Across the Counter

by Mary Burchell

“But I thought we had decided.” Evidently he assumed that she had fallen in with his wishes. “We have to go on with our so-called engagement for the time being. When you return to London, we’ll let the whole thing quietly lapse.”

  She wondered how he thought this sort of engagement lapsed quietly—either at Kendales or at Bremmisons, where no doubt the news would spread like wildfire as soon as those incriminating photographs appeared upon the board.

  “Even if we do that—and I haven’t said I will,” she warned him, “we still have to think of the day-to-day complications. More specifically, we have to think of tomorrow’s complications.”

  “Will there be any tomorrow?” he inquired lazily. “It’s Sunday.”

  “And I’m due to go and spend the day with my family,” she informed him. “Am I to ignore the whole thing? No, I can’t do that, because they’ll see one of those horrible photographs in the newspaper. Then I’m bound to come before them as the happily engaged girl.”

  “I see.” He considered that thoughtfully. “Would you like me to come with you?”

  “Good heavens, no!” She spoke with candor.

  “It’s customary to introduce one’s fiancé to one’s family,” he said mildly. “That’s all I was thinking.”

  “No. I think you’d better be unavoidably detained elsewhere. My family knows me too well to be taken in by any sort of ... of special behavior we could put on.”

  “You mean we can’t yet make love convincingly before a critical audience,” he said more exactly. And again she saw that he found the situation quite unnecessarily amusing.

  “It’s not in very good taste to treat the whole thing as a joke,” she said angrily.

  “Nor would it be sensible to be over solemn about it,” he assured her.

  “I ... I haven’t been over solemn,” she protested, and her voice shook slightly.

  “No. You’ve been wonderful—and I’m eternally grateful to you,” he told her, not entirely lightly. “The only time you looked preternaturally serious was when Malcolm was talking to you. What on earth was he saying?”

  She resented the fact that he had observed her then, and she thought it impertinent of him to inquire about any conversation between her and Malcolm. So she coolly gave him the truth.

  “If you want to know, he was warning me against marrying you,” she said curtly.

  “A friendly act on the part of a future brother-in-law, I must say. Why did he warn you?”

  She was too tired and unhappy to invent any more tactful answers.

  “He said you were completely ruthless and just exploiting me in some way for your own ends. And I’m not at all sure he wasn’t right,” she added and leaned her aching head upon her hand.

  There was silence for a moment or two. Then he said, quietly and without any trace of amusement now. “What did you say in answer to that, Katherine?”

  “I didn’t deny it—if that’s what you’re hoping I did.” She spoke without looking up.

  “You mean you admitted you thought the man you’d just become engaged to was ruthless and trying to exploit you?”

  “At least I agreed you were ruthless.”

  “Then how did you justify the engagement—or didn’t you?”

  “If you want the whole silly conversation—I said that was partly what fascinated me,” she admitted crossly.

  There was another considerable silence after that. Then he said slowly, “So I fascinate you?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said I had to tell Malcolm that in order to give color to our ... my engagement.”

  “But it wasn’t true?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Look at me, Katherine,” he said peremptorily. And startled, she raised her head immediately and looked at him.

  He leaned toward her and although she knew perfectly well what he was going to do she did not move. Then he took her face between his hands: and kissed her deliberately on her lips.

  “Now,” he said softly, “are you still sure we don’t fascinate each other a little?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Rather slowly Katherine drew away from Paul Kendale, her eyes still on his face.

  “You have no right to kiss me like that,” she said a little huskily and without knowing it she passed the back of her hand across her lips, as though instinctively she sought to remove every trace of the disturbing incident.

  “As your fiancé—” he began lightly.

  “You’re not really my fiancé,” she reminded him quickly.

  “For a month—perhaps only three weeks,” he said, and he spoke half to himself, as though the reflection amused and yet faintly moved him. “Why don’t we play it really well for the short time the masquerade is required, Katherine?”

  “There’s no need to do it when we’re alone,” she protested.

  “Come—we can’t just switch it on and off to order,” he countered, and she saw that dangerous gleam of laughter in his eyes. “Every actor has to get into the part.”

  “Is that why you kissed me the ... the way you did?” She tried to sound composed, even a little scornful. “Because you were perfecting a role for future display?”

  He laughed outright at that.

  “Let’s not examine our motives too closely,” he said carelessly. “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. For good or ill, during the next three weeks you and I are engaged to each other. Let’s make a convincing and artistic thing of it. Which brings me to the fact that, after all, I think I should accompany you tomorrow when you go to see your family. It will look odd if I don’t.”

  “It will also look odd if we can’t play our parts well,” she retorted crisply. “And before an audience who knows me well—”

  “Before any audience we won’t do too badly, my exacting little fiancée,” he retorted with that smile that made her vaguely uneasy and yet unaccountably excited. “We proved that just now.”

