Woman's Own November 27 1957 Page 11

  continued overleaf

Theo learned that a young girl's hero worship can be flattering but embarrassing

Man of the World 

by Charles King 

Illustrated by Joe De Mers

----------------

 THEO VINCENT moved into the gracious old house he had bought at Midfold on a crystal morning in late October. He was standing in the garden and wondering how to get his grand piano through the french windows when he saw an eye watching him in the hedge. 

 His next-door neighbours were a maiden aunt and her niece, so the taxi-driver had told him. The eye belonged, he supposed, to the niece. He smiled to himself, wandered casually out of its range, and quietly approached it along the hedge. 

 "Good morning," he said. 

 He had stooped politely. The eye widened, blinked at him, and vanished. There was a confused rustling on the other side of the hedge. 

 He said, still stooping, "Please don't go away. I didn't mean to startle you. I want to introduce myself." 

 "I haven't gone away." 

 Theo straightened himself rather quickly. The voice had come from above the hedge. He found himself looking at a girl of perhaps seventeen with darkish hair and a face that would be very lovely one day soon. 

 ''I'm glad," Theo said, smiling. 

 Her own smile was quick but doubtful. "You're not peeved? "

 "Why should I be?"

  "Oh, I don't know." She pulled a leaf from the hedge. "From what old Moppett said I thought you'd be a bit, well, crusty." 

 "And what did old Moppett say?" 

 "Oh, nothing much. Just that the gentleman who was moving in next door was a bachelor and that he’d retired from the Foreign Office." 

 "I resigned, as it happens. I wasn't old enough to retire." Theo straightened his shoulders unobtrusively. 

 "Who is this remarkably ill-informed character, anyway?" 

 "Old Moppett? He drives a taxi." 

 "Of course. He told me an aunt and her niece lived next door. I'd put your age at about nine or ten. I rather thought you'd wear pigtails." 

 She laughed then, delightedly, so he put his, firm brown hand over the hedge and introduced himself. Her name; she said, was Susan Nevill. She dropped her hand and her face clouded. 

 "I behaved like a child, anyway," she said in a vexed tone of voice, "peeping through the hedge at you like that." 

 "Not at all, I often peep myself." 

 "Well, you see, I always used to stand here and watch the tennis parties and things when I was quite a little girl. You must think I haven't grown up yet." 

  THEO said, simply, "No, I don't think that." What he could see of her above the hedge had grown up very nicely indeed. "Why don't you join me on this side?" 

 She hesitated. He coaxed her deftly. "You might be able to help me with that blessed grand piano." 

"All right, then."  

 She walked along the hedge and squeezed through a gap he hadn't noticed before. She was slim, leggy, not yet sure of herself. Theo was charmed with her. 

 They went across to the grand  piano together. She said, wonderingly, "It's huge, isn't it?" 

 "It's the bane of my life," Theo said. "I bought it for my twenty-first birthday and I've carted it about with me ever since."  

 "Not abroad?" 

 "Oh yes. It's gone through a floor in Pekin, sunk a native boat in Honolulu, and got itself wedged in half a dozen doorways from Helsinki to Hong Kong." 

 She was looking at him breathlessly. "Golly. Have you lived in all those places? " 

 "Is that so wonderful?" 

 "I should say. You wait till I tell Donald. He'll be green."

 "Donald? " 

 "He's my boy. . . my friend. He's a reporter on the local 'rag.' He went to Dinard last summer with his father and he's been bragging about it ever since. I say, you must have had a terrifically exciting life? " 

 "Now you mention it," Theo said, "I suppose I have." 

 He had not seen it in that light before. On the whole he had been rather dissatisfied with himself lately. When a man reaches middle age with nothing to show for forty-odd years of experience but a certain savoir faire and a few scratches on a grand piano, disillusionment sets in. 

 But it was something, after all, to be a man of the world. Theo looked at himself for a moment through those dazzled young eyes, and was flattered. 

