Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) (25 page)

The doorbell rang as Peggy pulled a nightdress over Barbara’s half-dried hair. Bobby, still in the tub, was navigating his ferryboat with the handle of the bath brush.

“Stay there!” Peggy said to Barbara, and to Bobby, “Stop kicking up such big waves!” She hurried to answer the door. It was Rona.

Rona didn’t explain her unexpected visit. And Peggy noticing the serious, set expression on her younger sister’s face, asked no questions. Besides, a shriek from the bathroom drew her back there at a run. A major wave had soaked Barbara.

“Oh, Bobby!” Peggy administered a well-placed slap and evoked a sharp yelp of protest. She looked at Barbara’s freshly ironed nightdress now clinging to her fat stomach in wet folds, and she shook her head helplessly. “You’ll need sea boots in here,” she warned Rona.

Rona was smiling now. She had slipped off her shoes and stockings, and was fastening a towel round her waist. “I’ll straighten them out if you get the food ready for the little brutes,” she said. “Come on, brute!” She pulled Bobby out of the bath, handed him a towel, saying, “Don’t grumble, now. You made it damp.”

Peggy nodded gratefully, hurried to get a fresh nightgown for Barbara, and then retreated to the kitchen in time to rescue the stew from burning. She counted the pieces of meat worriedly. The children, Rona, Milton, Bob, Jon. There wouldn’t be enough. Not enough vegetables, either. Perhaps some spaghetti? Rona and I can take spaghetti and say we are on a diet or something, she decided. Damn, she thought angrily as she smelled the stew, this is the first time we’ve had meat in three days. And then she reprimanded herself sharply for being so inhospitable.

Rona carried Barbara, all very pink and white and dry, into the kitchen. “First batch,” she said, fastening Barbara into her high chair. “Where’s the mop, Peggy? I’ll swab the deck for you.”

When she returned with Bobby, her face was serious. “Jon’s having an unpleasant interview,” she said. “I couldn’t help hearing.”

“No one would say this apartment was well silenced.” Peggy too had heard enough from the living-room to feel worried.

Then she exchanged glances with Rona behind Bobby’s interested eyes, and they said nothing more.

By half-past six, the children were fed and Peggy was tucking Barbara into bed with a story. Bobby, who usually spent the last half hour before his bedtime with his father, was giving his wandering attention to Rona as she read to him in the kitchen. “Won’t they go
away
?” he asked with annoyance. And then his ears heard the sounds he had been listening for, and he slipped off his chair and flapped in his bedroom slippers into the narrow hall to stand beside his father as the visitors left.

Listening, in spite of herself, Rona thought Jon’s voice sounded cheery. Certainly, there had been no bitter argument. And Robert Cash was saying good night evenly. She was suddenly happier. I’ll tell Jon about my troubles at dinner, she thought. And then I’ll leave early so that he can get on with his own work. But if I only tell Jon and Peggy about everything—well, not everything; Charles’ letter couldn’t be mentioned, but it was the least of her worries now—at least, if I tell Jon and Peggy, they can give me some advice. Jon’s the kind of man whose judgment you can trust, sane and kindly and never dogmatic. Even if you don’t take his advice, you respect it, and you feel a bit better too, somehow.

But Peggy, coming back into the kitchen to see that the stew was thoroughly heated again, said, “Rona, let’s keep conversation fairly light at dinner. I know from your face that you’ve got something to tell us. But leave it until we have coffee, will you?”

And Rona nodded. She could always give a description of Thelma’s party at dinner. That was light enough. And it would be an introduction, too, for what she would tell them afterward.

* * *

Over coffee in the living-room (“Tonight, we’ll leave dishes and everything,” Peggy had said), Rona was finding her story hard to tell. Darkness was falling. The house was at peace now, the children were asleep, and yet the room’s shadows and the silent audience made the story seem twice as serious, twice as difficult to relate.

“Well,” Rona said at its end, “there it is... I don’t know why I ran away like that. But it is a definite quarrel. Because I ’phoned Scott just before lunchtime. He was out. I left a message. He didn’t answer it.”

“Perhaps he didn’t get the message,” Peggy said, but she looked worriedly at Jon. She switched on the light beside the couch as if to cheer up the room.

“I’ve had the feeling all day, and I can’t shake myself free from it,” Rona said, “that—that—”

“What, Rona?” Jon prompted gently.

“That we’ll never be married.” Rona turned her face away from the light. She began to cry. Her tears were as unexpected as her words. Jon and Peggy stared at each other.

Jon was saying, “Rona, people quarrel, people make up. Don’t take it so hard.” Why the hell hadn’t Scott telephoned her?

