‘Phil,’ she said slowly, ‘does it strike you that perhaps one can’t ever completely wipe out that sort of thing? It’s perfectly true that if you had asked me to marry you a week ago, I should have accepted gladly. Perhaps I should have been wrong. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s no good trying to settle that at this point. I only know that now I don’t want to marry you.’
‘But there must be a reason, Patricia. If you say it’s not anger or resentment, then it must be something else. Perhaps—’ he glanced at her with sudden quick knowledge—‘perhaps someone else.’
She knew that her colour changed slightly.
‘Is that what it is?’ And then, as she was silent, he answered his own question in a tone of utter astonishment. ‘It is that! But who?’
‘Phil, it isn’t for you to—’
‘Harnby! Is it Michael Harnby? It can’t be, Patricia, after the way the fellow has made a convenience of you—used you as a sort of matrimonial stop-gap! You couldn’t just meekly fall in love with him after that. It’s not possible!’
‘Then why go on thinking that?’ Patricia retorted crisply. ‘I’m sure you won’t expect me to discuss the question with you any more, Phil. But there’s no harm in my telling you that I shall be leaving Michael’s house in a few days now to—to begin earning my own living again. I don’t expect to see him after that except for an occasional casual meeting. You can draw your own conclusions from that.’
He moved uneasily, not confident enough now either to try to take her in his arms or to plead with her.
‘Patricia, is this really your last word on it?’ Even now he seemed unable to accept the fact.
‘I’m sorry, Phil—yes.’
There must have been something very final in the tone of that, because an odd little silence followed, and then he said, almost stiffly:
‘Then I’ll go. Good-night, my dear.’
‘Good-night, Phil.’
She made no attempt to go with him when he went out of the room. He closed the door deliberately behind him, and presently, as she stood there in the middle of the room listening, she heard the front door close, too. Then she drew a deep sigh, as though some tension had relaxed, and she turned to go back into the drawing-room to rejoin Isobel.
As she did so, the door opened and Michael came in.
‘Patricia—’ she thought for a moment that his not very pleased expression was simply due to finding her there in his private study; however, he went on at once—‘Was that Phil Magerton I saw going out of the house? I only caught a glimpse of him, but I thought—’
‘Yes, it was Phil.’
‘What the deuce did he want here?’ Then, ‘I’m sorry. I daresay it’s not my business, but—’ He paused.
‘He wanted to see me.’
‘Yes, I guessed that.’ He smiled a trifle quizzically. ‘You mean you don’t intend to tell me more than that.’
‘Oh—no, I don’t mind telling you. He came primarily to apologise for the suggestion he made the other day.’
‘High time too!’
‘And he asked me to marry him.’
‘He—asked you to marry him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what,’ asked Michael slowly and with real curiosity, ‘did you reply?’
‘I said “No.” ’
He sat down on the side of the desk and lightly took her hands in his. ‘Did you, Patricia?’ he said slowly. ‘I wonder why.’ She smiled almost ruefully.
‘For the simple reason that I didn’t want to marry him any longer.’
‘Because of the disillusionment of being asked to share a flat with him?’
‘Partly that, I suppose.’ She looked down at the rather fine, strong hands that were holding hers. ‘Everything seemed changed, somehow. Perhaps rather a lot of things happened all together, to open my eyes. It wasn’t one thing, Michael. It was several things together.’
‘It wasn’t one thing, eh?’
‘No.’
There was a pause. Then he said:
‘Well, my dear, since you know your own mind so well, there is nothing to do but congratulate you on—what shall I say—’ he smiled—‘something of an escape?’
‘I suppose so.’ She smiled in her turn. ‘I have reason to congratulate you too, Michael.’
‘Ye—es. In a way.’ He frowned then.
‘Your mother has told you all about it, of course?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m awfully sorry if you’re feeling blue, Michael. In one sense it must be a shock.’
He ruffled up his hair in a perplexed way.
‘Oh lord, what does one say on these occasions? I ought to feel wretched and blank about losing the girl I thought Pat was. I do feel blank, I suppose. Only it’s the blankness of something like relief to escape from the girl she had become. Does that sound very shallow and self-pitying?’