 He said, briefly, "Well now, the piano. " 

 She was suddenly shy. "You will tell me if I'm a nuisance, won't you?" 

 "I will," said Theo, gravely. 

 He couldn't imagine doing so. She was altogether charming. And besides, her obvious admiration for him was a pleasure he found it hard to resist. 

 For a day or two after he had moved in, she had to be coaxed through the hedge into his garden. After that she wandered through of her own accord. She helped him arrange his books, or brought him flowers her aunt had picked, which filled the house with fragrance. 

 And he talked about himself. She made him. She was endlessly fascinated by his chequered past. He tried to question her about Donald and the aunt he had still to meet, but she shrugged away her own life. It was as dull as ditchwater, she said. 

 He had been in Midfold for a fortnight when Donald presented himself asking for an interview for the local paper. He was a likeable young fellow, but he hadn't learned to hide his feelings yet. 

 He made it obvious that he resented Susan's interest in Theo. Well, Theo thought wryly and without vanity, I am more polished than anyone else in Midfold and young girls always seem' to find silver-templed maturity so interesting. 

 Anyway, his influence would be good for the girl. She needed more polish, hadn't Donald mentioned that Susan would be nineteen next week? How slowly girls grew up in places like Midfold. 

 He wondered suddenly whether he ought to give her a birthday present? She had really been very helpful since he had moved in, and it would be an ideal opportunity to make her aware of herself. 

He did wonder, walking leisurely towards the town centre next morning, whether he ought to speak to the maiden aunt first. Susan had told him she owned a shop in the High Street. She probably sold knitting patterns or kept one of those genteel teashops full of copper warming pans and muffins. 

 And she would undoubtedly suggest that Theo gave Susan something sensible. That was just what Theo did not intend to do. He had walked nearly the length of the High Street before he found the shop he wanted. 

  PAINTED on the black fascia was 'Fay's Boutique.' It had a canary-yellow and a few wispy garments of an intimate nature behind a lot of bland plate glass. Theo smiled approvingly and entered. 

 The woman who came toward him was he thought almost certainly Fay herself. She was tall, slim, thirty-fivish. Her clothes had the same casual sophistication which had so pleased him in the decor of the shop. 

 "Can I help you?" she said. 

 "I’m sure you can." She had an agreeably dry smile. "I wanted a present for a young girl. It must be charming, elegant and frivolous."

 "I see." 

 There was now perhaps a faint glimmer of amusement far back in her eyes. Theo saw it there when she turned round from the glass case. 

 She was holding to her slim throat a dark and filmy cloud which he took to be a negligee. She was smiling at him. 

 "How would this be?" 

 "Delicious," said Theo, candidly  as  he leaned forward, looked at his hand through the delicate cobweb of nylon, and added, "But perhaps just a shade too frivolous." 

 "Oh?" 

 "It has to be a present which a middle-aged man can give to a girl on her nineteenth birthday without, shall we say, embarrassment on either side. " 

 "I see."

 Her smile was a little drier, he judged. It was odd. "Well?" he said. "You did say it was for her nineteenth birthday?" 

 "I did." 

 "Perhaps she might like a scarf or a twin set with her name embroidered on it?" 

"She might." The woman was obviously up to something, but there seemed no harm in telling her. "The name is Susan." 

 Her smile was now almost acid. "You will forgive me, won't you," she said, "but you are Mr. Theodore Vincent? "

 "I am." "I am Fay Nevill." 

 THEO bowed. It gave him time to absorb the distinct shock and to curse the name of Moppett. When he looked up, a moment later, his smile was as serene as ever. 

 "But this is a pleasure, Miss Nevill."

 "I am Susan's aunt, you know." 

 "Yes, yes. I'm so glad we've met at last. And how delightfully convenient that it should be here." 

 "You still want to buy Susan's gift here? " 

 "Of course. Where else could I get anything at all worthy of her in Midfold?

 " Fay Nevill laughed then. She held out her hand and he took it briefly, but with sincere pleasure. 

