“There’s no possible reason, Harvey
“Oh yes,” he said again. “There are plenty of reasons. Quite as good as the reasons which prompted you to take Frank. Better, in fact,” he added with an air of cool reflection. “For you are in a much greater fix now than you were then.”
“Are you suggesting that I should marry you in cold blood, just to keep a roof over our heads?”
“My dear Ariane, you’ll forgive me for saying so, but there was a time when that sort of marriage didn’t seem utterly impossible to you.”
That was true, she knew, and bit her lip.
“Perhaps I’ve learnt wisdom since then,” she murmured, flushing. “And anyway, I—you—”
“Yes?”
“Oh, it’s impossible! Even to put it into words—”
“Am I so utterly disagreeable to you?”
She didn’t reply.
“Because I refuse to believe it even if you say so. You went to considerable pains to—rescue me, as you thought, from Marta. You would scarcely have done that if you thought I was not bearable enough to be worth—er—rescuing.”
“What do you mean?” She was suddenly extremely agitated, but Harvey gave a grim, reminiscent little smile.
“Why, the time you had the superb effrontery to pretend to her that you wanted me yourself. I overheard, you know—”
“Did you?” whispered Ariane.
“Yes. And although I was furious at your interference, I had to pay silent tribute to the ingenuity of the idea. Only you would have thought of such a form of attack, considering the terms on which we really were.”
Somehow Ariane managed a stiff smile, and hoped it was more convincing than it felt.
“I suppose—it was—outrageous,” she said.
“You’re quite right. It was,” he assured her.
“But now you can speak of it without anger?”
“Almost,” he warned her, and Ariane smiled nervously again.
There was silence for a moment.
“Well, Ariane?”
It was not like a man pressing for an answer to a proposal. But then it was not very much like a proposal, really, she thought.
“What—about—Marta?” she got out at last, frightened to mention the subject, yet knowing it could not go entirely unmentioned.
“Marta?” His voice was very cold and expressionless. “Oh, Marta had the good fortune to marry a multi-millionaire in Chicago last week. I had a cable from her this morning to say so.”
CHAPTER X
“Marta—is married?” Ariane stared at him incredulously.
“Yes.” Harvey’s tone was curt.
“But it’s less than three weeks—”
“I know. I know. I suppose she met him as soon as she arrived.”
Ariane realized from the impatience of his interruption that his nerves were raw. She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, on impulse, she put her hand round his arm and made him walk on with her again.
“You know, Harvey, you’re just making the mistake that lots of nice men make,” she told him. “You’re feeling very disillusioned and sore because one woman has behaved badly, and you think you’ll prove to yourself that you don’t care by rushing off and tying yourself up with someone else. But it—”
“What is this supposed to be?” he inquired with a grim smile. “A dose of sisterly advice?”
“It’s quite sound advice.”
“Maybe. But it’s no answer to my question.”
“Which question?”
“Well, I did ask you to marry me, a short while ago,” he reminded her dryly. “Perhaps the fact has escaped you.”
“Oh no! but—I was just explaining—” She broke off confusedly.
“Yes, I know. You were just explaining the complex subject of myself to myself. But you really need not bother, Ariane. The whole situation is much simpler than you suppose.”
“These things are never simple,” Ariane said with a sigh.
“No? Well, listen—I’m going to say something to you that I’ve never said to anyone else, and I shall never say again.”
He was a little pale, she saw, and his jaw was set, but she let him go on without interruption.
“I did love Marta. I do love her,” he admitted with angry, unhappy reluctance. “The question of whether she’s worthy or not just doesn’t seem to enter into it. She is romance and glamour and fascination to me and always will be. I could never go through that heaven and hell for anyone else again. And now that she’s—quite finally beyond my reach, I know that something is dead in me that would never come to life again.”
He stopped for a moment, as though gathering his words for the rest of this difficult explanation. Glancing at him, Ariane saw with pity, that his forehead was slightly damp.
“You very nearly went with her, didn’t you, Harvey?” she said quietly, and his arm stiffened a little under her hand.
“Yes.” That came out with difficulty too. “I very nearly sank as low as that. Trailing at her heels like—”
“Well, never mind now.” Ariane’s voice was still quiet and very soothing. “You didn’t, after all, so don’t think of it again.”
“Do you know why I didn’t go?” he said harshly.
Ariane looked surprised.
“I suppose your better judgment, good sense—whatever you like to call it—prevailed in the end.”
He gave that grim little smile again.
“Not exactly. It was something that you said.”
“Something I said!”
“Yes. When we were driving home after you’d told them all at the Ventnors’ about your breaking your engagement. You said there were always a few times when duty wasn’t just an old-fashioned word, but something very real, and that if one was worth anything at all, one acted on it.”
“Oh Ariane was taken aback and a good deal touched. “Yes, I remember. I didn’t mean it for you though, Harvey. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, I know. That’s why it had such effect.”
“I’m very glad.” She bit her lip rather hard because she found it had an absurd tendency to tremble. “And you don’t regret it, even now?”
“No,” he said slowly and rather disagreeably. “I suppose there is some queer satisfaction in having done the right thing at last.”
