Friends and Lovers by Helen MacInnes Read Free Book Online Page B

was with relief that he heard Ma clean say that they must leave.
    The goodbye was as disappointing as he had feared. Their hands touched briefly. Her eyes wouldn’t meet his. George, he noticed with some bitterness, was given a longer handshake and a generous smile.
    David was sullen, and he knew it, which made him even more bad-tempered as he walked with Fenton-Stevens and Ma clean to the jetty. He had begun to feel that he had never been more foolish in his life than he had been that afternoon. He groaned at the thought of his self-confidence, based on so little. A pretty girl had at least a face to justify her hopes.
    Mrs. McDonald waved her white apron from the door of her cottage as they sailed out into the Sound and veered north for Loch Innish. Dr. MacLntyre’s house seemed deserted. Then the Devil’s Elbow crooked out, and the village was hidden behind it. Inchnamurren became a lonely island on a lonely sea.
    George was watching him curiously.
    “I had rather a decent time,” he said.
    “Hadn’t you?” “Yes,” David said, “Dr. MacLntyre was very good value.” And he kept the conversation determinedly on Dr. MacLntyre throughout the rest of the journey to the Lodge at Loch Innish.
    Chapter Five.
    THE PLEASURES OF FAMILY LIFE.
    In Dr. MacLntyre’s study Mrs. Lorrimer was finishing her monologue.
    “And the first thing that frightens away a young man is a girl who sets her cap at him,” she concluded.
    Penny turned away from the window as the small sailing-boat disappeared behind the Devil’s Elbow, ignored Moira’s superior grin, and said angrily, “I wasn’t. Mother. We were walking and talking.”
    “You missed tea, and that was rudeness to both your grandfather and Mr. Fenton-Stevens. I am not objecting to walking and talking. I am objecting to bad manners.”
    Dr. MacLntyre rustled his newspaper impatiently. It had arrived by the afternoon’s boat, and so far there had not been ten consecutive minutes to enjoy it. He noticed Penny’s angry eyes. Time to change the subject, he thought. He said, “Depression in America, depression here, and the same trouble in Europe. It looks bad.”
    “Let’s see. Grandpa.” Moira leaned over his shoulder to read the news.
    Moira had gone political since she had become a history student at Edinburgh University. Her conversation was now a strange mixture of international understanding and what were her chances in the Varsity tennis team. Her grandfather studied her fair hair, her young-pretty face so like Betty’s.
    But neither she nor Betty would keep that prettiness in middle age. They hadn’t the bones for it: they had their father’s lack of features. Penny was different. She had good bones, something that lasted—if she had a happy life. He stopped thinking about faces as Moira’s even breathing down the back of his neck aroused him. He never could bear anyone reading over his shoulder.
    “Here, take it.” He handed the paper to her.
    “Now go away and read it somewhere else.”
    Moira looked surprised, but obeyed.
    “You too. Penny. Go out and have a walk. Another one. And Moira,” he added, as the two girls reached the door, ‘bring that paper back in half an hour, properly folded, with the pages in the right order.”
    He rose and searched for his pipe.
    “Bad enough to be disturbed in the middle of the leader without having the paper made altogether unreadable.”
    “Then why did you give it to her, Father?” Mary asked.
    “I wanted to have a talk with you, Mary.”
    Mrs. Lorrimer’s surprise gave way to a vague uneasiness. She had not heard this tone of voice for twenty years.
    Dr. MacLntyre paused, and then he filled his pipe thoughtfully. His intelligent blue eyes looked up suddenly at her from under his thick white eyebrows.
    “I think you worry toe much about the children, Mary. Why don’t you go alone witt Charles to North Berwick in August, and have a good holiday together?
    The girls can stay on here for another month. Il