Sister of the Bride

by Henrietta Reid

  ‘According to Averil, Mrs. Ashmore uses Sybil as rather a dogsbody,’ I said, ‘and she doesn’t mind because—’

  ‘Because it means she can be near her beloved Vance. By the way,’ he said with a rueful smile, ‘we always seem to be getting back to Vance, don’t we? I think in future we should eradicate him from all our conversations. Anyway, he’s not my favourite subject.’

  In spite of all he could say to reassure me I found myself more and more apprehensive as we drove up the avenue. Suppose Averil was badly hurt? Perhaps crippled for life? Somehow it was impossible to imagine her without that joyous vitality and beautiful, perfect figure. How would Averil, who loved life so much and all that it held, reconcile herself to perhaps permanent invalidism?

  When we reached the house the door stood open and a short lumpish girl with rimless spectacles and pale blonde hair in a fraulein-like coronet that served to emphasise the round, almost spherical lines of her colourless face advanced hurriedly.

  ‘What happened?’ Bob asked impatiently.

  The girl blinked her pale eyes behind the rimless spectacles. ‘She tripped. I suppose. At any rate we found her lying at the foot of the stairs—’ As she spoke she was leading the way indoors and across the hall towards the wide oak staircase when Mrs. Ashmore appeared on the scene. She looked wide-eyed and anxious and for once her elegantly coiffured hair, had escaped from its perfection of line and was puffed up unbecomingly on one side giving her face a lopsided look. ‘Oh, Dr. Pritchard I’m so glad you’re here,’ she began. ‘We’ve been quite distracted—’

  ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  ‘It was Averil. She fell on the stairs. I don’t know how it happened. You see, her dress has a train—you may have heard that we’re holding a pageant of famous women through the ages—dresses by Lacroix —here at Ashmore, the proceeds to go to the Ashmore Youth Centre—’

  ‘Where is she?’ he asked, obviously irritated at Mrs. Ashmore’s involved explanation.

  ‘Vance carried her up to my room. It’s the nearest.’ As she spoke she pointed upwards to a door which could be seen from the hallway.

  Bob turned away and was about to mount the stairs when she again detained him. ‘You see, she was lying just here, quite still and pale as death, and none of us knew quite what to do. Then luckily Vance came in and—’

  But I felt I could wait no longer in suspense. I ran up the stairs and was hurrying across the wide landing towards the door which stood ajar when I was halted, by the trill of Averil’s unmistakable laughter. Not amused laughter, however. It was the brittle tinkle she used when she was really angry. Whatever happened it was obvious she was not badly hurt, and suddenly it struck me that if I burst in on her looking apprehensive, she would be more annoyed than gratified by my attention—especially when as far as she knew I was at that time well on my journey home. I paused to smooth my hair and generally tidy up, and as I did so Averil’s dear high voice said distinctly, ‘But you arranged to put Clive out of my life, didn’t you, Vance?’

  ‘Under the circumstances what else could I do?’ Vance’s deep voice replied. ‘A scandal was about the last thing you wanted. It would have been quite disastrous if things had been made public. It was essential that Clive should clear out. Well, was it not satisfactorily accomplished?’ His voice sounded brutally direct. ‘What more do you want?’

  ‘You needn’t try to back out now, Vance,’ Averil said, her voice raised shrilly. ‘You arranged that Clive should go. You can’t drop me now: I won’t let you. Do you think I’m so naive as not to know your reasons for—’ At this point she lowered her voice, in belated discretion, and I could only hear her words in an undertone.

  I backed away from the door until I stood pressed against the carved oak screen at the top of the stairs, staring at the door, confused and horrified. I don’t know how long I stood there, my hand pressed to my mouth, feeling numb and shocked. So all I had suspected had been true: Clive had been disposed of. Suddenly the door was thrown open and Vance came out. Our eyes met in a long stare and I saw an expression of slight puzzlement come into his face and was aware that I was pale and shattered-looking. Then he came forward quickly. ‘Don’t look like that, Esther. She’s not badly hurt—of that I’m sure—although of course we can’t tell until Bob has seen her. And by the way, my mother rang him ages ago. He should have been here by now.’

