The girl in the blue dress

by Mary Burchell

  CHAPTER NINE

  "SARA your sister has broken off her engagement?" repeated Beverley _in utter consternation. "You mean she isn't going to marry Franklin Lowell?" "No." Toni shook her head emphatically. "She just isn't going to marry him at all." She spoke as though there were degrees of marriage and Sara had rejected them all. _ "But how perfectly awful!" Beverley felt a dreadful sinking sensation which was almost physical somewhere in the region of her heart. "You you can't have got it right, Toni. There must be a mistake. Perhaps they have had a misunderstanding of some sort. Something that " "Oh, no. There's no misunderstanding about it," Toni declared. "Sara told us all at breakfast-time this morning. Mother went quite white and Father nearly choked, and Madeleine said what about her year at the Academy of Dramatic Art? which I thought rather selfish of her." "And what," asked Beverley in a fascinated tone, "did you say?" "I said what about Franklin? But no one took any notice," Toni explained, "because I suppose they were all thinking about themselves." "I suppose they were," agreed B&verley slowly. And, unexpectedly, she bent and kissed the little girl's cheek. "You're a good child." "Why?" enquired Toni, to whom this view was evidently novel. "Oh never mind. It would take too long to explain. But I I'm very sorry to hear about this, Toni." She could not say that she was shocked and frightened beyond description, or that the very foundations of her new-found security and happiness were rocking. She could only say conventionally that she was sorry to hear the news. And then add, with unconvincing optimism, 131 "But perhaps it will all blow over. Perhaps Mr. Lowell will be able to talk her out of this idea." "No." Toni shook her head again. "I think he'd already said all he had to say last night. They must have settled it then, because they were out together. And this morning she came to the breakfast-table without her ring." "I see." The bus jogged on over the rough country roads, and Beverley stared ahead and tried to tell herself that there was no need to panic. Even if Sara had decided that she could not marry Franklin Lowell, after all, this 'did not necessarily mean that she hoped to marry Geoffrey. "It isn't even as though she could possibly have known about his changed prospects," thought Beverley. "At least " She felt her heart miss a beat. Could Sara possibly have known? and was that anything to do with her sudden decision not to go on with her engagement to Franklin? Beverley did some feverish calculation, and decided that unless Geoffrey had deliberately telephoned his news to Sara, there could be no possibility of her having known the changed circumstances. "And he wouldn't do that," Beverley assured herself. "Why should he? Besides there was nothing in his manner to suggest that he had even thought of Sara since he had the news about his father." "Why were you in Castleton, Miss Farman?" asked Toni again, at this moment, in innocent curiosity. "Were you just shopping?" "No." Beverley roused herself from her thoughts with an effort, and decided there was no harm in telling the exact truth. "Geoffrey's father was ill, and sent for him. And then he decided that he would like to see me too. I've just come from his place now." "Geoffrey Revian's father?" Toni looked interested. "But I thought they weren't on speaking terms." "Well, they are now," Beverley said briefly. "D'you mean there's been a reconciliation?" enquired Toni, scenting drama. 132 "You might call it that, I suppose." "Was it a deathbed reconciliation?" Toni evidently liked that idea immensely. "No. I hope Mr. Revian is going to get well." "But he might not?" suggested Toni, in the interests of dramatic possibilities which, for the moment, outweighed even her characteristic kindliness. "He is very ill," Beverley conceded. And, because she could not resist trying this line of enquiry, she added casually, "Had you not heard anything about it?" "No. How should I?" Toni looked surprised. "Oh, well Mr. Revian is a very well-known man in the district. I thought perhaps perhaps one of the family might have heard something." "If so, no one told me." Toni sounded slightly aggrieved. "No one ever does tell me anything." "Well, I've told you something now." Beverley smiled slightly. "Yes. Thank you very much. Miss Farman," Toni said gratefully. "I'll like telling the others. And I can really say that Geoffrey is reconciled with his father? and that you've seen him?. and that he liked you?" "Yes. I think you can say all that," Beverley told her slowly, for there seemed no point in delaying the news. "But how do you know that he liked me?" "He couldn't help it," said Toni simply. At which Beverley felt oddly cheered. Presently they began to near the stop for Huntingford Grange, and suddenly Toni said, "Why don't you get out with me, Miss Farman, and call in at home? You might cheer them up a bit." "I don't think I can flatter myself that I should do that." Beverley smiled and shook her head. But she was immediately assailed