style="font-size:15px;"> ‘It’s what makes life worth living,’ said Elizabeth, her face glowing.
It occurred to her on the way home that she had forgotten to apologize to the minister. The apology, however, no longer mattered. They had gone far beyond that.
FIVE
On the following Thursday Hector was surprised to find on his office desk a note from Aunt Janet asking him to come in to see her on his way home in the evening. When he saw the envelope he had a vaguely guilty feeling, but even after reading its contents he could not think what was in the wind. Probably nothing much. Perhaps she only wanted to talk over John’s extraordinary invitation to Lizzie. Queer old card, John. Hector looked at him with the secret satisfaction he had felt all the week and reiterated to himself: ‘I’ve kissed your wife, you old pi-jaw, and that’s more than you can say to me!’ He wondered for a second or two if Mabel had said anything to Aunt Janet, and even though he was sure that she was not such a fool he had an uneasy conscience when he met his aunt.
‘Haven’t seen you for a long time,’ he said in a loud, affectionate voice. ‘Been too busy all week being a good boy. Let me see, yes, Monday, at home canoodling the wife; Tuesday, pills at the Club and no drinks – home at ten o’clock; Wednesday, canoodling the wife again, and this is Thursday. See the wings beginning to sprout just where my back tickles?’
Aunt Janet patted him fondly. But he knew his aunt, and he knew that something was bothering her. He sat down and pulled his chair plump in front of her, then, taking her hands in his, he said: ‘Cough it up, Mumsie. Anything you don’t like about your little Hector?’
The pressure of Aunt Janet’s fingers responded as he had expected to the name she liked best to hear him use, and which he never used before others.
‘I want to talk to you about Elizabeth, Hector,’ she said.
Hector’s relief was as great as his astonishment.
‘About Elizabeth? What’s she been doing?’
‘Oh, nothing – nothing that means anything at least. She’s a dear girl, Hector, and I know she loves you, but she’s just a little thoughtless. Thoughtless, that’s all. She doesn’t know how people look at things. And Mabel and I have agreed that perhaps a few hints from you would help her more than anything we could say.’
Hector’s eyes darkened.
‘Mabel’s a little cat. I’d like to know what she can find to pick on in Elizabeth.’
‘Yes, yes, I know, I know. Mabel has her faults, I don’t deny it. But she has more experience than Elizabeth, dear. In some ways Elizabeth is very young for her age. For instance, at the University slang and student manners are all very well, but they don’t do in a place like Calderwick, Hector.’
‘Has she been saying damn or something like that?’ Hector was grinning.
‘It’s much more serious than that, my dear. Although that’s bad enough. You now what a position the Shands have in the town, and I will say this for Mabel, she keeps up her position wonderfully. But Eizabeth seems to be quite unconscious of it. It appears she has been quite rude to some of Mabel’s friends – not unkind, you know, but thoughtlessly rude; and she goes about a great deal with that Mrs Scrymgeour. Mabel and I don’t think Mrs Scrymgeour is a good influence for any young woman. Of course, Dr Scrymgeour is a good doctor, and Mrs Scrymgeour goes to church and all that, but the nice people in this town don’t think very much of her, and Elizabeth is being tarred with the same brush. Little things, Hector, little things; like running about without gloves and saying damn, and screaming with laughter in the street like a mill-girl – all little things, Hector, but they count for a great deal. Mrs Scrymgeour is not the companion for Elizabeth. She spends all her time gossiping in shops, I hear. Well, Elizabeth’s father was a small shopkeeper himself-I don’t like to remind you of that, but —’
‘Stuff and nonsense! Elizabeth has nothing to do with that. I’m damned lucky to have her for a wife, Aunt Janet.’
‘I didn’t mean that, Hector. It’s so difficult. What I mean is that she doesn’t know, she has no standards to tell her that gossiping with tradespeople isn’t the right thing for a Shand. Not that she’s a common girl, at all —’
‘See here, Aunt Janet, you’re backing the wrong horse. Elizabeth has more brains in her little finger than Mabel ever will have in her whole body.’
‘But that’s just why she needs guidance, Hector. If she weren’t a very unusual girl it wouldn’t matter so much. It’s just because she doesn’t think of the little things that somebody must do it for her. And it’s not only Mrs Scrymgeour…. The town is beginning to talk about the way she’s been going about with Mr Murray. Every day this week, Hector.’
‘The town has a damned impudence!’ Hector scowled.
‘She’s told me all about that,’ he went on. ‘The sky-pilot’s in trouble, and Elizabeth is doing her best for him and his measly brother. I don’t say they’re worth it, but that’s no reason for blackballing Elizabeth.’
‘I know, I know; but then people are like that.’
Aunt Janet saw she would have to produce her trump card after all.
‘And with my own eyes, Hector, I saw something I hoped I wouldn’t have to mention. There was a meeting on Wednesday afternoon about the sale of work, which is on the 20th you know, and I saw Elizabeth sitting so close to Mr Murray at one point that one of her feet was between his. I know that others saw it too.’
Hector no longer grinned; he laughed, perhaps too loudly.
‘Sure you weren’t seeing double, Mumsie? Was it only tea you had at the meeting.’
‘My dear Hector, you don’t need to tell me that Elizabeth didn’t intend it: I am sure she didn’t even notice it. And that’s just the point. She must be taught to notice these things.’
Aunt Janet was in her most earnest mood, but she failed to get a serious reply from her nephew. When he suggested chaining up Elizabeth with a padlock during his absence if John would do the same for Mabel she began to grow angry.
‘These things may not matter very much among men, although I should have thought that no decent man would like to see his wife making a fool of herself, but they matter very much among women.’
Women be damned, thought Hector.
He was perturbed, both by Janet’s disapproval of his wife and by her indignation. Her anger always made him feel uncomfortable, but when it was visited on his own head he could allay the storm by a confession and penitence which finally brought absolution. Her anger with Elizabeth merely confused him; he did not know what to do.
‘What’s more,’ added Aunt Janet, ‘this ridiculous idea of John’s is going to bring Lizzie here, and Elizabeth will be exposed to her influence next. If you don’t put Elizabeth on her guard – you don’t know Lizzie, of course, but I do.’
Aunt Janet’s shake of the head relegated Lizzie to unmentionable depths.
Hector, like all the other men of his acquaintance, accepted unthinkingly the suggestion that women were the guardians of decorum – good women, that is to say, women who could
