The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell

by Burchell, Mary

  Dilys hardly looked the same creature as the pale, unsmiling, almost grim girl who had poured out such candid revelations to Harriet less than a couple of hours ago.

  She introduced her friend as a Mrs. Corrie who, it seemed, was an acquaintance of hers staying in the district. They had met quite unexpectedly in the main street, and now Dilys insisted on her coming home to see Brent.

  Both of them were charming and friendly to Harriet, and helped her to stow herself and her parcels in the backseat of the car. But any further confidences or private talks were out of the question.

  Harriet sat silently in the back of the car, except when a

  ?iuestion or remark addressed to her by either of the two in ront necessitated an answer. Her mood of chilled fright at what she had done was beginning to subside. Instead, she was beginning to wonder bitterly if she had said enough.

  Looking now at Dilys, as she chatted and laughed with her friencf, she felt it was ridiculous to suppose that any of her words could have had much effect. Certainly not enough effect to make her take a tremendous decision contrary to everything to which she had clung so far.

  Harriet felt depressed and relieved at the same time. It was somethmg to be able to believe that, after all, one had not precipitated a crisis. On the other hand, for some dazzling moments, she had been able to gaze on radiant, undreamed-of possibilities. Now, the descent to drab reality was not exhilarating.

  She was not sure which she regretted more—her outburst of angry eloquence to Dilys, or her inability to amplify it further.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next few days were worse than anything else that Harriet had experienced. When Lindsay returned from London, and she had to meet him and talk to him face to face once more, she felt the most utter traitor.

  In addition she suffered an anguish of self-consciousness far worse than anything she had felt on account of not admitting her identity when she first arrived. It seemed to her that, having once given voice to her inmost thoughts-even though only to Dilys—she must have exposed them in some way, so that Lin himself would have little difficulty in guessing them.

  Only her innate self-possession and discipline enabled her to behave in a normal manner. And, even so, there must have been some sort of reserve—some instinctive avoidance of him, because, when she was setting the table one evening, he came in and, finding her alone, challenged her half-seriously with having something against him.

  "Harriet, am I in your bad books about anything?" he wanted to know.

  He was standing by the fire, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, in a characteristic attitude, and he studied her with a sort of amused concern as she moved around the table, laying silver and glass.

  "No, of course not.*' Harriet pretended to count spoons. "Why on earth should you think so?"

  "For one thing, because you treat me like a distant and not very welcome acquaintance," he told her, teasingly, "and for another, because whenever I come into a room, you seem to have an excellent reason for going out of it."

  "Nonsense!** She managed to laugh quite convincingly. "You'rejust imagining things."

  "Am I? I'd like to be able to think so, and of course it's all right if you say so." He evidently had no intention of making an issue of it. "I suppose I had a faintly guilty conscience and that was why I felt uneasy."

  " You had?" She stopped what she was doing and stared at him in her astonishment. "You had no reason, that I know of"

  "No? That's all right then." He laughed and flushed slightly, an unusual thmg with him. "It struck me, after I'd spoken to you about Brent following—going with you to the mailbox, that I must have sounded extraordinarily officious and peremptory. I suppose you showed some considerable forbearance in not telling me to mind my own business."

  "Not at all!" She spoke quickly and a little breathlessly. "I thought how very nice it was of you to bother."

  "To bother?" He repeated her words with a little smile, as though savoring their exact meaning. "My dear child, if the question of * bothering' is going to enter into it, we are much more in your debt than you are in ours for any bother that has been taken."

  "Oh, no!"

  "Oh, yes." He corrected her with smiling determination. "Do you think I haven't noticed how patient and kindly and warmhearted you are with my mother? Or how willingly you throw yourself into the breach if anything goes wrong?"

  "But it's my job. That's—that's what you pay me for," Harriet said, more moved than she wished to snow.

  "Oh, no, Harriet. Those aren't the things one pays for. If one is lucky enough to receive them, they are always a gift," he said rather seriously. "That's what makes them rare and why one should value them.''

