“Sure,” agreed Flo. “We have to go next door to the barber’s, that’s all. I got my needles there.”
CHAPTER NINE
The afternoon of the scout meeting decided Stevens to write to Ronny’s mother.
“Dear Mrs. Villars:” he wrote.
“I am addressing you in some perplexity and after much hesitation.
Please come and see your son.
That is as near the point as I can get. He is not ill. I simply feel he needs you.”
Here Stevens got stuck. How to continue? He tried to conjure up a picture of Mrs. Villars whom he had, after all, never met, but an image of his own mother, faded yet determined, rose in its stead. Ronny’s mother could in no way resemble it. He gathered she was rather young. That she was smart he was certain, perhaps racy. Did she love her son, that she had abandoned him in that mouldering boathouse? His own mother would never have done so.
Then, like one of those recollections which are merged with dreams, a past wish came back to Stevens; the wish to be free of his mother for a week. Dream or reality, he had been a boy then. Now he was a man and free of her forever. He sighed and a sense of oppression made his forehead ache. All the resolution which had made him write was gone. To stimulate himself he re-pictured Ronny as he had been that afternoon; Ronny, pale and sodden beneath the rain, clutching his breast as though his heart were ill, as though it would leap out of his bosom if he did not hold it in. The boy’s hair had been streaming over his brow like dark water, and his teeth set visibly between his lips. He and June had both come walking down Main Street after Stevens had searched everywhere and when he was on the point of calling Mrs. Grey about their disappearance.
And how furtive June had looked! Her face had been exposed, almost thrust out; offered like a mask to hide those cruel, girl’s thoughts behind it. Stevens had struggled to keep down the rage that shook him. He had not asked where they had been and it was only after dropping June on the hill that he had said to Ronny, trying to sound casual:
“Too bad you didn’t come to the meeting. It was lots of fun.”
Against the window of the car Ronny’s profile was a pure, unbroken line. He barely moved his lips in answer. “I had fun too,” he said.
Once again Stevens took up his pen. “There is really nothing more that I can say in a letter except that I hope you will come soon and that you will communicate with me if and when you do.”
He examined his page. The thick paper from Lucy Philmore’s gift shop looked impressive, his script impersonal and correct. ‘Should I have typed it?’ wondered the tutor. A business letter should be typed of course, but was this a business letter? Was it not rather an appeal, a cry for help? He thought of the scout meeting. Without Ronny it had fallen completely flat. He had been unable to keep the children interested because he had been on pins and needles. The two hours had seemed like two years. Later Stevens told himself that his feelings had been those of pure anxiety. He was responsible after all for the welfare of his charges. Yet at the same time a reasonable voice had demanded: “Why?” Surely in this country town children might come and go through the streets alone. What was it then?
As soon as the meeting ended, Stevens had gone out into the street where some feverish thought had led his steps to the gift shop. Once there, however, he hardly knew how to begin. Lucy’s eyes had lighted and she had made him welcome with the special hospitality that was her asset.
“James! What a day to be out!” Had it been anyone else she would have added: “Lucky for me!”
Stevens had taken the hand she offered in a lifeless grasp. To his horror he realized that he was still holding it as he stammered: “I’ve come for some writing paper.”
His stammer, the distressed inflection of his voice and his hand holding hers, filled Lucy with hope. Her pleasant, rather long face changed in expression and she said with a coy undertone: “Now James, it’s hardly nice of you just to come here when you want to buy something.”
Stevens by now had dropped the hand and tried to pull himself together. “Well, you know, Lucy, I’m not very amusing yet as company.” Even as he said the words, Stevens had been disgusted with himself. ‘What an idiot I am,’ he thought. ‘What a fool to play up to her!’
“Now that’s not at all the right attitude, James,” Lucy had replied, her eyes filling with moisture. “You may not know it but count myself as a friend—and not just a fair weather friend.”
Wearied to the depths of his soul and unable to think of a reply, Stevens had bowed in acknowledgment.
For a moment Lucy had looked down on his fair, thin hair through which his scalp shone. How unlike other men in Star Harbour he was. How good-mannered and courteous. Perhaps after all she had not kept herself pure in vain.
For his part Stevens had, in bowing, looked down briefly on her straight, flat figure, respectably girdled and stockinged.
“By the way, James, I saw one of your pupils this afternoon—June Grey. She’s growing into such a nice girl.”
His pulse had leapt. Lucy continued mildly: “Yes, and she ran right out in the rain, after a little boy. Is he your pupil too? The one who lives in that house by the water? She was calling him Ronny.”
“Yes,” he had said automatically. Lucy had given him his answer. They were together. Perhaps they had even arranged it beforehand. Stevens had purchased his writing paper hurriedly and hardly recalled how he had finally quitted the gift shop to walk dejectedly beneath the rain.
Still thinking of that afternoon, he folded his letter and rose from his chair. It was not raining today, but a burning mist obscured the sun. He put the letter in an envelope and then weighed it thoughtfully in his hand. He did not have the address of Mrs. Villars and wondered how best he might obtain it. Lunchtime was over, and Stevens could hear from the back of the house a sound of dishes clinking. For an instant it was as if his mother were back there clearing up, but it was only Mrs. Russell who came for three hours every day. The difference struck him. ‘Did I really love her so terribly much?’ he wondered for the first time. As a revelation it came to him that he had never been passionately attached. Unlike some mother’s boys, he had found his mother neither pretty nor seductive. He had never had a moment’s jealousy on her account. It was only that their pale eyes, his and hers, looking into each others, could give a meaning to the world.
Stevens shrugged and left the house. The heat, as he drove towards the peninsula, lay at the side of the road like a parched beast. The shimmer of its breath burnt the grass. The trees were a dark, coarse green powdered over with dust, and the water as he skirted the bay looked leaden and unrefreshed. Finally he turned into the bumpy lane that ran through the woods to the boathouse. Now and then his tires spun on the dry sand which was blown into the ruts by the east winds. There was something desolate and still about these sandy woods.
Ronny, along with Jeremy and June, was in the stable grooming his horse. His bare feet made a squashing sound in the wet straw of Gambol’s stall which smelled of ammonia and dung. He was curry-combing the animal’s flank in a circular movement and then knocking the currycomb against the wall to make the dirt fall out. June sat on a pile of hay a little way off. She was wearing shorts which were unbecoming to her round, rather full thighs, and because of the heat had pinned her hair to the back of her head. This way of dressing it brought out the faulty proportions of her head, the small ears and skull masked by the larger face, with its straight, stern features and thick throat. As for Jeremy, he was repairing the lawn mower, which he used so seldom that it was covered with rust.
Stevens stood for a moment in the stable door, where Jeremy saw him although he made no sign. Finally Stevens walked forward.
“Good afternoon,” he said to Jeremy. “I wonder if you could give me Mrs. Villars’ address. I wish to write to her.”
Jeremy