CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning
Ruth woke to a feeling of suppressed excitement and vague anxiety. She lay there for a few moments watching the sunlight pick out the subdued colors of her bedroom carpet. Then the strange events of the previous evening rushed back into her full consciousness.
Angus would be telephoning sometime soon, to discuss the day’s plans, and undoubtedly she would be spending part—perhaps most—of the day with him. She had to decide now what she was going to do if he started to make love to her again. She also had to decide, almost as urgently, what she was going to say to him if and when he questioned her further about Aunt Henrietta.
In addition—though of quite secondary consideration, she assured herself—that more than half-serious warning that Michael had given her could not be entirely ignored. It had been very nice and well-intentioned of him, of course. But no doubt it was based on the fact that he and Angus were of such different types that they would inevitably do each other less than justice.
A certain degree of prejudice had prompted that warning, she decided firmly. But somehow it was not possible to dismiss completely the recollection of Michael holding her lightly in the circle of his arm and saying, “Don’t listen too trustingly to Angus Everton’s lovemaking.” And
—
“You’re much too nice to be hurt, and you’re not going to be, so long as I can prevent it.”
She was not really very anxious to consider the full implication of those remarks, and so presently she got up, bathed and dressed, and went into the dining room, where she found Michael already having breakfast.
“Hello. Are you early or am I late?” she inquired airily, just to show that the events of the previous evening had not left any serious impression.
“Neither.” He lowered his newspaper and smiled at her. “I have only just got up, and you, being on holiday, are entitled to have breakfast almost any time you like.”
“We’re both on holiday today, aren’t we?” She sat down at the table and began to pour coffee. “
I
mean—you don’t go into the office on Saturday, surely?”
“No,” he agreed. “But I have to drive down into Sussex, to have a look at a hotel we’re thinking of taking over. Would you like to come with me?”
Her immediate impulse was to say that she would love to go with him. But then she remembered that Angus was supposed to be telephoning her sometime, and she would have to be available for whatever plan he suggested. That was to say—she
wanted
to be available for whatever he suggested.
“I’m so sorry.” Genuine regret sounded in her voice. “But Angus will be phoning anytime now with plans for today.”
“Phoning? He saw you last night, didn’t he?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“Couldn’t he have told you his plans then?”
“Well, I suppose he—he hadn’t quite worked them out himself. He might have to be on call at the studios or—anyway, he said he would phone this morning.”
Michael shook his head gravely and said, “Never sit at the end of a telephone line waiting for a man to tell you what he wants you to do. It gives him all the wrong ideas.”
“I’m
not
going to sit at the end of a telephone line waiting for him to tell me what he wants me to do,” retorted Ruth indignantly. “It’s just that—”
“Come out with me, then. You’ve no idea what a lot of good it will do him to find you’ve gone off with someone else. And it’s a lovely drive, Ruth.”
She was sure it was. And to quite an extraordinary degree, she was tempted to say she would go. But it was unthinkable that she should let Angus telephone and find her gone.
“I’m sorry. I really can’t.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he told her. But he reached for a piece of toast and began to butter it in a philosophical way, so that she inexplicably had the impression that she was missing more than he was.
There was nothing more to do, except hope that Angus would telephone before Michael’s departure, and make some suggestion that would give her the best of both arrangements.
This proved a vain hope, however. For almost immediately after breakfast, Michael bade her a cheerful goodbye and took himself off. And still there was no telephone call from Angus.
Ruth read the newspaper with only half her attention on its contents. Then she wrote a letter home, telling them in detail about the television program since, unfortunately, it wouldn’t be possible to see it in Castlemore.
“I’m having a wonderful time,” she assured them, glancing at the clock and wondering why Angus didn’t telephone, “but I shall be glad to see you all on Tuesday evening.”
Then Aunt Henrietta came in, looking fresh and smiling, and not at all as though she had passed through any emotional crisis the previous evening. She seemed pleased but surprised to see Ruth, and exclaimed, “Why, my dear, I thought you were going out with Angus Everton.”
“I was.
I
mean—I am. He—just hasn’t telephoned yet.”
“Oh. I’d have got up sooner if I’d known you were alone.”
“It doesn’t matter a bit. I took the opportunity to write a line home.” Ruth smiled at her, and thought how nice it was to have no vague shadow of uncomfortable suspicion between them any longer.
“When are you expecting Angus to phone?” Aunt Henrietta went over and poked the fire into a cheerful blaze.
“I’m not quite sure. Anytime now, I think,” Ruth said, and for the first time she felt a faint resentment toward Angus. He was putting her into exactly the silly and undignified position that Michael’s careless words had conjured up. Sitting at the end of a telephone line waiting—
She wished angrily that she had gone with Michael now.
“What,” inquired Aunt Henrietta at that moment, “are you going to tell Angus about me?”
“About you, Aunt Henrietta? Nothing!”
“I mean—won’t he want to know if I challenged that statement that I overheard you make?”
“Well—yes. I suppose he will,” Ruth admitted. “I shall just tell him that you didn’t challenge it. That nothing was said about it.”
“He won’t believe you,” Aunt Henrietta said calmly. “Or if he does, he’ll decide that my silence is proof that what you said was true. That, in fact, I
was
the woman he saw ten years ago.”
“
I
don’t know what else I can say.” Ruth frowned. “I don’t like telling a deliberate lie. But one either tells the whole story or—or pretends there is nothing to tell.”
Aunt Henrietta was silent, and drummed her fingers nervously on the table beside her.