  "Th-thank you," she said, rather lamely.

  At which he laughed, as though he thought their conversation had taken too solemn a turn.

  "Then it's agreed that I didn't interfere unpardonably in your private affairs?" he summed up hghtly.

  "Of course," Harriet said. And thought, with a particularly unpleasant chill, how inoffensive was any interference of his beside the way she had interfered in his affairs!

  She wished feverishly now that she could have an opportunity for further talk with Dilys—something that would establish, once and for all, whether she had helped to shape events, for good or ill, or whether she were attaching a ridiculous degree of importance to any poor influence tnat her words might have had.

  But Dilys stayed away from Fourways. Not intentionally, probably. She had her own affairs and her own friends, and since Lindsay was exceptionally busy just then, they might well have arranged to see less of each other.

  One thing that did rather tend to suggest that Dilys had neither spoken of nor acted on her conversation with Harriet was that Roddy suddenly announced his intention of returning almost immediately to London. He would hardly do that, Harriet thought, if Dilys had shown any tendency to reconsider her decision.

  "But, Roddy! I thought you liked it so much down here," Mrs. Mayhew exclaimed, trying to hide her disappointment. "You seemed so ... so settled.''

  "I'm never settled, darling. I'm just not the settling sort,'* Roddy told her, but with a flashing smile that did not suggest a restless spirit driven from one dissatisfaction to another.

  Was it possible? thought Harriet suddenly—divided between rehef and dismay—was it possible that Roddy was slowly getting over his passion for Dilys, and felt able to turn his back on an entanglement which must seem to him to have no solution?

  That would account for his absolute determination to go, and for the fact that he did not seem to be utterly miserable about it. If he were, then he hid it remarkably well.

  Of his determination at any rate there was no question. Even the fact that, the day before he was due to go, his sister wrote, saying that she was coming to Fourways for a few days, failed to affect his decision.

  "Betty will be terribly disappointed not to see you," his mother urged. "Couldn tyou wait just a day or two?"

  "No." He smiled and shook his head. "Tell Betty to come on a little farther and see me in London. Once she's snapped the marital and maternal chains, she may as well do tne thing thoroughly, and have a few gay days in town."

  "I'm sure she won't Anyway—" Mrs. Mayhew referred

  to her letter again —"it sounds as though she's bringing the children with her."

  Roddy, who was a devoted uncle, looked dashed for a moment. But even that inducement failed to shake him.

  "I'm sorry to miss the brats. But I'll be down again soon, I daresay."

  And from that he would not be moved.

  "It's so tiresome and obstinate of him," Mrs. Mayhew confided to Harriet. "What can a day or two one way or the other matter? He isn't under any sort of compulsion to go to London on any given date. There are times when I wish Roddy were still young enough to be slapped."

  Harriet smiled and said it certainly seemed unreasonable of him. But, secretly, she thought the compulsion was probably that of Roddy's ow
n stiffened resolution. He had made up his mind at last to leave Dilys—or perhaps she had, after her resifting of the facts, given him an absolutely definite dismissal. In that case, he would feel that to delay or postpone his departure would be to put himself back on the rack of further indecision and uncertainty. In her heart, Harriet approved his decision, even though it sounded the knell of her own foolish hopes. And she thought that his brighter spirits were probably due to the fact that some definite decision—however hard—had been arrived at, at last.

  She herself was glad that Mrs. Mayhew's daughter and her children were coming. She liked children and they would provide a very welcome diversion. And if they caused a certain amount of extra work—well, that, too, would prevent her from thinking too deeply about things that were test forgotten.

  After Roddy's early departure the next day, she took care to see that Mrs. Mayhew was not left much alone and she encouraged her to talk about her daughter and her grandchildren—making plans for their entertainment, and asking about the ages ana dispositions and endearing qualities of the three children.

