The second collection of 3 great novels by Mary Burchell

by Burchell, Mary

  *'Goodbye. Nice to have seen you," Geraldine said as Thea stood up to go.

  **Goodbye, Geraldine. Fm sorry I can't return the compliment, but there's something refreshing about a little crude truth sometimes," Thea retorted.

  But once she was outside, she told herself that she had not organized that retreat particularly well. It was one thing to be able to give back an answer that relieved one's feelings. It was another to be able to baffle anyone of Geraldme's malicious perspicacity. And in that she had failed.

  Disconsolate and irritated with both herself and Geraldine, Thea decided to walk home, and perhaps walk off her ill feeling.

  The grass in Green Park was already beginning to look a bit faded and scrubby from the summer heat, but the trees were friendly and shady, and by the time Thea reached the corner of the Mall, she felt better.

  After all, the Geraldines of this world only mattered as much as one allowed them to. No more and no less. If Geraldine derived immoderate pleasure from being catty, let her go her own way. To pay too much attention to her was to give her an importance beyond her worth.

  If only one didn't feel that she had known Lin so much longer—and presumably so much better—than oneself Did she really speak with authority and knowledge about him? Thea woulcl have given a great deal to know.

  And suddenly she realized what it was that had shocked her so unspeakably in the first moment of revelation about his deceit, and depressed her so profoundly as the discreditable explanation dawned on her.

  It was the discovery that Lin was so much less than she had thought him.

  / admired him—I was so fond of him, Thea thought. He was different from everyone else. How could he do this? It seems so—so out of character.

  And as the force of that struck her, Thea almost stopped in her walk.

  It was out of character.

  Then in that case, it probably isn V the true explanation, Thea told herself It may be Geraldine's explanation, or the explanation of that horrid gossip at the hotel. But it isn *t the true explanation.

  Her spirits bounded upward in a way she could not have believea possible. The idea that Lin might casually clear himself with some perfectly decent and credible explanation appeared to her the most desirable thing on earth.

  Thea started to walk quickly. She wanted—as she had not wanted for weeks—to run to him and throw herself into his arms and kiss him.

  If Lin really still was the dear, kindly, half-cynical but wholly charming person she had once thought him, then everything was all ri^ht—well, nearly all right. She had to concede the comparative degree of "all rightness" when she remembered Stephen and what she had lost there.

  She was almost breathless by the time she reached home. And as she let herself in, she called out in her impatience, "Lin! Lin, are you home yet?"

  He came to the door of his study, smihng a little and surprised at her eagerness.

  '™io. What's happened?"

  "Oh—oh, nothing, really." She laughed and colored, realizing suddenly that her eagerness had rather outrun her discretion, and that she had received no explanation yet. "I just—hoped you were in. I've been out all day and—and—oh, well, wait while I take off my hat. I want to come and have a talk with you."

  "Do you?" His expression changed a little. "Well, as a matter of fact, I want to have a talk with you."

  "Oh."

  That gave her pause for a moment, but only for a moment, because she had to pass him on the way to her own room, and on a sudden impulse of trust and generosity—an impulse she could not have explained—she stoppea and heM up her face to be kissed.

  "Why, darling-"

  He didn't put his arms around her. He just took her face between his hands, as he had once done when she was in

  hospital, but he kissed her on her mouth, and she thought, / suppose no one kisses quite as Lin does. Is it Just experience?

  In her present mood of frankness, she very nearly asked him. But at that moment, he put her gently away from him and said, "Hurry up, then, rif be in here.'*

  And he turned and went back into his study.

  Thea went into her room, tossed off her hat and hastily smoothed her hair. Now that the scene for which she had been waiting all the afternoon was upon her, she felt quite cool and collected.

  Illogical and unaccountable optimism told her that it was going to be all right—that in half an hour's time she would be laughing at her own fears and suspicions, in a new-found friendliness and companionship with Lin.

