‘I do,’ she interrupted, very eager to be magnanimous too, now that his anger had departed. ‘It all seemed rather cheap and silly—I do realise that. Particularly in the way it must have sounded to your mother. And that made you mad. That and the fact that you were anxious in case it made her at all suspicious. And—and anyway, you don’t like Phil, do you?’
He made a slightly apologetic little grimace.
‘Well, no, I don’t. But no doubt that’s not my business either,’ he conceded. ‘Kind of you to make the excuses for me,’ he added as an amused afterthought. ‘I suppose I assumed, rather unnecessarily, that you were trying to hide the whole business from me, as well as from Mother and Isobel. I haven’t any right to expect to hear about your private affairs, of course. Only—’
‘You’d like to, all the same?’ she suggested.
‘Well—’ He smiled rather deprecatingly. ‘At least I wish you had told me about going to tea with him yesterday.’
‘I meant to, Michael. Indeed, I did. But somehow there was no opportunity until we came to bed last night. And then I was so sleepy—after your hot drink, you remember—it seemed too much trouble. Besides,’ she admitted honestly, ‘I suppose I wasn’t exactly dying to tell you. I knew instinctively that you wouldn’t be very approving, feeling as you did about Phil.’ She stopped and looked at him a little appealingly.
‘Yes, yes, I do understand.’ He was genuinely contrite now. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve made you self-conscious about your friendship with him. Of course it’s entirely your own business who your friends are. In any case, I don’t know anything about him, and you do. It was just a feeling—’
‘Like my feeling about Pat,’ she murmured reflectively, thinking that he deserved that.
‘Eh?’ He looked startled and annoyed.
‘Exactly like that,’ Patricia insisted with a smile. ‘I don’t know a thing about her personally, and you do—and yet I presume to dislike her most heartily.’
He looked at her in annoyed silence for a moment. Then he smiled reluctantly.
‘All right, I suppose you’re entitled to that.’ And then, after a pause, and as though he were a little anxious to keep off the subject of his wife—‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘this isn’t curiosity—merely a friendly interest. Did things go—well this afternoon?’
By which you mean—do I think Phil is in love with me?’
‘Well—yes. Something like that.’
She laughed happily, and suddenly slipped her arm into Michael’s with impulsive friendliness.
‘I don’t think it, Michael. I know it. He told me so.’
‘Damned bounder!’
‘Michael!’
‘Well—oh, I apologise again. But he had no right to say things like that to you. He thinks you’re married to me, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. That is—I haven’t told him anything to the contrary yet. But you see, Michael—oh, do understand!—he doesn’t believe I’m in love with you at all. I suppose I don’t give a very convincing impression of it. He thinks I married you for your money and—and—’
‘Consequently that you are entitled to be unfaithful to me. Very high-minded reasoning, I must say.’
‘Michael, don’t be so tiresome!’ She laughed and squeezed his arm rather hard, because he was looking down at her in a singularly indulgent way, and he was really rather a darling when he did that. ‘As a matter of fact, you’re not supposed to be the injured party in this business.’
‘Indeed?’
‘No. Phil rather thinks you deserve what’s coming to you. Because, you see, he knows you were staying in Paris last Christmas—with another woman.’
‘With—oh, I see.’ He was suddenly very thoughtful. ‘You mean he saw me with Pat?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where was it, do you know?’ He narrowed his eyes slightly.
‘No, I don’t know exactly. He was staying at the same hotel. He didn’t recognise you at first. But afterwards, when we were speaking about Paris, he remembered.’
‘So that’—Michael smiled grimly, but with real amusement—‘I am the unfaithful husband, behaving very badly towards you?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Charming couple, aren’t we?’ He laughed—very slightly annoyed, she thought, at having this role thrust upon him, even in mistake.
‘You forget, I am a perfectly innocent party in this, and greatly to be pitied,’ she pointed out demurely.
