Realizing she was being ungracious, Marion reddened. It was, she could see, a huge compliment. The best pupil, when she was not even in the final year! And the money most definitely would be welcome, there was no question about that. But she didn’t want to do it, even so. She looked up, intending to say so.
Miss Golspie was watching her over the lime-green glasses, her expression one of calm interest. “So you’ll think about it?”
Marion, about to deliver a categoric “no,” found herself reluctantly nodding instead. “I’ll think about it.”
* * *
• • •
LATER, AT JENNERS, she and Peter sat amid silver teapots, groaning cake stands and potted palms. A little orchestra played waltzes. The evening was hot, and above the tinkle of china and conversation, teak ceiling fans stirred the soupy air. All you needed was a couple of elephants, Marion thought as she fanned herself with her napkin. She grinned as, right on cue, two broad-beamed Edinburgh matrons paraded past in stately pachyderm fashion.
Peter was pink with the heat. His pale hair stuck to his forehead. He reached for an egg sandwich. “I’ve been offered a job,” he announced. “A permanent teaching job.”
“That’s wonderful, Peter!”
He took a bite and eyed her. “It is rather good, isn’t it?”
“Where? Eton?”
He shook his head. He was to be a junior classics master somewhere near Inverness. “But it’s a start.”
“Congratulations,” Marion said warmly, wondering why he was staring at her. He seemed anxious, for some reason.
“I wondered . . .” he said. “That is to say, I wanted to ask . . .”
“What?” she urged. He had altered position, and the potted fern behind him now seemed to protrude from his head. It was hard not to laugh. “Out with it, Peter! You’re making me nervous.”
“Will you marry me?” Peter blurted.
Marion crashed her cup down into the saucer and gripped the arms of her chair. She felt off balance, as if she had been drinking gin, not Earl Grey. Marry? She was only twenty-two. Life, with all its potential, stretched ahead like a shining road. “But you’re going to work at this school,” she said, stupidly.
“More tea, madam?” An obviously eavesdropping waitress hovered with a silver teapot.
“Yes! You’d come with me,” Peter said when she had gone. He looked relieved, as if he had let go of a burden. He bit happily into his egg sandwich. “We’d live at the school.”
Marion, to whom the burden had been passed, imagined the shining road of her life disappearing up the drive of some stuffy establishment surrounded by mountains, cut off by lochs, very possibly with the likes of Dr. Stone on its staff. And with Peter, whom she liked but could never love. There wasn’t an atom of physical attraction there.
“What do you say?” He was smiling encouragingly; a piece of cress was lodged between his teeth.
She took a deep breath. “I’m very flattered, Peter.”
She saw hope flash in his pale eyes and felt terrible. “But the truth is,” she added hurriedly, “I’m not thinking about marriage to anyone just yet. My work comes first and I’ve got another year of college to go.”
Peter looked down. “I understand. Your work’s very important to you. And you’re such a good teacher, Marion. You’re Miss Golspie’s best student, everyone knows that.”
She felt moved. He must be hurt, but he was being so generous. He was such a good man. If only she could love him. But love didn’t seem to work like that. The most suitable person wasn’t necessarily the one who attracted you. As a pair of wide dark eyes glowed in her mind, she reddened.
* * *
• • •
THEY PARTED OUTSIDE Jenners. She watched him walk off down Princes Street, gave him a few minutes and then set off home the back way. There was no danger of him seeing her there, and the back streets had cooling shadows.
As she passed the front of a pub, a familiar figure came out. “Maid Marion!”
His appearance was too sudden for her to stop an instinctive smile of joy.
He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday. There was beard growth on his chin. The red scarf was still round his neck; the same blood-spattered shirt; the same mud-smeared jacket. But the energy she remembered was there too—the spark and the fizz and the black fire in his eyes. She was filled again with the sense that here was someone thrilling, unpredictable, exciting.
“How are you?” she asked. Better, by the looks of it. He had emerged from the pub with quite a spring in his step.
In reply, Valentine clutched his arm. “It comes and goes,” he said, wincing. “If you could help me back to my rooms, that would be great.”
She stared, wanting to laugh. He was ridiculously audacious. He seemed unabashed, however, staring back imploringly with wide round eyes. “Please?” he begged, looking suddenly so like a helpless little boy that resistance was useless. She groaned, and gave in.
“What were you doing in the pub?” she asked as she helped him along. The memory of her lost shillings was still raw. It had been embarrassing to let Peter pay for the tea instead of splitting the cost, especially after what she had said to him.
He had taken her arm and was leaning on her heavily, emitting the occasional soft moan as if in great pain. “Pub?”
Marion half turned, pointing with her free hand. “That one. Whose public bar I just saw you coming out of.”
He pushed a hand through his uncombed hair. “Oh, that pub,” he said, as if seeing it for the first time. “We weren’t in the bar, we were upstairs. Having a meeting.”
“We?” She looked at him closely, not entirely convinced.
He stared boldly back, his dark gaze unflinching. “The university Communist Party.”
“The pub lets you have Communist Party meetings upstairs?” It sounded most unlikely to her.
His hair flopped forward with the vigor of his nod. “Absolutely. Where we plot the death of imperialism and the epoch of international proletarian revolution. When men and women who struggle in their workplaces and in their communities for the defeat of capitalism will finally achieve a more just and equal society.”
The drama and force of this speech, and the dazzling smile with which it ended, had the effect of stunning her from all further thought. By the time she had recovered her faculties and was framing more detailed questions, Valentine had begun to sing. It wasn’t a song Marion recognized, but the tune was catchy and the lyrics striking. Something about workers arising from their slumbers. She wondered what time Valentine had risen from his slumbers. He looked as if he had slept in his clothes.