Then she dropped one, and he stooped to pick it up.
“Won’t you sit down, Ariane?”
She sat down. And then she felt she could not bear to have him tower over her like that.
“You must sit down too,” she said with a little gasp.
Without a word, he seated himself on the side of the desk, swinging one leg negligently.
“Well?”
She didn’t look at him.
“It’s—it’s about this afternoon,” she got out at last.
“Oh yes. What about this afternoon?”
Ariane had supposed the words would come to her when the occasion demanded it. But they did nothing of the sort. She could think of nothing, nothing in which to clothe the explanation she wanted to make.
And then, perhaps because he could no longer bear the nervous twisting of her fingers, he gently drew her gloves away and took her cold hands in his.
“I’m not blaming you,” he said quietly, “for what happened this afternoon.”
“Oh—” She stared at him for a moment, her eyes full of startled relief, and then, without a word, she put her cheek down against his hand.
She was not crying, but something in the gesture made his eyes widen in their turn.
“I—wouldn’t—have had you—hurt like that, for the world, you know,” she said in a whisper.
“No, Ariane, I do realize that. You mustn’t distress yourself so much. I daresay we’re not so sensitive as you think.”
“But anyone would have been hurt.”
“We-ell,” he made a slight grimace, “it wasn’t very nice, I suppose. But your mother has never liked us much, has she? And I’m afraid my father was not the soul of tact.”
“It’s kind of you to say the excuses for me.” Ariane raised her head again. “She is feeling the strain of the last few weeks very badly, of course, and—and she had the idea that your father’s kindness was not at all disinterested. Another time, when she was more herself, she might be very sorry for her suspicions.”
“Not very sorry,” Harvey corrected with the faintest smile. “Slightly sorry, shall we say? I feel that neither my father nor I could ever hope to be a favourite of hers. If you had married Frank, she would have put up with us gracefully. But now she rather welcomes the idea of not having to have anything more to do with us. Isn’t that right?”
Ariane wished she could have denied that eagerly, but it was not possible. She gave a shamefaced little glance at Harvey, and he laughed softly.
“Never mind, Ariane. It’s not a thing you or I could ever alter. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
“But I don’t feel in the least that way. You know that, don’t you?” she said earnestly. “I don’t want to be disloyal to Mother, but someone must acknowledge Mr. Muldane’s kindness. I can’t have him think that not one of us was touched that he should actually have thought of everything—even Julie’s school fees.” Her voice broke suddenly, and she bit her lip.
“I’ll tell him,” Harvey said rather gently. “I’ll make him understand somehow. It’s true that he did mean it very well, and was honestly worried about you all. But I daresay his way of putting it jarred on your mother just now—”
“Yes,” Ariane interrupted eagerly. “Yes, that was really all it was. If only you could make him realize that.”
Harvey gave her an odd little glance.
“Am I to understand from this that, put in a more tactful way, the offer might be accepted?”
“Oh—no.” Ariane looked considerably taken aback. “I don’t think Mother would do that at all, Harvey. She feels very strongly about not—not—”
“Being under an obligation to us,” he suggested for her.
“Exactly.”
“I see.” He got up from the arm of her chair where he had been sitting for the last few minutes, and walked thoughtfully up and down the room.
Then at last he came to a stop again in front of her.
“Ariane, do you know very much of the actual state of affairs?”
He was frowning, she saw, and looked more than a little disturbed.
“I know the firm was doing badly. I don’t know quite how badly,” Ariane admitted, “or what there will be left for Mother when the whole thing is sold up. For I suppose it will come to that.”
“I’m afraid so.” Harvey spoke as though her last sentence had been a question.
“Why do you ask?” she said with a nervous effort.
“Because, though I hate to be the one to have to tell you, I think perhaps you ought to know the truth. There won’t be a penny, Ariane. That’s why Father was trying to give Mrs. Dobson some sort of reassurance beforehand. The firm had been running on the strength of your father’s credit for some time, but of course, that has all come to an end now—”
“You mean there are heavy debts?”
She saw he had meant to keep that back, but it was impossible to deny it when she actually asked.
“That means that everything will have to go.” Ariane spoke half to herself. “The house and the furniture—everything.”
He moved slightly.
“The creditors can’t touch anything that is actually your mother’s.”
“There can’t be much that is,” she said briefly. “And anyway, Mother wouldn’t want to keep anything if there were still debts in Daddy’s name.”
There was a short silence, and then he said:
“Do you think you could bring her to reconsider my father’s offer? If she felt more friendly towards him and would let the business go by private sale, I think things could be settled without her realizing the true state of affairs. But if she insists on a sale in the open market—” He paused. “It’s going to be a terrible shock for her, Ariane.”
“Do you mean Ariane was suddenly rather white. “You can’t mean—that you were prepared to buy Dobson’s at much more than its worth, so that Mother should never know how bad things were?”
