Mine for a Day

by Mary Burchell

  “What!”

  “I’m sorry.” There was no reason to preserve appearances simply for the sake of Dr. Brogner. “The fact is that Aunt Hester rang up and—and the situation fell to pieces.”

  “Oh—” Simon looked completely nonplussed, while Dr. Brogner glanced from one to the other, with an expression which showed that he had what his brother so sadly lacked—a keen sense of humour.

  “Perhaps we should be going now,” suggested Mr. Brogner pointedly.

  “If I can’t be of any further use.” The doctor looked quizzically from Simon to Leila once more.

  “Thank you—I don’t think there’s anything else for you to tackle.” Simon made an obvious effort to conceal the fact that he wanted to be alone with Leila and hear all the unfortunate details.

  “Will you—explain to the doctor, please, Mr. Brogner,” Leila said. “There’s no point in his not knowing now.”

  Mr. Brogner inclined his head solemnly, but she felt that he was mentally counting up the number of people who now knew about the whole horrid affair. And when he added: “I will write to you from the office,” she felt she could almost see the opening sentence: “After full consideration of the unfortunate position, I very much regret, etc.”

  The moment the door had closed on them, Simon turned to her and exclaimed:

  “Good lord! What really happened?”

  “Everything.” Leila laughed a little shakily, and sat down on a hall seat, while Simon stood over her with an air of anxious sympathy which comforted her much for the last half-hour. “Aunt Hester telephoned, just as I was managing not too badly with Mr. Brogner and Frances brought me the message.”

  “But how did she know it was you? She thought you were Rosemary.”

  “Yes, but—don’t you see?—Aunt Hester asked for Miss Lorne, and of course Frances thought she was enquiring for her daughter, forgetting to use her new, married name. I couldn’t just say flatly that I wasn’t the daughter, after all. I had to take the call, and Frances and Mr. Brogner were hovering a bit aimlessly in the background and heard everything. Naturally Aunt Hester knew my voice as soon as I replied—”

  “But how had she known you were here—suspected you were here, I mean? What first made her telephone?”

  “Oh—Miss Parker told her about seeing us.”

  “Miss Parker?” It was Simon’s turn to pass a bewildered hand over his hair.

  Leila explained carefully about Miss Parker having seen them at the Junction. And Simon made a slight grimace and said:

  “This is where you’re entitled to say ‘I told you so.’ Because you did suggest that it was unwise to meet so near home.”

  “Did I? Never mind. It was bad luck. You might just as well have been right.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, and she was so busy about another line of thought that she missed the curious, approving glance he gave her.

  “Simon, I had no idea that Frances would react in that extraordinary way.”

  “Oh—that!” He shrugged impatiently. “She’s a completely unpredictable person. That’s why I wouldn’t agree to our telling her in the beginning. It’s a sort of exhibitionism with her, you know.”

  “Well, if she’s working herself up into reproachful hysterics, perhaps we had better go and talk to her,” Leila said with a sigh. “She doesn’t look that sort at all.”

  He laughed ruefully.

  “She has always been the same. Emotional and inclined to take everything in a ridiculously personal manner. I’m not as patient and careful with her as I might be, I know,” he added, with almost boyish frankness and regret. “But she makes me crawl with embarrassment and irritation when she throws one of these scenes.”

  Leila glanced at him not without sympathy, but she said, in a brisk and matter-of-fact tone:

  “One can’t afford to feel that way about one’s own. You’d better call on all your reserves of sympathy right now.”

  “All right,” he replied, with unexpected docility, and they went in search of Frances.

  They found her standing near the window in the back drawingroom, staring out tragically into the garden, and pulling nervously at the comer of the handkerchief she was holding.

  “There is no need for you to upset yourself like this, Frances,” her brother began, in a tone from which he had managed to banish all impatience, but most other feeling, too. “Leila and I were thinking only of Mother’s good, and I know that’s your chief concern, too.”

  “I would have died rather than deceive Mother,” replied Frances, in a tone of dark reproach.

  “But it is more helpful to ensure that she lives, at the expense of a little deception,” replied her brother dryly. “Don’t be silly, Frances. This isn’t an occasion for heroics.”

  “It’s not a question of heroics.” Frances’s breathing began to quicken dangerously. “That girl—”

  “Be quiet! I won’t have you speak so of Leila.”

  Leila herself was astonished at the tone of authority in which he said that, and Frances dropped her sullen gaze. But she continued—though in a lowered voice:

  “It was her idea. She says it was. Men are so silly. They never see when a girl wants to entangle them. She’s in love with you herself. Anyone can see it, the way she looks at you. She and her cousin seem to be a precious pair, and they’ve made a fool of you between them.”

  “Why, she’s jealous,” thought Leila wonderingly. “He says they don’t get on well together—but she is jealous of anyone who does get on with him.”

  Simon, however, was not noticing that just then.

  “That will do,” he said quietly to his sister, but the quietness of his tone did not hide his anger. “I have reason to be very grateful to Leila for all her help in this unfortunate business, and I won’t have her behaviour called in question. As for your ridiculous invention about her—her being in love with me—” He stopped for a moment, as though something had just occurred to him, and Leila felt her heart stop, too. Then he went on almost immediately, addressing himself to Leila: “I’m sorry you should be embarrassed and annoyed by such nonsense.”

