Authors: Mary Burchell
“I suppose she must have been writing to this chap,” Peter said, frowning as puzzledly as anyone else over his sister’s behaviour. “He hasn’t been near Durominster lately. Or, if he has, none of us knew anything about it.”
“No. That isn’t quite right,” Leila felt bound to explain. “I knew he was here.
”
“
You
did, Leila?” her aunt exclaimed. And everyone regarded Leila rather disapprovingly, as though she had withheld vital information much too long.
In fact, Simon, who had been staring moodily out of the window while this discussion took place, swung round at that moment and looked at her with something very like hostility.
“How did you know?” he demanded curtly.
“Rosemary told me.” She wished she didn’t sound quite so apologetic.
“The afternoon before you went away.”
“Why ever didn’t you tell us then, child?” cried her aunt reproachfully. “You could surely see it was a situation beyond your own handling. Your uncle and I were the proper people to deal with it—since Simon was away.”
It was Peter who said peaceably:
“It’s no good blaming Leila, Mother. At that point there
wasn’t
a situation. It was hardly her business to come running to you to tell you about Rosemary’s friends.”
“In any case, the mischief is done.” Simon’s voice sounded cold and flat against the rather excited tones of the others. “It’s a pity Leila didn’t see better what was coming, since she seems to have been in Rosemary’s confidence. But there’s no point in bringing that up now.”
“I wasn’t in her confidence,” began Leila distressedly. But she saw Simon was in no mood to be interested in exact shades of meaning. He turned away from her, with a gesture of weariness and disgust which went to her heart—on his account as well as her own—and, in order to conquer the tight feeling in her throat, she addressed herself to the difficult task of explaining to Aunt Hester that she would have to leave on the morrow.
“Oh, Leila, why?” Her poor aunt looked so dismayed and put out that Leila’s heart smote her.
“I had a letter this morning, Auntie,” she began, very much disliking the lie. “They—they’ve got things in running order at the office much sooner than they expected. And, as there is a great deal of work, they would like me as soon as possible.”
“I was relying on you for some help in putting everyone off and—and so on,” Aunt Hester said reproachfully.
“But I’ll do all that today,” Leila assured her eagerly. “It would have to be done today, anyway, you know.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I can’t
imagine
what Great-uncle John will say. He always disapproved of Rosemary and said we spoilt her, anyway.”
Leila remained silent. And at that moment Simon said, as though the idea had just occurred to him:
“I can give you a lift, if you are going to town tomorrow, Leila. I shall be going myself in the afternoon.”
“Oh, but—do you think that’s—well—tactful?” Aunt Hester exclaimed.
“Tactful?” Simon looked surprised and not very pleased. “Why should it be tactless?”
“Well—don’t you see?” Aunt Hester actually produced her handkerchief again. “You and Rosemary were to go off by car tomorrow afternoon. Now, if you—if you go off with her cousin instead, it looks almost like a substitution. In a manner of speaking,” Aunt Hester added, as though she were a little shocked herself at the picture her own words had conjured up.
“I don’t see why anyone should exercise their imagination so far,” declared Simon, the more emphatically perhaps since Leila was looking most uncomfortable over her aunt’s unconsciously correct description of the case.
“You don’t know what people are
like
in a place the size of Durominster,” Aunt Hester insisted.
“I had better go by train,” Leila said.
“Very well.” Simon looked quite indifferent.
But afterwards he got her by herself and said:
“I’ll pick you up at Barham Junction, Leila. It will be quite simple.”
“Do you think it’s wise? I mean—it’s only about a dozen miles down the line.”
“My dear girl, we aren’t engaged on any guilty enterprise,” he replied, half amused and half impatient.
And she flushed, felt foolish, and said hastily: “No—of course not. I’ll catch the two-thirty train and meet you there.”
During the rest of that day Leila felt she lived in a state of complete unreality. It was not only the distress and bewilderment of reversing everything she and Aunt Hester had been doing in the last week—it was the frightening, enchanting realization behind all this that tomorrow she was to take on—though temporarily and quite without real substance—the role of Simon’s wife.