 He had known very few women in his rather extensive acquaintance who could laugh without losing their elegance.

 "I'm sorry," she said. "I really thought you'd be embarrased when I told you who I was." 

 "But Susan has been very kind to me, as you probably know. And I've grown quite fond of her. Why should I be embarrassed at buying her a birthday gift?"

 "Oh, I've lived in Midfold far too long. I'm full of absurd local prejudices." She smiled wryly. "But don't you think I might disapprove of your choice of gift?" 

"Do you disapprove?"

 She glanced at the black negligee. "Something absolutely frivolous for a girl of nineteen? " 

 "Why not? Now please don't say I ought to give her something sensible. You really aren't that sort of aunt, you know."

 She laughed again, but thoughtfully. "All the same, I do rather disapprove. I've tried not to influence Susan in any particular way, I want her to grow up natural and completely unspoiled." 

 "Unpolished, I should say." 

 "Perhaps. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Don't misunderstand me. If Susan should acquire the sort of polish we're talking about I wouldn't object. But I don't want it applied to her like a varnish. She's rather a nice person, you know." 

 "I know." He said it quite simply. "Of course it's possible to be both polished and nice." 

 "Of course." She smiled at him. "It's a very delicate process though, isn't it?" 

 "And painful. Still, I'm rather surprised that a woman of your obvious experience should want Susan to remain a rude child of nature." 

 "Perhaps it's because of my experience," she said, and spread her hands coolly over the pitfall her words had uncovered in their casual conversation. "I might ask you why, with your obvious experience, you should have settled in Midfold." 

 "I might tell you," Theo said, lightly, "if I knew the answer. I think it's because I want peacefully and quietly to do some historical research. But I'm not sure. Perhaps I ought to start by "doing some research on myself?"  

 They smiled at each other amicably. She did not probe further, she merely glanced now at the negligee she was still holding and said, without familiarity, "Can I show you something else?

 He glanced round the elegant little shop. "A stole, do you think?" 

 "Certainly, Mr. Vincent." 

 HE walked thoughtfully along the High Street ten minutes later with the parcel under his arm. He had liked Fay Nevill. It was quite a different liking to that which he felt for Susan, but in its way just as precise. 

 Fay after Susan had been like dry white wine after too many cocktails. On the other hand, he reflected, when Susan came into his garden after tea that day and asked him rather shyly whether he would come to dinner on the night of her birthday, one did not lose one's taste for cocktails. 

 It was nice on the evening of her birthday dinner party, to find, when he walked across to the house, that no one was to be present but Susan, Fay and himself. 

 He found Susan alone in the drawing room. She was gazing into the glowing fire, one arm on the mantel shelf in an attitude at once graceful and strangely mature

 "Hallo, Susan," he said, softly. 

 "Theo." The awkward little start of surprise revealed the young girl. "I didn't hear you come in." . 

 He brought his hand with the parcel from behind his back. "Happy birthday, Susan." 

 She looked at the parcel wonderingly. "Theo-" 

 "Well, take it." 

 She took it, turned it over in her hands, breathless with  pleasure. "Aren't you going to open it?" She unwrapped the paper carefully, brushed aside the tissue, opened her lips with a little noiseless sigh of delight. 

 "Oh Theo, it's perfect." 

 "I'm glad you like it." 

 "I love it. I'll always keep it." 

 He was surprised by the passion in her voice. He was even embarrassed. He said, lightly, "It isn't all that precious .

 She glanced up at him then. He had seen that look in a woman's eyes only once or twice before in his life, and never with such panic as he felt now. 

 "It is to me," she said, softly. 

 He had stepped back instinctively. She reached him with a sudden movement that caught him unawares. Her lips brushed his cheek, the perfume of her hair drifted across his face, silk rustled and then he was alone. 

 He felt considerably shaken. He stood there with his hand to his cheek. How could he have foreseen that the girl would fall in love with him? 

   WHEN Fay came into the drawing-room he greeted her warily. Her manner was just as it had been in the shop, easy, friendly, but rather reserved. He wondered uneasily whether she had guessed what Susan's feelings were for him.

