The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell

by Burchell, Mary

  money on that false assumption. I won't, I won't! Now tell him what you like."

  And, white and stonily resolute, she turned away from the two men, leaving them to stare at each other.

  It was Lin, strangely enough, who recovered his voice first. *'Will someone tell me what this is all about?" he said, with rather elaborate calm.

  *'Well—" began Brent, and then stopped.

  "Tell him," Harriet said bitterly. "Tell him that you have a letter you want him to read. I don't doubt you have it with you. You can show it to him, I don't care anymore. I don't care how—how low and contemptible he thinks I am. He can't think me lower than I think myself. Show him the letter. And tell him that there's no engagement."

  There was the most extraordinary silence. Then Lin said, rather hoarsely, "Is that true—that there is no engagement?"

  "Yes," Brent said, with a shrug. "And there is no letter, either."

  "You needn't keep it, and suppose that you can hold it over me later," Harriet told him quickly. "Show him the letter/70W."

  "There is no letter," Brent repeated coolly. And, taking Dilys's letter from his billfold, he slowly tore it into small pieces and threw it into Lin's wastepaper basket.

  It was a shockingly melodramatic gesture. But Brent had probably never been more in earnest.

  The other two watched him in complete silence, Harriet's eyes growing wide and dark as she did so. Then, at last, she asked, almost in a whisper, "Why did you do that?"

  "I don't know," Brent said, and that was undoubtedly the literal truth. "Only I've decided I probably shouldn't ever have a use for it, after all. I don't think, either, that we can usefully prolong this interview. If you catch the twelve o'clock train, Harriet. I'll see you on it. If not—I'll be seeing you sometime, I expect."

  And, picking up his hat and gloves, which he had flung down on the desk when he came in, he smiled rather brazenly at both of them and went out of the room.

  There was complete silence for a few minutes, after the door had closed behind him. Then Lin said, "It was a

  splendid exit—but either I am exceptionally stupid, or there is still a great deal to explain."

  She made a rather helpless little gesture.

  *' Can't you explain to me, Harriet?''

  *' Yes—oh, yes. I was just wondering where to begin.''

  *'Begin at the begirtning," he suggested.

  She laughed sadly.

  "The beginning? The beginning was that I lied to you about Dilys and Roddy. I did know that she was keen on him."

  He looked extremely taken aback—perhaps that the story should date right back to the days of his engagement to Dilys. But he only said, "Sit down, Harriet. And take your time."

  So she sat down slowly in her chair once more, and he leaned against the side of the desk and regarded her, while she sought in her mind for phrases that would make the story clear. She no longer had any desire to alter it or to excuse her own part in it. All she wanted was that he should know the real truth at last.

  "I knew—about Roddy and Dilys quite soon after I came to Fourways," she began slowly. "Partly because of one or two things that happened, and partly because of something my sister had written in a letter—she had seen them together. Anyway, when Roddy came home and—and recognized me, I told him that I knew about him and Dilys. And, though it wasn't my business, I asked him why they didn't pluck up courage and tell you the truth—that Dilys had changed her mind. He said it wasn't as simple as that. That Dilys and, more particularly, Brent needed money—or, at any rate, moneyed prospects—and she couldn't make up her mind to take a comparatively poor man, whom she loved, instead of a rich man, who would solve all their financial worries. In any case, she ... she did like you very much, of course, and thought, from time to time, that she could somehow make the best of the existing arrangement. I—I'm sorry. This can't be very nice for you—but I must tell you the exact truth now."

  "It's all right," he said, a little dryly. "Go on."

  "Well, I agreed to Roddy's request that I wouldn't stir up a lot of awkward inquiries, by insisting on making it clear

  that I had been the girl who brought him home that Saturday evening when we first met—"

  "Just a moment. I thought you told me some time ago that you had already come to that decision, on your own. '*

  "Yes. But when I began to see that I was getting involved in a real web of deception, I wanted to make my position clear, so far as that detail went. However, Roddy persuaded me that there was really no need for me to say anything— which, of course, was true."