  She would tell him right away that she had been down to see Emma—present him with the fact before there could be any leading up to it—and she would know at once if he had any real feeling of guilt about the position.

  So preoccupied was she with her own plans for opening the conversation, that she forgot his casual remark about his wanting to talk to her. But as she came into the room, he took the wind out of her sails.

  Turning from the window where he had been standing, he said pleasantly, "Come and sit down over here and tell me—was it really Stephen whom you wanted to marry?"

  Thea came to an abrupt standstill halfway across the room. Then she came on more slowly and quietly took the seat by the window that Lin had mdicated. He himself remained standing, leaning back a little against the folded-back shutter and looking down at her.

  She forgot what she had been going to say about finding Emma at home, and she forgot about the friendly but penetrating questions she had been going to put to him.

  Instead, in a rather small and not very well controlled voice, she asked, *' Why do you ask me that, Lin?''

  "From a very real desire to know the answer," he assured her. "It's something we've got to have clear between us, Thea. I ought to have asked yoii before, of course, but—well, I *m asking you now.''

  "Very well then, Lin. When I agreed to marry you, the question of Stephen didn 't enter into it. I would have told you if it had. But he hadn't ever suggested our marrying,

  though I know now that he had often thought of it and hoped for it. Well, there—there isn 't very much more to it, Lin. When Stephen heard about my accident, he wrote asking me to marry him, and explaining why he hadn't asked me before. Geraldine didn't bother to send on the letter. I didn 't get it until I was married to you. It was one of the letters she gave me at my—our wedding."

  "So that was what was in the letter you read in the train?"

  "Yes. The other one was from Mrs. Dorley, saying she-she would be very happy if I said yes."

  There was silence. And then he said, as though to himself, "So that is what has been the matter."

  "The matter?" Thea looked up quickly.

  "Haven't you noticed that, in a dreadfully agreeable way, we have become strangers?"

  "Oh!" She hadn't thought of his seeing it as clearly as she did. "Wasn't that-alm.ost inevitable?"

  "No, Thea. That isn't how I intended it to be."

  She remembered then all the questions she had wanted to ask him, and the admission of what he had''intended it to be" seemed to hold the answer to them all. But before she could say anything, he spoke again.

  "You still haven't told me what your own feelings are about Stephen. Is he the man you want to marry, now that the opportunity is there?''

  "If... if I had had his offer in time, I should have accepted it," Thea said steadily. "Now it—it's a bit too late.^'

  "Why?" He spoke rather carefully. "Didn't we agree that this was a purely temporary affair between us?"

  "Yes, that's true. But how could I write and say that to Stephen? —ask him to hang around waiting until I could get a divorce. Besides...."

  "Besides?" he prompted her, as she paused for almost a full minute.

  "There was your position, too, Lin," she explained with an effort. "You had just married me—that very day—and been very generous to me. It would have been frightful to go to you and tell you immediately that I wanted to marry someone else. And, equally, I couldn't write to Stephen

&nb
sp; t)ehind your back and say I'd get free from you as soon as possible.'*

  He looked at her and said slowly, "You were concerned for my—feelings and pride?"

  **Well, yes, of course. You had been so good to me. I didn't want to ... to hurt or humiliate you. I don't want to oow, Lin. I wouldn't have said all this, if you hadn't asked me, but-"

  "No. I realize that." He looked away from her out of the window. "Will you tell me what you did, then? In what terms did you answer Stephen?"

  "I just—refused him—told him I was married to you. I tried to do it as kindly as possible, but I expect it sounded pretty bald and uncomfortmg. It was the only thing I could do though, Lin. Both from his point of view and yours."

  "And what about your own point of view?"

  "Mine?"

  "Yes. There is your point of view, too, you know. Many people would regard it as the most important one." ; Sne considered that for a moment.