 He was relieved, when Susan joined them, that she made no tender demonstration beyond a quick but inflammatory glance at him as they sat down to table. The dinner was going to be ordeal enough without that. 

 The stole seemed to have inspired Susan. She kept shrugging it elegantly off her shoulders between courses. Her voice was pitched higher, too, and she crooked her little finger discreetly on her fork. 

 He avoided Fay's eye. He could not help seeing how incongruous Susan's fine manner was beside that of her aunt, who deftly turned the conversation this way and that while the meal progressed. 

 She did not remonstrate with Susan, and Theo admired her restraint. It was only when they had gone into the lounge afterwards for coffee that she said softly to Susan, "You're feeling all right, my dear?" 

 "Yes, of course." 

 "You seemed a little strained at dinner." 

 "Oh, Fay." 

 Susan appealed mutely to Theo. He said, reluctantly "She is, after all, nineteen, Miss Nevill." 

 "Well, that’s just it, Theo. You always understand. I mean, is there any reason why I shouldn't be cool and polished and elegant?" 

 "But being cool and polished and elegant isn't just an act you put on," Fay said, seriously. "You either are, or you aren't. You  aren't Susan, yet. You're a nice young girl with a healthy interest in life--" 

 "Ugh," said Susan, inelegantly. "No, but really, Fay, you can't expect me to go about gushing all over the place and bickering with Donald--" 

 THEO seized his chance neatly. 'You haven't been quarrelling with Donald?" 

 "Not quarrelling, bickering. Well, eh keeps lurking about and nagging me. He's so immature." 

 "Donald is? " 

 "Oh, you only met him once. Actually he's awfully, well--"

 "Callow? " 

 "Oh, Theo, you always know exactly the right word." 

 "Mm, yes. What does he grumble about then?" 

 "Oh things. And then he wants me to go to the Rugger Ball with him next month, and I won't. Well I can't, can I? It's such a juvenile sort of affair, all jumping about and singing potty old songs and throwing sausage rolls. I mean, it isn't at all dignified, is it?" "And you want to be dignified?" Fay asked, gravely. 

"Well, when you're nineteen, I mean--" 

 Theo, keeping his eyes rigidly on his coffee cup, was glad at this moment to hear a low whistle outside the window. He listened. The low whistle sounded again. 

He lifted his eyes. "There's someone outside, I believe." 

 "It's probably, Donald," Susan said, placidly.  

 "I'd better go see." Theo said, and escaped. 

 He went out by the french window in the dining-room and approached across the grass in the dark. Someone was certainly lurking in the shrubs below the glowing curtained window of the lounge.  

 Theo waited until the lurker whistled again, then he said, pleasantly, "Good evening, Donald." 

 "On, gosh, I mean, Mr. Vincent." 

 "Can I assist you in any way?" 

 "I wanted Susan." 

 "Miss Nevill has a front door bell, Donald." 

 "Yes, Mr. Vincent. Only I wanted Susan." He had recovered from the shock. Theo rather admired the way the boy stood up to him, not insolently, but not humbly either. "It’s rather personal, you see." 

 "Miss Nevill has company, Donald. This is not really a convenient moment. Is there anything I can do? 

 " Donald moved his shoulders. He cleared his throat. Finally he said, quite steadily, "To tell you the truth, Mr. Vincent you are the trouble."

"I am?" 

 "Yes, Mr. Vincent. You see, Susan looks up to you, . she worships you. She thinks I'm callow because I don't have grey hair and a seamed sort of face and lashings of savoir "me.ria[ 

 "Like me, I take it?" 

 "Well, yes, Mr. Vincent. She was all right until you came along and now she's unbearable. To me, that is. s'ehS probably jolly nice to everyone over fifty." 

 "Don't be bitter, Donald."

 "No, Mr. Vincent."  

 "And I am not yet over fifty." 

 "I’m sorry, Mr. Vincent."   

