Now, in her thoughts of him, as they moved together like one person, there was a streak of passionate tenderness. It seemed a strange emotion to cherish towards this virile man, blessed with good looks, an ample income and, apparently, a host of friends. But she was recalling that odd contradiction in his character—that baffling alternation between sweetness and harshness and was seeing him, in a moment of revelation, as a small, bewildered, sulky boy, helpless under the blow which fate had dealt him, and meeting it with a defiance born of fear and misery.
“What are you thinking of?” he asked presently, with a suddenness that startled her.
“I was wishing I had known you as a small boy,” she answered candidly. “I might have been able to help you.”
He smiled down at her. “You would have been—let me see—three years old! A bit young to offer the good advice I undoubtedly needed—or the mothering.”
She too smiled. “I was thinking of myself at my present age.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t do. If you had been twenty-eight when I was seven, you would be—oh, dear, my arithmetic’s giving out with all these calculations—forty-six. I would much rather you were twenty-eight, Miss Cat.”
She longed to ask demurely, “Why?” but her courage deserted her, and instead she observed mildly: “That’s a ridiculous name. I don’t know why I put up with it.”
“It’s the ‘Miss’ that makes it absurd,” he told her. “Can I call you just “Cat.”
“No one has ever called me that,” she said; “At home I’m ‘Kit’ as often as not.”
“That cuts no ice with me,” he assured her. “I like using special names for—for special people.” The lights went down just then, and in the dimness she felt, or thought she felt, his lips touch her hair. Had he really kissed her? Could it be true? She dared not lift her eyes to look at him, and the next instant, as the lights went up, the spell was broken, for he exclaimed, with a complete change of tone: “Why, there’s Beryl walking in with the Burlens. She must be staying with them. Alldyke is with them too. I had no idea they were coming.”
As can well be imagined, Catherine’s heart sank, as her glance went to the group at the door. Beryl, she knew, would not, without a struggle, allow any other girl to monopolize Andrew, whether she had a right to his company or not. She thought wretchedly: “Our two parties will get mixed up. Instead of being left in peace with Andrew I shall be landed with that tiresome Roland.”
And all too soon these gloomy prognostications proved correct.
Beryl, floating by in Will Burlen’s arms—a striking figure in a period dress of crimson brocade—called out with slightly exaggerated vivacity: “Hello, Andy! How marvellous that you’re here. Shall we join forces? Eight is far more fun than four.”
“Let’s talk about that at supper,” was Andrew’s swift response. “The waiters here all know us. They’re sure to put us together.”
Beryl pouted—not too prettily, Catherine thought.
“Supper’s hours off,” she declared. “However, daddy knows best. See you later, Sobersides.”
Andrew laughed, and Catherine thought with a pang: “That kiss—if you could call it a kiss—meant absolutely nothing. Beryl’s on far more familiar terms with him than I shall ever be. It’s staying in the house with him that does it—going about with him over the farm, meeting at meals, playing cards, or dancing to the gramophone with him, in the evening.”
And then, her heart sinking, she told herself that Beryl’s opportunities for meeting Andrew—always looking at her best—did not make up the whole story. From every point of view, the dice were loaded in her favor. How could a mousy-brunette with very ordinary gray eyes hold her own with a striking brunette whose white skin was as dazzling in its own way as her jet-black hair and dark, sidelong glance? How could shyness compete with gay self-confidence?
Supper came all too soon for her, although she had eaten nothing since her picnic tea with the children. Whether as a result of the waiter’s acumen, or Beryl’s contriving, the two parties of four were accommodated at one oval table. And though Andrew was studiously careful to keep Catherine in the place of honor at his right, to which, as his guest, she was entitled, Beryl, seating herself at his left, did her very best to draw all his attention to herself.
Will Burlen, who was seated on Catherine’s right, was an amiable man, but when he found that Catherine—as he might surely have anticipated from their first encounter, months ago, in the Playdle’s drawing room—neither hunted, fished or shot, conversation showed a tendency to languish.
