my affections. There was such a gay feeling in Paris; I see it always in sunshine with the white buildings and broad streets and the crowds of brightly clad people strolling in the Boulevards or sitting in the cafés eating and drinking and chattering cheerfully. Quite often we hired a carriage and drove through the Bois de Boulogne. My sister and I were never allowed to go out alone, of course, nor would our parents take us to a play—as I have said before they were old-fashioned and strict in their ideas and considered a “French Play” an unsuitable form of entertainment for their daughters—but in spite of these annoying prejudices we managed to have quite an amusing time and we always enjoyed our visits to foreign countries.
In 1913 I “came out” and had a gay winter in Edinburgh. There were brilliant “Balls” in those far off days, the old Assembly Rooms glittered with lights and the long gilt mirrors reflected girls in beautiful frocks and men in uniform or kilts. The older women sat round the ballroom attired in velvet or satin and diamonds watching the dancers—and especially watching their own offspring—with eyes like hawks, and talking scandal to one another. We danced waltzes and Scottish country dances and Reels—the Reels were usually made up beforehand by the Scottish Regiment which was quartered at Edinburgh Castle. It was a coveted honour to be asked to dance in these Reels and one had to be on ones toes all the time. Woe betide the unfortunate girl who put a foot wrong or failed to set to her partner at exactly the right moment!