  I "I don't think it was the most important one at that moment, Lin. It was the least important, I suppose. I had already snatched at what I thought to be the best solution to my troubles." She looked straight at him. "At what I thought to be the only solution to my troubles," she added gravely. "In many ways, I had been extraordinarily lucky. I thought it was better to do what seemed decent and right at the moment, and hope that the future might give me a—another chance."

  ; "You mean, you hoped the time might come when you could give Stephen a full explanation without hurting my sensitive feelings, and without saddling him with an obligation toward yourself if his feelings had changed?"

  "S-something like that."

  "Rather a risk, Thea. American girls can be very attractive, and the most faithful and stable of men have been known to do some silly things on the rebound from an unsuccessful love affair."

  "I can't help that," she said obstinately. "One must take a risk sometimes."

  "Only in a good cause."

  "Well, this was a good cause."

  "Was it?" For a moment he looked genuinely amused.

  "The cause of doing 'the right thing,' eh?"

  "No. Not only that. Of seeing that two people who had been good to me, and of whom T was very fona, should not suffer for my mistake and my—ill luck, I suppose you might call it."

  "I see. You mean Stephen and his mother, of course?"

  "Oh—no." She looted at him in surprise. "I wasn't thinking of Mrs. Dorley at the moment, tnough of course she is indirectly involved. I meant Stephen and—you."

  He didn't comment on that. Instead, he thrust his hands into his pockets and walked slowly up the room and back again. And as the silence lengthened, she thought. Now it's my turn. And aloud she said quite coolly and quietly:

  "Why did you lie to me, Lin, about the Dorleys' house being shut up?"

  "Eh?" He swung around to her sharply, and his thoughtful pacing came to an abrupt stop.

  "I went into the country today. I felt sick of town. And in a sort of nostalgic mood, I went down to Stephen's home. I expected it to be shut up, of course, but Emma was there and so was Darry. Then I assumed that I had very fortunately happened to come on the day Emma had chosen to look in, but after we'd talked at cross-purposes for a bit, I found it wasn't that at all. Emma told me she hadn't slept away from, the house one single night. And she also told me, Lin, tha^ she hadn't seen you since the day you and I were then together. One of you is lying and it can't be Emma. Sh hasn't one single reason in the world to do so."

  "And you think I have?"

  Thea made a little deprecating gesture with her hands.

  "I only know that by telling me I couldn't go to Emma you convinced me that I had absolutely no other course bui to marry you. Was that why you did it, Lin?"

  "I suppose if I say yes, you 11 imagine that I am dying foi love of you?" he said dryly.

  Thea flushed.

  "No. I can't say I ever thought of that explanation."

  He glanced at her curiously and said, "Did you think oi any explanation?''

  "I did. But it wasn't very creditable to you." Thea wouU not have said that so crisply, she felt, if he had not made tha

  rather sneering remark about her supposing he was dying for love of her.

  "So?" He smiled faintly—not very nicely, she thought— and for a moment she thought she saw a Lin she had not known. '*And what was the discreditable explanation, Thea?"

  "It's not one that came to me out of my own ideas, Lin. It was suggested at least twice, by the kind of spiteful, idle people who have little better to do than gossip about a—a marriage like ours."

  She hesitated a moment and then she said, almost in Geraldine*s words, "Did you find my lack of sophistication rather—rather new and piquant? And because you knew I was respectable it woulci have to be a legalized affair and might just as well be called marriage since you could get out of it whenever you pleased? Was that it, Lin?"

  She spoke quite quietly, and nothing in her manner showed now passionately she wanted him to deny it—to augh at her, to be furious with her that she should think such a thing. Anything so that she might put the idea from her mind and never thmk of Lin in that hateful light again.

  But there was no denial, either laughing or angry.

  He looked at her, his hands still thrust in his pockets, then he transferred his gaze to the pattern of the carpet, which he thoughtfully traced out with his foot.

  "I suppose that's as good a way as any of putting it," he agreed.

