Josephine Tey - To Love and Be Wise

'No heels.

'What d'you say?

'No heels.

'Why not?

'She has just been playing tennis.

'She could have changed, couldn't she? Lavinia said with a touch of asperity that was foreign to her.

'I don't think so, Liz said patiently. 'She is still carrying her racket. She came along the terrace "swinging her racket lightly".

'Oh. Did she! Lavinia said explosively. 'I bet she can't even play ! Where was I? "She stepped into the room-she stepped into the room, her white frock fluttering"-no; no, wait-"she stepped into the room"-Oh, damn Sylvia! she burst out, flinging her chewed pencil on to the desk. 'Who cares what the silly moron does! Let her stay in the blasted window and starve!

'What is the matter, Aunt Vin?

'I can't concentrate.

'Are you worried about something?

'No. Yes. No. At least, yes, I suppose I am, in a way.

'Can I help?

Lavinia ran her fingers through the bird's-nest, found the pencil there, and looked gratified. 'Why, there's my yellow pencil. She put it back again in her hair-do. 'Liz, dear, don't think me interfering or anything, will you, but you're not by any chance getting a little-a little smitten with Leslie Searle, are you?

Liz thought how like her aunt it was to use an out-of-date Edwardianism like 'smitten'. She was always having to modernise Lavinia's slang for her.

'If by «smitten» you mean in love with him, be comforted. I'm not.

'I don't know that that's what I do mean. You don't love a magnet, if it comes to that.

'A what! What are you talking about?

'It isn't a falling in love, so much. It's an attraction. He fascinates you, doesn't he. She made it a statement, not a question.

Liz looked up at the troubled childish eyes, and hedged. 'Why should you think that? she asked.

'I suppose because I feel it too, Lavinia said.

This was so unexpected that Liz had no words.

'I wish now I had never asked him down to Trimmings, Lavinia said miserably. 'I know it isn't his fault-it isn't anything he does -but there's no denying that he is an upsetting person. There's Serge and Toby Tullis not on speaking terms —

'That is nothing new!

'No, but they had become friends again, and Serge was behaving quite well and working, and now-

'You can hardly blame Leslie Searle for that. It would have happened inevitably. You know it would.

'And it was very odd the way Marta took him back with her after dinner the other night and kept him till all hours. I mean the way she appropriated him as her escort, without waiting to see what the others were doing.

'But the vicar was there to see Miss Easton-Dixon home. Marta knew that. It was natural that he should go with Miss Dixon; they live in the same direction.

'It wasn't what she did, it was the way she did it. She-she grabbed .

'Oh, that is just Marta's lordly way.

'Nonsense. She felt it too. The-the fascination.

'Of course, he is exceedingly attractive, Liz said; and thought how utterly the cliche failed to convey any quality of Leslie Searle's.

'He is-uncanny, Lavinia said, unhappily. 'There is no other word. You wait and watch for the next thing he is going to do, as if it were-as if it were a sign, or a portent, or a revelation, or something. She used the 'you' impersonally, but caught Liz's eye and said challengingly: 'Well, you do don't you!

'Yes, Liz said. 'Yes, I suppose it is like that. As if-as if the smallest thing he does had significance.

Lavinia picked up the chewed pencil from the desk and doodled with it on the blotter. Liz noticed that she was making figures-of-eight. Lavinia must be very troubled indeed. When she was happy she made herring-bones.

'It's very odd, you know, Lavinia said, mulling it over in her mind. 'I get the same «kick» out of being in a room with him that I would get out of being in a room with a famous criminal. Only nicer, of course. But the same feeling of-of wrongness. She made several furious figures-of-eight. 'If he were to disappear tonight, and someone told me that he was just a beautiful demon and not a human being at all, I would believe them. So help me, I would.

Presently she flung the pencil back on to the desk, and said with a little laugh: 'And yet it's all so absurd. You look at him and try to find out what is so extraordinary about him, and what is there? Nothing. Nothing that can't be matched elsewhere, is there? That radiant fairness and that skin like a baby; that Norwegian correspondent of the Clarion that Walter used to bring down had those. He is extraordinarily graceful for a man; but so is Serge Ratoff. He has a nice gentle voice and an engaging drawl; but so have half the inhabitants of Texas and a large part of the population of Ireland. You catalogue his attractions and what do they add up to? I can tell you what they don't add up to. They don't add up to Leslie Searle.

'No, said Liz soberly. 'No. They don't.

'The-the exciting thing is left out. What is it that makes him different? Even Emma feels it, you know.

'Mother?

'Only it takes her the opposite way. She hates it. She quite often disapproves of the people I bring down, sometimes she even dislikes them. But she loathes Leslie Searle.

'Has she told you so?

'No. She didn't have to.

No, thought Liz. She did not have to. Lavinia Fitch-dear, kind, abstracted Lavinia-manufacturer of fiction for the permanently adolescent, had after all a writer's intuition.

'I wondered for a while if it was that he was a little mad, Lavinia said.

'Mad!

'Only nor-nor-west, of course. There is an unholy attraction about people who are stark crazy in one direction but quite sane every other way.

'Only if you know about their craziness, Liz pointed out. 'You would have to know about their mental kink before you suffered any unholy attraction.

Lavinia considered that. 'Yes, I suppose you are right. But it doesn't matter, because I decided for myself that the «mad» theory didn't work. I have never met anyone saner than Leslie Searle. Have you ?

Liz hadn't.

'You don't think, do you, Lavinia said, taking to doodling again and avoiding her niece's eye, 'that Walter is beginning to resent Leslie?

'Walter, Liz said, startled. 'No, of course not. They are the greatest friends.

Lavinia, having with seven neat strokes erected a house, put the door in it.

'Why should you think that about Walter? Liz said, challenging.

Lavinia added four windows and a chimney-stack, and considered the effect.

'Because he is so considerate to him.

'Considerate! But Walter is always —

'When Walter likes people he takes them for granted, Lavinia said, making smoke. 'The more he likes them the more he takes them for granted. He even takes you for granted-as you have no doubt observed before now. Until lately he took Leslie Searle for granted. He doesn't any more.

Liz considered this in silence.

'If he didn't like him, she said at length, 'he wouldn't be doing the Rushmere with him, or the book. Well, would he? she added, as Lavinia seemed wholly absorbed in the correct placing of a doorknob.

'The book is going to be very profitable, Lavinia said, with only a hint of dryness.

'Walter would never collaborate with someone he didn't like, Liz said stoutly.

'And Walter might find it difficult to explain why he didn't want to do the book after all, Lavinia said as if she had not spoken.

'Why are you telling me this? Liz said, half angry.

Lavinia stopped doodling and said disarmingly: 'Liz darling, I don't quite know, except perhaps that I was hoping you would find some way of reassuring Walter. In your own clever way. Which is to say, without dotting any I's or crossing any T's. She caught Liz's glance, and said: 'Oh, yes, you are clever. A great deal cleverer than Walter will ever be. He is not very clever, poor Walter. The best thing that ever happened to him was that you should love him. She pushed the defaced blotter away from her and smiled suddenly, 'I don't think, you know, that it is entirely a Bad Thing that he should have a rival to contend with. As long as there is no chance of the contention becoming serious.