The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell

by Burchell, Mary

  When the girl returned, however—oh, wonder of happy wonders!—she was holding a letter in her hand.

  "It hadn't been overlooked," she explained. "Funnily enough, it had only just come up in the correspondence tray five minutes ago. I do hope it's somethmg nice and helpful."

  "Oh, thank you so much!"

  Harriet accepted both the letter and the friendly gesture with gratitude, and went out into the cold, spurious brightness of the February afternoon.

  She was trembling a little, with hope and the fear of a yet more complete disappointment and, feeling that she must

  sit down somewhere by herself before putting the matter to the painful test, she went into Lincoln's Inn Fields, and found an empty bench. Her only companions, as she nervously slit open the envelope, were a few bold, hungry sparrows, who hopped about and "tweeted" expectantly, in the evident hope of discovering that she had some crumbs for them.

  Both the envelope and the writing-paper were of good quality, Harriet noticed subconsciously, and the address embossed at the head of the sheet read/*Fourways, Nr. Barndale, Middleshire.''

  Rather more than a hundred miles from London, Harriet reckoned quickly, and the house is important enough to need no address except its proximity to a fair-sized town.

  The letter was handwritten, in firm, sloping, rather old-fashioned characters and signed with a flourish that did not, however, in any degree affect the legibility of the signature, "Sophia Mayhew.'

  Harriet's services were required, it seemed, by Mrs. Mayhew herself, who was, according to her own description, somewhat incapacitated by arthritis. There was no question of actual nursing, she explained. Nor did she require anything in the nature of a housekeeper.

  "Fourways is rather an isolated house," the letter continued, "and I need^as the expression * working companion' denotes—a companion who knows all about the running of a house, and wno would be able to turn her hand to most things, as and when required. I see you mention that you are willing to help with Children. In the ordinary way, that would not be required of you. But sometimes my daughter visits me and brings her three children with her.'

  Harriet reached this point in the letter without feeling that there was much brightening of the scene. Mrs. Mayhew sounded as though she considered the duties of a working companion to have the accent on the first word, rather than the last. However, the letter, having mentioned a salary that was reasonable without being munificent, concluded with a touch of dry humor which, to Harriet, redeemed it entirely.

  "I suggest," Mrs. Mayhew wrote, "that if you wish to accept the post, you come here on a month's trial. A month should be long enough for us to find out how wholeheartedly we can like or dislike each other.''

  Harriet laughed out loud then she reached that sentence, so that an indignant sparrow gave a more than usually energetic hop, and finally flew away. And then, seized with the panic-stricken fear that Mrs. Mayhew might have written just such a letter in answer to half a dozen other applicants, she hurried home to write her eager acceptance of the position and send it off by return mail.

  When Maxine came in and found what she had done, she was aghast. '* Darling, how terribly precipitate of you! Why didn't you think it over—and wait to talk it over with me?"

  "Someone else might have grabbed the chance, while I did so."

  "Oh, Harriet! It isn't such a wonderful job that you need to leap at it like that."

  "It s the only one offered me," Harriet returned with grim realism.

  "There might well have been others later," Maxine objected, with entirely unfounded optimism. "Mrs. M. sounds as though she wants a good deal for her money. 'Able to turn her hand to most things, as and when required' sounds menacing to me. And then you're apparently to turn yourself into a nursemaid when the daughter comes to stay." She studied the letter afresh. " 'Rather an isolated house.' " She shuddered and made a face. "I bet that means miles from anywhere and funny drains and no hot water. Besides—"

  "Oh, Maxie, stop it!" Harriet laughed. "Of course, there'll be disadvantages. But you don't know how happy I am to have something—anything—that means paying my way, instead of living on you and waiting vaguely for something to fall into my lap. I don't mind if it is miles from anywhere. I really don't mind!"

  Maxine looked at her affectionately and smiled in her turn.

  "All right, pet. I know how you feel. And, anyway, I always say—let people go and be miserable in their own favorite way. But promise me one thing."