  "And the next thing you knew was that they had run off together?"

  "No—oh, no." Harriet clasped her hands together painfully tightly. "Something else happened before that. I—I drove into Barndale with Dilys one afternoon, and the subject came up. To be quite honest," she admitted doggedly, "I brought up the subject—Fm not quite sure why. I asked her if she were unhappy about things, or something like that. And then we had a long talk about the situation, and she told me a good deal about the early years of herself and Brbnt—a sort of explanation of why they were rather— rather unstable and drifting people. I... I felt angry because she only seemed concerned with Roddy's happiness or Brent's, and didn't seem to understand that yours was involved, too. I'm afraid I—I gave her a certain amount of gratuitous advice—"

  "On what lines, Harriet?"

  She bit her lip, and a faint color came into her cheeks. But she had promised herself that she would go through with this, and she would not flinch now.

  "I asked her if she really thought she could make you happy, if she married you, loving another man. At first she was quite casually confident. And then—I... I think she had the idea that something in my manner.... She suddenly asked me if I were quite objective about all this, or whether I—were fond of you myself—"

  She stopped. And presently he said gently, "You told me just now that this couldn't be very nice for me. I think it's very much worse for you. But will it make it any better, Harriet, if I tell you that the most important thing in the world to me is to know what you answered Dilys at that point?"

  She put out her hand to him, and he took it in a firm, warm clasp.

  "Very well,"she said, softly but steadily. '*I told her that I loved you—which was true. Then she said that made her feel less awful about letting you down if she did go with Roddy, and she asked me if I thought you—you might grow fond of me, if she were not there. And I don't know now why I answered her that I did, Lin. Whether I just said what I wished it to be, or whether I honestly believed it, or whether I knew instinctively that it was the final thing which would convince her. Anyway, I said—yes, I thought you would."

  "And how right you were, my darlmg." Lin laughed softly, and, leaning forward, scooped her up out of the chair. "You knew me even better than I knew myself, it seems. What are you crying about now?"

  "Fm not crying,' Harriet said, and clung to him.

  He smoothed her hair, and kissed her cheeks and her mouth, and said, "How did you get yourself engaged to Brent, then, my absurd goose?

  "Oh, that? That's the rest of the explanation. There's quite a lot more."

  "Is there? Well, go on with it." But, this time he sat down in the chair and drew her onto his knee, careless of what the eflRcient Miss Carter might think if she came in to announce anyx)ther client.

  So it was in the indescribably comforting shelter of Lin's arms that she told him the rest of the story. How Dilys had acted more or less on her advice and had gone off with Roddy, leaving that unfortunate letter, explaining what had prompted her to go.

  "Which letter is the one that Brent so dramatically destroyed in front of us, I take it?"

  "Yes."

  "Mountebank,"commented Lin, but rather indulgently.

  "Oh, Lin! I think he did it on a generous impulse.'

  "Do you? Much more likely that he realized it had outlived its usefulness."

  "Oh,/za/"

  He lau
ghed.

  "Don't begin defending Brent's motives too passionately. My jealousy of him is sufficiently recent for me to find that most unacceptable." " ^^;

  She laughed, and kissed him rather shyly.

  "You have no reason to be jealous of anyone where I am concerned,*' she told him gravely, and he held her very tightly for a moment.

  "All right. Now give me the details of Brent's blackmail. For I suppose that's what it amounted to? He held that letter over you and made you do most things he wanted. Is that right?"

  "To—to a certain extent, yes."

  "But, my ridiculous darling, why didn't you tell him to show me the letter and be damned? Didn't you know how I feh about you?"

  "Not at that time. And not for an absolute certainty at any time. Besides, you can't imagine how that letter was worded! Dilys didn't mean it spitefully or anything like that, but she'd made it sound as though she had acted almost entirely on my advice. Almost as though I had asked her to clear off and leave the running clear for me."