There was no time to indulge in reflection or reminiscence. By the time she went to bed, she was so physically tired that she literally, could not lie awake and sort
o
ut the impressions of the fantastic day. She fell asleep almost immediately, and slept dreamlessly and well.
She woke on what was to have been Rosemary’s wedding morning to the incredible realization that it was, in a remote and fanciful sense, her wedding morning. At least, today she was to take on the identity of Simon’s wife.
Suddenly the idea seemed much more frightening and dangerous to her than at any other time before. Not because of any inherent risk of complications or even scandal. But because she realized, with painful clearness, how hopelessly this adventure with Simon would bind her to him.
For him it was a desperate expedient, dictated simply by his love and anxiety for his mother. For her it would be a dangerously emotional experience that would make of her melancholy dreams a richly coloured and thrilling reality from which she could never hope to escape.
But, aware though she was of the dangers, Leila never really hesitated.
To her relief, Aunt Hester seemed by now to have recovered a good deal of her usual forceful capability and air of independence. She was genuinely sorry to see her niece go. But the prime reason for Leila s presence had, after all, ceased to exist, and—though Aunt Hester had momentarily leant on her almost pathetically in the first shock of discovery—she was not one to require the permanent support of someone else.
“I’m truly sorry it all ended so badly, Leila. But of course it doesn’t hit you as hard as it hits us”—she sighed—“and I hope you’ll just look on it as a nice holiday anyway.”
“It’s been a wonderful holiday in many ways, Auntie,”
Leila
said, and meant it. For had she not met Simon on this visit?
Characteristically, Aunt Hester saw to it that her niece had an excellent lunch before Peter drove her down to catch the two-thirty train, and she said good-bye to her with real affection and regret.
Simon had come to make his good-byes earlier in the day. Of necessity it had been a distressing and slightly embarrassing occasion, so that no one had had time to notice if Leila’s leave-taking of him had been slightly self-conscious.
“Don’t forget that you change at Barham Junction,” Peter said to her, as he handed her case into the train. “You won’t have long to wait, and the London train comes in at the same platform, so it will be quite a simple change. Otherwise I’d have driven you through.”
“On, it’s perfectly all right. I can manage easily,” Leila assured him.
Then the whistle blew, and she waved good-bye.
On the short journey to Barham Junction she had time to wonder in what circumstances she and Simon would meet—whether she would have to wait for him or whether she should go out of the station in search of him—for they had not had an opportunity of settling the final details.
She need not have worried. He was waiting on the platform for her. And when he saw her his face lit up with a smile of welcome which did strange things to Leila’s heart.
He took her case and said: “I have the car outside.”
And she was so happy to be walking along the platform beside him that she hardly noticed when someone called: “Hello, Leila. Leaving us?”
Then she remembered that she was not particularly anxious to be seen with Simon, in the circumstances, and she turned her head quickly to see Miss Parker, the organist of All Saints’ Church in Durominster, looking after her with interest.
Miss Parker should, according to original arrangements, have been wafting Simon and Rosemary down the aisle, to the strains of the “Wedding March” more or less at this time, and she opened her eyes rather wide when she saw Leila’s companion. But they were too far past for Leila to do anything but smile and nod in answer to Miss Parker’s query.
Simon had not even noticed the encounter, After that one welcoming smile for Leila, he seemed almost grimly intent on seeing to it that they accomplished their journey in the shortest space of time.
He installed Leila in his car and put her case in the back. And Leila supposed that even the least imaginative of men would have found that moment trying. Simon was not, she felt sure, unimaginative, and he could hardly escape the reflection that it was his bride whom he should have been handing into the car, and her honeymoon suitcase which he should have been stowing in the back.
The knowledge of this made her feel depressed and self-conscious, and for a while they drove in silence. Then she roused herself at any rate to a mood of conventional sociability, and asked if they had a very long drive in front of them.