 "Otherwise what you say sounds  reasonable enough. A storm in a teacup perhaps." 

  DONALD'S voice was very quiet. "Excuse me, Mr. Vincent, but it's not. To me it's deadly serious. I love Susan, you see. And even if she did go on despising me, even if I did lose her, I wouldn't want to see her dolling herself up and being cynical 

about all the thins which matter. Anybody can be polished and cynical’But Susan is. . . Susan." 

 "I see," said Theo. 

 And he did see. He saw a girl peeping out of a hedge, a girl with a happy thirst for life and a promise of beauty.  He saw a boy who loved these things in her, and whose love might one day , I' bring them to maturity. 

 He said in an equable voice, I think you can leave it to me now, Donald. You can trust me. 

 "Yes, Mr. Vincent." He turned away, paused briefly. "And thank  you, Mr. Vincent." 

 Theo walked back pensively across the lawn. When he reached the french windows, Fay was waiting for him. 

 He said, rather wearily, "It was Donald." . 

"Theo. . . "

 "Oh, there's nothing to worry about." It was the first time she had called him Theo, he realized. "I think he'll be all right now."

 "It wasn't Donald I was worrying about," she said, quietly. 

 Theo recalled her words in the shop and said, "Fay, might I ask you a rather personal question?" 

 "Of course." 

 "You remember telling me the other day that it might be because of your experience that you wanted Susan to stay natural and unspoiled. What did you mean?" 

 "Oh, I don't know." She waited for the right words. "One acquires sophistication. One learns to live intelligently and not to waste one's emotions. But it all seems rather pointless, doesn't it, when one's alone? " 

 He did not immediately understand what she meant. He had already learned so much this evening. He would think about it later. 

  THEO awoke to sharp sunlight and breakfast and a complete knowledge of what he had to do about Susan. He dressed carefully and went down to his study and made three telephone calls, to Fay's Boutique, the house next door, and the Midfold Gazette. 

 He told Fay that he had decided to hold a house warming party in a week's time. Would she come herself, and provide a list of respectable townsfolk whom he could invite? She would, she told him, rather thoughtfully. 

 He asked Susan whether she would do him the honour of acting as his hostess at the party. She accepted rapturously. 

 He explained patiently to a dubious Donald that he really wanted him to come to the party with as many of his friends, particularly the rugger types, as he could find. They were a bit boisterous, Donald said. Theo assured him that they were just the kind he wanted. Donald, who seemed to guess now that this was some sort of plot, brightened up considerably and, thought he could bring along a skiffle group as well.

 Theo sat for a little while in the study and reviewed his plan. It would work, he thought. He hoped it would not be too painful for Susan. For himself, he had no hope at all. He would suffer miserably. 

 Susan's sufferings began, actually, as soon as she arrived at his house early on the evening of the party. She was dressed rather startlingly in a superbly elegant and most uncomfortable looking confection of white brocade, She was hobbling. 

 "Theo, do you like it?" she asked. 

 "Very much indeed." 

 "Really? " 

 "I think it's splendid, Susan." 

She moved her feet gingerly. '"It's , rather tight, Theo. I mean, you can't kick your heels about, can you?" 

 "One's not supposed to kick one's heels about, Susan. Not in that gown. You slink." 

 "Do I?" 

 She slunk. It was not an obvious success. She was still slinking when Fay came across, the hall towards them, having discarded her wrap. 

 Susan said, "Fay chose the gown for me from the Boutique. She said it would do wonders for me, didn't you, Fay?" 

 "I did." Fay smiled at Theo. "I'm glad you asked Susan to be your hostess." 

 "Are you?" 

 "Very glad. It will teach her such an awful lot, won't it?" 

 Theo said, gravely, "That was the idea, of course." He smiled at her with sober admiration. This was an unusual woman. She not only conveyed in the little pressure of her hand on his that she understood his plan, but that she sympathized with him in his painful duty of carrying it out. 