“But how could you expect that I should go in for sport?” Catherine protested, when he remarked helplessly that he could not imagine what she did in her spare time. “Women who take up work in connection with homeless children aren’t likely to keep hunters, or an array of fishing rods.”
“Heavens, you’re not that girl!” His red, rather vacuous face wore an air of astonishment.
“Why, do I look different?” she countered.
“Quite,” he returned candidly. “I dare say it’s evening dress, and all that, but you seem years younger and livelier than you did then.”
“No; it’s not her clothes!” Evidently Andrew had been listening to the conversation. “I’ve noticed it myself just lately, and it’s been nothing to do with the clothes she’s been wearing.”
His tone was impish, and Beryl, looking rather annoyed, demanded impatiently, “Noticed what?”
“Only that Catherine looks younger and prettier every day,” he responded with a serene smile.
“Well, I suppose it’s rather a vegetable existence this foster-mother business.” Beryl, bending forward, managed to meet Catherine’s eyes. “Plain fare, no alcohol, lots of early nights—it mayn’t be much fun, but it probably keeps the wrinkles at bay. Not that I could stand it, myself. I’d rather have a bit of life and a few lines!”
Her tone, so much more offensive than her actual words, made Catherine’s color rise. But a champion was at hand. Roland leant across the table to Beryl, and observed sweetly: “And wouldn’t you take pains to cover those lines up, my angel? I can just imagine your dressing-table crowded to the last available inch with jars of this and bottles of that.”
General laughter, in which Beryl was forced to join, greeted this remark, and the conversation turned to other channels. But the girl was clearly angry, and after supper she attempted a characteristic revenge.
Catherine, sitting out in an alcove with Andrew, smoking and chatting light-heartedly, suddenly became aware of Beryl, seated quite near, though out of sight, with the rest of her little party, and the next instant heard her say contemptuously: “My dear Will, she’s just one of the Playdle’s lame ducks. You know how they collect them. Why she isn’t even in her own dress. That one she’s wearing is Cecily’s—and brand new at that. I helped Cecily choose it the last time we were together in London.” And then, while Catherine burned with mortification, she added with a faint laugh: “I’m afraid I’m not a saint like Cecily. Such generosity is quite beyond poor little me!”
“I’m sure it is, darling.” To Catherine’s horror, far from ignoring Beryl’s spiteful remarks, Andrew butted vigorously into the conversation. “Praiseworthy economy is much more in your line.”
“Too true—and not always so praiseworthy, either,” Roland interrupted, in tones of bubbling amusement very different from Andrew’s sarcasm. “I should call it distinctly dangerous, at times—when it comes, for instance, to skirmishing with the railway companies.”
From scarlet, Catherine went pale. What wouldn’t Roland say to raise a laugh?”
But this time, it seemed, he had gone too far. For the hilarity which followed was hushed into a sudden horrified silence as Beryl jumped to her feet and swept past in the direction of the cloak room, her face white, her eyes blazing—the very personification of fury.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“If only you and Roland had left things alone!” The hot tears were stinging Catherine’s
eyes. “Miss Osworth will think now that I deliberately gave her away, to both of you, over that silly business of travelling first on a third-class’ ticket. I shall have made another enemy.”
“Another!” Oblivious, apparently, of Beryl’s theatrical gesture, Andrew looked at her with placid amusement. “I suppose that rather grim young lady, Miss Dewney, has also been showing temper: she was anything but amiable, I gather, when Cecily rang up. Still, I don’t see why you should upset yourself over these feminine antics. Isn’t it supposed to be a bit of a triumph to make all the other girls jealous?”
“I suppose you’re being sarcastic,” In her humiliation and distress Catherine’s old sense of inferiority swept back like a flood. And then, before he could speak again, she went on swiftly, aware of a blunder: “In any case, I was talking nonsense. I haven’t any enemies. Forget I said that, please.”