  “You may have done it well—” she began angrily.

  “You didn’t do too badly, either,” he told her with a soft laugh. And taking her by the hands he drew her lightly to her feet, so that she was unexpectedly close against him.

  “Katherine—” he looked down at her, she thought in all seriousness now “—you’ve been an angel about this business, and backed me up as no one else has ever done in my life before. Complete it for me, my dear, and say that we’ll go through with it in style.”

  “Well—” she wished she could feel that she was acting coolly, on judgment rather than emotion “—if that’s what you really want—”

  “That’s what I really want,” he said, and he gently drew his finger down her cheek in a half-tender gesture oddly at variance with the ruthlessness of which she had accused him.

  “Very well, then.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and bending his head he kissed her.

  Whether this was a gesture of gratitude, or merely the first phase in the perfecting of their agreed roles, she was not quite sure. But she had committed herself. And something unfamiliarly like rashness prompted her just to relax and to let the future take care of itself.

  The rest of the evening was undeniably a success. In her new mood of almost carefree abandon she could allow herself to enjoy not only the dancing and the general atmosphere of festivity, but the fact that she was the center of a good deal of admiration and congratulation.

  It could not last, she told herself. The grave, almost anxious glance that Malcolm turned more than once in her direction reminded her of that. But for the moment she was just going to be like any other engaged girl, enjoying the first evening of excitement and romance.

  Geraldine—whose ease of manner embraced everything and everyone, even an unexpected future sister-in-law—made things simple for her. And even old Mr. Kendale, after several thoughtful and suspicious glances, agreed to be affable, perhaps on the principle that any girl who could persuade his son to matrimony was worth studying.

  He said to her—though on a n
ote of warning rather than cordiality, “You and I will have to get to know each other much better.”

  “Of course,” agreed Katherine with a smile and a conviction in her voice that surprised herself.

  Not once during the evening did she and Aileen Lester come face to face or exchange so much as a word. But Katherine noticed that Paul danced with her once and that neither of them appeared to be enjoying the experience much.

  When it was all over—and Geraldine had even kissed her good-night—Katherine was driven home by her supposed fiancé.

  They talked little on the way. There was remarkably little left to say by now. And in any case she felt suddenly worn out by the drama and excitement of the evening. Only when he drew up the car before the Fallodens’ house did he ask, “What time shall I fetch you in the morning?”

  “You’re still determined to come with me?”

  “My dear, I think it’s essential if we’re to keep up even a semblance of appearances. What would your parents think of a future son-in-law who didn’t even bother to come and see them at the first opportunity?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she agreed, trying not to show that the term “future son-in-law” gave her a fresh shock. “But it’s going to make it twice as difficult explaining to them later that there’s no engagement after all,” she added with a sigh.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he declared, a trifle too easily, she thought.

  But she said, “Very well. Is eleven all right for you?”

  “I’ll be here at eleven,” he promised.

  Then she bade him good-night quickly in case he should have any ideas of “getting into the part” to the extent of kissing her good-night. And she ran up the short path and let herself quietly into the house without so much as a backward glance.

  Mrs. Falloden was evidently not the trying kind of parent who insisted on staying awake until her child came in. So that, although there was a light burning in the small hall, there was no sound of anyone stirring. Jane was not yet home, and for a few minutes Katherine was alone with her thoughts and her problem.

  She went slowly over and looked at herself in the mirror above the mantelpiece in the dining room.

  “I look just the same,” she said aloud. And then she gave a slight laugh at her own absurdity and pushed back the soft, chestnut-colored hair from her forehead with a half-wondering little gesture.

  She had left this small house as the girl Malcolm did not want to marry, after all. She had come back as the fiancée of Paul Kendale—assistant managing director, one of the ruthless Kendales—however one liked to put it. But she looked the same girl with the wide hazel eyes and the soft red mouth.

  I’m the same, she thought. But life will never be quite the same again. Even when it’s all over, and Paul Kendale is nothing in my life anymore. I’ll remember tonight—and the way he kissed me.

  She had not really meant to add that last bit and was even surprised to find she had done so. But before she could examine her thoughts further there was the sound of another car drawing up outside the house, and a few moments later Jane came in.

  “Phew!” She dropped into a chair, kicked off her shoes and grinned at Katherine. “What an evening! I’m nearly dead with excitement and emotion myself. I don’t know what you must feel like—or how you still manage to look so cool.”

  Katherine smiled and, rather wearily if the truth be told, resumed the role of a happy engaged girl.

  “I’m pretty well dead with excitement, too,” she declared, and perhaps that was not far from the fact.

  “I should think so! What does it feel like to fall head over heels in love?”

  “To fall...?”

  “Well, I suppose that’s what you’ve done.” Jane laughed. “You aren’t the kind to marry for money. I do know that much about you, even in a few days. And all this has happened in such a rush that I can’t see any other explanation.”