“And is it in further pursuit of unpleasant duty that you are asking me to marry you?” Ariane asked, with a smile she could not resist.
“Of course not.” He smiled slightly in his turn, and then suddenly became exceedingly earnest. “It’s really just common sense, you know. We’re neither of us out for high romance, or anything of that sort. For you it would be, I hope, a not too disagreeable way out of a rotten hole, and for me—”
“Yes?” Ariane said softly. “I’d very much like to know what you’re going to get out of this business.”
“Why, quite a lot, Ariane.” He looked genuinely surprised at her interruption. “A settled home of my own, the kind of peace and quiet there never seems to be in our place, and—Why are you smiling?”
“Don’t you think this is a funny sort of proposal?”
“Yes, I do. We’re taking much too long about it. You know the advantages and the disadvantages just as well as I. Will you marry me, Ariane?”
She didn’t actually say anything. She just put her hand into his as though they were fixing a business deal.
“Is this ‘yes’?” he wanted to know.
Ariane nodded.
“Good.”
He didn’t attempt to kiss her or anything of that sort. He gripped the hand he was holding, and then let it go.
“I do wonder,” thought Ariane, “if any other couple ever shook hands on deciding to marry?”
“And now,” said Harvey, “I’m afraid there’s going to be another rather awkward interview with your mother. Shall I come to see her this afternoon?”
“Oh no!” Ariane was horrified. “I’ll explain.”
“But I think yo
u’ve had enough difficult explanations to do lately. I don’t like the idea of your being put under still more strain.”
He said that almost carelessly, but the incredible strange sweetness of having Harvey, of all people, assume personal responsibility towards her brought a lump into her throat.
“It’s all right—you needn’t worry.” She spoke rather breathlessly. “I don’t mind telling Mother at all.” Which was not strictly true, of course. “It would be less of a shock from me. I mean—”
“I see.” That dry look of amusement was there again. “I take it I shall not be anything like so welcome a son-in-law as Frank?”
Ariane didn’t answer. Not so much from embarrassment as from the extraordinary feeling it gave her to hear him describe himself as anybody’s son-in-law—her mother’s in particular.
“Well, I shall have to do my best to earn her moderately good opinion.”
“Will you really—bother—to do that?” Ariane asked in some surprise.
“I imagine it would be an unhappy position for you if we remained at loggerheads,” he pointed out gravely.
“Yes—I suppose it would,” she said slowly. And then, rather frankly, “But would that worry you much?”
“My dear Ariane.” He laughed a little. “I’m afraid that sounds as though you’re not expecting me to be a very considerate husband.”
And if the term “son-in-law” had given her an odd qualm, the word “husband” left her speechless.
But fortunately her silence went unnoticed because, at that moment, they reached the point at which Ariane had to turn off in order to reach her own home.
“You’re sure you prefer to make your own explanations?” Harvey took her hand again and looked down at her.
“Quite sure—really.”
“But I shall have to see your mother some time, you know. Just as I should have had to see your father if he had been alive. There are certain things which—well, which a girl’s parents have a right to settle with the man she is marrying.”
“Yes—I know.” It all seemed so strange and unreal suddenly that she was more than half afraid. “I’ll find out and—and let you know when is best. I must go now, Harvey. Good-bye.”
But he didn’t release her. He drew her back to his side again by the hand he was still holding.
“You’re in a terrible hurry to be gone, my little fiancée,” he said, looking down at her with not unkindly amusement. “When do I see you again?”
“Oh—I’m not sure. I’ll ring you up.”
“When? This evening?”
“Yes, if you like.” Queer—but of course Harvey had some sort of claim on her time now, she supposed.
“Very well, this evening. And you might be thinking over what you feel to be the shortest engagement necessary in the circumstances. I don’t think we need have much delay, do you?”
“No,” Ariane said. “No, I suppose we needn’t.”
And then she left him, with a rather hastily repeated “goodbye.”
Ariane ran nearly all the way home. She was not sure why. The fact that she was slightly late for lunch seemed an inadequate reason for quite so much haste. But as she sat down at the table she thought with quite unconscious humour, “I’d better not say anything until later. It would be a pity to spoil Mother’s lunch.”
Considering the rather strained terms on which they had parted, it said a good deal for the usual friendliness of their relations that the little family group showed no signs of constraint over the meal. And Julie’s chatter as usual filled in any gaps. Once she came rather near an awkward subject, when she exclaimed hopefully:
“I suppose as my school fees are paid up to the end of the summer term, there’s no chance of my not going back on Monday?”
“No chance at all, Julie,” her mother assured her. “You would not have been away anything like so long as it is if it were not for the Whitsun break.”
“No, that’s true,” Julie sighed. “I suppose we’ll be settled in a new house by the time I come home for the summer holidays,” she added, seizing on a new topic of interest.
Ariane wan very sorry to see her mother go pale at that, and she said quickly: “Well, we’re not sure yet, Julie. We needn’t meet trouble half-way.”
“I thought it would be rather nice,” Julie said innocently. “Change is always exciting, isn’t it?”
“Some changes one would willingly do without,” Mrs. Dobson said with a stifled sigh, and Julie looked faintly guilty.