“That’s better. You don’t want to get your rag out so easily.” His voice was gentler now, though it still held a note of amusement. “Beryl’s sore at the moment because she’s had a very severe and public snub. But she will have got over it before the evening’s out. She’ll find some foolish male to comfort and flatter her, you may be sure. When she takes the trouble she can be pretty well irresistible.”
If Catherine was supposed to glean consolation from this remark, she failed signally to do so. She was painfully aware that while she was booked to have the next dance with Cecily’s navy friend, Nick, Andrew was partnering Beryl. True, he would be back, dancing with her, directly afterwards; but the thought of Beryl, pulling out the soft stop, and gazing appealingly at him with those great brown eyes of hers, drowned, perhaps, in tears, was infinitely disturbing. If, as Andrew declared, she could be irresistible when she chose, why should he be proof against her charms?
Nick, when he came to claim her, made her forget her secret fears. A typical naval officer, he set himself out to please and entertain her, steering her expertly through a quickstep and, when they sat out in the interval, amusing her with cheerful chat.
The moment the band struck up a new number, however, he was up on his feet, and glancing with barely suppressed eagerness about the room.
“Cecily’s over there,” Catherine told him quickly, sympathetically anxious to put him out of his suspense. “Don’t you bother about me. I’m having the next two dances with Andrew. He’ll be along in a minute.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” he asked uncertainly.
“Certain sure!” She was almost laughing now at his painful hovering between politeness and love. “Please go.”
He, too, laughed then. “You’re a sport,” he said, and was gone.
But to Catherine’s surprise and gradual vexation, Andrew did not appear. No glimpse of him did she catch, and presently, unable to bear the position of wallflower any longer, she got up and made her way to the cloakroom.
Mrs. Burlen was there, a good-natured, rather strident young woman, ideally suited, Catherine had already decided, to her rather vacuous, “huntin’-and-fishin” husband.
“Hello?” she exclaimed heartily. “I suppose you’ve come like the rest of ‘em, to collect a coat! Sitting in a car without one is idiotic, this weather. I’ve just taken Beryl hers. She didn’t like being interrupted in a soulful conversation with her darling Andy, of course; but I said to her: ‘It’s all very well, my girl. You happen to be staying with me, and I’m not having a tiresome invalid on my hands—not if I know it’.” She gave a fat chuckle. “Don’t you think I was right!” And with a nod and a cheerful smile, she hurried out, leaving Catherine to digest, as best she could, the piece of unpalatable information she had unwittingly handed her.
Mechanically Catherine flicked a powder-puff over her face which, she noticed in a detached sort of way, had gone very white. What ought she to do now, she wondered? Wait until the end of this dance, she supposed, and then return to the ballroom. If Andrew was still missing, she would probably be able to find Cecily, and explain to her what had happened. But the odds were that Andrew would be searching for her by now, all apologies for not noticing how the time had slipped away.
Trying hard to conquer her shyness, she made her way back to the dance room. But not only was there no sign of Andrew; Cecily and Nick were not to be seen, either, nor even the Burlens. For a few minutes she hovered at the doorway there, striving desperately to look unconcerned, then turned back to seek once more the blessed refuge of the cloakroom.
In the foyer, however, she ran into Roland, and for the first time in their acquaintance greeted him with undisguised enthusiasm. Here, at last was a familiar face in this crowd of strangers.
“Hello!” he observed, with extreme cheerfulness. “Aren’t you dancing this waltz?”
She colored slightly. “No,” she returned shortly; and then, since he appeared to be looking at her in rather a queer way, she went on in a rush: “I was supposed to be having this dance, and the one before, with Andrew. He just hasn’t turned up.”
His expression changed. “I should give him a good ticking-off when he does deign to appear,” he exclaimed. “He’s sitting out in his car with Beryl, having a good old spoon—or was, until a few moments ago. Shall I go and dig him out?”
Her color deepened. “No, thanks,” she returned stiffly.