  “I’m not embarrassed,” Leila managed to say rather faintly. And he turned again to his sister.

  “The really important thing is to have your assurance that you will help us to keep Mother in ignorance for the time being.”

  Frances was silent.

  “Frances,” he exclaimed exasperatedly, “can’t you see how important it is? Forget about yourself for once. You’re as anxious as I am that Mother should have the best possible chance. For God’s sake, help us to see that she has it.”

  Frances shot an extraordinarily unfriendly glance at Leila. Then she shrugged and said:

  “Well, since you’ve started this disgraceful business, I suppose the only thing is to keep it up.”

  Leila, for her part, was reluctantly realizing what a singularly unpleasant few days lay before her. Frances set the note for them immediately by enquiring, with malice:

  “Do you want any alterations made in the matter of rooms—now?”

  The pause before the “now” was so significant that Leila felt she was only beating the air when she replied firmly:

  “Yes, please. Of course we were going to get you to do that, anyway.”

  Frances laughed. It was quite a soft laugh, but it expressed such an amount of contemptuous incredulity that Leila felt her colour rise, and Simon said sharply:

  “I think we’ll cut out innuendoes for the weekend, Frances. If you haven’t learned to know me better than that—”

  “It wasn’t about you that I was thinking,” replied his sister, and went out of the room.

  He came across to Leila at once.

  “My dear, I’m more sorry than I can say—”

  “Oh, please don’t!”

  She was not quite sure why she pushed away the arm he would have put round her. In a way, she would have been so glad of this sign of his concern for her. But perhaps her instinct tol
d her that any show of affection, or even anxiety, would be unwise in the next few days. Anyway, she did put his arm away—and then felt remorseful because he looked so extremely rebuffed.

  “Now I’m sorry, Simon.” She laughed uncertainly. “Please don’t pay any attention to me. I’m getting nervy and silly.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not. It’s been a pretty trying day for you, and any girl would be feeling sore with everyone by now. I do apologize for Frances—”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “But I’ve never known even her take up quite such an extraordinary attitude.”

  “Well, she’s jealous, of course,” Leila said.

  “Jealous?” Simon looked utterly astonished. “But why ever should she be?” he wanted to know. And Leila thought: “How stupid even the nicest men can be!”

  “Well, in spite of our protestations, she thinks that I—that—I mean a lot to you. She doesn’t imagine you would enter into a conspiracy like this with me unless I did. She’s very fond of you, in her way.

  “I assure you, you’re mistaken.” He smiled slightly. “As I’ve told you—we don’t really get on at all well together.”

  “Yes. And you can tell me the same thing a dozen times over, and it can be true every time, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t still fond of you in her way,” Leila retorted.

  “Sure?” He looked doubtful.

  “Quite sure. She probably feels angry and possessive about you, and bitterly resents any other influence on you. I imagine there’s a good deal of difference in your ages, and you’ve probably been the wonderful elder brother to her at some time in her life. I’m really rather sorry for her, now I come to think of it,” Leila added, without rancour. “Or I should be if she wouldn’t be quite so trying at the moment.”

  He laughed incredulously.

  “You extraordinary girl. Why should you be sorry for her?”

  “Because I know myself that it isn’t easy to love someone, without owning it, and have to watch another girl—”

  She broke off suddenly, astonished and dismayed that she could have been trapped into saying so much to him. So she added quickly:

  “But that’s neither here nor there. Anyone knows that a jealous girl—even a jealous sister—can suffer a good deal. You had better accept the fact in future, Simon, that you can hurt Frances rather easily, and take some pains not to do so.”

  He smiled sceptically.

  “Well, I don’t know that I accept your theory, though I admit it explains a certain number of things.” She saw, from his reflective air, that he was reaching back into the family past, and recalling some events which surprised, and faintly disturbed, him. “But, if Frances is—jealous, as you say, of anyone who means a lot to me, why did she accept you in such a friendly manner when she thought you were Rosemary, and reject you so angrily and unreasonably when she found you were yourself?”

  Leila frowned consideringly.

  “I know. I wondered about that, too. But I suppose she knew it was no good fighting against the girl you—she thought you—had actually married. Any jealousy she had regarding Rosemary was over and done with. She probably experienced that when you—when you first became engaged.” She glanced at him a little anxiously, to see if it were painful to him to discuss these early stages with Rosemary. But his dark, thoughtful face gave no hint that he was disliking this discussion.

  “Yes. Probably you’re right.” He seemed less inclined to reject her original theory now. “And, having once accepted the inevitable, she was determined to make the best of it by being on specially good terms with my—with my wife, you mean?”

  “I imagine so. It’s all rather childish, really, of course.” Leila smiled slightly. “But then jealousy is childish. That’s what makes it so difficult to deal with.”

  Again that look of reflective interest was turned upon her. “You’re an amazingly acute and understanding person, Leila,” he said. “But then, I suppose if one has—suffered a good deal oneself—”

  “What makes you think I have suffered?” she challenged him quickly, and a trifle defensively.