by the most terrible temptation to hear for herself what had really happened, and to see the effect of her own news. "You would, you know," Toni told her. "They all like you. And by now they must be tired of talking to one another about this business." "But I have no possible excuse for coming." Beverley was weakening, in spite of her better judgment. "It 133 would look as though I were just just drawn there by curiosity, which would be unpardonable." "You could call in for some work you had forgotten," suggested Toni practically. "I well, yes, I suppose I could do that." Beverley felt her resistance crumbling, and she snatched at the proffered excuse. "Yes, as a matter of fact, there is something I would rather like to take home with me. There is so little time " And then she stopped. Because, of course, if Sara were not going to marry Franklin Lowell, after all, there was all the time in the world. "There's no great rush now," agreed Toni soberly. "But do come, just the same." So Beverley got off the bus when Toni did, and together they walked up the lane to Huntingford Grange. Fortunately she was saved from making her own excuses, for Mrs. Wayne was in the hall when they entered, and Toni immediately broke into explanations. "Oh, Mother, I met Miss Farman on the bus, coming back from Castleton, and she's called in to fetch some work she forgot to take yesterday. And she's been into Castleton to see Geoffrey Revian's father, who is very ill and just been reconciled to Geoffrey, in case he dies. Isn't that interesting?" "Very interesting," said Mrs.'Wayne absently. "Good afternoon, Miss Farman. Do come upstairs. I I should like to speak to you." For the first time in Beverley's experience, Mrs. Wayne seemed uncertain in her manner, and Beverley found it in her heart to be genuinely sorry for the mother of the beautiful but unpredictable Wayne girls. Her scale of values might be very worldly, but in her way she wanted what she thought was best for her daughters. It must, Beverley supposed, seem to her that Sara had gone out of her mind. , Together they mounted the stairs to the sewing-room, meeting no one else on the way. And, once they were there, Mrs. Wayne shut the door and said with a dramatic simplicity worthy of Toni herself, 134 "Miss Farman, Sara has broken off her engagement." . "Yes I'm terribly sorry. As a matter of fact, Toni did tell me just the salient fact," admitted Beverley. "But is it absolutely final, Mrs. Wayne? I mean, many girls do have last-minute doubts or a feeling that " "She says she won't even discuss it." "Does she give any reason for her decision?" "Only that she simply doesn't want to marry him, after all." Mrs. Wayne raised her hands and let them fall again, in a gesture of helplessness. "I don't understand her. He is kind, he's rich, he's a very decent fellow, and he is much the best match in the county. What does she want?" "Perhaps," suggested Beverley, unable to keep back the words, "she wants someone else." "Someone else, Miss Farman? But who else could she want? There is no one in our circle even comparable with Franklin, from the point of view of marriage." "She might," Beverley said doggedly, "have found she is really in love with someone else. Someone not specially suitable, perhaps, but someone that she wants. These things do happen. Has she never given any any indication of such a thing?" "No. Of course not." Mrs. Wayne looked as though Beverley had suddenly broken into a foreign language which was not very familiar to her. "She has been engaged to Franklin for months. Eithorpe Hall has been renovated to suit her wishes. More than half her trousseau is made, as you yourself know. How could she suddenly find that she wanted someone else?" "Perhaps " again Beverley spoke rather as though she could not help it "perhaps it was not so sudden." "I don't understand you." "O
h it was just an idea " All at once, Beverley was frightened at the way she had let the conversation gat out of hand, in her irresistible desire to put her own doubts to the test. "Do you mean," said Mrs. Wayne slowly, "that she might have been fond of someone before Franklin came along?" 135 "It's possible, isn't it?" "But I think she would have told me." Beverley was silent, surprised that Mrs. Wayne could know so little about her own child. For if ever anyone kept her thoughts to herself it was Sara. For a moment Mrs. Wayne too said nothing. Then she roused herself from what were evidently unpleasant reflections and spoke again."If this really is final, of course there won't be any need for the elaborate trousseau we had planned. But, at the same time, I don't want to seem to accept this ridiculous decision of hers. Perhaps it would be best not to start anything new, Miss Farman. But I would certainly like you to complete whatever you have already begun.""That will keep me busy for at least ten days," Beverley assured her. ' "And by then perhaps Sara may have come to her senses," Mrs. Wayne said, but without much optimism in her voice. "Well, Miss Farman, we shall just have to wait and see what happens." _ ' She turned