“It would only be common justice if I did butt in on them,” he assured her. “Beryl should have been dancing with me all this time. Still,” he added genially, “I’d much rather have you for my partner. What about giving them both the go-by, and sticking together for the rest of the evening?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to dance any more,” she said flatly. “I’m—I’m rather tired, as a matter of fact.” And then she added, far more tremulously than she realized: “I suppose you wouldn’t run me home—and make my apologies to Cecily afterwards? I can’t see her anywhere, either.”
“Of course I’ll take you, if you really want to go.” There was no vestige of hesitation in his manner. “Run and get your wrap, and I’ll bring the car round. I shan’t be a minute.”
It was a relief to be sitting in his car, speeding along in the moonlight in the direction of Little Garsford: that last quarter of an hour had been sheer misery, and she only wished she could have put fifty miles, instead of five, between herself and the scene of her humiliation.
Mercifully Roland did not seem to wish to talk: she could give herself up to her own thoughts—gloomy as they might be. But after a few minutes she was roused abruptly’ from her unhappy reflections. The car gradually slowed down to a standstill, and looking out of the window she saw that Roland had steered it off the main road into a little lane.
“This isn’t the way home,” she exclaimed, startled. “And what are you stopping for?”
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Just for a cigarette—and perhaps a word or two. That, at the moment, is the extent of my hopes.”
“But I don’t want to stay talking,” she said, thoroughly on edge. “I told you before that I’m dead tired: that’s why I asked you to drive me home.”
“They work you too hard at that place, Catherine.” He spoke indulgently, as though to a child. “I bet you’re on the go from morning to night. Surely you could find a job less: exacting, and more glamorous, than slaving away for a lot of grubby little orphans.”
“Some of them may be orphans—but they’re as clean and well-mannered a set of children as you could wish to meet.” Her irritation had deepened into positive anger. “It’s hateful of you to speak of them in that way.”
“Clean or not, you’re wasted on them.” He was trying vainly to make his cigarette lighter work. “Don’t misunderstand me if I say you’ve the makings of a very attractive young woman, my dear. You notice I say ‘woman’, not ‘girl’.”
“Naturally—considering I’m twenty-eight. But for goodness’ sake get moving.”
He got the lighter going at last, and in the sudden little spurt of flame she saw that he was looking remarkably
pleased with himself. “Oh, it’s not just that,” he observed, ignoring her second sentence, and concentrating on her first. “You are the sort that matures well—like good wine, or certain types of dessert apple. A trifle crude, perhaps, in the early twenties; but from now on, right into the forties—delightful.”
“I didn’t know you set yourself up as a connoisseur of women,” she told him sarcastically.
“Didn’t’ you?” His tone was blandly surprised. “I do, I assure you. And why not? Burlen may choose to devote himself to his hunters, and Andrew to his prize pigs. I, being a civilized person, prefer to direct my attention to women. They form a most interesting study.”
“Well, we can’t sit here any longer studying me,” Catherine declared, growing every moment more incensed, “If you won’t start the car up, I shall get out and walk.”
“There wouldn’t be much of those pretty shoes left, if you did,” was his quick retort; and remembering suddenly that they, no less than the dress she was wearing, belonged to Cecily, she bit her lip, flushing.
“I think you’re insufferable,” she began; “if I had realized—”
“If you had realized how much I wanted to kiss you, there would have been no question of your asking me for a lift,” he interrupted teasingly. “Be a sport, Catherine. You’ve used my car twice as a taxi without paying any fare.” And he slid his arm expertly round her waist.
The speed with which she wrenched herself free startled him, for the first time, from his smiling complacency.
“Heavens!” he exclaimed. “Talk about agility!” And then, observing that she was trying to get the door open, he gave an impatient laugh, “Don’t be absurd. I’m not going to force my kisses on you, if you don t want them. Close the door again—it needs a good bang—and sit tight. I’ll have you home in a few minutes—if my company is so repulsive to you.”
I'll Never Marry! Page 11