Guy Renton by Alec Waugh Read Free Book Online

distant. He stared at her, fearing that if he were to move, a spell would break. In a desperate need to be reassured he began to set her questions, abrupt jerky questions. When would he be seeing her again? When would she be back in London? How would he find her? Was she in the book? When would be the best time to ring her?
    She smiled lazily.
    â€œThree weeks. After ten, before eleven.”
    â€œAnd I
shall
see you—you promise that?”
    â€œSilly, what do you think?”

3
    Guy lived in Highgate with his parents in the house which his grandfather had bought in the same year that Renée’s grandparents had left Vienna. Early Georgian, three-storied in dullred brick, No. 17 The Grove, opened on the short chestnut avenue that led into Hampstead Lane, but most of its main windows faced the Heath. Waking there in the morning, with the air fresh, to the sound of birds, to the sight out of the window of green fields and trees, it was easy to believe yourself in the country.
    Guy was the second oldest, in a family of five. Lucy, his senior by two years, had married during the war Rex Irwin, a regular Army officer several years older than herself. She was now the mother of two small sons; Margery, his junior by nine years, worked in the secretariat of a city office; Franklin, three years younger, a public school boy was in his fourth year at Fernhurst; finally there was ‘the baby’, Barbara, a thirteen year old, who went as a weekly boarder to a school in Kensington.
    It was a family that before the war had been automatically split by the nine-year gap between Guy and Margery, into ‘the nursery huddle’ and ‘the other two’. Now with Lucy married and living in the country, Margery and Guy had begun to find themselves a team while Franklin accepted the admiration of his younger sister. Their father, tall, grey-haired, venerable; a composed and uncontentious man, was in his later sixties; their mother, smallish, grey-haired and silent, was not yet fifty. It was a happy family that had had few troubles, few misunderstandings.
    Guy arrived back from Mürren shortly after half-past seven. As he closed the front door behind him, Margery hurried from the drawing-room, a finger pressed against her lips.
    â€œSh, not in there, not yet.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œTrouble. The clan has gathered. You need briefing.”
    â€œWhat’s up?”
    â€œFranklin, he’s got the sack.”
    â€œHe’s here?”
    â€œNo, no, he’s still at school. But they won’t have him back next term.”
    â€œNot really the sack then. The embroidered bag.”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œNothing specific. He should be a prefect but the chief says he won’t make him one.”
    â€œHow’s Father taking it?”
    â€œPhilosophically, trying to be detached.”
    â€œIs he upset?”
    â€œNot really; not inside himself. It’s a nuisance. It makes a problem for him. He says it’s letting down the family. But he’s only saying that because he thinks he should.”
    â€œWhat about Mother?”
    â€œYou know Mother. Franklin’s her ewe lamb.”
    â€œWho else is here?”
    â€œLucy and Rex.”
    â€œWith Rex doing all the talking?”
    â€œYou bet he is.”
    â€œBeing very British about it all?”
    â€œVery. ‘This country needs a Mussolini.’”
    â€œWhy was he dragged in?”
    â€œMother’s idea. That row of medals, she’s still impressed by them.”
    â€œAll that seems quite a while ago.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t think it was to hear him talk.”
    â€œPoor Lucy. Are they dining here?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œI’d better hurry then. Dinner’s a parade to Rex.”
    He bounded up the stairs. Franklin with the embroidered bag. For the usual reason, he supposed. Suspected but not proved. The kind of thing that happened in