away. But, as she reached the door, it opened suddenly and Sara herself came into the room. "Oh_" she drew back slightly at the sight of her mother "I I didn't know you were here." "I was just going." Mrs Wayne spoke a little coldly. "And if you came to tell Miss Farman that your trousseau will not be needed, I have already discussed this matter with her." "Oh no. It wasn't that." Sara looked only slightly abashed. "It was that I I just heard her news from Toni, and I came to find out if it were true." "Miss Farman's news?" It was obvious that in her preoccupation with her own unhappy problems, Mrs. Wayne had not taken in much of what her youngest child had so eagerly poured out. "Has Miss Farman some news?" "Why, yes. I believe so." Sara looked at Beverley , with wide eyes."I think," Beverley heard herself say in a calm , voice, "you must mean the reconciliation between 136 Geoffrey and his father. In an indirect way, I suppose it is my news too." "Geoffrey? Geoffrey Revian?" Miss Wayne's tone expressed the minimum of interest. Indeed, a sort of annoyed surprise crept into her voice, as though in protest that anyone should put forward this item of news as noteworthy at a time when so much else of import was happening."Then it's true?" Sara said quickly. "Yes. It's true. Geoffrey was sentjor last night, as his father was very ill. There was a complete reconciliation, it seems, and today his father is a little better. He sent for me, as he wanted to see " she raised her eyes and looked across at Sara "the girl Geoffrey was going to marry." "And you went?" "Of course." "And he liked you? He could hardly do anything else." Sara answered her own question, and in the same flatteringly simple terms as Toni. "This will make a great difference for you, Beverley, won't if?" The older Wayne girls tended to call Beverley by her Christian name, even though their mother remained on more formal terms. "Not in the essentials," Beverley said quietly "At least, I hope not." "But Geoffrey's prospects his whole position will be altered. Instead of being an impecunious artist struggling along on his own, he'll be the accepted only son of a wealthy father. You can't say that doesn't make a great difference in your life." "I said it wouldn't make a difference in the essentials. Beverley smiled faintly. "I was never marrying Geoffrey for his social or financial prospects." "Well no." Sara pushed back her hair distractedly I realize that." She was silent for a moment, and at this point Mrs. Wayne, who evidently found the conversation not specially interesting, went away, leavin"the two girls together. B Beverley proceeded to pack up the work she had allegedly come to fetch. 137 "So Mother has told you my news?" Sara stood watching her. "Yes." "What did you think of it?" "I don't quite know, Sara. I'm sorry to hear of any happy engagement going wrong. And I think that in many ways you and Franklin Lowell suited each other. But as I don't know your reason for breaking the engagement, I can't really venture an opinion." "I never really loved him, you know." "Are you sure of that?" "Quite sure." There was a pause."Then I don't think there is anything else to say," Beverley told her at last. "For Franklin is much too worth-while a person to be fobbed off with less than the best." "That's how I feel," said Sara, but rather perfunctorily, Beverley thought. Indeed, she doubted if Franklin's claim to consideration had found much place in Sara's reckoning. "Your decision is quite final, I take it?" Beverley, who had packed up her work by now and was ready to go, looked across at the other girl levelly. "Oh, yes! I'm absolutely determined about it. More so than ever now." "Why do you say that?" asked Beverley sharply. "Oh, I don't know. I just meant that I I'd had time to think things over during the day, to argue it out with the family.""I see," said Beverley. "I'm afraid I must go now. I have to catch my bus." She knew quite well that she had more than ample time to catch the next bus, but she felt suddenly that she could not stand there talking any longer to Sara, or she would have to start asking frantic, angry, impossible questions. Her self-control was wearing thin, and it was time to go, before she said anything which might precipitate another crisis. Perhaps Sara vaguely felt this too. Or perhaps she 138 genuinely had forgotten about bus time. Anyway, she made no objection to Beverley's departure. On the way downstairs she met no one, and in the hall there was only Toni, to bid her a friendly and slightly conspiratorial goodbye. But as she hurried unnecessarily down the lane, Beverley met the third of the Wayne sisters, slowly and aimlessly wandering up towards the house. "Hello " Madeleine greeted her dejectedly "have you been up to the house?" "Yes." Beverley once more' went through the explanation about calling in to fetch some work she wanted to finish. "It probably won't be needed now," Madeleine told her. "Have you heard the news?" "About your sister's engagement? Yes." "Isn't it the absolute limit?" Madeleine kicked a stone in a rather childish way. "What