  “No. There is no other explanation, I suppose.” Katherine smiled slowly and knew—with something between artistic satisfaction and self-disgust over the deception—that she was doing extraordinarily well. “It feels a bit like any other shock, I suppose. At the moment I’m just in a sort of daze.”

  “But a very happy daze, I trust?” Jane insisted.

  “Yes, of course. But I’ll believe in it all rather more thoroughly when I’ve told my family tomorrow. Or rather—” she glanced at the clock “—later today.”

  “You’re going to spend the day with them?”

  “Yes. And Paul is coming, too.” She steeled herself to say his name quite casually, but she had a queer feeling that it was something of an imposition.

  Perhaps Jane had something of the same feeling, because she said curiously, “Doesn’t it feel odd to call him that when only twenty-four hours ago he was the rather remote boss? Or perhaps he wasn’t quite so remote to you?”

  “He was, you know. At least, he seemed so.” Katherine laughed reflectively. “That’s partly why I feel as though I don’t quite know what’s hit me.”

  “I expect that’s how Aileen Lester’s feeling—only in less enjoyable form,” observed Jane. And then, “Oh, I’m sorry. That wasn’t very tactful, was it?”

  “It doesn’t matter. In a way I’m sorry for her.”

  “You don’t need to be,” declared Jane callously. “I think you’ve saved Paul Kendale from a fate worse than death.”

  “You think she was so determined to have him?” Katherine could not help asking that, curiously.

  “Like hell,” declared Jane cheerfully. “And she carried some pretty heavy guns.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, the friendship between the two families, you know, and the fact that she’s thick with Geraldine Kendale. And then—”

  Jane hesitated so long that Katherine asked, “What else?” rather sharply.

  “It’s only a rumor, of course. But it’s a persistent one in the town,” Jane said slowly. “They say old Lester—Aileen’s father, you know—lent a great deal of money to his friend Mr. Kendale at a time when things were very dim for him. It put him in quite a different position when it came to discussing terms with the London people who bought up the store. Without it, I imagine the Kendales couldn’t really have retained much footing in the business.”

  “And do you think that’s true?” Katherine felt dismayed. Unaccountably so, since none of this really concerned her.

  “That’s the story, anyway. I don’t think it can be quite without foundation.”

  “Then ... the Kendale family is under a very heavy obligation to Aileen Lester’s father?”

  “It looks like it. And that would certainly explain the way Aileen throws her weight around.”

  It would also, Katherine could not help thinking, explain the lengths to which Mr. Kendale had been prepared to go in order to force an engagement between his son and the daughter of his old friend.

  “Still, I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you,” declared Jane, who was not the worrying kind. “Those two old men are much too tough to mix business greatly with personal affairs.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Katherine.

  Then at last the girls bade each other good-night and went to their respective rooms.

  In spite of all the emotion and excitement, Katherine slept soon and well, and she woke for the first time to something other than the leaden realization that she was not, after all, engaged to Malcolm. She woke to the disturbing but oddly exhilarating fact that she was engaged to Paul.

  She lay there for a minute or two, divided between panic at the thought that she was going to present him to her observant family as her fiancé, and pleasure at the realization that she had something other than a longing for Malcolm to fill her mind and heart.

  The whole thing is completely mad, of course, she told herself. But better that than melancholy inaction.

  And on that thought she rose and dressed in the most becoming outfit she possessed.
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br />   Over a late and leisurely breakfast, she and Jane told Mrs. Falloden all about the ball and, inevitably, about Katherine’s engagement. But before there could be much discussion or comment, Paul Kendale arrived and whisked Katherine away—still wondering a trifle uneasily why her hostess had looked unusually thoughtful over the news.

  It was a cool, bright autumn day, and as they drove along Katherine found herself surprisingly at ease. Perhaps it was the result of trying to “get into the part.” But whatever the reason, she found herself chatting away quite naturally to Paul Kendale and presently she asked, as though she really had the right to know, “What did your family have to say about our engagement once you were alone together?”

  “They don’t know quite what to make of it.”

  “They may be excused for that.” Katherine spoke with a touch of irony. “But are they angry—dismayed? Were they just putting a good face on things in public when they appeared to accept me—or what? ”

  “I suppose their reactions are mixed, Katherine,” he said frankly. “My father has been badgering me to marry for so long now that he can scarcely complain over my sudden decision. On the other hand, it’s no secret to any of us that you were not the girl of his choice.”

  “N-no. And how about Geraldine?”

  “Geraldine would also have backed another starter in my matrimonial stakes.” He spoke with rather callous lightness, she thought. “But she and I have shared enough family difficulties together for us both to feel strongly that we’re entitled to make our own decisions if we can.”

  “Then there will be no active opposition?”