“Poor Mother,” Ariane thought. “But if only she’ll resign herself to what I’m doing now, there need not be much change for her, I suppose. She’ll probably think me crazy, though, or very undutiful. Possibly born.”
Ariane waited until she and her mother had been left alone that afternoon before she spoke of the new development. Then she came over and sat on the rug at Mrs. Dobson’s feet, and leant her arm affectionately on her knee.
“Mother dear, you’re not cross with me any more, are you?”
It would have taken more hardness than there was in her mother to resist the appeal of Ariane’s anxious smile.
“Of course not, child.” Mrs. Dobson patted her daughter’s fair head. “You haven’t been worrying about it, have you? I daresay I was sharper than I meant to be. But then I never felt so friendly towards the Muldanes as you did. You mustn’t expect me to begin now.”
That was her opening, Ariane supposed nervously.
“Well, I wish—you would—try. Something quite unexpected has happened.”
“What, Ariane?” Her mother looked disturbed. “Something to do with them, do you mean?”
“Yes.” Ariane paused desperately, and then burst out: “Mother, I never cared much for Frank, as you know. It was Harvey—right from the beginning. And now I’m going to marry him.”
“My dear child!” Mrs. Dobson literally gasped. “My dear child, what are you talking about? Marry Harvey Muldane? That impossible person?”
“Oh, he’s not impossible.” She was so tired of hearing that ridiculous word in connection with him. “He’s very dear, really. If only you’d believe me.”
“Ariane.” Her mother turned her sharply so that she could see her quite clearly. “You’ve some idea about sacrificing yourself for Julie and me. I won’t have it, my child. I won’t hear of it. I was very wrong ever to suggest such an idea with Frank. But with Harvey—!”
“No, no, that’s not true. It isn’t a sacrifice, not in any sense at all. You mustn’t think so.”
“Are you actually asking me to believe that you love Harvey Muldane?” Mrs. Dobson’s expression was eloquent comment on such madness.
“Yes,” Ariane said slowly, “I love him. I’ve loved him almost from the beginning.” And as she said that, she was aware of a strange, inexplicable satisfaction in putting the fact into words at last. She could never say it to him. She supposed she would never have to say it to anyone again. But there it was in the depths of her consciousness, a source of such secret joy and secret pain that everything else seemed to pale beside it.
“I don’t understand,” poor Mrs. Dobson said with obvious truth. “I don’t understand it in the least.”
“Well, don’t worry too much, dear.” Ariane pressed her head affectionately against her mother’s knee. “Can’t you just believe that I’m happy to be marrying him, and leave it at that?”
But Mrs. Dobson could not.
“And does he profess to love you?” she wanted to know.
For a second Ariane hesitated. But if she had sketched in one side of a love-story, she must allow the other too. It would never do to let Mother suppose that her loving daughter was marrying an indifferent Harvey Muldane.
“Oh yes,” Ariane said steadily. “Oh yes, he loves me too, of course.”
“My dear child, I don’t want to sound a jarring note.” Her mother looked extremely worried. “But what about Marta Roma?”
Ariane thought of his expression as he had spoken of his love for Mar
ta—that “heaven and hell” through which he would never pass again—and for a moment her heart failed her. Then she dragged the last shreds of her dignity and self-possession around her.
“Marta,” she said calmly, “was simply an infatuation with him. It died a natural death when she went away.”
But to herself she was thinking: “He can look like that, speak like that, feel like that—but not for me. Even while he is asking me to marry him, he can tell me of his love for another woman.”
“It isn’t very reassuring, Ariane.” Mrs. Dobson’s anxious voice broke across her reflections. “Men do make fools of themselves, of course, in just that way, and then get over it, but I must say that nothing I know of Harvey Muldane fits in with that idea.”
“I know. I know,” Ariane agreed hastily. “It’s awfully difficult to realize just how things have turned out, but there it is, Mother dear, and I hope—I do hope—you won’t make yourself unhappy about it all, because I’m terribly happy.”
Mrs. Dobson smoothed Ariane’s bright hair doubtfully.
“It isn’t any good my pretending I like your choice, my dear. But if he really has won so much regard and affection from you, I’m willing to think there must be something in him which I have overlooked.”
Ariane hugged her mother in silent gratitude. It really touched her very much to see that the material advantages to Mrs. Dobson herself evidently had no place in her thoughts. In fact, she said with great sincerity:
“You know, don’t you, Ariane, that it’s only my anxiety for your own good that makes me seem difficult?”
“You’re not difficult,” Ariane declared indignantly. “I think you’re being angelically broad-minded, considering how you always have felt about Harvey.”
Mrs. Dobson smiled faintly.
“Is he really so lovable when one gets to know him?” she asked rather sceptically. But at the look which came into her daughter’s eyes she felt somehow a little guilty about even having said that.
Ariane’s was an open face, where the expressions followed each other in quick and transparent succession. Mrs. Dobson had often seen happiness there in all the varying shades, from baby pleasure in her childhood’s toys to the amused tender affection with which she regarded Julie. But this expression had never been there before.
But Not For Me Page 14