Leila could not help thinking that Rosemary might have spared time for a two-hour journey to see Simon’s mother before now. But, the next moment, she reminded herself that it was perhaps just as well that Rosemary had shown so little interest in his family.
All the same, her complicated r
ol
e loomed before her now in rather frightening urgency and nearness, and her voice was faintly nervous as she said:
“You had better tell me a little about your family, Simon. About as much as your wi—as Rosemary might reasonably know.”
“Yes, of course.” If he noticed her quick flush over the sudden impossibility of describing herself as his wife, he showed no sign of having done so. “There are only my mother and Frances to take into our calculations. My father died about five years ago. As you will have gathered, my mother—means a lot to me. Frances and I don’t get on very well together.”
“I see,” Leila said, when the silence which succeeded this seemed to indicate that he thought he had given her sufficient information. “Do they approve of me—Rosemary—well, I mean, your choice of wife?”
“Approve?” He appeared to find that a peculiar and rather amusing choice of word, because he smiled faintly. “Oh, yes—of course. At least, my mother approves of anything which makes for my happiness.” Then he added, rather shortly: It isn’t necessary for Frances either to approve or disapprove of anything I do.”
It was later than they had expected when they came to the charming house, on the very edge of the Surrey hills, where Simon’s mother lived. During the last half-hour, Leila had been struggling with a bad attack of nerves, but when they actually came in sig
h
t of the scene where she was to play out the part assigned to her, she felt herself grow calm.
As she got out of the car—stiff after the long drive—she gathered only the most general impression of the house and its surroundings. Someone had opened the door land stood there now, a little shadowy to Leila, because she had had the sun in her eyes for the last ten minutes.
It was as though she stepped out of the car on to a stage. And the illusion of dramatic unreality was heightened, not dispelled, by the fact that as they came forward together Simon put his arm round her, and said to whoever was standing there:
“Hello, Frances. This is my wife.”
CHAPTER III
“COME in,” Simon’s sister said. “You must be tired after your
journey.” And she took both Leila’s hands and kissed her.
Somehow, after what Simon had said about not getting on with his sister, Leila had expected a very different welcome. Something cool and critical. Something which might even strike a note of enmity from the start.
But there was nothing of that in Frances’s manner. And her voice—which was curiously like Simon’s, if one made allowances for the difference in sex—sounded quite friendly.
Keeping one of Leila’s hands in hers, she led the way into a long, pleasant room, with windows at both ends. And, now that her eyes had accustomed themselves to the more subdued light of indoors, Leila saw that Frances, like her brother, was tall and dark. There the likeness ended, however, for, while the outstanding characteristic in Simon’s case was latent strength, Frances looked rather delicate.
She had evidently been allowing herself a quick, comprehensive inspection of Leila, in her turn, because she said at this point:
“You aren’t at all as I expected you to be. Somehow, I’d gathered the impression that you were dark. I even thought Simon said you were.”
“Men never seem to know the difference between medium fairness and a real brunette, do they?” Leila said with a smile. “I expect Simon described me as having brown hair. You might have allowed me the benefit of the doubt, darling, and called me dark blonde,” she added. And she looked straight at Simon as she called him “darling,” for, after all, if they were to do this thing at all, they must do it well.
He looked very slightly startled, which caused her a certain amount of amused annoyance. What did he expect her to do? Behave as though she were Miss Leila
Lorne
, cousin of Miss Rosemary
Lorne
, who ought to have married him and hadn’t?
Unless she were much mistaken, Frances would be the first to notice any inconsistency of that kind.
No doubt Simon thought of that too, because he recovered himself in a moment, smiled at Leila with an affectionate air of indulgence that made her catch her breath, and said:
“I don’t remember ever trying to describe you. I shouldn’t consider myself capable of doing you justice.”
“A very neat recovery,” Leila told him, giving an admirable presentation of a happy bride teasing her new husband. And then she turned back to Frances, and asked with real concern: “How is your mother?”
“Much the same as when Simon left. She’s tremendously looking forward to seeing you. Would you like to come up to her right away?”