Patricia Wentworth: The Watersplash

“Are you Susan Wayne?”

Susan’s eyes opened to their fullest extent. There was soft dust in the lane, and she hadn’t heard him coming. She had been thinking about Professor Postlethwaite on his way to America, and what a pity it was that the money wouldn’t run to her going too, not only because she had always wanted to go to America but because it was practically certain that he would get his lecture notes mixed up if she wasn’t there to keep them straight And then in the twinkling of an eyelash the five-year-old past had risen up, and there was Edward Random glowering at her in the middle of Halfpenny Lane.

No one knew why it was called Halfpenny Lane, but it was. And no one knew how the past could suddenly rise up and hit you where it hurt, but it could and it did-at least for a horrid moment. Just for that moment she was seventeen again, much too fat, and in love with Edward Random who was in love with Verona Grey. It was frightful, but thank goodness it didn’t last. Five years ago was five years ago. Nobody can make you live things over again. Not she, nor Edward. Oh, poor Edward! A tide of warmth and kindness flowed in. She dropped her suit-case and put out both hands to him.

“Oh, Edward, how nice-how very nice!”

Afterwards he was to reflect that Susan was really the only person to take this point of view about his return. No, that wasn’t quite fair. Emmeline, who was his stepmother, had done so, and quite whole-heartedly. But as in her case affection and relief had taken the form of a perfect deluge of tears it had not been very enlivening.

Susan did not weep, she glowed. If there was a faint moisture in her eyes, it merely made them brighter. She held his hands for a moment in a warm, firm clasp, then stepped back and said all over again,

“Oh, Edward-how nice !”

Well, it was. He actually stopped frowning, but the line where the frown had been remained. The thin, dark face showed other lines, and none of them happy ones. It was stamped with endurance. There had been pain, bad pain, but it hadn’t broken him. There was a certain wary alertness, a touch of bitter humour. Susan’s soft heart was stirred. It was Edward himself who had once told her with scorn that her heart was as soft as butter that had been left out in the sun. She had gone away and cried dreadfully, and her eyes had swelled right up. She would have given anything in the world to cry becomingly like Verona -a tear or two, eyes like wet violets, long dark lashes just becomingly damp. How awful to be seventeen and fat, with swollen eyelids and a broken heart.

Susan gave a backward glance at the horrid picture and laughed.

“How nice to meet like this!”

The emotion of the moment was over. He considered that she was overworking a rather tepid word.

“At anyrate I can carry your suit-case.”

“Oh, no-you’ve got one of your own.”

“It’s quite light.”

“So is mine.” She picked it up as she spoke.

“Do I protest?”

“I don’t think so-waste of time. I’ve got a box coming up by the carrier, so this is only things for the night.”

She had taken up the case with her right hand. As he fell into step beside her, it was twisted out of her grasp so quickly and dexterously that she had no chance to resist. She really did feel angry as she reflected that Edward had always liked getting his own way and been rather ingenious over it. Whatever else had changed, he seemed to be just the same about this.

Her colour brightened and she laughed.

“You really haven’t changed!”

“What a pity, but while there’s life there’s hope. You’re not still living in Greenings, are you?”

“Oh, no. Aunt Lucy died while I was at college. I work for Professor Postlethwaite, but he’s gone to America on a lecture tour.”

“Five years in a couple of sentences-how economical! What does he profess?”

“Oh, literature. He’s gone to lecture on all the different people Shakespeare might have been. So when Emmeline wrote and said your Uncle Arnold wanted someone to catalogue the library at the Hall, and would I come and stay with her and do it, I said I would.”

It was ridiculous to feel nervous, but she did. A glance at Edward’s face did nothing to reassure her. It looked bleak. He said,

“How amusing.”

“What is there amusing about it?”

“I don’t know-it just struck me that way.”

She thought struck was the right word. To change the subject she said,

“I suppose you are staying with Emmeline too?”

“Just for the moment. It will give Greenings something to talk about, if nothing else.”

Susan looked steadily in front of her and said,

“Why should it?”

“Return of the outcast. You know, I’ve only been down once since I got back.”

“I don’t know anything-except that everyone thought you were dead-”

He said in a light, brittle voice,

“And I wasn’t. My mistake. Never come back from the dead-it is a social solecism.”

“You shouldn’t say that. When Emmeline wrote and told me you were alive she said, ‘It is too much happiness!’ ”

“Yes, I believe she really was pleased. There has to be an exception to every rule, and it rather adds to the general humour of the situation that the one person who didn’t mind my being alive should be a stepmother. What else did she tell you?”

“Well, you know Emmeline’s letters. There were bits about the cats-Scheherazade had just had a very plain family, and she was a good deal upset about it in between being all up in the air about you, but I gathered that you were taking a refresher course in land agency. And when she wrote the other day, there was a bit about Lord Burlingham telling her that you were going to come to him, and how nice it would be to have you so near.”

She saw him smile.

“Lovely for everyone! Especially for Arnold!”

Susan hated people who beat about the bush. She plunged.

“Look here, Edward, what is all this? Why shouldn’t your Uncle Arnold be pleased? Because if there has been a lurid family quarrel, I had much better know, or I shall be sure to put my foot in it.”

“Both feet, I should think! It’s not so much a Row as an Awkward Situation, and as you’ll be right in the middle of the Random family you had better be put wise.” He swung the two suit-cases and stuck out his chin. “Well, here you are- we’ll start with a little potted family history. In the last generation there were three Randoms-my Uncle James, my father Jonathan, and my Uncle Arnold. James lost his wife and child and never married again. Jonathan married twice when he had tried most other things and failed at them, after which he died, leaving a son, me, a widow, Emmeline, and a considerable number of debts which Uncle James thought it his duty to pay. He had a very strong sense of duty. He put Emmeline in the south lodge and brought me up regardless.”

“Yes?” Susan’s voice made a question of it.

He laughed.

“It wasn’t ‘Yes,’ my dear, it was a thundering ‘No.’ We had an epic row, and I cleared out.”

Susan remembered the row. It was about Verona, because Edward was ragingly in love with her, and James Random had taken the line that if he wanted to marry her he could go right ahead and do it, only he would have to foot the bill himself, because his allowance would automatically come to a full stop on his wedding day. A more dramatic version preferred by some credited James Random with the remark that he would rather see Edward in his coffin, but bearing in mind Mr. Random’s dignified personality and temperate manner of speech, Susan, even at seventeen, had not really found herself able to believe in it. With these things in her mind, she thought it best just to go on looking interested. It was always safer to say nothing than to chance what you said being wrong, only usually she didn’t think about this until it was too late.