But Not For Me

by Mary Burchell

  “Do you think she thinks I ought to be an actress, Ariane? She ought to know, oughtn’t she? And, if so, it’s a pity to waste all this time at school, isn’t it?”

  “What did you say?”

  “Oh, Ariane! I can’t say it all again.” Julie stood there in her petticoat and gazed at her sister with deep reproach. “It’s Marta Roma. She says I’m much funnier than people on the stage. Do you think Mother will let me be an actress?”

  “No, I don’t,” Ariane said with decision. “You’d better run along quickly and have your bath or you’ll be terribly late.”

  Julie departed in the direction of the bathroom, mourning loudly about her threatened career and the general lack of comprehension among parents, while Ariane stood alone in the bedroom, sunk in thought.

  Was it true, she wondered, that Marta Roma herself was responsible for this extraordinary development? But why? She was not likely to care anything about making an impression on Harvey’s family. That could scarcely come into her scheme of things. Then the only other explanation was that, for some reason, she was annoyed and wanted to humiliate him in front of his own people.

  “This is going to be a very difficult evening in more ways than one,” thought Ariane with a sort of grim nervousness.

  She herself was disinclined to say anything to her parents on the subject, but Julie saw no reason for suppressing such sensational news.

  The moment they were settled in the car, she burst out: “Mother, Harvey Muldane brought Marta Roma back from London with him. She travelled with me all the way back from school, and she says I ought to go on the stage, and—”

  “The actress, do you mean?” Mrs. Dobson’s tone was slightly reminiscent of the days when dowagers frowned on Gaiety girls.

  “Yes, of course. That’s how she knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “That I ought to go on the stage. You see—”

  “Nonsense, Julie.” Mrs. Dobson’s voice this time allowed of no argument. “Don’t be a ridiculous child. You have your work cut out to keep your place in class, without running away with fantastic notions like that.”

  “Oh, Mother!” Julie’s voice rose to a wail. “I may be a genius, for all you know. Daddy—” She turned to her other and more manageable parent. But the result was disappointing.

  “Sorry, Julie dear.” Her father smiled and passed his arm round her. “I’m afraid decimals must come before dramatics at your age. But if you’re a genius, you know, there’s plenty of time later. Geniuses always work to the top.”

  “Some of them die in poverty and are only recognized after they’re dead,” Julie said gloomily. “And no one can recognize a dead actress. It isn’t like poets and people.”

  “Never mind, pet. We’ll try to do something with you before you have time to die in poverty,” promised her father soothingly.

  “Ariane—” Mrs. Dobson spoke under cover of the other discussion, “is that true? Has he really brought that woman here to your engagement party?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Really, it’s most insulting to us.” Mrs. Dobson’s colour rose.

  “Oh, Mother, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it like that.” Ariane spoke in some dismay, not having thought of this development, and knowing that her mother was a little difficult to pacify if she thought the family dignity had been affronted. “I believe she is a friend of his and she just happens to be on the stage, and—”

  “Stage I It isn’t her stage activities I object to,” Mrs. Dobson said dryly. “Why, she is absolutely notorious.”

  “I do hope Mr. Muldane has never even heard of her,” Ariane exclaimed fervently.

  “Who?” Julie wanted to know, having caught that. “Marta Roma? He’s bound to. Everybody has. She’s awfully famous. The other girls will die with envy when I tell them.”

  “Very well, Julie,” her mother said reprovingly. “You need not speak as though she is a Florence Nightingale or some really great woman. She is only a rather cheap actress, I believe.”

  “She’s awfully famous, Mother,” cried Julie, who got over the difficulty of a limited vocabulary by adding greater emphasis every time she repeated a word. “And anyway, if you walked Florence Nightingale up one side of the street and Marta Roma up the other, I bet nobody would look at Florence Nightingale.”

  “Julie, that isn’t the way to speak to me,” Mrs. Dobson said sharply.

  But Ariane remarked peaceably:

  “Well, I expect Florence Nightingale would have her starers too. For one thing, she’d look like someone going to a fancy-dress dance.”