 Presently she wandered off towards the bar he had set up in the drawing- room. The first guests were beginning to arrive. They were the respectable townsfolk, placid middle-aged people. 

 Theo and Susan shook hands with them. Susan did very creditably, Theo thought. There was a distinct elegance in the way she inclined her head, though her eyes were shining with a rather obvious delight. 

 At the end of the first half-hour, both the elegance and the delight had wilted a little.  

 The guests continued to arrive in murmuring clumps. Susan kept glancing at Theo and shuffling her feet.

 At the end of an hour she said, in a small voice, "Theo." 

 "Yes?" 

 Do we shake hands with everybody?" 

 "Well, not everybody. I believe I saw Donald arrive ten minutes ago with some of his friends. We haven't shaken hands with them." 

 "No, we haven't." She looked wistful. "Someone’s playing music somewhere, aren't they?" 

 "I believe they are. That would be the skiffle group Donald talked of bringing. I thought the youngsters would like that, you know."  

 "I suppose they would." 

 The inexpert but jungly throb of the guitar was coming from the conservatory with quite a lot of other noise. The cheerful hubbub of laughter and raised voices washed around them where they stood, isolated with the latest apologetic arrival in the hall. 

  SUSAN had begun to look harrowed. She said, timidly, "It's a good band, isn't it?" 

 "Rather noisy, I should have said." 

 "But it makes your feet itch." 

 "Does it, Susan?" 

 "Well, you know what I mean." 

 "Yes," said Theo, "I know what you mean. We could walk to the study, if you like. I've had all the important guests gathered there." 

 "Yes, Theo."

 They walked to the study. The important guests were much like the others except that they smelled vaguely of cigars. Susan had begun to look acutely miserable. 

 Theo was suffering himself. 

 He looked at Susan and remembered that foolish, innocent kiss, and wondered how long the painful operation would take. 

 It took, actually, another thirty-five minutes. He had done his best to entertain her, but her expression now was more desperate than elegant and every time the rasp of tile washboard reached them in the study her feet positively writhed. The elegant trap had become intolerable. 

 He said at last, quietly, "Susan, you don't have to stay with me, you know. 

"Oh, Theo. . ." 

 She would not look at him. He put his hand on hers, gently. "Susan, you understand what I mean, don't you? If you really want to abdicate from being hostess, I shan't blame you." 

 "I don't know, Theo, really I don't," 

 She wandered miserably out of the study into the empty corridor. He waited until he saw her back quiver, then he went to her. 

Donald was there. He was standing forlornly by the discarded hats and coats, his feet moving listlessly to the distant music and his lips pursed. Theo glanced at Susan. 

Her face had brightened for a moment, though it was miserable again now. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands. He knew now, without any doubt and with the strangest pang of loss, that his plan had worked. 

 She said, in a small voice, "There's Donald." 

 "Yes, Susan." 

 "Alone." 

 "Yes." 

 "Theo . . . , Oh Theo, I've been so beastly to him." 

 He put his hand on her arm and turned her round. Her eyes were damp. He said, smiling at her gently, "I think I'd go to him and ask him if he'd take you to the Rugger Ball next week and let you sing a potty old song and even perhaps throw a sausage roll or two. I think he'd understand." 

 "But, Theo . . . would you?" 

 "Yes, Susan, I'd understand, too." 

 She looked at him then with an expression which made him feel suddenly as significant a man as he had ever felt. 

 HE had not expected this. He had not foreseen, either, bow grateful to her he would be for it. 

 Because the loneliness, when she ran away from him towards the hall, was for a moment intolerable. 

 He wondered, briefly, whether this party would really warm his house. There was still the problem of the hostess. It had taken him twenty years to realize that he needed one, he could not afford another twenty years to find her. 

 He was still thinking about that when he saw Fay Nevill cross the hall, glance at the happy and oblivious couple by the hats and coats, and come towards him. 

 She was smiling. The smile was not very elegant and not in the least bit cool. His problem was one which could easily be solved, he thought, by a man of the world. ------------ THE END