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THE TURNING TIDE

Margaret Malcolm

Fenella was brokenhearted when her beloved Anthony announced that he was thinking of getting married -- but not, it seemed, to her. But then something very exciting happened to take her mind off her troubles!

“FEN, I’ve come to a decision!”

From behind the coffee pots and cups Fenella Calder looked across the breakfast table and smiled.

“In that case I for one won’t attempt to argue you out of—whatever it is,” she assured her companion cheerfully. “I know you too well for that, Anthony!”

Anthony grinned back at her. He thought, as he had thought so many times before, how sweet and fresh and wholesome Fenella looked in her simple green linen frock with its crisp white collar and cuffs. The sort of person whom one associated in one’s mind with other pleasant, invigorating things—the salt sting of sea water as he had felt it on his brown body half an hour ago, the crunch of one’s teeth into the cool, white flesh of an apple—

“Am I so pig-headed?” he asked with a rueful twist of the mouth.

“Of course you are!” she told him promptly as she passed him his cup. “All men are!”

“Now that was the authentic voice of Aunt Gina, not of you! ” he protested. “And while, since she's a generation older than I am, it’s her privilege to make sweeping statements like that about me if she feels like it, I’m not going to let you get away with it! ”

Fenella relented.

“Well, I’ll admit that you rarely come to a decision without having given the matter a lot of thought,” she said.

Anthony saluted her gravely.

“Thank you kindly, lady! I shall treasure that as one of the few compliments you’ve ever paid me! You’re not given to flattery, are you, Fen?”

“You wouldn’t like it if I were!” she countered swiftly, “You’d call it insincerity!”

“Yes, I expect I should,” he agreed. “And there’s nothing more hateful—” he checked himself. “Don't you want to know what it is I've made up my mind about?''

“I’m dying to know!'' she said gravely, and again Anthony grinned.

“You’re right, you do know me all too well! I hate curiosity about my private affairs—even though I'd every intention of taking you into my confidence, I might have changed my mind if you'd been too eager to know what was in my mind.''

Fenella did not reply. It would be strange, she thought a little wryly, if she didn't know every one of Anthony's moods, his reactions in any given set of circumstances. For the last six years, during which she had lived in his house, her life had centred round him—his wishes had been her law, his simple philosophy of life had become hers. So now she waited, a little anxious, perhaps, lest he was going to tell her that he had decided to make one of those periodic trips of his to some outlandish part of the world as he had done from time to time since he had left the Navy. But she was certainly not prepared for his next words.

'I've come to the conclusion that Aunt Gina is right— it’s high time I thought about getting married.''

The world stood still. His words echoed in her brain to the same suffocating rhythm as her heart.
“Married, married
,
married
—!'' Lying on her lap out of his sight, her fingers interlaced and gripped until the nails cut into her flesh.
Anthony
—
married
—!

From a great distance she heard his voice.

“Well, what do you think of the idea?''

Her heart settled to a more normal beat. Only an idea, so far, not an all but accomplished fact. A brief respite, anyhow. She shook her head.

“What can I say? Except what everyone will say—it
is
about time you thought of it!''

Momentarily Anthony frowned.

“I don’t want to know what everybody will say. I want to know what you think. Go on—and the truth, mind!"

Fenella drew a deep breath. It was a difficult thing he was asking of her, but she did not think of disobeying.

“I was wondering why you’ve changed your mind. Because people have always said you’d never marry.” Again that quick frown.

“People say a lot too much! Did they, by any chance, give a reason for making such a statement?”

“Only that—there had been—somebody. And something went wrong,” Fenella said, reluctant, anxious, after what he had just said that he should not imagine she made a habit of discussing his affairs behind his back.

To her surprise, however, he looked relieved.

“That’s all there is to know,” he said emphatically. “Except that the—the episode belongs to the past, and will stay there. Consequently, it’s entirely unimportant now. Do you understand?”

She nodded in silence. There was still another question which she longed to have answered, but she could not find the courage to ask it until Anthony said: “Yes?” with an upward inflection of his voice which told her that he had read her thoughts, as he so often did.

“Why, all at once, do you think it’s a good idea?” she asked hurriedly. “Why now, particularly?”

Anthony shrugged his shoulders.

“There hasn’t seemed any urgency before. Life has been too full of other things that I’ve found absorbing. The truth is, I suppose, that I’m more of a man’s man than anything else.”

It was true. With the exception of herself and Aunt Gina he never sought the company of women. But every man and boy in his small but well run estate was his good friend and adoring follower just as were the fishermen and their lads whom he had helped so much. And then, from time to time, the house would be filled with the noise and laughter of half a dozen young Naval men enjoying a spell of leave. For one reason or another they had no homes in which to spend it and, inevitably broke after a brief but hilarious trip to see the sights of London, were grateful for the hospitality of Anthony’s Cornish home. Seeing that they spent most of their time at sea, they appeared to consider it perfectly reasonable that they should spend most of their leave in one or other of his boats and Anthony was in his element in their company. He did, indeed, seem to find life full and satisfying.

“But now,” he went on thoughtfully, “well, I’m not getting any younger! ”

“Oh, you’ll pass for a bit yet,” she told him, astonished that she could speak so lightly. ‘'You’re not thin on top yet, and your figure is still tolerably good.”

“Fen!” he protested, outraged. “Tolerably, indeed! I’ll have you know that my weight hasn’t altered for the past ten years! ”

“All right, then, if you still look and feel young, what are you worrying about all at once?” she asked, sticking to the point she had made with a tenacity that, judging by Anthony’s expression, he found a little irritating.

“It’s difficult to put into words. I suppose the nearest I can get to it is that lately, it’s seemed to me it would be pretty good to share life with a companion whose interests were identical to my own.”