Peggy said, “Scott can’t possibly believe that rumour. If he does, then he isn’t worth marrying.” As she spoke, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” she said with annoyance and hurried from the room.

Rona searched for her handkerchief and gave an attempt at a smile as Jon handed over his. Jon was thinking moodily of this evening. First there had been Bob Cash. Milton Leitner had brought him along to Jon for some frank advice: Bob had decided to join the Communist Party, and he was trying to persuade Milton to go along with him. Milton had been arguing all week-end with Bob, and then this evening he had managed to get him to come here for a discussion with Jon. Bob’s people lived two thousand miles away. It was up to Jon, Milton had argued, to try and put forward their point of view. And Jon, although he probably wouldn’t have agreed with Bob Cash’s father on many things, had done his best. All he had managed to do was to persuade Bob to think over his decision, to wait until summer, to hear other sides to this question. But even that half-defeat was a half-success. Jon had put forward his points of view, some of which Bob couldn’t answer. Bob had left, obviously going away to search for the answers. There would be more talks, more arguments, more answers to be found—a long, troublesome, and wearying job, yet someone had to do it.

So first, there had been Bob; and now there was Rona. No, first there had been Joseph Locastro. This afternoon Locastro had come to Jon and said he was leaving the University at the end of his junior year, he was taking a job, he was going to get married. Just like that. It had been more difficult to argue against Joe’s decision than it had been to marshal facts to persuade Bob. It wasn’t easy to show a young man that what he chose to do today was going to shape the whole pattern of his life. Life didn’t seem a matter of cause and effect when you were young. That took bitter learning. Joe—Bob—Rona. Love, politics, love. A pretty indigestible sandwich for one day, Jon thought wryly.

“What is keeping Peggy?” he asked, suddenly conscious that Peggy and the new visitor were talking in low voices in the hall. Rona, looking out of the window, watching the soot-rimmed bricks of the darkening houses opposite, hadn’t even realised that Peggy was delayed.

Then Peggy came in, her face flushed, her mouth trying to look cheerful, and she announced casually, as if all this were perfectly understandable, “Here’s Mr. Ettley to see us, Jon!” She turned on another lamp and began to draw the curtains, if only to avoid watching Rona meet Scott’s father.

William Ettley came forward to shake Rona’s hand, moving in his quick energetic way. His quiet eyes, watchful behind his glasses, looked at her both worriedly and affectionately. He shook hands with Jon, too. Then he selected the nearest chair and sat down. He crossed and then uncrossed his legs. He took out his cigarette case, opening it, shutting it, opening it.

“In a way,” he said, his deep pleasant voice re-establishing its usual decision, “I’m glad I found you here, Rona. For I came to talk about you and Scott. I’m worried about you both, frankly. Why are you breaking your engagement to Scott?”

Peggy, who had until this moment been thinking that Rona was taking everything much too seriously and just wait until she had a family to worry about and the monthly bills to be met, sat down on the couch and watched Mr. Ettley anxiously.

Jon, noticing Rona’s horrified silence, said quietly, “You are a jump ahead of anyone here, Mr. Ettley. Who says the engagement is broken?”

“Judging from what Scott told me this evening, I assumed it was. I met him at five, and we had dinner together. I’ve just left him. He had to be back at the office at eight o’clock. A pity. I wanted to get him and Rona together.” Mr. Ettley chose a cigarette at last. “I’ve got to return to Staunton tomorrow morning,” he explained.

He looked in turn at the three faces watching him, his eyes resting finally on Rona’s. Then he said to her, “You didn’t break the engagement?”

Rona shook her head. “No.” She glanced down at the ring on her left hand. She said bitterly, “But I shall, if Scott wants me to.”

“He doesn’t!” Mr. Ettley said quickly. “He’s in a terrible state about this whole thing.”

“What did Scott tell you?” Jon asked.

“Well—merely that Rona and he had gone apartment hunting, yesterday, and then there had been a quarrel, and then Rona left him.” Mr. Ettley took a long time to light his cigarette.

“I think he must have told you more than that, Mr. Ettley.”

“Yes. Sideways. He’s very unhappy, he can’t talk much about it. But...” Mr. Ettley looked at Rona. “There seems to be a very bad misunderstanding. I’m glad, now, that I
did
come up here tonight.”

“Why didn’t Scott get in touch with Rona today, and clear this all up by himself?” Jon wanted to know.

“He did try to get in touch. She wouldn’t talk to him on the ’phone.”

“I wouldn’t what?” Rona asked.