‘No.’ Patricia shook her head and smiled. ‘After the last few weeks you have had, most people would feel they wanted nothing so much as a little peace and freedom from worry. It must seem like a last-minute reprieve from what was going to be the worst part of the whole business.’ And then, because the subject had to be tackled—and tackled soon—‘I’ll make my arrangements to leave in the next few days, Michael.’
‘Oh, there’s no hurry about that.’ He looked annoyed. ‘Why need you rush away?’
‘Well, I think you know that as well as I do,’ she said with a smile.
‘I see no reason.’ He was obstinate.
‘It would be a little—peculiar to go on posing as your wife, after the reason for doing so had ceased to exist.’
He seemed to see it as her affair then, because he said with a stiff little air of apology:
‘Of course. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I only wanted you to know that—that—’
‘I know, Michael.’ She patted his arm. ‘You wanted me to know that you weren’t thinking of turning me out quickly, even if my job here is done.’
‘Well, of course not. And it wasn’t a job.’ He seemed faintly irritated by the word. ‘At least—’ he stopped and flushed—‘only in so far as we have to come to some—some financial arrangement about it. I don’t know how on earth to assess all your help and understanding, but—’
‘Whatever for? Don’t be so absurd, Michael!’ She was divided between amusement and a sort of nervous anger that the subject should have to be discussed at all.
‘Well, I got you into this hole, didn’t I?’ He was as annoyed as she was now.
‘No, you didn’t. I chose it myself.’
‘Then, if you did, you chose it because it was a job that offered a good salary. Why else should you choose it?’
‘Perhaps I thought I’d like to be useful,’ she retorted with angry flippancy.
But he took that quite seriously.
‘You had no reason to feel like that towards me. You’d never seen me before. The fact was,’ he insisted obstinately, ‘you took it on because it was a way of earning a good deal of money at a time when you needed it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. I don’t know why you should suddenly turn round and refuse what you’ve earned.’
‘Well, there’s no need to have an undignified argument,’ Patricia pointed out crisply. ‘Maybe we’d better both think it over.’
‘I think perhaps you had,’ he agreed, with characteristic obstinacy.
She was about to challenge that, when he added: ‘Oh, by the way. Mother wanted to see you.’
Glad of the opportunity to escape from this discussion, which seemed so unfortunately like developing into a quarrel, Patricia went at once. But she found she had not shaken him off that way. He came with her. Mrs. Harnby looked undeniably tired after her exciting day, but she smiled brilliantly at Patricia.
‘Well, my dear, Michael knows as much as we do now, and I think we all agree there is some ground for congratulation.’
‘The congratulations go to you, Mother,’ Michael said with a smile, and Patricia
nodded her agreement to that.
Mrs. Harnby shrugged deprecatingly.
‘It ended very satisfactorily,’ she admitted. ‘But we’re going to miss you, Patricia dear. At least, I am. When are you going?’ She didn’t appear to have any illusions about Patricia lingering on.
‘There’s no need to rush her, Mother!’ Michael sounded annoyed. But Patricia said:
‘To-morrow, I expect—or the next day.’
‘I can’t see that there’s all that hurry,’ began Michael again.
‘But then you’re not a realist, like your mother,’ Patricia retorted, so sharply that Mrs. Harnby’s eyebrows went up.
‘Dear me, have you two quarrelled?’ she inquired with characteristic frankness.
‘It’s an altogether ridiculous point,’ Michael said, a little heatedly for him. ‘Patricia took on this business on—well, on a business basis. Now she refuses even to discuss—terms.’
‘Doesn’t want to accept money, you mean?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, of course she doesn’t. Don’t be absurd, Michael,’ his mother said with decision.
Michael looked so taken aback at his mother siding with Patricia that Patricia felt sorry for him.
‘But, Mother, you don’t understand!’
‘I understand perfectly well. The child has been thinking—quite correctly—that she has come to be regarded as a friend of the family. Of course she doesn’t want money for having helped you. It was most humiliating of you to offer.’
Michael flushed, and then actually whitened.
‘I didn’t mean to humiliate her. Patricia ‘—he turned to her with the eagerness of a little boy who has accidentally hurt someone—‘I didn’t mean it that way at all. You know, don’t you?’
‘Yes—of course.’ All her anger had gone too, and she took the hand he held out to her.