  Julie found that rather funny, and while she was still chuckling about it they arrived at the Muldanes’ big square house on the outskirts of the town.

  In the hall both Frank and Sally met them, and Frank hastily drew Ariane aside while Sally was greeting the others.

  “Ariane, I’m most frightfully sorry. You’ve heard how Harvey’s landed Marta Roma on us, I suppose?”

  “Yes. Is she staying here?”

  “Here? Good God, no. I think Father would show her the door. No, she’s staying at the Stag, of course, and, I suppose, got half the place set by the ears already. But she’s coming here tonight. There was a frightful row, but Harvey insisted and—”

  “Aren’t we all being a little bit Victorian?” Ariane protested mildly. “I thought these ‘bold, bad woman’ effects went out with antimacassars.”

  “Yes, I know—in the ordinary way that’s true.” Frank gave a worried little frown. “But she isn’t the sort of woman you ask—”well, anyone like your mother to meet. And Father was so anxious—we all were—for everything to be absolutely just so tonight, because—because—” Frank stammered into silence and coloured unexpectedly.

  “What, Frank?” Ariane was genuinely surprised, but she spoke with instinctive gentleness.

  “Oh well, we know you don’t exactly think much of us—”naturally he stared at his shoes with great attention. “I expect we seem a bit jumped-up in your eyes, whatever Harvey says.”

  Ariane wondered very much what Harvey had said, but aloud she merely replied earnestly: “I don’t think of you as at all jumped-up, and please, please don’t think of us as a set of patronizing snobs simply because we happened to start making lace two hundred years before you did. It seems a queer claim to superiority.”

  Frank’s sudden smile told her just how relieved he was.

  “Thank you, Ariane. You see, what we really felt was that we’d arranged this party more or less in your honour, and then it looked as though Harvey deliberately chose to turn up with what one might call his little bit of fluff.”

  “I don’t imagine he thinks of her like that at all.” Ariane smiled more gently than she knew. “I’m afraid the poor boy is trying to tell himself that she is more or less his fiancée, and why shouldn’t he have her here, just as you have me and Maurice has his wife?”

  “Ariane, Harvey’s not a boy.” Frank laughed slightly.

  “Oh yes, he is, where Marta Roma is concerned.”

  “Well.” Frank looked considering. “Perhaps you’re right.” Then he kissed her impulsively. “What a darling girl you are, and how conscientiously you do try to understand us all. I wonder why?”

  “Because I’m fond of you all, Frank,” she said slowly, as though she had only just discovered it herself. “Really fond of you—even your father. I didn’t know at all that he felt like that—about pleasing us and making a good impression, I mean. Please, please make him understand that it’s perfectly all right about—everything, won’t you?”

  “I will,” Frank promised with a smile. And then Sally came up to show her upstairs.

  “Will you just come down when you’re ready, Ariane? After all, you’re sufficiently one of the family to make yourself at home now.”

  “Thank you. I will,” Ariane assured her gravely.

  She had already reached the top of the stairs, and her foot was on the second step when Harvey’s voice sai
d abruptly: “Ariane.”

  She looked round, and saw that he was standing in a doorway regarding her with sombre anxiety.

  “Come here.” He made a little movement of his head towards the room behind him and, forgiving the curtness of the summons because of the urgency too, Ariane came slowly back and into the room.

  It was quite a small place, fitted up as something between a study and an office.

  “Well?” She turned to face him as he pushed the door to.

  “I want you to do me a favour.”

  As she noticed the dark reluctance with which he jerked that out, she felt tempted to tell him he had an odd way of asking it. But instead, she said quietly: “Yes, Harvey?”

  He hesitated a moment, and then suddenly burst out:

  “Ariane, will you please be decent to her? It’s going to be a damnable business otherwise. Sally’s determined to be even more poisonous than usual, and so are the others, I suppose. She’ll be horribly hurt, and not understand a bit. And she’ll never want to come near the place again.”