  ‘I am here.’ Bob’s voice held a wealth of suppressed fury. ‘And would have seen the patient more quickly had Mrs. Ashmore not insisted in describing the accident to me with all details relevant and irrelevant.’

  ‘Well, you can check up now,’ Vance said with a slight smile. He turned away and went downstairs as Bob went into the room: I followed on his heels.

  The sound of Averil’s laughter, her conversation with Vance and Vance’s assurance that he believed she was not badly hurt had left me unprepared for the sight that met me as we entered the room. My heart began to thump with agitation as I saw the ominous stillness of the figure on the canopied bed under the beautiful satin and lace coverlet. Averil lay motionless, with her eyes closed.

  I could hear my own gasp of alarm quite distinctly in the silence of the room.

  Bob crossed to the bed and after regarding her closely said, ‘And now you can cut out the Lady of the Camellias deathbed scene, Averil.’ His voice was sharp, but I was aware that it was relief that made him irritable.

  Averil opened her beautiful azure eyes wide and said distinctly and without the slightest trace of illness, ‘I certainly didn’t mean to give that impression, Bob darling. It’s simply that all this doctoring has given you a morbid mind.’

  ‘Morbid nothing! You’re just play-acting as usual,’ Bob said shortly.

  ‘Now you’re being horrid,’ Averil said with maddening condescension. ‘And to show you how sensible I’m being I can tell you right away that I’m not badly hurt. In fact I think I’ve only sprained my ankle.’

  As he looked at her ankle one part of my mind was noticing the beauty of the room with its pearly grey and pink striped paper, the thick black rugs strewn on the shining parquet floor and the sapphire blue of the bedcover overlaid by gossamer black lace. This was the room Averil would occupy when she became Mrs. Vance Ashmore.

  ‘Um, yes,’ Bob straightened slowly. ‘You’ve hurt your ankle all right.’

  ‘Yes, but with compresses and things you’ll be able to get it in shape again for the pageant, won’t you, Bob?’ she asked. But it was a rhetorical question, I could see, for Averil hadn’t the smallest doubt as to the correctness of her own diagnosis. With an anticipatory smug smile on her full lips she waited for his reassurance.

  But Bob kept silent and when the expected words were not forthcoming she glanced up at him with sudden apprehension. ‘Well, aren’t I right?’ she asked frowningly. ‘Why are you standing there looking as if you were on the point of announcing I was at death’s door, or something equally melodramatic?’

  ‘Without being in the least melodramatic,’ he answered quietly, ‘I’m afraid things aren’t as simple as you imagine them to be. After all, by all accounts, you got rather a bad fall.’

  Averil stirred impatiently, then winced and gave a little exclamation of pain. ‘All right, all rights let’s have it, Bob. Don’t stand there looking so glum. As long as I’m all right for this show I don’t mind.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s not the smallest possibility of your being all right for some time to come,’ he said quietly. ‘Without going into technical details, Averil, you’ve broken a small bone in your foot and I’m afraid it will definitely incapacitate you for quite a while.’

  ‘You can’t mean that!’ Averil said frantically.

  ‘But I most certainly do,’ Bob returned, ‘and you can consider yourself very lucky that you got off so easily—’

  But Averil was in no mood for condolences. She flung herself back on the pillow and glanced angrily at Bob. ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’re deliberate
ly exaggerating so as to keep me out of the way, Bob Pritchard, and don’t think I don’t know you’ve a score to settle with me !’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,’ he replied calmly. ‘You seem to forget that this charity business, which seems so mightily important to you appears to me to be no more than an opportunity for the local bigwigs to show themselves off and get their names in the paper, and whether you appear in it or not is a matter of indifference to me. I’ve more important things to do in Warefield than to sit holding your hand and dispensing sympathy.’

  Averil laughed sourly. ‘There was a time, Bob, when you’d have liked nothing better than to sit holding my hand.’

  For a moment before departing he stood regarding her. ‘Yes, perhaps that is true, Averil,’ he said measuredly, ‘but time doesn’t stand still, and perhaps at last I’ve matured enough to get my priorities straight.’

  It was so evident that they had both forgotten my presence that it was with a feeling of relief I saw Sybil bustle in, bearing a small tray with a dainty lace cloth on which was a bowl of soup. Her round face glowed with an air of dedicated service as she approached Averil.