  Mrs. Mayhew, though not uncritical of her grandchildren,^ was evidently as partial as most grandmothers and enjoyed talking about them. So that what might have been a rather melancholy day passed very pleasantly. And when Harriet brought in two or three letters at teatime, Mrs.

  Mayhew took them and exclaimed with great cheerfulness, *'Dear Roddy! What a sweet thought. He must have posted a goodbye note to me on the way to the station this morning. This is his writing.*'

  He really was a nice boy, in many ways, Harriet thought, as she sat down on the hearthrug to toast some muffins. There was no question of his fondness for his mother, and he showed it in the most thoughtful and imaginative ways. He had probably guessed that teatime would be the time when she would most miss him.

  "Harriet—'* Mrs. Mayhew spoke in a queer, uncertain tone, which Harriet had never heard before *' —something-something rather dreadful has happened."

  Harriet dropped her toasting fork and jumped to her feet.

  "Mrs. Maynew, what's the matter? Are you ill?"

  "No. It's Roddy."

  ''Roddy is W*

  "No. No, it's nothing to do with illness. Only he took Dilys with him. They were married by special license this morning. He posted this tetter just—just afterward."

  "Oh, Harriet said quietly. And by no process of self-inducement could she say anything else for the moment.

  She stood beside Mrs. Mayhew's chair, her hand still on her ami in a gesture of reassurance and affection. But her mindNhad completely stopped working, except for the one tremendous realization. Dilys was married to Roddy. Therefore she could not marry Lin.

  "How am I going to tell him?" Mrs. Mayhew was speaking again, still m that queer, half-stifled tone. "How am I going to tell Lin?"

  And, at that, Harriet's thought processes began to act once more—painfully and rather slowly at first, as though circulation were returning into something that had gone numb.

  Lin had to be told! Lin had to be hurt, disillusioned, humiliated. There was no delaying it—no preventing it Perhaps—and oh, how wildly she hoped this—perhaps he had already been told. For surely, if Roddy wrote to his mother, Dilys would have sent some sort of explanation to Lin.

  "I don't expect you will have to tell him," she said, a little

  huskily, at last. '* I expect Dilys sent a letter to him—at his office/'

  "No." Mrs. Mayhew shook her head. "Roddy says—will I tell Lin? That it will come better from me than if they wrote it. That I shall be able to prepare him better. It isn 't true, of course. One can't prepare anyone for a thunderbolt like that."

  "You don't think—" Harriet paused and cleared her throat "—you don't think he could have had any suspicions?"

  "Lin? No, of course not. Why should he? Lin is the most unsuspicious of creatures. He is absolutely straight and aboveboard himself He could never imagine anyone doing things this way. Why couldn't they have gone to him frankly and told him? Why didn't she ask to be released from her engagement? She was wearing Lin's rine while she was planning to marry his brother. It's—it s contemptible."

  "She was scared, Mrs. Mayhew. I mean—" Harriet corrected herself hastily "—it looks as though she were scared.

  just To—to you."

  "But what about me?" cried Mrs. Mayhew, in a tone of such anger and pain that Harriet winced. "I haven't the nerve to face up to this. I can't look Lin in the face and tell him that his own brother has dealt him such a blow. Of all people, I can't do it."

  Harriet was appalled.

  "But why not?" she said gently. "I mean—I know it's a terribly pamful thing to have to do. But you 're so courageous. You never seem to be afraid of anything. Why is it impossible for you, especially, to do it?"

  Mrs. Mayhew didn't answer at once. She stared away from Harriet into the fire, and at that moment she looked old and tired and beaten.

  "Roddy was always my favorite," she said softly at last. "I tried never to make any difference between them, and I knew perfectly well that Lin was the better man. But somehow—Roddy was my favorite. He was so like his father, for one thing. Lin knows it, I think. Knows, I mean,

  that Roddy is nearer my heart. He hasn't ever resented it. Lin isn't tne resentful sort. But he has known it. Now, to have me—me, of all people—act as though I am on Roddy's side, as though I half condone what he has done. Surely Roddy could have seen that? Surely he could have realized that I was the last person to choose!"

