The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell

by Burchell, Mary

  It was a good argument, she knew and, as she used it, she looked for some change in his expression.

  None rewarded her.

  "I'm sorry. I'm afraid you haven't given me time to explain the exact position," he objected, and his manner was not that of anyone who had been made to think again. "The remark about curtailing your outings with other people was a little previous—"

  "A little ridiculous," she interjected contemptuously.

  "What I should have started with was the essential fact, of which the other is merely an extension. Men don't usually like their fiancees to go out too much with other men. And you are going to be my fiancee for the next few months, Harriet."

  "Are you crazy?"

  It was a few moments before she said the words, and when she finally uttered them, it was in a curiously toneless and unconvincing voice, because the absolute conviction had come to her that he would not make such a preposterous assertion unless he were prepared to back it with all the weight of which he was capable.

  "Not crazy," he assured her dryly. "In a very tight spot, that'sail."

  "And how do you suppose being engaged to me will help you? You would hardly be marrying either wealth or mfluence, if you married me."

  "Dear girl! Forgive my lack of gallantry, but I haven't the slightest intention of marrying you! Marriage is not in my line, you know," he said deprecatingly.

  "I'm relieved to hear it," Harriet told him dryly.

  "I was not suggesting for one moment that we should go further than an engagement."

  "All right—I appreciate the difference, without being able to see, even now, now a mere engagement to an unimportant companion is going to reinforce your position."

  He looked at her consideringly for a moment, almost as though he had not made up his mind, even now, how much he would tell her.

  "Lin would go to a good deal of trouble to see that you were not made unhappy, wouldn't he?" Brent said at last.

  "Lin? How does Lm come into this fantastic business?"

  "Why, Harriet, you see, if you are engaged to me—and, of course, to all appearances, deeply in love with me—Lin, however little he may like me personally—and I am very much afraid I am no favourite of his—would be very reluctant to see us come to grief "

  She sat there, staring back at him, slowly rubbing her hands together as if they were cold, though she had no idea that she was doing so.

  "I will not have Lin involved in this, in any way," she said at last. "Not in any way—do you understand me? He is much too fine and decent to be dragged in on your disreputable and shady affairs. And certainly I will not be the instrument used for such a purpose."

  "In all probability he never would have to be involved," Brent tola her coolly. "I merely want Lin as an insurance in the background during a difficult period. I can't arrange that by direct connection—he doesn't care a button about me—but I can arrange it through you. And Lin's support, even at one stage removed, would be invaluable to me.

  She wished and wished that she had the courage and resolution to refuse even to discuss the matter. She wished she .could remain adamant on that one assertion that Lin should not be involved in any way whatever. But, as Brent's persuasive words and manner began to blur the outlines of what was required, her frantic desire to escape from the exposure that threatened made her begin to ask herself if there were not some compromise—any compromise—by which she might escape retribution, without doing Lin any injury.

  Brent was not hurrying her. No one knew better than he how silence could crumble the defenses.

  I

  And, after a long while, she moistened her lips and said, "Hadn't you better be a bit more explicit? Up to now, you Ve spoken in rather cheap riddles.''

  "Tm sorry. I thought I'd been particularly clear." His easy, almost genial, tone showed now accurately he estimated even this partial capitulation. "I'm in a very awkward position, Harriet, owing to some financial deal-ing-"

  "Fraud?" she inquired coldly. "Or just plain stealing?"

  "Neither." He laughed. "You have got a bad opinion of me, haven't you? It was one of those—those financial manipulations which are all right if they come off, but which are all wrong if certain facts come out before the right moment. Lots of people engage in them—some on a terrific scale. Those who are consistently successful are called pretty smart businessmen, or, in the case of the big ones, financial wizards. But it doesn't do to be unsuccessful!"

  He paused, but she said dryly, "Please go on. I think I've followed so far."

