Andrew and Tobias by J.I.M. Stewart

Author:J.I.M. Stewart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Andrew And Tobias
ISBN: 9780755133437
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2013-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

IX

‘i’ve managed to shake off my boring brother this time,’ Elma said when they had exchanged greetings. ‘He said he was going out shooting pigeons with the vicar. I don’t think a clergyman ought to shoot anything—do you, Ianthe?—except the rapids of religious faith and doubt.’

‘I’m sure Vivian is the better shot.’ Ianthe offered this oblique response a shade distantly. She disapproved of disparaging remarks about a brother made in his absence: much as one of Miss Austen’s heroines might have done, she judged it to be scarcely well-bred. She also disapproved of smart things clearly said for Andy’s benefit which Andy would merely be puzzled by.

‘But Vivian almost put off the slaughter in order to come over with me. He has formed a tremendous admiration for Toby, it seems, and has been getting advice from him about a career. I believe they have been talking about the army. Andy, has Toby been advising you about a career, too?’

‘I canna’ say that, Elma. But I’ve been having a crack aboot it wi’ Mr Felton.’ Andy paused, and Ianthe was disconcerted at seeing him direct upon Elma a considering glance of a sort she herself certainly hadn’t received from him. This was just as well, since it was not properly a friendly glance and not at all decorous either. Elma accepted it with an unoffended but neutral smile, rather as if she’d had it before. ‘There’s a thocht,’ Andy added surprisingly, ‘o’ estate-management or the like.’

‘Oh, that would be quite splendid!’ This excess of enthusiasm was quite in Elma’s line, but it rendered a little odder what she next said. ‘It’s a kind of office work, isn’t it? You and Toby will be able to compare notes about the height of your stools.’

They were now all three walking towards the house, with Elma wheeling her bicycle. Andy seemed unimpressed by Elma’s peculiar sally, which had conceivably not got across to him. But Ianthe, had she been given to demonstrations of the sort, would have opened her eyes wide at it. It was very much her hope that Elma hadn’t yet got Toby to commit himself on a permanent basis. Elma had gone boldly out on a limb in admitting him as a lover. But no doubt she had chosen her man well in this respect as in others. With any luck Toby was going to be a landowner and a person of consequence in the county; at the worst he would be a prosperous business man. But his main advantage, his strongest selling-point, was his decency. Elma was reckoning that, if the chips went down, Toby when called upon would make an honest woman of her.

Ianthe didn’t much like the spectacle of her own mind working in this crude way, inwardly articulating such phrases. But they fitted the situation. Elma hadn’t improved since her schooldays; on the contrary she had become a predatory female. It was unpleasant to feel this about an old companion, still entitled to one’s intimacy. Ianthe wished she hadn’t come to dislike Elma so much, and she wasn’t even entirely clear why she did so.

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