  “I’m sorry—I wasn’t ‘fishing,’ ” he assured her earnestly. “I thought you said something just now about personally appreciating how much Frances might be hurt, and I assumed that you were recalling some specific occasion when you, too, had been very unhappy.”

  “Oh—that.” She smiled rather nervously. “Forget about that.”

  “Very well,” he said gravely, apparently taking her injunction quite literally. “Only I hope we, as a family, are not going to cause you any more unhappiness.”

  “No—of course not,” she assured him hastily.

  “Which reminds me—how did your employer take all this?”

  “Mr. Brogner? Oh, he—thinks I have shown a lack of discretion, to put it mildly. He didn’t exactly approve,” she admitted.

  “I hope you told him that I badgered you into doing it.”

  “But you didn’t, you know.” She looked amused. “The idea was mine.”

  He looked astonished.

  “That’s just Frances’s nonsense—”

  “Oh, no. Though I agree that she embroidered the actual fact with some nonsense,” Leila said steadily. “But the original idea was mine. I made the suggestion when—when we were together in the garden, yesterday morning.”

  “Yesterday morning,” he repeated incredulously. “Great heavens! Is it less than forty-eight hours since”—there was a long pause, then he completed the sentence rather bleakly—“since I learned about Rosemary?”

  Leila felt her mouth go dry. In the press of later events, and particularly in the strange, half-sweet pleasure of sharing a tense emotional situation with Simon, she had almost forgotten the tragedy which had precipitated this situation. For him, the overwhelming, shattering event was Rosemary’s desertion.

  He stood there for a moment, his hands thrust into his pockets, his frown of sombre concentration showing how far away his thoughts were.

  Then he seemed to make an effort, for he raised his head suddenly and said:

  “But—about Mr. Brogner. What did he decide?”

  “Decide?” She had not expected to be switched back on to the subject of Mr. Brogner quite so abruptly.

  “Yes. He didn’t do the heavy employer, and threaten you with dismissal, or anything like that, did he? Because, naturally, I feel responsible for you, Leila. Even if, as you maintain, the idea was originally yours, I was the one who insisted on having it put into practice. And entirely for my own—or, rather, my family’s—advantage. In a way, one might say we are nothing to you. I couldn’t possibly have you—lose your job, or anything like that, just because you happened to be Rosemary’s cousin and, being on the spot, were dragged into our affairs.”

  “It’s very kind of you to bother.” She heard her own, voice, cold and remote, just as his had grown impersonal and faintly abstracted. She was no longer his valued ally—a person in her own right. That one reference to Rosemary had put everything into focus for him once more.

  “My dear girl, it isn’t a question of bothering, and kindness doesn’t enter into it. It’s a plain case of fulfilling one’s obligations decently.”

  She knew he was probably trying to reassure her about any claim she might have on him. But his wording hurt more than she could have believed possible. Pain and resentment chilled her voice to the tone of a stranger.

  “You haven’t any obligations towards me, where Mr. Brogner is concerned,” she assured him categorically, for she felt in that moment that she would beg in the street rather than accept—much less invite—help from Simon. “He may fuss and criticize and even disapprove, but he wouldn’t dream of dismissing me for something I did outside the office.”

  “That’s all right, then. And if you have any trouble with him—in the way of unjust criticism, I mean—you must let me know.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Leila said, in her new-found, chilly self-confidence. “I c
an manage Mr. Brogner.”

  Which was a lie, of course. And moreover a lie which would have annoyed Mr. Brogner greatly.

  By the time she retired to her bedroom that night—a bedroom from which Frances had ostentatiously removed all sign of Simon’s existence—she already felt like counting the hours until her release.

  Dinner had been a trying affair, with Frances studiedly ignoring her, and Simon—after an initial attempt to put things on a sociable basis—refusing to woo Frances into a better mood. And, because the whole atmosphere was so artificial and embarrassing, she had felt the gap between herself and Simon widening even further.

  His gratitude to her and his conscientious concern for her were no doubt as great as ever. But what girl in love wanted gratitude or conscientious concern from a man?

  Sitting on the side of the bed, with her head in her hands, she tried to tell herself that she had known all along there could be no warmer feeling for her. Only, illogically, her heart kept pleading that for a short while his manner had been different. She didn’t know why it had been—or why it had changed again. She only knew that there had been moments when she had broken through the wall of reserve and self-absorption which Rosemary had put around him, and made him see her and appreciate her in her own identity.

  But that, Leila reminded herself, was before the unfortunate conversation about Mr. Brogner’s possible reactions. Then, in her exaggerated fear lest Simon should feel an unwelcome weight of responsibility for her, she had put up a wall of reserve. It was not Simon’s fault that he did not feel enough interest to discover what lay behind it.

  Which brought her round once more to the fact that her stay in this house could only be painful and humiliating, and that she was counting the hours until her release.

  The next morning, however, with a doggedness which said something for her character, she took up her task again with undiminished resolution. Frances might be absurd and trying, Simon might be unbearably indifferent, but Mrs. Morley—for whom all this unpleasantness was being endured—was in the same need as when she had first come.