  "Well, when I engage on anything of the sort, I like to have a bit of *cover' somewhere in the background. While Dilys was engaged to Lin, I felt reasonably safe. If she had married him, I should have felt a great deal safer. Thanks to you—really, I don't want to rub it in, Harriet, but it was largely thanks to you—Dilys, and all the 'cover' for which she stood, just vanished overnight. It was a damn serious thing for me, I can tell you."

  "It must have been."

  "Last Saturday—yes, that's why I couldn't be here to take you out—things looked remarkably black for me, and I had to go up to town and straighten out the situation. By good luck, and, I venture to think, a bit of smart work on my part, I staved off disaster. But I don't mind admitting it shook me up a bit. ItJicQught home to me more forcibly than ever that, during the next two or three months, I must have some sort of support in the background, if only for the good of my nervous system."

  He grinned at this, and looked singularly unaffected by nerve strain. Only, gazing at him as she did, with widened, searching eyes, Harriet saw that there was a nervous little pulse beating in his cheek, and that he clasped and un-

  clasped his hands with a restlessness that was not at all like him.

  Again she moistened dry lips.

  "And you really imagine tnat an engagement—I mean a fake engagement—to me would represent this support?"

  "By virtue of your importance to Lin—yes. I don't overestimate its value, mind. I know that it is a very weak substitute for what existed while Dilys was engaged to him. But even a poor support is better than none, and I don't think, somenow, that an impassioned appeal from you would leave Lin absolutely unmoved."

  "I wouldn't be prepared to make it."

  "I earnestly hope it will never be necessary," he returned mockingly.

  There was another long silence. And then she said, "How long did you say the—the danger period would last?''

  "Certainly no longer than three months. Probably not more than two."

  "And if—if things went wrong, what assistance would you expect, exactly?"

  "There's only one person who could make things damned awkward for me, Harriet, and by good fortune he is a friend and client of Lin's. That is to say, Lin's advice or request would carry a considerable amount of weight with him. I might badly need a good word from Lin at the right moment. Frankly, I doubt my own powers of persuadmg him to say that word. But, if you appealed to him—" he hesitated. "As my distracted fiancee, I mean," he concluded, with an explanatory air.

  "Do you really mean to say that all you would require would be Lin's good offices—verbally expressed—if and when things. went wrong?" Harriet demanded categorically.

  He made a gesture of assent, and added again, "And there is at least an even chance that even that would not be required."

  "I'm afraid I don't believe you," Harriet said coldly and distinctly.

  "You don't believe that there is so little chance of my needing his support?"

  "No. I don t believe that all you expect is verbal support."

  There was a short silence. Then he said, "In the last extremity—I mean, if Lin doesn't, after all, carry so much weight with this man as I imagine—then I should probably need a tidy sum of money to get me out of the woods. * *

  "And you have the impudence to suppose that I should try to cadge money from Lin on your behalf?" she asked increduously.

  "Look, Harriet, let*s not cross our bridges till we come to t
hem. With reasonable luck, you won't ever need to mention this to Lin at all. With bad luck, you would have to ask him to put in a good word for me, as your fiancee. It would only be by most filthy luck that we could be reduced to the last extremity of asking him for money—"

  "I refuse to contemplate that, in any circumstances."

  "All right then, weMl wash that bit out. I'll take the risk of its never happening. All I'm asking you to do is to be engaged to me for two or three months, so that, if I do need a good word from Lin, he'll be more likely to give it because he'll think it will affect you drastically. Good lord! that's not much to ask!"

  "I don't know that you were simply asking it," Harriet commented dryly. "I thought you were insisting under threat. I suppose the next stage is that you produce that vile letter again and remind me that you will show it to Lin unless I do what you want."

  "I'll put it a better way, Harriet. I'll promise you that, if you do what I want, I'll hand the original letter over to you."

  "What!"

