Margot Bennett - The Man Who Didn't Fly

“I thought it was Morgan who interested you,” Hester said.

“Morgan is a special case. Do you know something, Hester? Your father is a man who lures catastrophes. He’s what you might call accident-prone, but his accidents are all economic. I think Maurice is going to be one of them.”

Hester poured the tea. “I wish people just for one day would stop warning me against other people,” she said drearily. “If you want to know, I don’t believe anything you say about Maurice. He’s – he’s splendid. He’s the best friend we have.”

The door opened, and Morgan’s pale face, looking bonier than ever, appeared.

“Harry,” he said grimly, and came into the room. “Harry, I want a word with you.”

Harry put his cup down. “Is it going to be an ugly word?” he asked regretfully.

Morgan advanced. “Have you been in my room?”

“And what would I be doing there?”

“I told you he was no good, Hester,” Morgan shouted. “I don’t know what he was doing in my room. If he came to pilfer he did a clumsy job.”

“You should know,” Harry said. He was beginning to grin in an excited way, like a nervous sniper marking down his target.

“You’ve been searching my room.”

“If you accuse me of searching your room, you’re accusing yourself of having something to hide,” Harry said in a reasonable voice.

“Get up and I’ll hit you,” Morgan invited.

“Then I’d better keep sitting.”

Morgan stepped forward and caught Harry by the back of the neck. He forced his head down, then stooped and caught the back legs of the chair and jerked them up. Harry sprawled on to the floor. Morgan stood over him, waiting. For a second he looked almost happy, like a ghost seeing a joke.

“Get out of this house,” he said.

“It’s not your house, Morgan. You can’t order him out of it,” Hester said.

Harry stood up slowly, and the other two watched him, waiting for the reprisals.

Harry stepped forward and sat down on the nearest chair.

“Shall we continue the conversation, Morgan?” he asked.

Morgan was walking forward when Hester stepped in front of Harry.

“No, Morgan,” she cried.

Wade came bristling through the door.

“What’s all this, what is it, Hester?”

“Shall I tell him?” Harry asked insolently.

“We’ll settle this later,” Morgan said, muted and polite, like a hangman discussing business with the prison governor.

Harry looked quickly at Hester and her father.

“It’s only a little row in napkins and a blue bonnet,” he said airily. “It may never grow up at all. By dinner-time it will have shrunk back to an embryo.”

Wade coughed, and looked at his feet. He was a man of natural goodwill, who could have been very happy if everyone else had been the same. He could handle all the inhabitants of the ideal world, but reality often left him pained and confused.

“Harry, we can’t, honestly we can’t have that kind of row here.”

“Did I start it then?” Harry appealed to Hester.

“I don’t know,” she said angrily.

“You’ll see. By dinner-time Morgan and I will have our arms round each other’s necks, exchanging tips for tomorrow’s races, although it’s a strange thing I’ve never been able to care if a horse has three legs or runs on roller skates.”

Wade looked at him hopelessly.

“Harry, I hate to say it, but I haven’t asked you to dinner. Maurice is coming over tonight. I wanted to have a private talk with him.”

“Then I’ll go back and dine with Uncle Joe,” Harry said without embarrassment, “I’ve been neglecting him a bit, lately.” He turned to Hester with his face drooping into melancholy again. “Goodbye, Hester.”

“I’ll walk as far as the village with you,” Wade said. “I’ve run out of cigarettes.”

“Don’t bother to go down for a little thing like that,” Harry said quickly. “Here!” He felt in his pocket and brought out a packet of cigarettes. “Have these. You can give me them back some other day.”

HARRY found Moira lying in sulky idleness on a chaise longue by the sunny windows. Blue lights were shining in her black hair.

He sat down on the floor beside her.

“Would you like the curtains drawn, or is your hair guaranteed fadeless?” he asked her.

“Harry, where have you been all day?”

“At the Wades’.”

“It’s Hester,” she said sharply. “Oh, it’s so unfair, I’m absolutely excruciated with boredom here when you’re away. Just because she’s younger you’d stay with her all day for a single smile. But I’m left to smile alone.”

“I wouldn’t stay with anyone all day for a smile,” Harry said coldly. “I have to eat somewhere until I sell another poem. Uncle Joe’s making it difficult here.”

“If you’re in love with Hester perhaps I’ll make it difficult too,” she said.

“Very well, I’ll go and stay with the Wades. They’ve done everything but ask me.”

“Oh, no, Harry. Everyone here is so boring. Apart from you and the Wades we don’t see anyone who isn’t disgustingly rich. They’re all so offensive about money, pretending it doesn’t matter, as if it had been conferred on them like a divine privilege. They don’t see any fun in having lapis lazuli dashboards on their cars, and that kind of thing, but Joe says some of them are just as shaky as we are, even the brewers. I mean the small brewers – we don’t know any of the old brewing aristocracy.” She lay back, sighing.

“You don’t happen to know a small brewer who’d want to finance me as a poet? They used to like that kind of thing.”

“I’m certain they don’t like it now. If you were a college you might get endowed. Harry, Joe’s being very queer.”

“In some new way?”

“He’s going to Ireland.”

“Why?”

“He says he wants to buy some new cinemas, but his real purpose is to get away from you. He says perhaps he’ll buy a farm in Ireland and stay there until you go away. He says you’re giving him a nervous breakdown and he can’t bear another week of it. He’s so keen to go that although Aer Lingus is booked up because of the Horse Show he’s chartering a plane. He was taking a couple of directors with him, but now their wives are ill or they’re having alcoholic cures or something and they can’t go. He ought to cancel the plane, but he’s trying to find someone else to share it and even if he can’t he’s going alone. I think that’s extravagant. It has four seats.”

“He’ll be able to put his feet up. Have you any cigarettes in the house, Moira?”

“There’s a box somewhere. Oh no, there isn’t.”

Harry stood up and walked restlessly to the mantelpiece. “Would you like to ring for some?” he suggested.

“I can’t. I’m sorry, Harry, I can’t. Joe says as he only smokes cigars and would never let a cigarette touch his lips and I don’t smoke at all we’re not to keep cigarettes in the house. He says you smoke them all. Harry, he’s getting restless. He doesn’t want you to stay.”

“I’m getting restless, too,” Harry said. He sat down beside Moira and took her hand in his. “I’m getting worried about Joe. Suppose he had guests in the house who weren’t me, what’s he going to do about keeping up appearances? Shareholders won’t appreciate the rose garden when they want to smoke.”

Moira looked down thoughtfully. “You have wonderful hands, Harry. Lovely long fingers with the most exciting vibrations. But you should use a nail brush. He’s keeping some cigarettes in his bedroom for emergencies.”

Harry stood up. “What drawer?”

“I don’t know. I should try the top one, in the dressing-chest with the handkerchiefs.”