does she suppose is going to happen to the rest of us now? So much depended on this marriage of hers." "Perhaps," Beverley could not help saying, "she felt that, in her own marriage, her own interests came first." "Oh, yes of course in a way. But Franklin was ideal! As a husband, as a brother-in-law and as an addition to the family in every way. He was so generous, and easy-going. Who else do you suppose would have Offered to pay for me at the Dramatic Academy, for one thing?" "No one that I know of," Beverley said candidly. "But I don't imagine that he will withdraw that offer, once it has been made." "Don't you?" Madeleine stopped kicking the stone and brightened up enormously at this suggestion. "I never thought of that. I supposed that he'd be so mad with the lot of us that he'd just wash his hands'of us." "But do you really think he is like that?" Beverley said, surprised that anyone could know Franklin Lowell so long and misread him so completely. "I don't know," Madeleine confessed. "He's very proud, in his way, you know. And men do hate having their pride stepped on." 139 "Yes, of course. But when you said he is generous, you were quite right. It's the outstanding thing about him. And 1 don't mean only material generosity. Lots of people manage to be that, and yet they are spiritually mean.""Well perhaps you're right." Madeleine considered that and became still more cheerful. "Oh, Beverley, if you see him, will you sound him, for me? I can't very well go to him myself, at this moment, whereas you ""I don't see that I can either," put m Beverley hastily. _"Oh, not specifically for that reason, of course. But you're bound to see him m the next few days. He calls in to see your mother sometimes, doesn't he?" And Madeleine looked at her curiously."Yes, sometimes. How did you know?" "He mentioned it himself once. He says she's a wonderful woman." "Well_she is, rather." Beverley smiled and flushed with pleasure. "What do you want me to say, if I do see him?" ,."Oh, I leave it to you. You're clever at these things, I'm sure. Bring me into the conversation somehow, and say something about my my hopes and ambitions __" Madeleine bit her lip suddenly, perhaps at the thought of how those hopes and ambitions were being threatened. "Just find out for me 'please, Beverley, find out for me what he is going to do about his offer to me, now that I'm not going to be his sister-in-law." "Well, I'll do my best," Beverley promised. "Though, mind " she warned Madeleine "I'm not prepared to say anything which will sound as though I think his chief role is that of general provider of good things
." "No, of course not," Madeleine agreed. "That would put him off more thoroughly than anything else," she added, a little naively.Then she went on her way towards the house, obviously in much better spirits, while Beverley continued in the direction of her bus-stop.As she reached this and stood there waiting, she could 140 not help recalling the first time she had waited there and how Franklin Lowell had come along to offer her a lift. And, at that moment, almost as though her recollections forced history to repeat itself, a long, handsome open car came spinning round the corner brakedto a sudden stop, and Franklin Lowell called out to her, "Hello! The bus won't be along for another twenty minutes. Jump in and I'll drive you home." "Oil, thank you!" Beverley got into the seat beside mm. was just thinking of you." "How gratifying." He flashed her a quick smile and then added a trifle defiantly, she thought "You've just come from the Grange, I take it? and so you willhave. heard the news." "Yes. I'm very sorry." He shrugged and stared straight ahead, down the road in front of him. "Is it a very bad blow?" she asked diffidently, after a moment. "No man likes being jilted," he replied dryly No, of course not. I suppose what I meant was did the whole thing come as a great shock, as something completely unexpected?" He did not answer that immediately. Then he said slowly, n "V1101 111 t did at first, Beverley. But, now that I ve had time to think things over, I've looked back and seen that there were signs of it coming. I have a feeling I�ve been a bit stupid about the whole business And that s not a feeling that any man likes to have either " "No. I can understand that. It's a blow to one's pride But she gave him a searching glance "was it a tearful blow to your your affections too'?" "I was I am very fond of Sara," he said quickly It wasn t just a question of wanting a beautiful wife to grace my home, you know." "Of course not. Though if that element was there I think it was quite legitimate. But forgive me if I'm jumping to conclusions you don't sound absolutely heartbroken to me." 141 "Don't I?" He frowned. Then he gave her that flashing, rather dangerous smile. "But I'm not sure that hearts do break in real life, are you?" "I don't know," said Beverley soberly, and she wondered if she would feel less than heartbroken if she had to lose Geoffrey. "But I take it, from your tone, that at least you have completely accepted Sara's decision?" "Of course. What else