Cover Her Face Read Free Page A

dinner,” said Deborah dryly. “It was their blasted complacency that got me down. And that Liddell woman. It’s ridiculous to put a spinster in charge of a Home like St. Mary’s.”
    “I don’t see why. She may be a little limited but she’s kind and conscientious. Besides, I should have thought St. Mary’s already suffered from a surfeit of sexual experience.”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake don’t be facetious, Deborah!”
    “Well, what do you expect me to be? We only see each other once a fortnight. It’s a bit hard to be faced with one of Mummy’s duty dinner-parties and have to watch Catherine and Miss Liddell sniggering together because they thought you’d lost your head over a pretty maid. That’s the kind of vulgarity Liddell would particularly relish. The whole conversation will be over the village by tomorrow.”
    “If they thought that they must be mad. I’ve hardly seen the girl. I don’t think I’ve spoken to her yet. The idea is ridiculous!”
    “That’s what I meant. For heaven’s sake, darling, keep your crusading instincts under control while you’re at home. I should have thought that you could have sublimated your social conscience at the hospital without bringing it home. It’s uncomfortable to live with, especially for those of us who haven’t got one.”
    “I’m a bit on edge today,” said Stephen. “I’m not sure I know what to do.”
    It was typical of Deborah to know at once what he meant. “She is rather dreary, isn’t she? Why don’t you close the whole affair gracefully? I’m assuming that there is an affair to close.”
    “You know damn well that there is—or was. But how?”
    “I’ve never found it particularly difficult. The art lies in making the other person believe that he has done the chucking. After a few weeks I practically believe it myself.”
    “And if they won’t play?”
    “Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”
    Stephen would have liked to have asked when and if Felix Hearne would be persuaded that he had done the chucking. He reflected that in this, as in other matters, Deborah had a ruthlessness that he lacked.
    “I suppose I’m a coward about these things,” he said. “I never find it easy to shake people off, even party bores.”
    “No,” replied his sister. “That’s your trouble. Too weak and too susceptible. You ought to get married. Mummy would like it really. Someone with money if you can find her. Not stinking, of course, just beautifully rich.”
    “No doubt. But who?”
    “Who indeed?” Suddenly Deborah seemed to lose interest in the subject. She swung herself up from the bed and went to lean against the window-ledge. Stephen watched her profile, so like his own yet so mysteriously different, outlined against the blackness of the night. The veins and arteries of the dying day were stretched across the horizon. From the garden below he could smell the whole rich infinitely sweet distillation of an English spring night. Lying there in the cool darkness he shut his eyes and gave himself up to the peace of Martingale.
    At moments like this he understood perfectly why his mother and Deborah schemed and planned to preserve his inheritance. He was the first Maxie to study medicine. He had done what he wanted and the family had accepted it. He might have chosen something even less lucrative although it was difficult to imagine what. In time, if he survived the grind, thehazards, the rat race of competition, he might become a consultant. He might even become sufficiently successful to support Martingale himself. In the meantime they would struggle on as best they could, making little housekeeping economies that would never intrude on his own comfort, cutting down the donations to charity, doing more of the gardening to save old Purvis’s three shillings an hour, employing untrained girls to help Martha. None of it would inconvenience him very much, and it was all to ensure that he, Stephen Maxie, succeeded