“She knows,” said Marshall, pondering darkly how much, indeed, Felicity did know. “You won’t frighten her. She’s a very precocious young woman.” It sounded like a warning; it also sounded, paradoxically, as if he felt sorry for her. George made a mental note to beware of that attitude; it might, he reflected, be the most demoralising thing in the world to feel that everyone was sorry for you.
“I know I’m difficult,” said Felicity, in a very precise and slightly superior tone. “I have difficulties. I don’t know how much you remember about being my age?” She gave him a sidewise look, and was arrested by the nicely-shaped growth of the grey hair at his temples; it gave him a very distinguished look. He had nice eyes, too, deep-set and quiet; it would be hard to excite him. It must be so restful, she thought, clutching at distant, desirable things to suppress her memories of anguish, to be with people who’ve known nearly everything, and can’t get feverish any more.
“More than you’d think,” said George earnestly. He was on the same side of the desk with her, almost within touch; he knew quite a lot about making contact. “And I have a son – that’s going through it again, you know, only with one experience to build on. Not a daughter, I wasn’t that lucky. My wife couldn’t have any more children. We badly wanted a girl.”
“Really?” said Felicity, side-tracked. “Uncle Edward is terribly unhappy, too, about Aunt Audrey not having any children. He’s extremely fond of her, but it’s always been an awful disappointment to him.” She tightened suddenly, he saw her face blanch. Her eyes, momentarily naked and vulnerable, veiled themselves. No one can be more opaque than a girl of fifteen, when she feels the need to defend herself. Why did she? From what?
“You know Lucien Galt’s gone missing,” said George practically. “It looks as if you were the last person to see him, here at Follymead. He didn’t say anything to you, did he, about running out? After all, something could have happened to call him away.”
“No,” said Felicity, with a fixed, false smile. “He didn’t say anything about leaving. Nothing at all like that.”
“What did you talk about on your walk?”
“Oh, about the course, and the songs we had in the morning session. Just things like that.”
“Miss Barber and my son were a little disturbed about you… did you know? They had a feeling you were unhappy… upset… when they met you this afternoon. They’d have felt better if you’d agreed to go with them. Was there anything the matter? You know, it’s a kindness to confide in people. We do worry about one another, that’s what makes us human. Tossa’s had her difficulties, too, you mustn’t be surprised if she has a feeling for other people’s crises.” Careful, now! She had shied a little at the word he had chosen; her eyes, blankly grey, fended off his too great interest distrustfully. “I’m not being clairvoyant,” he said patiently. “You told me a moment ago you have difficulties. You wouldn’t have mentioned them if they hadn’t been on your mind.”
She looked down into her lap, clasping and unclasping her hands in a nervous pressure. The small, thin, beautifully-boned face was subtle and still, but it was a braced and wary stillness.
“I made my mistake,” she said, in a dry and careful voice, “being born into a clever and distinguished family. It is a mistake, when you turn out to be the plain, dull, nondescript one. Uncle Edward – everybody knows how brilliant he is. And my mother – she’s his sister, you know, – she has an arts degree, and she paints, and sings, and plays, she can do everything. It’s only because of her ill health, and because she happened to make a rather unfortunate marriage, that she didn’t become a scholar and celebrity like him. Aunt Audrey isn’t an intellectual, like them, of course, she doesn’t come from such an intellectual family. Her people were tradesmen who’d just got into the money. She went to a terribly select boarding school, and all that – Pleydells, I expect you’ve heard of it? – but she didn’t get any great distinctions, they took her away before her final exams. I’ve never understood why. Maybe they weren’t interested in academic success, all they wanted was the cachet. But she was everything else, you see. It’s enough to be so beautiful, don’t you think so? She’s beautiful, and she knows how to do everything beautifully, even if she doesn’t do it so terribly well. Me, I’m well-read, and I’m not stupid, but that’s all I’ve got, and in our family it just isn’t enough. Even things I can really do well, I find myself doing so badly… It’s… a personal thing. I try too hard, and over-reach myself. It isn’t easy, being the one without any gifts at all. I can’t see any future ahead of me, except playing second fiddle all my life to someone. I know I have moods! Wouldn’t you have moods?”
Most of which was her mother speaking; and the faithful repetition of the threnody of complaint only went to show the helpless and vulnerable affection she had for her mother. She hadn’t yet turned to doubt any of that, or pick it to pieces as some young people can and do, and find all the flaws in it. There was a lot of undeserved loyalty wrapped up in this rather pathetic package.
She caught his eye, and her pale cheek warmed a little. She liked the thick, strongly marked eyebrows that yet stood so tranquilly apart, with none of the menace of those brows that almost meet over the bridge of the nose. She minded his penetrating glance less than she had expected, and yet she was afraid of it.
“I suppose I’m a psychiatric case, really,” she said rather loftily, “only nobody’s done anything about it, so far.”
“On the contrary, I think you’re a completely normal adolescent who has suffered from rather too much adult companionship,” said George candidly, and smiled at her astonished, even affronted stare. “Abnormalities are the norm, when you’re struggling out of one stage and into another. Let’s face it, Felicity, you’re not grown-up yet, you’re only growing up. I haven’t forgotten how damned uncomfortable it is. I’ve seen it happen to others. You’re not doing too badly. Just don’t take any of your elders too seriously. Above all, don’t take any of them as the gospel. Not even the psychiatrists, some of them need psychiatrists too. Is that what was troubling you, this afternoon?”
He had brought her back to the matter in hand none the less firmly for the gentleness of his manner; but she didn’t hold it against him, she knew she had to face it. The long, fair lashes lay on her cheeks. Her face was set, and she wasn’t going to show him her eyes.
“It makes it worse that I have been so much with grownups. I still am. They expect me to act like an adult, and yet they don’t treat me as one. They get the work out of me, and then expect me to be in bed by ten. I did try to confide. I… I didn’t choose very well. He hadn’t got time to listen to me. I thought… he’s only twenty-three, and women are so much more mature… I thought we could be contemporaries but he… I saw it wasn’t any good,” said Felicity with dignity, “so I went away and left him. But you’ll understand, I didn’t want to talk to anyone after that.”
“I do understand. You left him… where?”
“Just under the redwood tree,” she said firmly, “where the paths cross.”
“You took the path to the bridge? And left him standing there?”
“Yes,” she said, with the flat finality of a slab of stone being laid over a grave.
“Let me be quite certain… he was then at the crossroads, and outside the fence that rails off the riverside enclosure with the grotto?”
“Yes,” she said, with the same intonation.
“You didn’t look round to see where he went from there?”