  "Anything," Harriet told her blithely.

  "If you really hate it, come back to me and say so. We'll always find something else."

  "I promise," Harriet said. And although they were not usually very demonstrative with each other, she hugged her

  sister, just to let her know how much she really appreciated all that had been done for her, and all that Maxine would still most willingly do for her if the need arose.

  Either Mrs. Mayhew had not written letters to any other applicants, or Harriet's acceptance gave the best impression. At any rate, two days later, she wrote to say that she would like Harriet to come to her the following week, and would she please make arrangements accordingly?

  "Well, then we must have a nice party before you go," Maxine insisted. "Jo said he'd give one for you on Saturday night, after the show, and then you'll have Sunday to get over it, and you can start being real and earnest on Monday morning."

  "But who is Jo? I don't know him, do I?"

  "Nonsense, darling. Everybody knows Jo," Maxine explained comprehensively. "Of course you must have met him some time or other."

  "But not long enough for us to have made any impression on each other. I mean—not the sort of impression that makes someone give a party for one."

  Maxine laughed. "Any excuse for a party suits Jo. I told him my sister was going to some grim job in the depths of the country, and he said, 'Poor kid, we must give her a send-off party,' and was as pleased as anything. I think you've prooably met him sometime, somewhere. But, anyway, it doesn 't really matter. Everyone loves a party.''

  Harriet felt it would be less than gracious to say that she didn't love that particular sort of party. So, instead, she said how very kind it was of Jo, and secretly hoped that she would not be expected to take any specially prominent part in what she guessed would be a crowded, noisy, hilarious gathering where no one knew anyone else's surnames. Or, if they did, would never dream of using them.

  However, she need not have worried. When Maxine and she arrived at the big first-floor flat on Saturday night, it was some while before they could even find their host. And, when they did, it was obvious that he no longer retained the slightest idea—if, indeed, he had ever had it—that Harriet was supposed to be the prime cause and reason for the party.

  He called them both "sweetheart," found them drinks

  and bade them enjoy themselves. There, his own interpretation of his duties as host appeared to end.

  Maxine immediately became absorbed into the scene, hke another drop of water on a piece of blotting paper. But, though she maae several well-mtentioned efforts to draw Harriet also into the cheerful m61ee, Harriet found herself unable to laugh and shout and joke and backchat with any real abandon. For one thing, everyone knew—or gave a very good impression of knowing—everyone else, and shared a wealth of allusions and private jokes and scraps of information that meant little or nothing to her.

  For a while, she remained m fairly close attendance on her sister, smiling and trying to look happy and intelligent and knowledgeable. But, after a time, she detached herself, unnoticed, from the group centered around Maxine, and found herself a seat in a comparatively quiet corner. That is to say, in an angle between the door and one of the long windows, where the tide of noise and high spirits washed past, instead of swirling around one.

  Harriet was not abnormally shy, nor had she any objection to lively enjoyment. But this was just not her circle, and she hoped she might spend at any rate part of the time, observmg b
ut largely unobserved.

  For something like ten minutes, her wish seemed likely to be fulfilled. Then a tall, slightly flushed young man, with thick, untidy dark hair, which looked as though he might have ruffled it several times with agitated fingers, dropped into the seat beside her, and remarked, without even looking at her:

  ''Foul party.*'

  Harriet—whose manners were of the old-fashioned type that rated polite preservation of appearances before rude candor between strangers—hesitatea a moment and then said, "Most people seem to be enjoying themselves very much."

  The young man shook his head abruptly, as though trying to clear it of puzzling thoughts, and turned to stare at Harriet with surprised blue eyes that appeared to register her presence for tne first time.

  "What-didyousay?"

  "I said that most people seem to be enjoying themselves,*' repeated Harriet, a little crisply this time, as she

  had decided by now that the young man had probably had rather too much to drink.

  ''More fools they," he retorted, gloomily, rather than rudely. And leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he buried his tousled head in his hands.