“Well Harvey looked very faintly nervous, “there isn’t only your mother to think of. You see, there’s Julie, too. My father likes her. And there’s you. He always feels that he owes you a good deal for saving my unworthy self—” He stopped, perhaps because of the way she was looking at him.
“The idea was yours, of course,” she said.
“Oh—” His dark eyes fell unexpectedly. “We’d worked it out together.”
She put her hand out and took his again.
“I’m so ashamed,” she said quietly. “I’m so terribly ashamed that I hardly know what to say to you.”
“Don’t, my child,” he said gently. “There isn’t any need for you to say these things. You’re making a great deal too much of it.”
“Oh no, it’s just—” Ariane’s voice failed her, and, bending her head still further, she softly put her lips against the back of the hand she was holding.
“Heavens, Ariane! You mustn’t do that!” She was almost startled at the tide of dark colour that swept into his face.
“Why not—if I feel like that?” Ariane smiled very faintly.
“Because—oh, because it’s all wrong,” he said agitatedly, and frowned as though he were really angry with her.
She didn’t say anything in answer to that, and when the silence had lengthened a little awkwardly, he said:
“Well, will you see what you can do with your mother?”
“Yes. But there’s one thing I must know. You must tell me truthfully, even if she never knows, just how much this business costs you and Mr. Muldane.”
He made a quick movement of protest, but she stopped him.
“I absolutely insist on that. And I’ll manage to pay you back some day.”
“But you couldn’t, my dear,” he said with that curious gentleness in his voice again. “It would be a very big sum for one girl working on her own.”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to know. And even if I never do manage to pay, I want to remember always how deeply we are in your debt.”
“My father won’t like it,” he said, “and nor shall I.”
“I can’t help that. It’s the one condition which I impose,” Ariane said with a smile, as she rose to go. “And I ask you to respect it.”
It was he who took her hand then and kissed it gravely.
“I can’t say anything but ‘yes,’ if you put it that way. We will respect the condition—and you—together.”
Ariane laughed a little, but the tears were really rather near as she came out with him into the hall once more.
“May I run you home? The big car is out, but I have my own two-seater here.”
“Oh no, thank you,” Ariane assured him hastily. “I think—I think it might be more tactful if I just slipped in quietly, without any sound of a car.”
“I see. But won’t you let me drop you somewhere near your place?”
Ariane shook her head.
“I’d be rather glad of the walk, if you don’t mind.”
He understood at once.
“Very well, Ariane. Good night, and thank you very much for coming.”
“Good night, Harvey. And thank you for everything,” she said almost in a whisper.
He stood there in the doorway, watching her as she went away, and even when she turned and looked back from the end of the drive, she could still see his big figure silhouetted darkly against the light of the hall.
When Ariane reached home it was later than she had thought, and she wondered anxiously if there would be difficult questions. But she found that her mother had gone to bed early because of a headache, so that any possible inquiries would at least not be made until tomorrow.
The next morning, however, brought the problem before her as acutely as ever. She would have to make her mother see things in a different light, and make her see them quickly.
Mrs. Dobson herself gave her the opening by saying, after breakfast:
“Were you out yesterday evening, Ariane? I couldn’t find you when I wanted to say good night.”
“Yes.” Ariane flushed very faintly. “I was out.” Then she added, quietly but very firmly: “I went down to the Muldanes’ house.”
“To the Muldanes’ house?” Mrs. Dobson repeated. “But, my dear child, what possible reason could you have for going there?” She looked disturbed and annoyed.
Ariane got up nervously, pushing back her chair.
“Mother, I hope you won’t feel that I went too much behind your back, but I couldn’t let things stay where they were. After all, the Muldanes are—are my friends. They’ve been very kind to me—”
“I’m sorry, my dear.” Mrs. Dobson’s tone was not at all promising. “But I must interrupt you right at the beginning to set two mistakes right. The Muldanes are certainly not friends of ours, and I cannot recall any special evidence of kindness on their part. They were agreeable, naturally, since they had accepted you as a future relation, but that was all.”
“Well, I don’t feel quite like that about them,” Ariane said, speaking quietly, although she was actually controlling her feelings with difficulty. “The point is, Mother, that—tactlessly or otherwise—Mr. Muldane made a very generous offer, and, quite candidly, I don’t think it’s an offer we can afford to refuse.”
“It has been refused,” her mother said unanswerably.
“Anyway, Mother, they are genuinely worried about things being—difficult for us. I hope you won’t be annoyed, but I’ve given the impression that the unfortunate scene yesterday was much more a misunderstanding than anything else. And I’ve promised that you will think over what they had to say again.”
Mrs. Dobson pushed back her chair in her turn and got up.
“You had no right to do anything of the sort, Ariane, and I’m exceedingly annoyed with you. If I wish to take up a certain attitude towards the Muldanes or anybody else, I expect to maintain it without interference from you. I absolutely and finally refuse to have anything to do with this business. And nor will I argue about it,” she added very firmly, as Ariane tried to speak again.
