The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell

by Burchell, Mary

  CHAPTER FIVE

  For several seconds, Harriet considered Roddy's angry, hurt cry of protest. It was more illuminating than anything else he had said so far and finally convinced her that he was not the instigator—or, indeed, the principal supporter—of this unpleasant piece of deception.

  Still keeping one hand on his shoulder, she reached out with the other one for a chair, and sat down quite near to him.

  "Look here, I don't want to be inquisitive, or to force your confidence," she said,"but don't you think it might be a good idea to tell me a bit more about how matters really stand?''

  *'Why should I tell you anything?" He shot her a sulky glance. **You seem to know a deuced sight too much already."

  She smiled a little.

  "Well, it might have been more comfortable for both of us if I hadn't known anything at all about this," she agreed. "But since I have been involved—by you yourself," she reminded him ruthlessly, "don't you think it might be better that I know the real state of affairs, rather than make uneasy guesses which may prompt me to the wrong actions?"

  Again she received that sulky glance.

  "You mean you're threatening to blow the top off things, unless I satisfy your curiosity,'' he said.

  "Don't be silly," Harriet told him equably. "I don't mean anything of the sort. If you don't want to tell me any more—then don't. But, in my present state of knowledge, I see no reason why I shouldn't clear up a misunderstanding

  concerning myself, which has made me feel uncomfortable and foolish on more than one occasion already."

  He was silent for a few minutes, either considering the reasonableness of this or else groping for another way out. Then he said crossly, without lookmg at her, "Well, what do you want to know?

  Presented with complete capitulation, expressed in this crude demand, Harriet was not sure for a moment what it was that she really did want to know. Then one problem overrode all others.

  "Which of you two does Dilys really mean to marry?" she asked deliberately.

  To her surprise—and a little to her distress—Roddy gave a short, bitter laugh.

  "My dear—what did you say your name was?"

  "Harriet," said Harriet absently, because she could not think of herself as the correctly behaved Miss Denby in that moment.

  "My dear Harriet, if I knew the answer to that question, no problem and no deception would exist," he declared impatiently.

  "You mean she is dangling you both on a string?"

  "Oh, no. No, nothing as simple as that. Things never are as simple as that," he said, ratner wearily. "She's engaged to Lin and shea's in love with me. That's the situation, in an oversimpUfied form."

  "It could be simplified a good deal further," retorted Harriet dryly, "if she would tell your brother quite frankly how she feels and break off the engagement. Why not?"

  "Because she and her damned waster of a brother are up to their chins in debt. They need money—lots of it. And Lin is the best catch in the county," exclaimed Roddy violently.

  Harriet opened her eyes wide in astonishment.

  "Do you mean to say that it's as crude and shameless as that?"

  "What do you mean—crude and shameless?" He seemed to resent the expression.

  "Well—that^s what it is. Can't you see it? Did she just deliberately set out to get your brother because she needed a rich husband to pay her debts and keep her brother in idleness?" inquired Harriet contemptuously.

  "Oh, no." Even Roddy seemed to see that his beloved

  J

  behavior looked questionable, put in that light. "No, it wasn't quite like that She and Brent came to live here—**

  "Why?** cut in Harriet quickly.

  "Well, why not?** retorted Roddy defensively. "People have to live somewhere. And they ... they were a bit tired of town.**

  "You mean—they wanted to get away from their creditors?*'

  "Look here, am I telling this story, or you?** inquired Roddy rather truculently.

  "I'm sorry.**

  "Anyway, they came to live here—for reasons that seemed good and sufficient to them,** Roddy said sarcastically. "Lin fell for Dilys almost right away. Anyone would, of course. And she—she liked him very well. Lin *s a good sort, if you don*t rouse his temper and I suppose most girls would see him as a good catch and a good husband. There's nothing especially mercenary about that point of view. She wasn't by any means the first to do a bit of running after Lin. But she was the only one he ever noticed.** He gave an impatient sigh, as though it were against his will that he admitted his brother*s feelings were deeply involved. "I never even saw her until after they were engaged. Then I came down home to—to get over a spot of bother Td been in.*'

  He stopped speaking, as though he thought the rest explaineditself.