  "And had you?" inquired Lin amusedly.

  "Lin!"

  "All right, dearest. I was just hoping for that last sop to my vanity," he told her teasinglv. "Your motives were of the purest, but Brent guaranteed^ that, with the aid of the letter, he could make you look a designing minx. Is that it?"

  "Um-hm."

  "And he used that to force vou into an engagement with him. Why? Is he keen on you?

  "Oh, wo.'"

  "Ridiculous fellow. I always thought poorly of his judgment. Now I know it's rotten. But what were his motives, then? Not so pure as yours, I take it?"

  "He foresaw the possibility of being involved in this crisis which has, in fact, come upon him. And he thought— quite rightly, as it turned out—that if you believed my happiness to be involved, you would probably help him. I was so frightened about the letter, Lin, that I weakly agreed to become engaged to him on the understanding that if he needed your good offices I would ask for them. But I made it absolutely clear that I would not, in any circumstances, ask you for money to help him. I thought it... it wouldn 't do you any harm to be persuaded, even deceived, into saying a good word for him. But I never, never had the slightest

  intention that you should be bamboozled out of a large sum of money on that false assumption.'*

  ** Ye-es. I see the delicate distinction,*' he admitted.

  "Lin, you're not taking any of this a bit seriously! I—somehow, I never imagined that this would be your reaction," she exclaimed, half reproachfully.

  "But then, my dearest, perhaps you had never before studied the reactions of a man who is crazy with joy," he said.

  Harriet laughed. Then she drew a deep, deep sigh of most exquisite relief

  "I don't really understand, even now, why it's all worked out so simply," she exclaimed.

  "Perfection is apt to appear in very simple terms," he assured her with happy sententiousness. "When will you marry me, dear?"

  "Oh—" she laughed again, but more with happiness than amusement. "I don't know—whenever you say.

  He kissed her.

  "Then do you mind my saying that, if you are contemplating marrying me quite soon, it is high time you took off the other fellow's ring?"

  "Good heavens!" She looked down at Brent's ring in astonishment. "I had forgotten! Oh, I must give it back to him."

  "Yes. He'll probably be glad to realize something on that," Lin agreed callously.

  "Oh, no." She looked rather solemn. "He won't do that. It's his mother's ring."

  Lin seemed unimpressed.

  "Dear Harriet! Now you are no longer engaged to Brent, I can give my frank opinion—which is that he would sell the fittings off his grandmother's coffin, if they were detachable and of any value."

  "No—don't, Lin! He values this ring. He has one or two odd scruples. I don't know why I feel so anxious to respect them, but-"

  "Probably because they are so few," Lin assured her cheerfully. "Still, never mind. We will allow him his few good impulses."

  She nodded.

  "There was the ring," she said slowly, "and the fact that he destroyed the letter.*'

  Lin refused to take that very seriously.

  "I tell you—he thought it no longer had any use.*'

  "No.'^She shook her head. "That isn't true. I'm sure that Brent, being what he is, still believed he could bluff and lie his way out. He deliberately gave me my chance, after all—"

  "Oh, Harriet dear!"

  "Do you realize that the last hour, which has brought such complete happiness to us, has brought ruin to Brent?" she said somberly.

  "It was commg to him, anyway," Lin replied—but regretfully.

  "No. Your offer of the money was going to save him."

  Lin looked at her and frowned.

  "What are you getting at, Harriet? You're not going to suggest—"

  "Yes, I am," she exclaimed, with sudden determination. "As Brent's fiancee, I wouldn't have asked you for a penny on his behalf—I wouldn't have let you pay it. But, as your fiancee, I don't mind asking. Will you save him after all, Lin?"

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Harriet could not have explained the impulse which made her intercede for Brent, who had caused her so much misery and fear.

