"My dearest Maurice--"
It was her turn for writing. She wondered whether he would like to hear
about the tennis party at the Vicarage. Mr. Spencer Rollitt's nephew,
Harry Craven, had been there, and the two Acroyd girls from Renton Lodge,
and Norman Waugh.
Harry Craven's fawn face with pointed chin; dust-white face with black
accents. Small fawn's mouth lifting upwards. Narrow nostrils slanting
upwards. Two lobes of white forehead. Half-moons of parted, brushed-back
hair.
He smiled: a blunt V opening suddenly on white teeth, black eyes
fluttering. He laughed: all his features made sudden, upward movements
like raised wings.
The Acroyds. Plump girls with pink, blown cheeks and sulky mouths. You
thought of sullen, milk-fed babies, of trumpeting cherubs disgusted with
their trumpets. They were showing their racquets to Harry Craven, bending
their heads. You could see the backs of their privet-white necks, fat,
with no groove in the nape, where their hair curled in springy wires,
Minna's dark, Sophy's golden. They turned their backs when you spoke and
pretended not to hear you.
She thought she would like Maurice to know that Harry Craven and she had
beaten Minna Ackroyd and Norman Waugh. A love set.
Afterwards--Harry Craven playing hide-and-seek in the dark. The tennis
net, coiled like a grey snake on the black lawn. "Let's hide together."
Harry Craven, hiding, crouching beside you under the currant bushes. The
scramble together up the water-butt and along the scullery roof. The last
rush across the lawn.
"I say, you run like the wind."
He took your hand. You ran faster and faster. You stood together, under
the ash tree, panting, and laughing, safe. He still held your hand.
Funny that you should remember it when you hadn't noticed it at the time.
Hands were funny things. His hand had felt like Mark's hand, or Roddy's.
You didn't think of it as belonging to him. It made you want to have Mark
and Roddy back again. To play with them.
Perhaps, after all, it wouldn't be kind to tell Maurice about the tennis
party. He couldn't have played like that. He couldn't have scrambled up
the water-butt and run with you along the scullery roof.
"My dearest Maurice: Nothing has happened since you left, except that
there was a tennis party at the Vicarage yesterday. You know what tennis
parties are like. You'll be shocked to hear that I wore my old black
jersey--the one you hated so--"