  ^*And ihQn—you fell for her," Harriet suggested, as the pause lengthened.

  "Of course. It—it was mutual with us."

  "Then I still think she should have been honest and told Lin how she felt," Harriet said slowly.

  "She couldn't, I tell you! At least, she thinks she can't. You see, Brent—" He stopped.

  "Oh? Yes-I'm not surprised to find that Brent is the reason behind this," Harriet observed, rather grimly.

  "Well, Brent's part in this doesn't matter at the moment The position is that for his sake and a bit of her own, Dilys won t turn her back on a wealthy match."

  "And so?"

  "So what? That's where we stand at the moment," he retorted impatiently. "She says she can't give up Lin, and I

  say rm damned if I'll give her up. Sometimes I think Fm a weak fool for not telling Lin the whole thing. But—*'

  "Well, why don't you?" Harriet couldn't help seeing that a man of strong character would have cut through this disreputable tangle long ago. But, even as she spoke, she knew that the task was beyond the nerve-shattered boy beside her.

  "If I did, Dilys would never speak to me again," he said, with unhappy conviction.

  "Nonsense. If she's really in love with you, she would get over any momentary anger about your taking things into your own hands."

  He shook his head slowly.

  "Not if it ruined Brent. She thinks the world of him, even if she has no illusions about him."

  "O-oh, I see. He's really very deeply involved."

  "I haven't said so."

  "Don't be childish. You've as good as said so when you implied that your telling Lin the truth would ruin Brent. I suppose he's done something financially shady and simply must have a large sum of money or the prospect of it to get him out of the mess."

  "Something like that," muttered Roddy unwillingly.

  And for a moment Harriet paused to marvel at the lighthearted air with which Brent comported himself, considering that he was—from all accounts—balancing on the edge of a nasty precipice.

  Perhaps he felt very sure of his sister, however. And at that reflection Harriet unwillingly forced herself to look at the problem from another angle.

  "Tell me something quite truthfully."

  "Well?"

  "If Dilys did marry your brother—" he moved sharply, but she pressed on determinedly "—if Dilys did marry your brother, is she sufficiently fond of him to give him a square deal and try to make him happy?"

  "How should I know?" he demanded roughly. "I'm not concerned with what happens if she marries him. I want her to marry me."

  "She can't marry both of you," Harriet pointed out practically. "And you keep on saying that she won't give

  him up. Can't you bring yourself to just accept that decision or-'*

  **No, of course not!"

  *'But what are you waiting for?"

  "God! How do I know? What is one always waiting for? A miracle, I suppose—a way out of the mess. I suppose Brent's waiting for a miracle to get him out of his financial hole, and Dilys is waiting for a miracle that will free her from Lin without losing his money, and I'm waiting for a miracle that will give Dilys to me."

  "Not at all,"
retorted Harriet crisply, "Brent—the only ruthlessly practical one of the lot of you—isn't waiting for any miracles. He's taken his own precautions and seen to it that, whoever pays for his folly, it shan't be himself. He's worked on his sister and she's worked on you—and now the one who stands to pay the racket is Lin. If you were half as solicitous for your orother as Dilys is for hers, you'd have settled this long ago. And hers is a scamp, while yours— yours—"

  As she searched for words to express her opinion of Lindsay, Roddy turned slowly and gazed fully at her.

  "I say, why are you in such a state about justice being done to Lin? What s he to you, anyway? Your aren't sweet on him yourself, are you?"

  "Of course not. Don't be absurd," Harriet said steadily, though she had the astonishing sensation of someone having struck her a blow over the heart. "I don't even know him very well," she added mechanically and, as she felt, untruthfully. "But I can't help seeing that he is the one who is being shabbily treated in all this and, if you want my opinion—"

  "Quite candidly, my dear Harriet," Roddy interrupted, "I do not want your opinion. Why should I? All I want is for you to stay out of this.