  Perhaps it was that in her own overwhelming happiness and relief, she felt she loved everyone and could not bear that any distress should go unrelieved. Perhaps she was moved by some sort of sentimental gratitude to him for stopping short of final villainy—though, if that were so, she had to admit the ethics of the case were becoming extremly mixed. Or perhaps she had some obscure feeling that, since Brent had not had much of a chance in the early days, it was hard that she should have dashed this supreme "chance" from him.

  Lin appeared to attribute her action to something else entirely. He smiled—though grimly—and inquired:

  "Is this your first test of your power over me?"

  "Oh, no, Lin! Only-"

  "Only what?" he demanded, with teasing persistence. "Come on—confess your motives. I have a suspicion that they're shockingly sentimental and quite illogical."

  She was silent, considering that. Then she said slowly, "I suppose a lot of generous impulses—which you can't justify, but which you know are right—are both sentimental and illogical. I know that, in this case, I'm suggesting we should be generous with your money. But—you were willing to do it for my happiness before, Lin."

  "Good heavens! Don't suggest that anything so serious as your happiness is concerned now!" he protested amusedly. "You're simply asking me to extricate—in a most

  expensive manner—this perfect scamp who means nothing much to either of us.' *

  She looked at him thoughtfully.

  "And yet I could imagine that my happiness in this wonderful hour would never be remembered as cloudless if I also had to remember his part in it. The fact that the explanations which gave us our lovely understanding, also spoiled his chance of being saved from ruin."

  ** My dear, you *re simply—'*

  "Lin, please let him nave the money, after all. Give me that as my wedding present. '*

  He didn't laugh that time. He drew her against him and looked down at her.

  *'Do you mean that?'*

  "Oh, yes."

  "Even though I tell you that, if I agree, I shall stick to the exact terms? It would be your only wedding present from me."

  "Oh, yes." She smiled happily. "Why should I need a wedding present if I have you? Td like it better that way. Then I shouldn't feel I was being generous entirely at your expense."

  He kissed her softly.

  "You are the sweetest thing," he said gently. "Brent shall have his cheque. And perhaps I shall allow myself the indulgence of giving you a very small, inexpensive wedding present in addition. '

  "It isn't necessary," she told him contentedly, and returned his kiss.

  "But there is one condition I impose—"

  "Oh?"

  "That you yourself give Brent the cheq
ue, and tell him it is my wedding present to you."

  "Oh, Lin, no!"

  "On that condition only."

  "But I shall feel such-such a fool."

  "You will have no need to," he told her dryly.

  "Are you perfectly serious?"

  "Perfectly serious."

  "Very well."

  "Now take off that ring, and well go out and buy another

  one, and have a celebration lunch, and generally behave like an engaged couple."

  '*I was ^oing to catch the twelve o'clock train,** she objected mildly.

  "Well, you are not going to catch it now. You are having lunch with me, and then I am taking the rest of today off-thank God it*s Friday—and, after that, I am driving you home to Fourways, where we will break the news to my mama, and have a wonderful weekend together.**

  She had no objection to raise in this program of perfection. And, wafted on their way by the aamirably expressed congratulations of the perfect Miss Carter, they proceeded to put it into practice.

  Harriet made one slight modification. She interrupted lunch to have a long telephone conversation with Maxine, in which she tried to make her morning's behavior sound reasonable.

  "Do you mean to say that you've got rid of one fiance and acquired another, instead of catching the twelve o*clock train?" Maxine demanded, astonished.

  *'It does sound a bit like that, I know.*'

  "It not only sounds. It is, darling. And I used to think you reserved and retiring! It only shows how little we know of our nearest and dearest. But no one could be more delighted than I am. Particularly, as I knew, just from hearing you on the telephone to each of them, that you'd somehow got them in their wrong roles. You can give my future brother-in-law my best congratulations, and tell him my money was on him from the moment I heard you say hello to him."

  Laughing, Harriet accepted her further affectionate good wishes and went back to pass them on to Lin.

  The drive home through the long, long afternoon and evening was perfect. They found there was still so much to remember and explain, and the time was all too short.