“It comes only once to any woman’s face,” thought Mrs. Dobson, stifling a sigh. “And to some it never comes at all. She’s not my little girl any longer. She is a woman now. How odd that Harvey Muldane should have been the one to take her away.”
Much later, Ariane telephoned to Harvey, and after dinner he came along to see her mother.
She remembered then how strange it had seemed to her when Frank had come to tell Daddy he wanted to marry her. It was a hundred times more extraordinary to have Harvey coming to tell Mother the same thing.
Ariane came out quickly into the hall to meet him. There was something that must be said before he saw her mother, and, taking his hand, she drew him into the little room at the side of the hall which used to be her father’s study.
“Harvey.”
“Yes?” He stood there smiling slightly down at her, tall and almost frighteningly handsome, his hands thrust into the pockets of his dinner-jacket. She didn’t think he was at all nervous about the coming interview. That smile only seemed to suggest that he was very much aware of her own flushed cheeks and over-bright eyes.
“It’s just—that when I explained to Mother, I had to pretend—well, you see, we can’t let her know exactly how things are.”
“Of course,” he agreed politely. “That was the whole point, I think.”
“Yes—oh yes, of course.” She wished she could manage these interviews better. “I didn’t mean that part. It’s only that, of course, she asked rather searching questions about whether we were—were fond of each other.”
“Naturally.” He looked quite grave now, but she somehow had the impression that the amusement had really deepened. “You mean you thought it wiser to give me my cue before I talked things over with her?”
“Yes—exactly. That was it.”
“I see. Well, what roles did you cast for us? Are we—are we dying with love for each other, or are we commonsense but devoted? Am I suing for something I hardly dare to expect, or well, what?”
Ariane laughed.
“I suppose ‘commonsense but devoted’ will cover it best,” she said a little embarrassedly. “I just told Mother that you—that you were in love with me, and that I—I—”
“Yes? I’m really most eager to hear what your reactions are supposed to be.”
“Well, I—I just said I was in love with you,” she admitted, colouring slightly.
“Did you, Ariane?” He took her hand then and kissed it with extraordinary gentleness. “Thank you, my child. You say that very nicely, even if it isn’t true. Shall we go and find your mother now?”
Ariane nodded. She couldn’t really find any words to answer him, and the convincing way he put his arm lightly round her waist as they went into the lounge, where her mother was, did very little to restore her.
It was not, of course, the kind of interview that could be called enjoyable from any point of view, but it seemed as though, having once decided to be reasonable with each other, Mrs. Dobson and Harvey were both determined to do the thing handsomely. And Ariane, observing their air of remote cordiality during the rest of the evening, supposed that, in a married life as strange as hers was likely to be, it was something to know that her mother and her husband respected, if they could not like, each other.
Julie, perhaps, extracted more complete satisfaction than anyone else from the whole situation.
“Going to marry Ariane!” she exclaimed. “Are you really? I say, I am glad. It’s just as I said, you know, Ariane,” she added to her sister.
“Is it?” Ariane replied cautiously, knowing that things just as Julie said them were apt to be disquieting.
“Yes. You know—the sort of villain of the piece turning out to be the hero after all, and—”
“Julie!” Mrs. Dobson interrupted sharply.
“Game here, you little wretch, and apologize for that,” Harvey said with rather remarkable good humour. “What do you mean by calling your future brother-in-law the villain of the piece?”
“Oh, not now!” Julie explained. “Now you’re the hero.”
“I see. I’ll endeavour to live up to the noble role,” Harvey assured her gravely.
He didn’t stay very long after that. Perhaps because this first meeting was something of a strain for all of them—with the inevitable exception of Julie. She enjoyed everything, particularly the slightly ceremonious way Harvey bent over Mrs. Dobson’s hand as he said good night.
“Just like someone going to dance a minuet,” Julie said with a sigh, as the door closed behind her sister and Harvey. “So romantic, isn’t it, Mother?”
“I hadn’t thought so,” Mrs. Dobson said dryly.
Outside in the hall, Ariane was saying:
“Thank you, Harvey. You managed splendidly.”
“Kept my temper, you mean?” he countered with an unexpectedly mischievous smile.
“Well, I—no, I mean you were most convincing.”
“Was I? Thanks. So were you. With practice we shall be really good at this. Good night, Ariane.”
“Good night.”
She stood at the door for a moment, watching him get into his car. Then he drove off, and she closed the door with a sigh.
He hadn’t kissed her. But then why on earth should he? There had been no one in the hall who needed convincing, and the mere fact that she had gone with him into the hall would indicate to her mother that a satisfactorily tender good night had taken place.
Ariane hoped nervously that Julie wouldn’t ask point-blank if Harvey had kissed her good night. It was the .sort of innocent inquiry which sprang all too naturally to her lips.
When she came back into the room, however, Julie was too busily occupied with the only fly in the ointment to make minor inquiries of that sort.
“I suppose,” she observed, in the slightly hushed voice which, with her, passed for tact, “I suppose he won’t be friendly with Marta Roma any more now?”