It was no good. That really was the end, Ariane saw, and to attempt to dispute the matter further would only harden her mother’s decision—if, indeed, any hardening were possible.
With a little dispirited gesture, she acknowledged the argument closed, and a moment or two later she went out of the room.
Pulling on a coat, Ariane went out of the house. It was not that she was sulking, or even specially angry. But she felt nervously that she must be alone in order to think things out yet again.
This time, she realized, she was genuinely frightened. Until now, she had had some small reassurance to set against the alarming state of affairs which Harvey had disclosed. Now she must face each disagreeable fact without a shadow of security.
There would be literally nothing for her mother. In fact, even their home possessions would have to be sold. And in place of the money which had always been there—there would now be only the comparatively tiny amount which Ariane herself might make.
Nearly all the morning Ariane walked and walked, going over the same arguments and prospects a dozen times. And each time she came back to the same unwelcome conclusion. They were going to have to face the sort of poverty they had never dreamed of, and not one of the three had any practical equipment for it.
Still, one must make a start somewhere, and mourning over the state of things was not going to help at all. Unconsciously, Ariane squared her shoulders. She was coming back in sight of the town again now, and that reminded her that one more unpleasant duty lay ahead.
She would have to tell Harvey about the refusal of the offer, and she must do it with as much tact and as little sign of self-pity as possible.
Ariane had only just come to this conclusion, and had not yet formed any idea of how it was to be done, when she saw Harvey himself. He was evidently taking the short cut across the fields to his home, and in a few minutes his path would cross hers, some little way ahead of her.
It was not the ideal moment, since her thoughts were still chaotic, but it was definitely not an opportunity to be missed, and Ariane started forward.
He was walking quickly, and she had to run to catch up with him.
“Harvey!” He turned at once at the sound of her voice, and came back towards her.
“Why, hello, Ariane.”
“Hello.” She was still a little breathless. “I—just saw you—in the distance. I thought it was a good opportunity to speak to you, if you’re not in too much of a hurry.”
“No, I’m not in a hurry at all.” He fell into step beside her.
It was not very easy to make a start, but something had to be done about it, and so, after a moment, she said:
“It’s about—your father’s suggestion, you know.”
“Yes, I supposed it would be that.”
His calm steadied her, as it always did.
“I’m afraid it’s no good, Harvey. I can’t make her see it my—our way.”
“She absolutely refuses?”
“Yes, she absolutely refuses. And I’m certain she will never come to any private arrangement about the sale or—or transfer of the firm, because—well—”
“Because what, Ariane?” he asked as her voice trailed off into silence.
She flushed.
“It sounds dreadful, I know, but I’m afraid she would read a very unworthy motive into Mr. Muldane’s generous effort to—to keep things indefinite.”
“I see. She prefers to think of us as swindlers rather than friends?” His voice became faintly ironical for a moment, and Ariane looked very unhappy.
“It’s ridiculous, of course,” she said with an effort, “but once anyone has an idea like that, it’s possible to make everything else fit in as extra proof.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
There was silence between them for a few minutes. Then he said:
“Does she perhaps imagine that things will go on much as they have before, simply because she can’t visualize anything else?”
> “I don’t know.” Ariane sounded very troubled. “She talks of moving into a smaller house and living simply and all that sort of thing, but not, somehow, with any practical appreciation of what that means. I’m afraid she is sure there will be some thing from the business, however small. She doesn’t really imagine us all living on whatever I can make.”
He frowned.
“And can you?”
Ariane rather nervously put back a strand of hair from her forehead.
“I’m trying to.”
“It’s ridiculous, Ariane!” he burst out almost angrily. “It can’t be done. Not even with Julie pushed into a free school and you all in cheap lodgings, and everything perfectly hellish. Your mother must realize that it’s wrong to inflict that on all of you.”
Ariane shook her head.
“Nothing on earth would make her think of it as anything but right. And there’s a good deal to be said for her point of view, you know.”
“There is not. Do you mean to say you think you ought to go and live like that for some obscure principle?”
She smiled, faintly at his disgust.
“Well, it isn’t only principle, Harvey. It’s sheer necessity. There is no other way.”
“No? Are you sure?”
He stopped and faced her, his hands thrust into his pockets and pressed a little nervously to his sides.
“Why, certainly. What other way could there be?” she asked surprisedly, for it seemed to her that she had thought over every possible avenue of escape. Harvey didn’t look at her. He stared at the ground.
“You could,” he said, “settle the whole problem one other way, by marrying me.”
There was absolute silence, while Ariane felt as though her mind had gone completely blank. Harvey, the summer morning, her pressing problems, all seemed to slip away from her, and she was left floating in one enormous void of astonishment.
Then a church clock struck the half-hour in the distance. She became gradually aware again of the hundred sounds of field life around her. And she became overwhelmingly aware of Harvey’s silent, almost frightening presence.
“But do you realize what you are saying?”
It was a ridiculous thing to say to him, of course, and his dry, “Oh yes,” seemed to say as much.
But Not For Me Page 13