  “Why, Harvey—” Ariane didn’t know whether to be more amused or touched at this appeal to regard Marta Roma as a sensitive plant and take her under her care. Then, at the furious misery in Harvey’s face, she made up her mind. He must have been desperate indeed to appeal to her.

  “Of course I’ll be decent to her,” she promised gravely. “Julie tells me she is very nice, and I’m most interested to meet her.”

  At the way his face cleared she felt an odd little constriction of her throat. He was so helpless, really.

  “Thank you.” He spoke just a little unsteadily. “You’ll like her, I know.”

  Ariane made a tiny grimace.

  “As one gold-digger to another, do you mean?” she asked. But somehow there was no sting in her teasing.

  “No.” He frowned, though not with his usual black annoyance. “She’s not a gold-digger, Ariane. Really, she’s not.”

  “Isn’t she?” Ariane felt it was scarcely the moment to thrash out the exact character of Marta Roma, but one thing at least ought to be said. “All the same, it wasn’t very wise of you to choose tonight, of all nights, to bring her, was it?”

  “You mean you’re really offended or insulted or some such foolery?”

  “No,” Ariane said patiently. “I’m not so ridiculous as to make a personal matter of it. I merely mean that it was a little tactless to make a delicate introduction on an evening when the family were a bit keyed up, anyway.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he said impulsively:

  “To tell the truth, I wouldn’t really have chosen tonight, myself. Only I had sometimes asked her before, and she just suddenly took the fancy to come away from London this week-end. It was between two productions and I suppose she felt she’d like to get away. I couldn’t refuse, after having always pressed her to come.”

  “No,” Ariane agreed. “No, of course you couldn’t. Well, never mind now. I expect we can carry things off all right.”

  “We?” He coloured slightly and smiled. “Ariane, you are a good child.”

  Ariane laughed.

  “I hope I can keep your good opinion for half an hour at least,” she told him lightly. But really her heart felt very warm at his unexpected praise.

  They went downstairs then to join the others, and any awkwardness which the moment might have held was a good deal minimized by the fact that Ariane came over to the double family group evidently on the best of terms with Harvey.

  Her future father-in-law greeted her almost affectionately, but the disgusted glare to which he treated his eldest son spoke volumes.

  It was a few minutes before any of the other guests could be expected, and Ariane found herself valiantly searching her mind for harmless topics of conversation. She was really doing rather well when Julie suddenly broke in with:

  “Hello, Harvey. Where’s Miss Roma? Isn’t she staying here?”

  There was the kind of silence which all too often followed Julie’s statements or questions. Then Harvey said with very cold composure:

  “No, she isn’t actually staying here.”

  “But she’s coming to the party, isn’t she?” Julie’s face fell ludicrously.

  “Of course.”

  Ariane wondered suddenly if that cold abruptness of his more often than not hid nervousness.

  “Wasn’t it nice of Harvey to arrange that we actually had a celebrity at the engagement party?” she said calmly to Mr. Muldane. “It adds quite an exciting touch, I think. We don’t often have a chance of meeting a big stage star down here.”

  Mr. Muldane’s interest in stage stars was obviously rather less than nothing, and for a moment he seemed to find some difficulty in replying.

  Julie helped him out, however.

  “Yes, isn’t it thrilling? And you needn’t be a bit nervous of her,” she added kindly. “Miss Roma’s just like—well, ourselves.”

  No one, however, seemed to have thought of Miss Roma as being just like themselves, and the chilly quality of the silence said as much.

  Then Mr. Muldane spoke, a trifle explosively.

  “I assure you, I’m not at all likely to be nervous of the lady.”

  “Julie,” said Julie’s mother with unhappy severity, “I think you’re doing much more than your share of the talking.”

  Ariane thought that Julie might with justice have considered that no one else seemed inclined to do even their fair share. But fortunately the first of the guests were announced at that moment.

  Harvey withdrew almost immediately, and it was not until quite half an hour later that he returned with the much discussed interloper.