  Harriet regarded the back of his neck without favor, though she was not unaware of a certain pathos about the dejected slouch of very young neck and shoulders in contrast to the strangely old and (juite unsmiling eyes that had looked into hers. She had no wish to go on sitting beside this shghtly tipsy young man, but his position barred any easy escape. And, m any case, she hoped that he himself might move in a few moments.

  Instead of that, however, he gave a slight groan. And it was a sound of such genuine pam and distress, that Harriet exclaimed anxiously, ''What's the matter? Are you ill?"

  "Head—terribly muddled again," he muttered.

  She hesitated. Harriet knew perfectly well that an aching head and a muddled brain could be due to either too much drinking or a genuine illness—and that, at a jparty like this, the first cause was much the more likely. But something about the boy indefinably touched her, and, after a moment, she put her hand on his shoulder and said, "You'd be much better at home, you know.''

  "Yes, I'd like to go there." He spoke with a queer, boyish docility, in marked contrast to his previous truculence.

  " Why don't you go then? "

  He didn't reply at once. Then he muttered something abou. "giddy."

  Oh, dear! I'm afraid he's really drunk, thought Harriet.

  She glanced around the room, but no one was taking the slightest notice of them. Equally, no one would notice if she slipped away for ten minutes.

  'If I take you down to the street and find you a taxi—" she found that she was speaking with the sort of sympathetic severity of an annoyed sister "—will you be able to get home all right then?"

  He raised his head and looked at her, with those strangely old and tragic eyes, and it seemed to take some seconds before the meaning of her words reached him.

  "Good httle sport—" He patted her hand, still without a trace of a smile. "Let's—get weaving."

  She thought grimly that he had chosen all too apt a word. But, taking him firmly by the arm, she helped him to his feet and out of the nearby door.

  He seemed to have retained enough clarity to detach his own coat from the pile in the hall. At least, Harriet hoped it was his own. And, having slipped on her jacket, she took his arm once more, pushed open the front door, which was already ajar—apparently for the convenience of any latecomers—and helped him down the stairs.

  As they emerged into the street, she became keenly aware of her own ridiculous and equivocal position. And, as a taxi almost immediately slid up at the curb, with a sympathetically grinning driver at the wheel, Harriet began to feel angry, both with herself for having got into this position and with the young man for being the cause of it.

  *'Where do you want to go?'* she asked her companion shortly.

  "Home," he whispered.

  "Yes, I know. But where is home?"

  She wanted to slap him. Until she looked into his face and saw what a queer grayish white he had gone.

  "Oh—I thmk he's really ill!" she exclaimed to the driver, in alarm.

  "No, lady. He just didn't take enough water with it," the driver assured her knowledgeably. But he got down from his seat and came to help her. "What's the address, chum?" he shouted, as though the young man were already deaf to reasonable appeals.

  "Don't shout." The boy frowned irritably as though something hurt him. "Killigrew Mansions. Number six."

  "That's not far." The driver heaved him into the taxi in a surprisingly expert manner.

  Isn't it really far?" Harriet was coming to a rapid decision.

  " 'Bout five minutes. Coming too, miss?"

  "Yes. I think I'd better." And Harriet stepped into the taxi and sat down by the boy, who had slumped into the far corner.

  As the cab started with a jerk, she took his cold, slack hand in hers and said, "What's your name?" For, after all, she was presumably going to have to hand him over to the care of someone at the end of the journey.

  "Roddy," he said, and again gave that frown, as though he wished she wouldn 't bother him.

  "Roddy what?" Harriet pressed.

  But he either couldn't or wouldn't say any more, and the rest of the short journey was completed m silence.

  "Here you are, miss." The taxi driver pushed back his window and spoke over his shoulder. "Can you manage the young gent?"

  "Yes, thank you. I think so."