“Well—no. Anyway, she’s in America, you know,” Ariane said a little stiffly.
“Yes, I know. But she’s bound to come back from America some time, and I’d always thought—Really, it’s rather a pity in a way.”
“Why, Julie?”
“Because when I am allowed to leave school and can go on the stage—”
“You must get rid of these absurd notions, my dear child,” her mother began firmly. But Ariane didn’t listen to the familiar argument that followed. She was thinking, with an unhappy little quiver, of what Julie had said of Marta.
She’s bound to come back from America some time.
It was quite true, of course. She would come back. And by then Ariane must have managed to build some sort of barrier against her. But out of what?—and on what foundations?
The next few weeks were not easy. Julie went back to school, and Ariane and her mother had to face the difficult and melancholy period of readjustment which always follows on the death of the head of a family. In addition, there was the complication of settling the business affairs without Mrs. Dobson knowing too much of the real state of things.
Over this, however, Mr. Muldane proved much more tactful than Ariane had dared to hope. Warned—perhaps by his previous experience, or perhaps by Harvey—he had as little direct contact with Mrs. Dobson as possible, leaving most things to be arranged between his eldest son (whom he trusted) and the melancholy but worthy acting manager of Dobson’s (whom Mrs. Dobson trusted).
When he did have to meet Mrs. Dobson, he treated her with nervously stiff courtesy, and at least avoided the pitfall of referring to “your girl” or speaking cheerfully of “the young people.”
It was, in any case, Ariane reflected, a trifle difficult to think of anybody as grim and authoritative as Harvey as “a young person.”
Gradually, matters began to straighten out. The big house was to be sold later, and Mrs. Dobson and Julie installed in something much more convenient.
“And I suppose,” Harvey said reflectively, when Ariane and he were discussing thing
s one evening, “it’s time we did some house-hunting on our own account, Ariane.”
“I suppose so.”
Queer to think of herself and Harvey Muldane looking for the home where they were to live together.
“Or would you prefer us to buy a piece of land and have a house built just as you fancied it?”
“Wouldn’t that be very much more expensive, Harvey?”
He looked surprised.
“I suppose so. But we can afford it quite easily, if you would like it.”
She thought it extraordinarily nice of him to say “we can afford it,” and smiled slowly, without realizing that he was watching her with considerable pleasure.
“Well, Ariane?” He smiled in his turn.
“I should like that very, very much indeed,” she said earnestly.
“Then it’s settled.” Harvey spoke as though it were a matter of buying an umbrella. “There’s only one difficulty—”
“Yes?”
“We’ll have to find some place while the house is being built. It can’t be done in a week or two, and—I think we ought to be married soon.”
She knew what he meant. Every day brought some embarrassing expense which, as her husband, he could settle, but, as her fiancé, he found very complicated to deal with.
“When—were you thinking of?”
“Have you any objection to the end of this month?” They were both rather elaborately casual. “That gives us whatever time is needed for banns and so on, and Julie will be home for the summer holidays. I take it she’d have a fit if we were married without her assistance.”
“I think so. In fact, yes, of course she would.” Ariane hesitated, but as he seemed waiting for her to speak, she said: “Well, then, the end of this month.”
He took some pains not to look at her as she said that, and she supposed he was pitying her for having to be forced into an unwelcome marriage.
“And about the question of where we are to live temporarily?”
“Oh—” Ariane conscientiously considered that problem.
“I don’t want to get into Maurice’s habit of living half the time at home,” he remarked, frowning.
“Oh no, of course not.” Ariane was horrified at the very thought of working out their complicated problem under the eyes of people like Sally or, to tell the truth, the much puzzled Frank. “You wouldn’t like—”
“Yes?”
“Mother will be here for a month or two longer while her place is being got ready, and it would be rather nice for me—I mean—” she stopped, and then went on again. “It’s such a big house, Harvey, and I haven’t liked the idea of her being left alone here while Julie is away and I—and I—” She didn’t seem able to get further than that, and the sentence hung there unfinished.
She wondered if he would resent the implication that her home was pleasanter to live in than his. But apparently not, for he leant forward and took her hand.
“Poor child, it’s a rotten position for you, isn’t it? All right, of course, stay with your mother for a few months longer, if you like. I daresay she won’t mind the little she’ll see of me, and we’ll manage somehow. It’s rather a good way of”—he smiled grimly—“making a difficult start.”
That was not quite how Ariane had been looking at it, but she felt that to set him right would involve her in far too dangerous explanations, so she smiled, a little nervously, and said: “It seems as though it might be the best way for all of us.”
He accepted this without comment, and she thought:
“It’s queer that Harvey has a reputation for being difficult and obstinate. I don’t think many men would be willing to let me have everything so much my own way.”
But then the odd thing was that, while he had fiercely resented her engagement of convenience to Frank, he seemed rather sorry for her that she was being forced into marrying himself. Perhaps this was his way of making up to her for the supposed unpleasantness of it all.
“Well, Ariane?”
“What?” She looked up quickly, to find him watching her. “Why the very solemn air, gradually merging into a reassured smile?”