  Bob said quietly that he would wait for me in the car before quickly slipping from the room.

  Already Averil was ready to vent her bad temper and frustration on her eager handmaid. ‘Whatever is this you’ve brought me, Sybil?’ she regarded the bowl of soup with disgust.

  ‘Cream of chicken,’ Sybil beamed happily. ‘It’s really tip-top. Do try and sip a little.’

  Averil turned her head as though the sight of the thick, creamy mixture revolted her. ‘Oh, do take the ghastly stuff away, Sybil. What do you take me for? I’m not at death’s door, you know.’

  Sybil’s mouth dropped open with disappointment. ‘Well, what would you like, Averil?’ she asked placatingly. ‘I’ll tell Cook to prepare anything you’d like. Meanwhile you’ll really have to keep your strength up, won’t you!’

  ‘Oh, do clear off, Sybil,’ Averil said irritably, ‘and stop fussing and making a nuisance of yourself. I don’t want anything now. I’m not quite helpless, you know. I’ll ring later if I want you.’

  ‘Yes, do, Averil,’ Sybil said eagerly. ‘But I’d better run down and help poor Mrs. Ashmore. She was frightfully upset. It was really providential I was on the spot, for I can make myself useful in lots of ways.’

  ‘How that girl gets on my nerves!’ Averil said petulantly as Sybil bustled from the room, her short, inelegant figure bulging through a too-tight frock. ‘Pretending to be all concern about me when actually all the poor deluded creature wants is to hang around in the hope that Vance will some day happen to glance in her direction. Really I don’t know how Mrs. Ashmore puts up with her.’

  Probably for the same reason that she approved of Averil herself, I thought: because Sybil was giving the Ashmore family the uncynical worship that Mrs. Ashmore felt was her due.

  When she had gone Averil gazed thoughtfully through the window, for a long moment, then said with surprising mildness, ‘So after all, you’ll be staying on.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I shan’t,’ I said decisively.

  Averil looked surprised. ‘But you’ll have to stay on now. My accident has changed everything. All the circumstances are different. Rodney can’t stay on at the cottage alone. Mrs. Ashmore wants me to stay on here until I’m able to get about again, and anyway it would only complicate things if I went back now to the cottage. I need someone to take care of me and there’s a staff here, apart from the devoted Sybil, of course,’ she ended acidly. ‘Surely you’re not going to walk out cold-bloodedly at a time like this?’

  It was completely typical of Averil conveniently to have forgotten the fact that it was she herself who had peremptorily ordered me to leave.

  ‘I’ve taken a job here at Warefield,’ I told her.

  She looked astounded. ‘A job! Well, I must say that’s quick work. You didn’t mention it to me this morning. I understood you were going to catch the train home.’

  ‘I met Bob Pritchard and he offered me a position as his secretary.’

  ‘I see.’ She fingered thoughtfully the delicate lace on the coverlet. ‘So that’s the way the wind blows! I turned down Bob and this is his idea of getting his own back by taking you on as his secretary.’

  Her vanity was so ludicrous that I had difficulty in suppressing a smile. ‘You think Bob asked me to straighten out his affairs simply to show you he was not mortally stricken by your refusal to marry him?’

  ‘Look, Mouse, don’t let’s quarrel,’ she said. Her voice had taken on the wheedling tones she had always used when bent on getting her own way. ‘It will only mean your staying on at the cottage until I am up and about. I’m perfectly sure Bob will understand if you explain it to him. Then you can really enjoy yourself straightening out his affairs.’

  ‘But I don’t want to stay on now at the cottage,’ I said. ‘I’ve made other arrangements, Averil.’

  ‘You don’t mean you’ll let poor Rodney return today and find nobody there? Why, the poor kid’s so desperately fond of you that it will come as a dreadful shock,’ she said pathetically.

  I hesitated and she immediately added, ‘I know I’ve been beastly in lots of ways, Mouse, but life hasn’t been a bed of roses for me since Clive’s death. For one thing I’ve had to play up to that silly old harridan, Mrs. Ashmore. Apart from everything else, she has lots of influence. She’s on all sorts of committees and things and in a quiet, subtle way and without Vance knowing she could have made things simply intolerable for me.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘If you insist on bearing a grudge against me poor little Rodney will suffer. When he comes back from school today he’ll find the cottage empty. Can you imagine how he’ll feel, and I simply can’t have him up here for already he’s in Mrs. Ashmore’s black books. The dairywoman, Mrs. Clarke, is forever complaining about him.’