  There was an awkward little silence. Then Harriet said deprecatingly: '*Someone will have to tell him."

  Yes, someone will have to tell him. But I can't and I won't. If it were something clean and irrevocable, like death, I would be prepared to do it." Mrs. Mayhew spoke almost fiercely. "But I will not be the one to tell Lin this."

  "Very well," Harriet said slowly, and she was surprised at her own calmness." I will tell him."

  "You?" For a moment Mrs. Mayhew looked at her in astonishment. Then a great wave of relief seemed to pass over her, blotting out some of her anger and distress. "Oh, Harriet—will you? I know it's a wretched task for anyone to take on, but it might come better from you than from most people. At least he knows and likes you-. It wouldn't be like nearing it from a stranger. But there would be less—less emotion about it than if I did it, and no—no hateful implications."

  "Yes," Harriet said, rather mechanically.

  "Do you—mind very much?"

  "I don't like it. But I'm willing to do it."

  She spoke almost tonelessly. But she was really thinking— I precipitated this. I can't refuse to go through with it. I was responsible for this crisis. Why should she suffer for it, more than is necessary?

  ^'You are a good child." Mrs. Mayhew held her hand rather tightly. "I'm so grateful, Harriet. I know I am being a coward for the first time in my life, but—"

  "No. It's all right," Harriet said. "I quite see that for you to have to tell him would hurt you both unnecessarily."

  "You do see, don't you?' The old lady spoke almost eagerly. "If one can say there is a best way of doing anything so horrible, this is the best way. That it should be someone who is friendly and kind, but who has no real—no real connection with the whole miserable business."

  "Yes," Harriet said again.

  It was singularly ironical that, to her employer, her

  supreme suitability for the task was the fact that she had absolutely no personal part in the situation. Well—that was how Harriet wanted people to see it, of course.

  Tea was a miserable pretense at a meal, after that. And Harriet was not surprised when her employer said presently that she thought she would go to her room. She was not one to retire to her bed on the grounds of mental stress, but neither of them knew quite when Lin was coming in, and she probably wanted to avoid meeting him until after Harriet had told him.

  It was strange, and rather dreadful, waiting for him—not knowing if half an hour—an hour—
two hours—would still find her waiting for him, her harrowing task still to be done. She tried to read, found it quite impossible, and began to sew instead. But that meant that her thoughts were completely free, and they ran around and around in frightened circles, while she tried to decide in what words she would say what had to be said.

  Once, when she heard a distant car approaching, she found that she had the greatest difficulty in drawing her breath naturally. A tight band of sheer nervousness seemed to constrict her lungs. But then the car passed and she felt weak with relief of a reprieve, and found that she was strangely chilly and inclined to yawn.

  She knew that all these were simply symptoms of a dreadful sort of stage fright. She was anticipating an ''act'* more fateful and more exacting than any that a real stage artist was likely to have to face, and she suffered, in an intensified form, all the painful anticipation of something she feared and yet had voluntarily undertaken.

  When he finally came, she had reached a stage of rather numb resignation. She even went on sewing while she listened to the sounds of his garaging the car, entering the house, pausing to take off his outdoor things.

  And then he came into the room.

  Until the very last moment, she realized now, she had cherished the faint hope that he might, in some way, already have received the news. But his e;^pression finally dispelled any such illusion.

  He looked tired, and the tiny lines around his eyes were a little deepened, but he greeted her cheerfully, and dropped

  into the chair opposite her with an exclamation of satisfaction.

  **Lord, Tm glad to be home! It's been a hell of a day.**

  "You mean you Ve been—terribly busy?*'

  "That is the very mildest way of expressing it, Harriet,'* he told her cheerfully. "Still, we got what we wanted. Where *s mother?*'