“Oh—nothing.” She got up embarrassedly and, to hide her confusion, went over and began to poke the fire energetically.
A moment later he too got up and followed her. He stood there, quite silent, and she wondered if he were still waiting for a reply to his question, ignoring, in that odd way of his, any attempt at prevarication.
She straightened up, but refused to look at him.
“I was really—just—thinking how extraordinarily kind you are to me.”
“Kind?” He sounded surprised. “My dear girl, I assure you I have no reputation whatever for kindness.”
“No, I know. And that’s another thine—You have a most stupid reputation for being difficult and—and other horrid things. And you’re not at all.”
“Are you sure?” He laughed, but she knew he was touched and pleased. “Perhaps when you’ve been married to me and know more about me, you’ll want to take that back.”
“I know quite a lot of things about you now,” Ariane insisted. “Nice things. And—oh, Harvey, you do know how grateful I am for all you’re doing, don’t you?”
“It’s not so very much.” He frowned slightly.
“Oh, yes, it is. Sometimes I could die with shame to think how much we’re taking, and sometimes—”
“Sometimes?”
“I wish I could say ‘thank you’ properly, Harvey, only—would you be terribly surprised and horrified if I kissed you?” She couldn’t imagine why she had said it, but there was no taking it back now, and she could only pretend that it had been half-jokingly meant.
“Well—no.” He was smiling, she knew, although she would not look at him. “No. I should probably be rather nervous but flattered.”
She glanced at him then and saw that, besides the teasing smile, there was a slight, unusual flush. Then he bent his dark head, and their lips met.
Ariane could not have said whether it was a second or eternity before he put her from him—abruptly, although his hands were quite gentle on her.
“You’re very sweet, Ariane,” he said. And then, very curtly, “I must go now.”
She didn’t try to detain him. She was not very sure that she even said “good night.”
He went out of the room, and she heard him in the hall, speaking to one of the servants. There was the sound of his footsteps across the hall, the heavier sound of the front door closing, the purr of the car as it went down the drive. And then—silence.
CHAPTER XI
“I do hope you’re going to be very happy with Harvey, Ariane. He’s not the easiest of people to get on with, is he?”
Sally, back once more in Norchester a day or two before the wedding, leant back in her chair and surveyed her future sister-in-law with thinly veiled curiosity.
“I don’t seem to have much difficulty about it,” Ariane said curtly—and then knew immediately that the remark would have had much more effect if she had said it sweetly. But Sally’s uncharitable curiosity always irritated her, and most of all when it was directed against Harvey.
“Well, he’s always been considered the difficult one of the three. I used to know them all even when we were children, you see, so of course I know a great deal about them. Maurice and Frank were always nice boys, but even his mother couldn’t make much of Harvey.”
“Perhaps she didn’t try very hard.”
“He was an ungracious child, you know,” Sally went on, full of her superior amount of knowledge. “And to anyone as elegant and finished as Mrs. Muldane, it was like having somebody positively uncouth for one’s eldest son.”
“Oh, Sally, don’t be so idiotic!” Ariane’s temper suddenly got the better of her. “What ridiculous words to use of a sensitive, inarticulate child who was probably dying for a little approval. If she was really so stupid as to think of him in those terms, no wonder she didn’t get the best out of him.”
/> “Really, Ariane! After all, I did know them and you didn’t,” Sally said stiffly. “It’s only natural that I should have a little more insight into the question. I thought it might help you—”
“All right, Sally.” Ariane was a little ashamed to have lost her temper, and her sense of humour was reasserting itself once more. “But please just let well alone. When I start giving you helpful advice about Maurice, you can let rip about Harvey—and not before. After all, I am marrying Harvey, and I’m certainly not going to commit the petty disloyalty of discussing him with you.”
“Well, of course,” said Sally, “if you feel like that—”
“I do,” Ariane assured her. And that closed the subject.
Curiously enough, Mr. Muldane was almost more pleased than anyone.
“I was really sorry, you know, when it looked as though we weren’t going to have you in the family after all,” he told Ariane frankly. “And now I’m very pleased that it should be Harvey. You’ll be good for him, very good for him. And, to tell the truth, you’ve got more in him than in Frank.”
“Oh—have I?” Ariane was surprised as well as embarrassed. “But I always thought—”
“What did you think?”
Ariane’s colour deepened.
“I’m afraid I always thought that you didn’t get on very well.”
“Well, we don’t—always. There isn’t room for two tempers like ours in one family.” The old man smiled grimly. “But he’s the best of the three at heart. The one with the real personality. Or perhaps,” he added reflectively and a little ingenuously, “perhaps I feel like that because he’s the one who is most like me.”
“I suppose he is like you,” Ariane said slowly. “I’m not quite sure why, but he’s much more reminiscent of you than the other two.”
“Why, yes, of course he is, of course he is.” Mr. Muldane seemed to think it was absurd that anyone should hesitate about it. “Harvey is my son, and the other two are their mother’s sons.” He sighed slightly. “That’s why life is so much easier for them,” he added unexpectedly.
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