‘But I thought your precious—I mean, I thought your Phil intended to tempt you into evil ways, on the very moral ground that, if I have been misconducting myself in Paris, there is really no reason why you shouldn’t do the same thing in London. I can’t say I admire your young man’s ethics.’
‘It isn’t quite like that, Michael.’ She was suddenly quite serious, and a good deal distressed.
‘Then how is it?’ He smiled down at her—sceptically, but as though he were willing to be convinced if that was what she wanted. ‘How does Phil work it out to himself?’
‘I suppose it wasn’t a question of “working it out” exactly,’ she said slowly. ‘It—well, it just came out that he loved me—’
‘Whereupon you reproved him, I hope, for addressing a married woman in such unsuitable terms.’
‘Michael, you are absurd! I don’t know you in this teasing mood. I did reprove him, as a matter of fact. And then he told me the rest. About his believing that you had been unfaithful to me, and so on—’
‘Do you mind telling me what “so on” covers?’
‘Oh—’ she laughed, ‘I mean, about his being sure that I had only married you because I was desperate for money, and that therefore my feelings couldn’t be involved, and about his thinking you were unworthy of me, I suppose.’
‘I see. And how did you take this revelation of my infidelity and—unworthiness?’ he inquired with real curiosity.
‘At first I was furious—’
‘With me?’
‘Oh no. With him. I didn’t realise that Pat was the true explanation. And I thought he really was making some charge against your character.’
‘And you didn’t like that?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Thank you, Patricia.’ He smiled for some reason or other. ‘Go on.’
‘There’s not very much more to say.’
‘No? What did you decide to do?’
‘Michael—’ her fingers pressed rather nervously into his arm—‘Michael, we didn’t decide to do anything. Deborah interrupted, for one thing and—’
‘Of course, she would,’ murmured Michael.
‘But I was rather glad, really, because I hadn’t made up my mind what to do. I had to speak to you first.’
‘To me?’
‘Yes. You see—Michael, may I tell him?’
‘Tell him? About the real situation here, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
There was a slight pause, and then he said, without much expression:
‘If you want to—of course.’
‘You did say once that I could. I mean, you even suggested it yourself.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Do you—hate the idea very much?’
He bit his lip.
‘That isn’t really the point, is it?’
‘Oh, Michael, yes, I think it is. At least, it’s a very important point. I don’t want to make you more worried and unhappy than you are already.’
‘I know, my dear, I know. You’re such a good, kind child really and—’
‘Michael, I’m not a child!’ she laughed protestingly—and then bit her lip slightly because she suddenly found it was trembling.
‘No? Well, there is something childlike about you when you look at me in that way and ask for permission to tell your Phil. Permission! You could tell him any time, without the slightest reference to me, you know. Hadn’t you thought of that?’
‘I couldn’t! You know I couldn’t. Not if it was going to make yo
u worried and unhappy.’
‘Such loyalty!’ he said a little mockingly. And then, ‘You can tell him; of course. I mean—you have my full permission to tell him whenever you like.’
‘Oh, Michael, thank you! You don’t know how glad I am!’
‘It makes so much difference?’ He was standing with his back to her now, looking out of the window.
‘Why, of course. It means that Phil can—oh, that everything can be open and above-board with us now. He can tell me quite frankly that he loves me and that—’
‘He doesn’t seem to have had much difficulty in being quite frank about that already.’
‘Michael, don’t be cynical! Well then—I can be frank too.’
‘And tell him you love him?’
‘Y—yes.’
‘And then you will be very happy, of course?’
‘Well—of course.’
There was a slight silence, and she wondered if he were really interested in something he could see from the window or if there were a certain displeasure behind that silence.
‘Michael’—she spoke almost timidly—‘you do want me to be happy, don’t you?’
He turned and faced her then.
‘So much so, my dear, that I should never forgive myself if I found I had done wrong in not preventing this romance, by refusing to let you tell your Philip the real facts.’
‘Michael!’ She laughed—half angrily. ‘Don’t be so absurd. It’s no responsibility of yours, in any case. And you talk like—like a Victorian father.’