Peggy said quickly, “Scott is mistaken about that. If Rona’s ’phone was busy, why did he assume she wouldn’t talk to him? Really, Mr. Ettley, I do think Scott is acting like a spoiled—”

“Well, we can clear up these misunderstandings quite easily,” Jon interrupted, giving Peggy a warning smile as he silenced her. “Why don’t you call Scott at the office, Mr. Ettley? Tell him you’ve seen Rona, and that she’s as miserable as he is. He had better get in touch with her as soon as possible.”

“No,” Rona burst out, “no, I don’t want it that way. Scott can call me by himself, without being prompted by anyone. I telephoned him today and left a message. Now it’s his turn.” Then her voice quieted and she said, “I think Scott doesn’t want to marry me, that’s all. And he sent you here, Mr. Ettley, because he thought that this would be the easiest way to break it to me.”

“He didn’t send me, Rona,” Ettley said unhappily. “This is my own idea. He doesn’t know about it.”

“But he knew you just wouldn’t go back to your hotel and forget about it all. He knew you wouldn’t leave New York without trying to do something about it.”

No one said anything at all to that.

“Rona,” Ettley said at last, “Scott’s very upset about all this. He’s in such a state that I know—I’m sure he wants to marry you.”

Peggy said irritably, “Then what’s been preventing him?”

“He thinks Rona is still in love with Paul Haydn. He told me about that,” Mr. Ettley said unhappily.

“But Paul Haydn wasn’t here at Christmas time, and we all expected Rona and Scott would be married then,” Peggy said. She looked at her husband and then at Ettley, almost attackingly. “Didn’t we?” she asked angrily.

“Oh...” Rona began. Then she rose and left the room. Peggy followed.

“What are you thinking?” Ettley asked Jon Tyson.

“I’m thinking what I would do if I were in Scott’s place,” Jon said slowly. “And, to tell you the truth, Mr. Ettley, I don’t see myself behaving the way he is.”

“There’s more to all this than we are told,” Ettley said. “Scott won’t speak frankly about it, trying to protect Rona, no doubt. But, you know, if she’s in love with him, you’d think money wouldn’t hold her back. After all, most young men begin with little. And most girls accept that. It’s a kind of—challenge to them. The way your wife manages this home of yours, for instance.”

“Has Scott been telling you that Rona thought money was important?”

Ettley didn’t like Jon’s tone of voice. “I know he worries about that a good deal,” he said stiffly. “He’s now worried, too, because Haydn’s job is a good one, paying twice as much as Scott’s, perhaps more. You know of course that yesterday Scott and Rona had a pretty miserable day apartment hunting. Scott insists that they can’t afford more than—”

“Look, Mr. Ettley,” Jon said, “I’m sure of one thing. Scott’s been giving you the wrong angle—altogether.”

“He’s always been honest with me,” Ettley said, rising, stubbing out his half-finished cigarette. “He’s a determined boy, and at times a pig-headed one. I grant you that. But he’s always been completely honest. I’m proud to say he’s never told me a lie in his life.”

“Knowing Rona as you do, why do you let yourself be persuaded that she’s the only one to blame?”

“I don’t think she’s the only one to blame, Professor Tyson. I think this whole mess could be straightened out by a little frank talk on both sides. But there is one thing that is certain: I may not know Rona so well, after all. And I do know my own son. I don’t enjoy seeing him being made as unhappy as he is.”

“I wouldn’t say Rona has been very happy, recently,” Jon said bitterly. “You only have to look at her to see she isn’t the same girl she was six months ago.”

There was silence for a few moments. Then William Ettley nodded. “I see that tonight,” he admitted. “You know, I think I’d like to have a talk with her. Is she staying here for the evening, or may I take her home?” He smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid my temper is short, these days.”

“My fault,” Jon said. “I began it.”

William Ettley said, “Family loyalties are strange things. They sneak up on you when you don’t even suspect they are anywhere near you.”

“Yes,” Jon said. “I’ll go and see if Rona’s ready to leave.”

William Ettley paced around the little room. Family loyalties, he was thinking, family affairs... Once you start worrying about than, you even forget newspaper headlines. Strange there, how my temper flared up when Jon Tyson questioned Scott’s honesty. I’ve often criticised Scott myself, he thought. I’ve criticised the way he always arranged things to suit himself. That, I admit, has always been his weakness; that was why, to be frank, he didn’t like the army. I thought he might have learned something there, but he came out rebelling against everything he had seen and felt. If he had been promoted, perhaps it would have been different. But what am I saying? Scott
can
submit to discipline—to his own discipline. Even as a boy, he amazed me sometimes by his determination in following his own decisions, however unpleasant they turned out to be. He can wear a hair shirt if he feels he has made it himself. He can wear it, even enjoy wearing it. But let anyone else try to...