  "Lin!" Pain as well as furious indignation made a cry of that. "How odious—how disgusting ofyou! You could lie to me, quite coolly and circumstantially, just so that you could have me at a complete disadvantage? You! Why youVe always been at such pains to be kind to me, reassure me. I Ve never thought of you as anything but trustworthy and— and—"

  "Yes, I know. Chivalrous. You actually applied the word to me once, my poor httle Thea." He smiled. "I nearly told you then what a fool you were. But that would rather have spoiled things."

  "Don't talk like that!" she exclaimed sharply. "I don't know you when you use such expressions."

  "But then, you don't really know me at all, do you?" he said softly.

  **I begin to think that's true," she agreed bitterly. "I can't imagine even now why you went to all that elaborate trouble to make me feel safe and—and cared for.

  "It was no good doing it at all if I didn't do it well," he pointed out, coolly and without a sign of remorse. And there, she thought, spoke the real Lin.

  It had been a game to him, an amusing form of pursuit. It had not quite come off, but only because of the sheer bad luck—from his point of view—that had made her go into Surrey that day. In the ordinary way, there had been nothing to take her there, since she believed the Dorleys house to be shut up.

  "It must be rather—disappointing for you that things have gone wrong," she heard herself say in a cool, hard Uttle voice. *'I suppose all this questioning about Stephen was meant to clear the way for—for your particular type of lovemaking."

  He smiled and inclined his head.

  "You read me like a book," he told her mockingly.

  "Lin, don't talk like that. You're like a stranger.'

  "Well, you see, it's right what I told you—that you don't really know me. Or should I say—that you don't know the real me."

  She was silent. And then, because hers was a nature that found it impossible to believe ill of the people she loved, Thea made one last effort.

  "Lin, in some way all this rings false. When I think of you coming to the station to meet me being sweet to me when I was first ill in hospital, bringing me my engagement ring—" she looked down at her ring and twisted it nervously on her finger "—I can't believe it was all an elaborate pretense, leading up to tricking me into marriage. A marriage of which, incidentally, you don't seem to have taken much advantage," she added with rising color.

  "It wasn't all so cut-and-dried as that, Thea. It never is. I met you at the station because of a fairly good-natured whim, I
suppose. When I came to see you in hospital— well, you were sweet, and I felt badly about you being ill. My— fancy for you dated from then, probably, if you want to examine the matter so closely. As for taking advantage of the marriage situation—we-ell—" he smiled and shrugged "—I maintain that my timing was good, because you re a

  girl who can't be rushed, but my luck was out and you made this unfortunate journey of discovery just a little too soon."

  She winced angrily.

  "You seem quite cheerful about it."

  "IVe aJways prided myself on being a good loser," he assured her.

  "Well, you have certainly lost this time." Thea looked weary and disillusioned suddenly, and a good deal older than her age. "I'm leaving you, Lin. I'm not going to stay here any longer with you in this place."

  She got up with an air of decision, and he watched her

  without attempting to touch her. "I suppose that s

  suppose that s understandable," he said. "Where do you propose to go?"

  For a moment she simply didn't know the answer to that. And then her conversation with Emma came back in a blessed flood of relief.

  "I'm going down to stay with Emma," she said slowly "and I'm going down there this evening."

  CHAPTER TEN

  He really did seem taken aback by this last decision of hers.

  "This evening? Is there so much hurry, Thea? One can't arrange these things at quite short notice, you know."

  "I can," Thea said with decision. "Only today, Emma said I could come whenever I liked and for as Jong as I liked."

  "Perhaps so, but she would hardly expect you to take hei at her word quite so literally and so soon."

  "I don't care what she thinks." Thea spoke with an obstinacy that, had he but known it, was reminiscent ol *poor mummie." "I'm not spending another night alom with you in this flat."

  His eyebrows shot up.

  "My dear girl, you have my word for it that you'll b( perfectly safe and unmolested here, if that's what you want."