could I do?" "I suppose some men would have pleaded with her to reconsider things." "I am not the pleading kind," he replied dryly. And since Beverley was sure this was all too true, there seemed nothing more to say about the broken engagement. There was a short silence. Then he said something about Geoffrey's projected exhibition, and she roused herself to tell him of the new development. Franklin listened, with characteristically close attention, and then said thoughtfully, "So Geoffrey has, overnight, been transformed from a struggling artist, with little backing, into an approved only son of an influential father? Quite a big change in his life." "Yes." "And in yours too." "Perhaps." She could not imagine why it was that she always tended to show Franklin Lowell the real state of her thoughts, rather than the courageously determined facade which she presented to other people. "Why do you say that?" he asked. "What happens to,, Geoffrey is bound to affect you too, isn't it?" "I don't know." Inexplicably she was impelled to be frank with him. It even soothed her, m some strange way, to allow herself the indulgence of putting her anxiety into words. "Do you remember," she said slowly, "that I told you once that I was afraid of someone else in his life? that I believed he had been very fond of another girl?" "Yes, of course. You saw him kiss her, that night 142 at the ball, and got the wind up enough to cry about it." His tone was teasing, but it was not unkindly. "So I did! I suppose that was silly of me." She smiled faintly and bit her lip. "But it was a bit of a shock. Nowadays I think I can look at things more objectively " "Oh, my dear! One never does, with the people who really matter, you know," he protested. "Sara, .for instance?" "Sara? We weren't talking about Sara." "We were a little while back, and you have no idea how objective you contrived to sound." "Did I?" He gave a rather vexed little laugh. "Well, go on with what you were saying about Geoffrey and his changed circumstances. You were going to tell me why they might not affect you." "In one sense, they might affect me profoundly, I suppose," Beverley said deliberately. "But not in the way you mean. He might decide he didn't want to marry me after all." "He couldn't be such a fool!" "Oh " Beverley laughed slightly at his vehemence "I don't mean that he would think any less of me because his own position had improved. But I don't know why I'm telling you this, except that I have to say it to someone other than myself! I think it was poverty and his precarious position which put up the barrier between him and and that other girl. The barrier is gone now " She stopped speaking, but she completed her sentence with a gesture of her hands which seemed to indicate the infinity of possibilities now presented. "You forget one thing. He has chosen you to share his life. He didn't have to choose anyone. If he was so crazy about this other girl, I suppose he could have just remained faithful, to her memory." "Lots of men make themselves contented with a second-best," she replied doggedly, though it hurt badly to put that thought into words. "True, but " he glanced at her dryly "you never struck me as any man's second-best." 143 "Oh " she laughed a little "thank you." "And there's one other thing you have forgotten. 1 d forgotten it too until this moment. You told me that other girl was married." "Married?" For a moment Beverley looked completely blank, for she had entirely forgotten how she had invented this detail, in order to forestall any suspicions Franklin might have- had of the real identity ot the other girl in Geoffrey's life. "Married? Oh, no She___" Suddenly Beverley stopped and put her hand to her mouth in dismay. "Oh " she said, and then all powers of inspiration or invention seemed to dry up "So she wasn't married?" said Franklin thoughtfully. "N-no." , , "Odd that you should have been so sure of that, when you last told me about her. Or did you just invent that? "I invented it. I didn't want you to start guessing, it it wouldn't have been fair to anyone," Beverley explained hastily "But was I at all likely to guess? Do I know her? "I I'd rather not say." But he went on, thinking aloud. "At the time of the ball, it. was so vitally necessary I should not know that you even invented-this story. You were willing that I should regard Geoffrey as philandering with a married woman rather than that I should identify the girl. And yet now it matters so little that you even forgot you had ever told me that tale ""Please don't bother to to work it out like that. It doesn't matter. It's not all that important. It " "Wait a minute." He drew the car to a standstill at the side of the road and turned to regard her in a way that agitated her. "I think it is important." _ . "No, really! Please don't think any more about it. I shouldn't even have told you so much. I don't know why I did. It's it's disloyal, in a way, and "Of course!" he explained suddenly, as though she had not uttered a word of protest. "What a fool I've b n not to guess it before. The girl was Sara, wasnt it?" 144"