Fenella’s eyelids fluttered down. That was the sort of companion she had tried to make herself into for years— and she had thought that she’d succeeded pretty well— until now.

“Anthony,” she said rather breathlessly, “what—what sort of girl would you like to marry?”

“What sort?” He stirred his cup of coffee thoughtfully. “Well, someone with whom I had a lot in common, who has a zest for life and a sense of humour—”

“Good looks,” went on a voice from the open french windows, “a charming speaking voice and a flair for wearing the right clothes at any given time! You don’t want one girl, Anthony Trevose. You want half a dozen! ”

A pleasant-faced woman in her middle fifties came into the room. She was carrying a garden trug full of summer flowers which she set down in a cool comer of the room before coming to the table. “Only a cup of coffee, Fen,” she requested. “I want to get down to the church with these before the day gets too hot.”

“Hallo, Aunt Gina,” Anthony greeted her coolly. “Have you been eavesdropping ?”

“Of course I have,” she told him calmly. “If you can call it that when people talk so loudly that one can’t avoid hearing all they say.”

Fenella sank back in her chair with a little sigh. She was not sure if she was glad or sorry that Aunt Gina had come in. The conversation had, it was true, got to a point beyond which she could cope with it, and yet, more than anything else in the world she wanted to know what else Anthony had been going to say—and why he had taken her into his confidence in the first place.

“I bet you listened with all your ears! ” Anthony told Mrs. Trevose indignantly. “Still, never mind that. At least it saves me repeating myself. Now tell me, aren’t you pleased that at last I’m thinking of taking your advice?”

His aunt looked at him keenly. She saw a dark, aquiline face, black hair, sleek and smooth from its recent wetting, keen eyes that could dance with amusement, flash with anger or hood themselves so that they revealed nothing of his thoughts—as now. It was an arresting face, she thought critically, one at which almost any woman would certainly look twice.

“You are serious?” she asked gravely.

“Absolutely,” he insisted. “It’s a serious matter!”

“It certainly is,” she agreed. “But I find it difficult to believe that you realise it.”

“Oh? And why, may I ask?”

“Because you’re beginning the wrong way round,” she explained, a hint of impatience in her voice. “It’s more usual to fall in love—and then think of marriage.”

“But who said anything about falling in love?” Anthony asked coolly, stretching out his hand for another piece of toast. “Not I! It’s an irrational emotion at the best of times—just excusable, perhaps, in the twenties, but certainly not in a man of thirty-four! ”

Mrs. Trevose glanced momentarily across at Fenella’s expressionless face before asking Anthony with interest:

“And what, may I ask, do you intend to substitute for it?”

“Friendship, understanding, tastes in common. The sane, sweet things of life, not a crazy passion that bums out and leaves nothing but ashes. I want something better, more lasting than that.”

Mrs. Trevose’s face softened.

“I can almost forgive you your foolishness for the sake of that last remark,” she told him softly. “You’re right. We all crave something deeper and more lasting than mere glamour—and some of us find it,” she added under her breath. Her own marriage to Anthony’s dead uncle, Hugh Trevose, had been ideally happy.

Anthony leaned across the table and took her hand into a warm, protective grasp.

“Dear Aunt Gina,” he said gently, “if I could find half the happiness that you gave to Uncle Hugh, I’d be satisfied.”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t,” Mrs. Trevose contradicted flatly, resolutely blowing her nose. “All you Trevose men want far more than your fair share. Still, if you can get it, why not? Only not the way you’re setting about it, Anthony.”

“Why not?” he insisted obstinately. “You speak of my foolishness, and yet in the same breath you admit that I’m right. It doesn’t make sense! ”

“It would to any woman,” Mrs. Trevose assured him.

“Would it? Does it to you, Fen?” He turned to her so sharply that she had little time to consider her reply.

“I—think so,” she said haltingly.

“Then will you kindly explain in words of one syllable capable of penetrating even the dull wits of a mere male why there’s anything wrong in bringing common sense and logic to the problem of such a serious matter as marriage?” he asked with exasperated patience.

“Because no woman is or ought to be logical! ” Mrs. Trevose replied before Fenella had time to. “Or, if she is, she’s likely to be unpleasantly calculating. You wouldn’t like to be married for your money, would you, Anthony? No, of course you wouldn’t! But believe me, there’s a risk of that! You’re quite a catch, you know. Reasonably well off for these days and—extremely good-looking into the bargain! ”

Anthony jumped to his feet, his dark brows meeting in a heavy scowl.

“For heaven’s sake, Aunt Gina," he protested angrily, “don’t be so revolting! Look here, you haven’t got the impression, either of you, that I imagine I’ve only got to crook my little finger to have all the girls come running, have you? Because if so—"

“But we haven’t, Anthony!” It was Fenella who answered for both of them, and for the first time since Anthony had made his original announcement, she allowed warmth to creep into her voice. “We both know you far too well to imagine any such thing for a single moment, don’t we, Aunt Gina?”

“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Trevose agreed, looking not at Anthony but at Fenella, curiosity in her blue eyes. Anthony went over to the open door and stood staring out.

“It’s perhaps a pity I ever spoke of it,” he said distantly. “It would appear to be one of those things that it’s better not to put into words—though why in the world, I can’t think. Not, of course, to all and sundry, but to you two—my own family—”

Mrs. Trevose hesitated for a moment. Then she went over to him and slipped her arm through his unresponsive one.

“Anthony, I’m truly sorry if I’ve annoyed you, but I’m too fond of you to hold my tongue when I know that you’re contemplating taking a risk which you don’t appreciate,” she said quietly. “A woman is almost invariably guided by her heart. If she isn’t then there’s inevitably trouble—of one sort or another.”