  "Sorry."

  Harriet was conscious suddenly of having stepped a good way over the bounds of disinterested counsel and she felt proportionately foolish and put out.

  "Well, where do we go from here?" Roddy's grin, though rueful, was not unfriendly. "Do you still want to precipitate a lot of trouble by insisting on giving Lin a correct version of that Saturday evening incident?"

  Harriet hesitated. She was tired and she was a little confused with all that she had just heard. It seemed to her in that moment that she had exaggerated her own part in this business to rather ridiculous proportions, as though—and she flushed at the thought—as though she were determined at all costs to thrust herself under Lin's notice.

  After all, it was not of any real importance that he should know it was she whom he had seen that night and that her role had been that of kindly aquaintance rather than silly mischief maker. Compared with the other facts that were being kept from him—and which it was not at all her business to disclose—this silly little incident seemed pitifully unimportant. Only she appeared determined to give it importance. That was how it would seem to an unprejudiced observer.

  She glanced at Roddy. And, as she did so, there was the sound of Lin *s car coming up the driveway at last.

  "Quick!" Roddy seized her wrist in an urgent grip. "Make up your mmd now. Just stay out of what doesn't concern you. You 're not called on to do anything. Simply to refrain from stirring up mischief for other people. Heaven knows I've taken you sufficiently into my confidence. You might just preserve a little discreet silence in return."

  It was plausible enough and Harriet felt that it would be inexcusably officious of her to press her own point further.

  *'I shan't say anything." She pulled her wrist away with a nervous jerk. "At least, 1 mean that I shan't say anything for the moment. But I'm not going to give any sort of unconditional undertaking, for the future. That would be—"

  "But you aren^ going to repeat anything I've told you tonight!" He half rose in his seat in his anxiety.

  "No, of course not. I'm not a plain sneak. That's entirely your own affair. All I meant was—"

  "All right, all right, we'll leave it at that," he muttered impatiently. And a moment later Lin came into the room.

  He was, Harriet saw, unfeignedly glad to see his young brother, although he was surprised.

  "What changed your mind at the last moment?" he asked. "I thought you said last night that you were staying on in London indefinitely."

  "Yes, I did. But—oh, I don't know—I suddenly got sick of the place without... without "

  "Now don't say without my heart-warmine presence," grinned his brother. '*That one won't wash, flattering though the thought might be."

  Roddy laughed, and Harriet detected a faint note of uneasiness though she thought Lin did not.

  "No. I just mean that most of my friends seemed out of town and without anyone much I knew around, I suddenly thought it would be nice to run down and see mother."

  "Well, I'm glad you did," Lin said heartily. "She'll be delighted. You ve been up to see her, of course?"

  Harriet kindly got me something to eat, and we were just

  :indly got me something to eat ver it when you came in. '

  Oh, yes. I went up there first thing. Then Miss—Miss k talking over it when you

  "I see. I'm afraid I'm really very late." Lin glanced at his watch. "I hadn't noticed the time. '

  "You were—" Roddy spoke with the very slightest effort " —you were over at Dilys s, of course?"

  "Um-hm. Is that kettle on the hearth intended for tea, Miss Den—Harriet?" He smiled at her, and she knew he was finally assuming the right to call her by the name that Roddy already so casually employed.

  "Yes, of course—if you would like some."

  "I would, rather."

  So Harriet stayed and made tea while the brothers talked and occasionally one or other of them—but it was usually Lin—included her in the conversation.

  It was just when she was piling the things on the tray,

  naratory to taking them back into the kitchen, that dy said, again with that very slight suggestion of effort, "How did you find Dilys this evening?"

  "Oh—" Lin looked surprised and a little amused "—very well. I don't think Dilys ever ails with anything. We were discussing plans for our wedding."