  Roddy seemed to make something of an effort, now that home was in sight and, although he leaned heavily on her arm when he got out of the taxi, he retained enough presence of mind to thrust his hand into his trouser pocket and pay the driver.

  Then she guided him into the exclusive-looking block of apartments and along to number six, which fortunately turned out to be on the ground floor.

  "Have you a key?" Harriet asked, as he paused in front of the door without apparently having much idea of the next move.

  He made a gesture of going through his pockets. And then, as though suddenly recollecting a much better solution to the problem, exclaimed reproachfully, "There's a bell," and proceeded to press it thoroughly and long.

  Apparently, after that, he turned giddy or faint again. Anyway, by the time the door was wrenched open by an obviously exasperated hand, he was leaning heavily once more on Harriet's arm.

  Several times already, during the past hour, Harriet had felt both annoyed and embarrassed. But the previous twinges were nothing in comparison to the hot wave of undeserved shame that overwhelmed her as the man in the dark silk dressing gown, who had opeaed the door, regarded her and tne slightly swaying Roddy with undisguised contempt and irritation.

  "What in hell do you think you're doing, waking people up at this time of night?" he demanded. And Harriet was not at all sure whether he was addressing her or her companion.

  However, as any reply seemed to be left to her, she said, with what dignity she could muster, "I'm sorry. I've brought—" she sought for a more formal name and failed to

  find it "—I've brought—Roddy home. Vm. afraid he's feeling really ill. You see—"

  *'Of course he'll feel ill, if he keeps these hours and runs around with girls like you and drinks. Come on in, you silly young ass." And he adroitly transferred Roddy's sagging weight from Harriet to himself

  Furious at the undeserved description of herself as "girls like you," Harriet felt tempted to push her foot in the doorway and hold the door open while she explained herself at length. But obviously Roddy could not be supported on anyone's arm much longer, so she contented herself with saying curtly, "I'm afraid you've quite misunderstood the situation."

  To which the man, equally curtjy, replied, "Good night'* and shut the door.

  Harriet was trembling a little as she left the block of apartments. Partly with anger and the clash of the recent encounter and partly with the strain of having had to support Roddy's not inconsiderable weight.


  By now she had thought of several brief and telling ways in which she might have explained the position and made that odious man feel small. But, alas! Like almost all inspirational retorts, these had come to her too late.

  After a few moments, her sense of humor and proportion returned, and she was even able to laugh—though still rather angrily—at the absurdity of the misunderstanding. But, though the situation might have its comical side in retrospect, she still flushed and bit her lip to recall what a sorry and undignified picture she and Roddy must have presented when the door had been opened.

  Welly thank goodness I needn't ever see either of them again, was her final conclusion, as she hailed a passing taxi to take her back to Jo's extended party. It's very embarrassing to adopt the role of good Samaritan, only to be summed up as a naughty girl who leads young men astray.

  And at the thought of herself in this role, she chuckled, and felt her good humor completely restored.

  The return to the party was accomplished without, appa ently, anyone having noticed her absence. And—possibly because her recent adventure had broken through some of her natural reserve—she found that she enjoyed the latter

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  half of the evening more than she would have expected from its inauspicious opening.

  It was so late by the time she and Maxine returned home that neither felt much like conversation. And it was not until the next day that Harriet thought of asking her sister if she could identify her companion of the previous evening.

  ''Roddy? Roddy?*' Maxine frowned, in an obliging effort to recall something helpful.'' Roddy what? * *

  "I don't know." I "What was he like?"

  ! "Oh—tallish, thin, untidy dark hair, and very—very old blue eyes."

  I "How do you mean—old blue eyes?" I "As though they'd seen more than anyone of his age was llikely to have seen."

  j "Oh—yes, I see what you mean." Maxine considered jagain. "I tell you who it might have been—Yes, I have an idea his name is Roddy something, now I come to think of it. He's a young air pilot that Jo knew slightly. He was the only survivor of a bad crash, or something grim like that. Rather a tragic boy, with an un-understanding home background, I think Jo said."