  ‘Well, you’ve no one to blame but yourself,’ I said unsympathetically. ‘For you deliberately let him make a nuisance of himself.’ But even as I spoke I knew I would not be able to resist her plea, for Rodney and I had, during her absence, struck up a rapport that could not be easily broken. I hesitated and immediately she said eagerly, ‘I knew you’d agree. You are an angel, Esther. You’ll tell Bob of the change of plans and go back to the cottage before Rodney gets home, won’t you?’

  I felt a sudden weariness. Averil, as usual, had manipulated things to suit herself and she had used my affection for Rodney as a lever. Without answering I left the room feeling nothing but an empty wretchedness. I hurried downstairs. Through the open door I could see Bob waiting for me in the car and it was with a feeling of relief that I saw that the hall appeared to be empty. There was nothing I wanted less than to meet any of the Ashmores at that moment, but just as I crossed the hall the door of a room opened and Vance appeared. He stood in the threshold silently watching me and I paused as though transfixed and for a long moment we regarded each other in silence. Then he said, ‘Well, what is it, Esther? You’re surely not looking at me like this because Averil has sustained a fairly minor injury, are you?’

  I didn’t reply but turned and continued almost blindly towards the door. ‘Bob’s waiting for me,’ I muttered.

  But with a few quick strides he had caught up with me and had blocked my escape. ‘Look, Esther, it simply isn’t good enough. Why on earth should you be taking this attitude towards me?’ Then he added sardonically, ‘I’m beginning to believe that as far as you are concerned I’ve developed into a sort of Jekyll and Hyde person. At present my Hyde personality seems to be uppermost.’

  I hadn’t intended to give any explanation, but in spite of myself, I burst out wretchedly, ‘I overheard what you said to Averil. So it’s true. Clive was in your way, wasn’t he? You had to get him out of the running. As his employer you would have no difficulty in arranging his transfer to the Middle East to leave the coast clear for Averil and yourself.’

  I saw th
e muscles in his face grow taut and his hands bit into my shoulders. ‘I see, so that’s it! No doubt in your estimation I also arranged that he should be conveniently disposed of. His death would simplify things for Averil and myself—is that what you think? And while you’re at it, why don’t you admit that you believe Eric’s story: he also was an obstruction to my plans for taking over the company!’

  When I remained silent, he shook me roughly. ‘All right then, why don’t you say it?’ he said gratingly.

  With a sudden movement I tore free and raced down the steps.

  Bob glanced at me briefly as I got into the car beside him. He didn’t speak until we were speeding through the gates and heading back towards the cottage, when he said, ‘You don’t have to tell me. Averil has won out, as usual, and you’re returning to take over at the cottage again. So our arrangements are off, is that it?’

  I said a little shamefacedly, ‘I’m sorry, Bob, but I simply couldn’t leave Rodney on his own—but it’s only until Averil’s able to take over again.’

  ‘She jumped at the chance of settling herself in at the Ashmores’.

  ‘But it will be only for a little while,’ I said placatingly.

  He laughed shortly. ‘I wouldn’t bet on that, if I were you. She’ll draw out her convalescence as long as possible—until she gets Vance’s engagement ring on her third finger. But at least it gives me a sort of vindictive satisfaction to know that she’s been done out of this modelling affair, she’s so keen on. Apart from that you’ve really got this Vance fellow under your skin.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said fiercely. ‘You’re wrong there. That’s all over. It’s just as I say, as soon as Averil’s on her feet again I’ll fulfil my part of the bargain.’

  Again I saw Bob steal a glance at me and whatever he saw in my face seemed to satisfy him. He smiled, ‘You know, somehow or other I believe you. All right then, I’m prepared to play it your way, and who knows, by the time you come to me you may come not in the guise of a Girl Friday, but perhaps in a more satisfying and lasting relationship. Perhaps then I won’t have to placate Mrs. Purvis with electric blankets,’ he ended lightly.