  She caught her breath on a gasp of frantic eagerness, for it had not entered her head until this moment that any proposition of his could end in freedom from the frightful thing that had been hanging over her. With considerable skill and judgment, he had kept the real bribe until the end.

  There was a world of difference between doing something because it bought permanent freedom from some deadly fear and doing it because one yielded to a threat. There was something positive and hopefiil to contemplate if, in truth, the end of the two or three months of hateful deception also brought the end of Brent's hold over her.

  He watched her, gauging with perfect accuracy the effect of his having changed a threat into a bribe.

  But caution, which had been so painfully roused in Harriet, made itself felt again.

  "When do I receive the letter?" she inquired curtly.

  "When we terminate the engagement, by mutual arrangement, in two or three months' time, he told her lightly. He could afford to take it all less seriously now for he guessed he was nearly victorious.

  "I have only your word for it."

  "I'm afraid so," he agreed regretfully.

  "And why should I rely on that?"

  He shrugged.

  "You really have no other choice," he pointed out. It was true. So true that for a moment she was silent.

  "I'll play fair," he promised her. "I can't give you anything but my word, I m afraid, but that's a risk you have to take. There's invariably a risk in everything, and I've always understood that getting engaged is a particularly risky business. But the alternative is a certainty, Harriet."

  And he paused, in order to let her reflect on the extreme unpleasantness of that certainty.

  "Very well," she said at last. "I agree--"

  "Good girl!"

  "—I agree to become engaged to you, and—and, if the need should arise, I will enlist what verbal help I can from— from Lin. But in no circumstances will I ask him for money on your behalf "

  "It would be on behalf of both of us, you know," he reminded her wickedly. "You would naturally be very deeply concerned over anything that affected your dear Brent so vitally."

  She made no reply to this. Only she watched, in incredulous fascination, as he produced a very handsome ring from his breast pocket.

  Perhaps her immediate doubt about its origin showed in her face, because he laughed a good deal and said, "It's all right. I don't pinch jewels as a sideline. This belonged to iny mother and was left to me."

  She looked at him curiously.

  "Have you no—no qualms about using it for such a purpose?'

  "No. Why should I? I wouldn't actually part with it for anything. I ve never pawned it even in my lowest mo-

  ments," he said, with some satisfaction. "But I don*t mind lending it to you for a while, Harriet."

  She was silent. She saw that, to him, it was a matter of some pride that he had always resisted the temptation to pawn nis mother's ring. And she marveled to herself over this peculiar code that forbade him to pawn it, but permitted him to use it for a shameless bit of deception.

  He seemed to take her silence for understanding of his point of view, for he made no further attempt to explain nimself He merely took her unresponsive hand and slipped the ring on her finger.

  *'It looks fine," he remarked, with a touch of something like satisfaction. But she only stared at it, as though it were not quite real. She was wondering how she was going to explain it to Lin.

  Shall I stay to receive the congratulations of the family?" Brent inauired coolly. "Or do you think you would deal with them better on your own? "

  He was not, she saw, amusing himself maliciously. He was absolutely in earnest and simply wanted to arrange this business in whatever way would give the best chances of success. And trying to match his mood she replied resolutely, "I think you had better go. I can manage better by myself. It would be difficult to keep up a ... the—the correct manner toward you, and deal with this astonishment, at the same time."

  He grinned.

  "I expect you're right. Will they be so much astonished?"

  "I imagine so." Her tone had become rather expressionless again, because she simply dared not let herself think of Lin's reaction when she told him.

  It said something for Brent's powers of gauging people's reactions to a nicety that he made no laughing attempt to make Harriet live up to her role of fiancee right away. He knew this was no moment for kissing and teasing. He had been remarkably lucky to carry his point as far as he had, and he was not going to endanger his success by any temporary amusement.

  To Harriet's relief, therefore, he made no move to prolong the interview. He bade her goodbye in a singularly friendly manner—almost as though he thought that, now circumstances had made them allies, they would naturally

  treat each other differently—and took himself off, leaving her to twist her engagement ring on her finger and wonder how she was to deal with this fresh and dreadful crisis.