‘Believe me,’ he said grimly, ‘I had no wish to seem at all fatherly. And now I think it’s time we changed for dinner.’
Without another word he went into his dressing-room, leaving Patricia to make what she could of this last speech.
CHAPTER VI
Even by next morning’s breakfast Deborah had by no means exhausted all that she wanted to say about the previous day’s expedition.
Finally, with her spoon poised perilously between her plate and her mouth, she gazed thoughtfully at Patricia and said:
‘I like Phil, don’t you?’
‘Certainly.’ Patricia was admirably composed. ‘He is a very old friend of mine.’
‘He didn’t look very old,’ Deborah commented.
‘That will do, dear. Go on with your breakfast,’ Isobel begged automatically. ‘Aunty Patricia meant that she had known this friend for a long time. That was all. And I don’t think you ought to call him—er—“Phil”.’
‘He said his name was Phil,’ Deborah insisted obstinately.
‘Yes, yes. But—’
‘The name is Magerton, Isobel. Phil Magerton. But I don’t really think it matters so much as all that,’ Patricia interrupted hastily.
Deborah, however, had other ideas.
‘I shall call him “Phil”,’ she stated simply and finally. ‘I wonder when we shall meet him again. Aunty Patricia, when do you think we shall see him again?’
‘I don’t know.’ Patricia made that sound as pleasantly indifferent as she could, but, to her annoyance, she felt herself colour a little.
‘Dear me!’ Isobel laughed. ‘This Mr. Magerton seems to have made quite a conquest. Of Deborah,’ she added a moment later, as though it had suddenly struck her that some amplification of that was distinctly necessary.
‘I believe,’ Michael said disagreeably, as he got up to go, ‘that the gentleman has great success with Deborah’s sex in any case. Good-bye, my dear.’ And he kissed Patricia with exactly the right degree of husbandly devotion—under the critical eye of Deborah and the suddenly thoughtful glance of Isobel.
When he had gone, and Deborah too had departed in search of Susan, Isobel said with a sigh:
‘I’m afraid Deborah talks much too much.’
‘She does,’ Patricia agreed with a smile. ‘But what made you think of it just now?’
‘Well—’ Isobel paused and chewed her underlip reflectively. ‘I’m usually rather’ stupid about these things, I believe, but it struck me—I suppose this Phil Whatever-his-name-is was an old flame of yours?’
‘Oh—we were very good friends,’ Patricia assured her carelessly.
‘Um—hm. No doubt that’s what one calls them afterwards, even to oneself,’ Isobel agreed, with unusual shrewdness. ‘Poor old Michael is inclined to be jealous, isn’t he?’ she added, with the apparent irrelevance which distinguished all her conversation.
‘About me! Oh no.’ Patricia was amused. Then she reflected, a little late, that the remark was not a very likely one for a young wife to make. About whom should her husband be jealous, if not about herself? ‘I mean,’ she explained earnestly, ‘Michael’s really a very sensible and well-balanced person.’
‘I daresay.’ Isobel shrugged. ‘I only thought he seemed a bit ratty about the whole subject. But then you never can tell with men—especially first thing in the morning,’ she added ambiguously.
Patricia laughed. But she wondered uneasily how Isobel would regard the real facts, when everything was explained. Probably she would be unable to think of it as anything but vaguely improper.
However, her thoughts were summarily nipped in the bud by a message from Mrs. Harnby that she was feeling well that morning, and if Patricia liked to come and see her, she would be welcome.
As she went upstairs she hoped uneasily that there would be no reference to yesterday’s unfortunate conversation. It might be, of course, that Michael’s mother considered she was entitled to utter a few words of wisdom at this juncture, and there would conceivably he some awkward questions to answer.
She need not have worried, however. Mrs. Harnby was not the kind of woman to give unwanted advice, and—as she would have said herself, if asked—she had lived long enough in the world to know the value of minding her own business; even in her own family.