“He isn’t likely ever to have an intimate conversation with Michael, is he?” she said at last.
“No.” Ruth shook her head emphatically, but she could not help thinking of Charmian as the awkward link in the chain. And after a minute, she asked diffidently, “Would it matter
so
much if Michael found out the truth?”
“Of course it would!” Aunt Henrietta looked almost angry at the very suggestion. “He’s completely upright and uncompromising himself. He wouldn’t understand at all why anyone should even think of doing what I did.”
“He’s rather sympathetic and indulgent about most things, Aunt Henrietta.”
“Not about deceit.”
“That’s a hard word.” Ruth looked at her kindly. “Say, rather, pretense. I think he
would
understand, if he heard the whole story. After all, I did.”
“That’s different. A woman understands these things more easily. Besides—the deceit—the pretense is so much more complicated where he is concerned. For you, when all’s said and done, I am simply an old friend of your mother—or not. For him I am the woman who wrote to his mother, pretending to be her sister. It makes no difference that she died long before the letter arrived. The pretense is there—and he was taken in by it.”
Ruth was silent, seeing the force of this argument. And at that moment the telephone rang.
“That will be for me, I expect!” she exclaimed, and she was out in the hall and taking up the receiver before the admirable Martin could even make an appearance.
“Hello—” she said, more eagerly than she had intended.
Angus laughed softly in her ear and his voice said pleasantly, “Is that you, my sweet? What have you been doing with yourself this morning?”
Ruth very nearly blurted out angrily that she had been waiting for him to telephone for most of the morning. But remembering, just in time, what a mortifying picture that would present, she said carelessly instead, “Oh, I had a nice, lazy time. Got up late, had a leisurely breakfast with Michael—” she thought he deserved that “—and then wrote home. Just now
I
was chatting with Aunt Henrietta.”
“About the problematical past?” he inquired irrepressibly.
“Certainly not,” she replied, firmly if not quite accurately.
“Well, how are you fixed for the evening?” he wanted to know.
“The—evening? I didn’t fix anything special.”
“How would you like to come to a studio party with me? Our star producer has a birthday—”
“Do you mean
yo
u
have a birthday?”
“No, no, darling. How sweet of you to think of me in those terms. I’m merely ‘one of the promising producers.’ I’m not by any means ‘our star producer.’ But he’s a nice fellow, called Walter Mooring. And he’s just got engaged, too, which everyone seems to think calls for a party. Those of us who are not on the air, or otherwise engaged, are going. I thought you might find it fun.”
“I’m sure I would. I’d love to come,” Ruth assured him.
“Fine. Then I’ll pick you up around seven, if that’s all right with you.”
Ruth said that would be perfectly all right with her, but she secretly felt mortified that there was no mention of any plan for the rest of the day. Was it for this that she refused Michael’s pleasant invitation, and waited for Angus’s telephone call?
“Are you at the studios?” she inquired, as casually as she could.
“No. I had a lazy morning, too. But I’m going along there now, to tie up one or two ends in connection with Monday’s program. By the way, it’s an informal affair this evening. No need to dress up.”
“Very well,” said Ruth, firmly suppressing any impulse to ask what he was going to do when the one or two ends had been tied up.
“Goodbye, darling. I’ll be along around seven,” he told her.
And then, almost before she could return his goodbye, the line went dead.
Ruth went on standing there for a moment, with the receiver still in her hand. Then she carefully replaced it, telling herself that it was perfectly ridiculous to feel either chilled or annoyed. She could hardly expect to live in Angus Everton’s pocket just because he called her charming names and said that he loved her. He was probably just as likely to be busy on Saturday as on any other day. That was the kind of world he lived in. He was taking her out in the evening, when he was free. What more did she want? , She wanted, she supposed, to have gone with Michael on the charming drive into Sussex. And she wanted there not to be any truth at all in those half-laughing strictures that Michael had pronounced upon Angus.
If he hadn’t talked the way he did, I would never have felt uncomfortable about the present situation,
she thought. And by some perverse process of feminine reasoning, at this point she transferred most of her annoyance to Michael.
“Made all your arrangements?” Aunt Henrietta looked up and smiled as Ruth came back into the room.
“Yes. Angus is going to pick me up this evening around seven, and is taking me to a studio party.”
“Oh—not until then? I had some idea you were going out together for the day.”
“He has to go to the studio and make final arrangements for Monday’s program,” Ruth explained calmly. “I suppose Saturday is as busy as any other day in his world.”
Aunt Henrietta said she supposed so, too. And Ruth was profoundly glad that Michael was not there at that moment to look tiresome and quizzical.
“I’ve been thinking, Ruth—” obviously Aunt Henrietta’s thoughts were more concerned with her own affairs than Ruth's “—and when Angus asks you if I queried your statement that I was an impostor—”
“Oh, Aunt Henrietta! I never called you anything so horrid!”
“Not in so many words, perhaps. But the implication was there—it doesn’t matter. It’s true, anyway,” she added in unoffended parenthesis. “But when he asks you—as he’s sure to do—I don’t think it’s at all a good idea for you to say I never mentioned the matter.”
“No? Then what would you like me to say?”
“I think you’d better tell him that you had a talk with me, and you found you had been mistaken about the length of time I was away from this country. That, in fact, he did see me at the time when he thought he did. No mystery about it at all. Just a misunderstanding about dates.”
Ruth looked at her doubtfully.
“All right. If you think that’s best.”