  The necessity of deciding on her attitude almost immediately was borne in on her by her hearing sounds of Mrs. Mayhew moving around overhead. Her afternoon rest was over and she was coming downstairs once more.

  Harriet controlled a panic-stricken impulse to tear off her ring and postpone the moment of explanation. She knew that to do that would be fatal, for unless she accepted the irrevocable now, she would never again work up her courage to the point of doing what she had to do.

  Outwardly calm, she went out into the hall, to help Mrs. Mayhew down the last flight of stairs. It was an understood thing that one didn't press too much assistance on the old lady, but at the same time, it was always just as well to be at hand, in case her strength proved less than her determination.

  '*Thank you, my dear." Mrs. Mayhew accepted her arm. "What a pleasant afternoon it has turned out!" And she stood for a moment in the hall, regarding witl^ satisfaction the beautiful April sunshine that poured in through the central window over the door.

  *'Yes, hasn't it?" agreed Harriet, who felt it was among the least pleasant afternoons she had ever spent.

  Then she escorted Mrs. Mayhew into the sitting room and settled her in her favorite chair. And was immediately saved any necessity to make the first move herself by her employer's sharp powers of observation.

  Dear me, that s a very attractive ring you're wearing. I don't think I've seen you wear it before," she remarked with interest.

  "No," Harriet said, as calmly as she could. "No, I haven't worn it before."

  "A very intersting setting." Mrs. Mayhew actually took Harriet's hand and examined the ring. "Almost an antique. Was it your mother's—or grandmother's?"

  "No, Mrs. Mayhew. It... it's only just been given to me," Harriet stammered.

  "Only—" And then Mrs. Mayhew seemed to realize for the first time on which finger Harriet was wearing the ring. "But, my dear child! Is it on that particular finger for a

  reason? I somehow imagined that you had just slipped it on yourse
lf. I had no idea— But Harriet dear, Tm delighted! Simply delighted! And not in the least surprised. Only I thought he would probably wait a bit longer before saymg anything, as it's such a little while since—smce— Anyway, it doesn't matter. I didn't know he had come home early. Where is he?"

  "Who?" Harriet asked faintly, though she could not doubt to whom Mrs. Mayhew was referring.

  "Who? Why, Lin, of course."

  There was a quite dreadful little silence. And then suddenly it began to dawn on Mrs. Mayhew that she had done something that she had very seldom done in her life before. She had put her foot in it, completely and irretrievably.

  The hand that held Harriet s tightened and then loosened and withdrew almost awkwardly from hers. Awkwardness and Mrs. Mayhew were such mconceivable companions that this in itself was indescribably dismaying. Tnen she cleared her throat unnecessarily and said, "Dear me, I'm sorry, Harriet. I seem to have behaved most stupidly."

  "Oh, no," protested Harriet faintly.

  "Well, who is it, my dear? I suppose he is someone you knew before even you came here and he has just sent you your ring."

  "No.' Harriet shook her head helplessly. Then she rallied all her forces. "No. I know it will be a great surprise to you all, but—it's Brent Penrose."

  If Mrs. Mayhew had not already been greatly humiliated and vexed by her previous lapse, she would probably have expressed herself quite forcibly at this point. Instead, however, she contained herself in silence for a moment or two. Then she said, inadequately Harriet felt, "Yes, it is a considerable surprise."

  "I ... I'm rather surprised myself" Harriet managed to smile, and to eive a fairly creditable presentation of someone astonished by the depths of her own feelings.

  Mrs. Mayhew regarded her without any lightening of her dismayed expression.

  "Harriet, I know it isn't my business, but-you are sure you are doing the right thing, aren't you?" she said troubledly.

  "Oh, yes, Mrs. Mayhew, of course!" With a sort of