  Ariane had been making herself gracefully pleasant to Lady Ventnor when suddenly Caroline pressed her arm and whispered:

  “Look! I suppose that’s she.”

  “If Julie greets her as a life-long friend it will be,” Ariane replied dryly, and turned to look at the slim dark girl who had come in with Harvey.

  She was tall and indescribably graceful, with smooth black hair, parted down the centre and drawn back in a knot on her neck. Her skin was that even, pale gold which always suggests warm silk, and her enormous dark eyes were fringed with lashes which, even at that distance, looked impossibly long. She was wearing a black culotte suit, simply but perfectly cut, with a deep collar of ivory.

  From a distance, Ariane had thought: “She’s an absolute study in black and white, ivory and gold.” But as she came nearer, she realized that, in contrast, Marta Roma’s mouth was soft and scarlet and—yes, Ariane supposed, “sensual” was the word.

  But the red lips parted in a very cool, self-possessed smile as Harvey said:

  “This is Julie’s sister, Ariane.”

  “And the party is in honour of your engagement, I believe? You must accept my very good wishes.”

  She spoke slowly and her words were extremely clear, although the tone itself was low, with a slight, attractive huskiness.

  “It was very kind of you to come.” Ariane took her hand and welcomed her with the same simplicity and warmth that she had used for all the other guests. But she was not blind to Harvey’s air of relief, nor to the odd little look which the actress gave her.

  The next few minutes were not easy, but Ariane struggled courageously to bridge them. Sally seemed determined to let her hostess’s duties lapse at this point, and so it was Ariane who took the celebrated visitor round and introduced her to those least likely to be shocked by her.

  That passed off with comparative success, and Ariane, drawing a deep sigh, suddenly found that she was quite exhausted by the emotional strain of the last hour.

  It was a relief to go and dance with Frank, after a little while, and not have to think about anything but his undemanding, easy conversation.

  At least, she supposed she was not going to have to think of anything else. But the moment her eyes rested on Harvey and Marta, who were dancing together too, she knew that her thoughts would have no peace, either t
hen or for some while to come.

  She remembered his saying to Dick Ventnor on that very first evening that he was not fond of dancing. But, if he could have Marta Roma for his partner, then evidently dancing meant something else to him.

  It was almost impossible to believe that it was Harvey smiling in that tender, amused way, bantering lightly with her, and yet watching her all the time with that admiration which made his eyes so strangely gentle.

  So he could look like that! With a furious little pain, which she recognized miserably as jealousy, Ariane realized that the cold, difficult, impersonal Harvey could be a boyishly ardent lover—at any rate for the indifferent, lovely creature in his arms.

  “There’s passion and tenderness and tolerance and love there,” Ariane thought wistfully. “But not for me—never for me. Why do I even watch it and think of it? It’s all for Marta Roma—and she doesn’t care. I never realized how little she cared until I saw her. And I haven’t even the right to envy her.”

  “Ariane—” Even Frank liked to have a few answers to his questions and comments, it seemed, and she discovered, with a guilty little start, that he was looking at her with half-vexed amusement. “Have you sent me to Coventry or something?”

  “No, of course not.” She laughed nervously. “I was just miles away, that’s all. What were you saying?”

  “Nothing very special, only I’d said it three times.” He grinned good-temperedly. “And as I’d grown quite fond of the remark by then I had a fancy to have it answered. I was merely saying what a nice couple the Ventnors are. Caroline particularly is extraordinarily amusing.”

  “Oh, she is,” Ariane agreed enthusiastically, more than willing to sing her friend’s praises. “I’ve known her since we were quite little girls, and she’s the best friend anyone could possibly have.”

  “Um-hm. Now there’s a girl who contrives to be quite unconventionally amusing and attractive without doing any of your Marta Roma stunts.”

  “Well—yes. But Marta Roma has her attraction too, hasn’t she?” Ariane felt conscientiously bound to say something nice for her after her promise to Harvey, but it was difficult to put much heart into it.