She even became a little reminiscent, and talked of the days of her youth—showed Patricia her jewellery, and, incidentally, made her profoundly uncomfortable by telling her casually that of course it would all be hers one day.
‘Well, what’s the matter?’ She glanced amusedly at Patricia’s downcast lashes. ‘Don’t you like jewellery? You can have it re-set, you know, if you think it’s old-fashioned. I hate people to be sentimental about not changing family jewellery.’
‘Oh, it—isn’t that.’
‘What then?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t—talk about these things.’
Mrs. Harnby laughed and patted her hand affectionately.
‘Don’t be silly, dear. I didn’t say I should be leaving them to you next week or next month. I only want you to know that of course they will be yours. You’re the nearest thing to a daughter that I’m likely to have now.’
‘Oh—thank you.’ Patricia hoped she seemed a little less distressed and confused than she felt. And, to her great relief, Julia tapped on the door and came in just then. ‘It’s a telephone call, madam,’ she said.
‘Have it put through.’ Mrs. Harnby picked up the little ivory telephone beside her bed.
‘It’s for Mrs. Harnby, madam. Mrs. Michael Harnby.’
‘All right, she can take it here.’
Julia withdrew, and Patricia took the receiver with a reluctance she was at some pains to conceal. If only it were Michael! If it were not Michael, there was only one other person it could be. And to have to hold a conversation with him in front of her supposed mother-in-law—
There was the click of the connection being made. Then a voice which was not Michael’s said:
‘Mrs. Harnby?’
‘Yes. This is Patricia Harnby speaking.’
‘Oh, Patricia darling, I thought I’d never get through to you! When am I going to see you?’
‘I don’t know.’ (Oh, what on earth could one say, to put him off, and at the same time not attract Mrs. Harnby’s attention? She was apparently absorbed in the newspaper she had picked up, but of course she couldn’t help hearing every word.)
‘What is the ma
tter?’ Phil’s voice, the other end, was suddenly anxious and urgent. ‘You sound as though you don’t want to see me, and yet yesterday—’
She must do something about it! And, on sudden inspiration she changed her cautious tone to one of pleased surprise.
‘Oh, Marjorie dear, is that you? I didn’t recognise your voice at first. You got my message then?—I’m so glad. Look here, when can we meet?’
There was an astounded silence the other end. Then she heard Phil chuckle.
‘Marjorie it is, my sweet,’ he agreed, lowering his voice in case any slight echo of it in the room might betray that ‘Marjorie’ had a pleasant baritone speaking voice. ‘And we’re meeting this afternoon—’
‘This afternoon? I’m not sure that I can manage that.’
‘Oh, yes, you can. If you say “No” I shall raise my voice so that that husband of yours can hear what Marjorie’s sex really is.’
She very much wanted to explain that it was not Michael who was there—that she had no need of these absurd and rather undignified subterfuges where Michael was concerned. But it was impossible, of course. She would have to wait until—oh, well, yes—until that afternoon.
‘Very well, I’ll manage it. Where?’
‘Somewhere where we can stroll in the sunshine and talk. Let me see. St. James’s Park is too near your own home. Make it Regent’s Park, darling—’
‘What?—the Zoo again?’ Patricia was amused.
‘No. Near the Open Air Theatre. Near the main entrance, darling, at—say—three?’
‘Yes. I’ll be there. She tried not to think how many times he had called her ‘darling’ in the course of a short conversation, and she tried to make her good-bye sound exactly as a good-bye to a girlfriend should sound.
When she had rung off, she glanced irresistibly at Mrs. Harnby to see what the effect of the conversation had been. She didn’t want to look—she would have given anything not to—but it was quite beyond her to keep her anxious gaze away from that smooth dark head.
To all outward appearances, however, Mrs. Harnby was completely unmoved by whatever she had heard. It had been innocent enough, to be sure, and yet—some uncanny, inner certainty told Patricia that her supposed mother-in-law had not been in the least deceived.
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