Merlin Bay by Richmal Crompton

Author:Richmal Crompton [Crompton, Richmal]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Ten

CHARLES MARLOWE stepped down from the train onto Penzance Station and looked about him. He was a thick-set shaggy sort of man, vaguely suggestive of a sheep dog, and had a slightly unkempt appearance, due partly to his clumsy build, and partly to his habit of forgetting to have his hair cut. He looked the sort of man who needed mothering, and that was what had first attracted Pen to him. Then he had turned out not to need mothering, after all. . . .

Yes, there was Pen hurrying down the platform to meet him. None of the children were with her. . . . The sight of her slender figure, with its air of almost childish fragility caught at his heart unexpectedly, though he had been hardening himself against her all the way down.

She came up to him and raised her face for his kiss.

“Well, my darling . . .” she said.

Her tone was affectionate enough, but it chilled him. So she would have greeted Valerie or Rosemary—with that bright welcoming smile and tender motherly voice. (I believe she sees the whole world as a sort of nursery and herself the nurse, he thought ruefully.) It wasn’t exactly affected, but there was a note of conscientious determination in its brightness, as if she were thinking: Whatever my trials and difficulties, the children mustn’t guess them.

“This is nice,” she said, tucking her arm through his. “I have been looking forward to it.”

He walked down the platform with her, feeling like a small boy coming home from school. He conquered an ironic impulse to ask if his rabbits were all right.

“Hello!” he said. “A car. . . .”

“It’s the hotel car,” she explained. “Mother insisted on my having it to meet you. It goes on her bill, of course. Come along,” she laughed, “let’s be grand while we can.”

The chauffeur took his bag and he got in beside Pen. She chattered gaily to him, pouring out all the family news.

“I told you that Martin was here—didn’t I?—and Violet Coniston, that friend of Florence’s, so we’re a real family coach. . . . Gordon and Sue were over for the week-end—their half term, you know. They were so well and jolly. They only went back this morning. And Roger’s practising hard for the sports, and Val’s going to school next week. Just for the mornings, of course. I’m afraid she’ll be terribly home-sick at first, but I suppose she’s got to start some time.”

He knew that bright artless manner of hers. It was her armour. You couldn’t break through it. But he’d come down this time determined to break through it, to have things out with her once and for all. He was undecided whether to deliver his ultimatum at the beginning or end of his holiday, but he was determined to deliver it, to batter down her defence of gay detachment and make her face reality. He’d tried before, and she’d eluded him time after time. It was extraordinary how

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