‘That’s better.’ Mrs. Harnby smiled. ‘Patricia is perfectly well able to look after herself, my dear. You mustn’t think she can’t manage very well without you.’
For once in his life, Michael glanced at his mother with anger and irritation. It was impossible, of course, for her to know the full circumstances of the case, but, even Patricia—anxious though she was not to be indebted to anyone—felt that Mrs. Harnby was dismissing her from the scene with rather unfeeling cheerfulness.
It hurt rather, because she had imagined she did mean almost as much as a daughter-in-law to Mrs. Harnby. But of course it was understandable. Michael was her real preoccupation. Now that Patricia no longer played a part in his life, she must not expect to receive quite the same attention.
She said good-night to Mrs. Harnby with quite as much affection as usual, and went out of the room.
She had reached no farther than the head of the stairs, however, before Michael came after her.
‘Patricia!’ There was something urgent in his tone, and she turned back at once.
‘Look here, my dear, don’t think I mean it in any patronising or—or humiliating way at all, but I can’t leave things as they are. Mother doesn’t understand. You see, I—I can’t help remembering—you told me just about how much you had. Darling, I’ve such heaps of the damned stuff.’ He caught her hands, and held them against him. ‘Why can’t I give you some?’
‘Oh, Michael, you’re so sweet.’ She laughed protestingly and not quite steadily. ‘But will you just let me have this little luxury?’
‘What luxury, child?’
‘To—to give you whatever help I did. Not to sell it.’
In the dim light of the upper landing, he suddenly drew her towards him.
‘Did you want that so much, my dear? To—give me something?’
‘Um—hm.’ She nodded, trying to look very unconcerned and unmoved. ‘It was always you who gave and gave and were so generous and imposed upon.’
‘Not by you,’ he said quickly. ‘You never imposed on me.’
‘Perhaps not. But I had to accept things and I—it’s natural to want to give sometimes, Michael.’
‘It’s not natural to want to give quite so lavishly. Only to the people one loves,’ he said quietly.
She stiffened, but she managed to laugh.
‘What about the fur coat and the wonderful ring you gave me? You had no excuse for those.’
‘I gave those to you, darling, because I loved you— because, even in those days, there was an unspeakable fascination in giving to you. I didn’t know quite why then, of course. It was too early. And the—the thrill and the romance were there. It was only when I found I wanted to murder Phil Magerton that I began to realise what had happened.’
‘Michael, do you mean—’
‘Listen, dear. I know it’s terribly soon after the fiasco with Phil—’
‘Not to speak of the fiasco with Pat,’ retorted Patricia, with sudden mischief.
‘You little devil!’ He turned her so that he could see her expression. Then he said slowly, ‘Oh lord! what a fool!’ and kissed her between each word. ‘Why, I thought—’
‘Yes, I know what you thought. You thought I was sick of men for the moment, and I thought you were sick of women. You told me you were!’
‘I did?’
‘Yes. At least, you said you were done with marriage.’
‘Oh! That was when I was afraid I was beginning to give myself away.’
‘My dear Michael, you were never in danger of giving yourself away. An oyster is communicative about its feelings, compared to you. No wonder I didn’t guess.’
‘Well, you didn’t give me much chance of guessing either.’
‘No?—No.’ Patricia sucked her underlip thoughtfully. ‘You know the one person who did guess. Your mother. That was why she was so casual to me just now. Because she knew you’d get all excited and protective at the thought of my being thrust out into a cold world.’
‘Do you think so?’ He smiled thoughtfully.
‘I’m sure of it. Let’s go and ask her.’
‘She should be asleep now.’
‘That doesn’t mean she will be.’ And with her hand still in Michael’s, Patricia went back quietly into Mrs. Harnby’s bedroom.
For a moment she thought Michael’s mother was asleep. At any rate her eyes were closed. Then she spoke, without opening her eyes.
‘What is it, my dear?’
‘I—we just thought you’d like to know—’
‘I do know, dear child. I do know. You don’t suppose I intended it to end any other way, do you?’
‘You mean you arranged it?’ Patricia whispered accusingly, as she bent over her.
Mrs. Harnby opened her bright, rather secretive grey eyes wide, so that they looked exceptionally innocent.
‘Arranged it? Oh, dear me, no. I didn’t arrange it. I merely saw to it that nothing else happened,’ she explained.
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