  Instinctively, Harriet's movements slowed, but it seemed a long time to her before Roddy said, "What... did you .. .plan?"

  "Well, in the end, not very much, Roddy," Lin confessed with a laugh. "I wanted an early summer wedding. Now that we have our invaluable Harriet—" he smiled at Harriet, who contrived somehow to smile back "—I feel that there's no real reason to put off my leaving home."

  "Quite," muttered Roddy, and went over to fumble with

  a box of cigarettes that stood on a table near the window. "What did Dilys say?*'

  "Quite a lot, to the effect that that wouldn't give her enough time to prepare,'* returned Lin, in a tone of good-humored protest. "What do girls have to do in the way of wedding preparations that takes so much time, Harriet? '

  "Oh ... I suppose ... trousseau buying and making and—and that sort of thing," Harriet suggested at random.

  "I should have thought she might do some of that afterward," Lin said. "Doesn't that lighter of yours work, Roddy? Take mine."

  It was Harriet who took the lighter from his outstretcned hand and went over to light Roddy's cigarette for him. She had seen, which Lin had not, that it was the unsteadiness of his hands, not the failure of his lighter, which prevented Roddy from lighting his own cigarette.

  "Ask him what they settled," he muttered to her, in a thick whisper.

  Harriet returned the lighter to its owner, and asked casually, "Did Miss Penrose say how long her preparations would take?"

  "No. We got the wedding date down to 'sometime this year,'" Lin said. "But, in spite of some unwanted support from Brent—though what business it is of Brent's I don't know—I couldn 't persuade Dilys to fix an early date. But she will presently."

  He seemed unperturbed by any dis»cussion there had been, and Harriet was not quite sure whether she was angry with him for his blindness, or admiring of him for his unsuspicious candor.

  At any rate, there was nothing more to be said, and presently she bade them good night, and went at last to her own room.

  But, in going to bed, she had not left argument and discussion behind. It was merely that now she did all the arguing and discussing with herself—lying awake, staring into the darkness and going over and over what Roddy had said to her that evening.

  She felt curiously weak and undecided about her own position in all this. She had tried so hard to be the disinterested friend who took a completely objective view of the situation. She had even supposed that she had attained that


  lofty position. And then a few rough, careless words of Roddy's had shown her the false absurdity of her belief

  It was crude and it was ridiculous of him to have thrown that charge at her—to have suggested, even for one moment, that in defending Lin she was following some deep emotional urge of her own rather than the promptmgs of academicjustice.

  Academic justice! Harriet gave an angry little laugh that was half a groan. It was not a sense of academic justice—or academic anything else—which stirred her when Lin smiled at her.

  But then ... what was it?

  She reminded herself that he loved Dilys. That in spite of all the complications he would probably marry Dilys and make quite a satisfactory thing of his marriage. Dilys would be by no means the first girl to take a well-gilded second best, nor he the first man to be so regarded without ever guessing the truth.

  In these circumstances it was absurd and wrong to start analyzing her own feelings toward him. She had no right to be anythmg but pleasantly impersonal.

  Oh, there she was again, with her ridiculous expressions.

  Academic—pleasantly impersonal. / don't even know him very well. What a humbug she was!

  The naked truth was that she wished Dilys would tell him the real facts and break off her engagement and marry Roddy. And then—well, then it wouldn't be essential for Harriet to remain academic and pleasantly impersonal any longer.

  The next day was extraordinarily uneventful and peaceful. Roddy was affectionate and attentive to his mother, and the whole atmosphere at Fourways became brighter and gayer for his presence. Whatever his private worries might be he hid them admirably. And, though he could not but know that when his brother was missing, he was probably over at Dilys's house, he controlled any impatience he might feel and seemed to have no special interest in the district outside his own home.

  There was, therefore, of course, nothing at all remarkable about the fact that after an early tea, he should go off for a solitary evening stroll—the more so as Lin was at home at