But Not For Me

by Mary Burchell

  Her voice trailed off, because that sudden spurt of courage was failing. Why couldn’t she have kept quiet, instead of babbling inane consolation? Probably he was thinking that at least she might have had the good taste to leave him alone.

  “I’m sorry, Harvey.” She spoke again after a moment, but this time her voice was very low and she sounded like a little girl who had suddenly found herself a long way from home. “I’m sorry. I ought not to have rushed in like that. Particularly when you must be wishing me at Jericho, in any case. It’s only natural.”

  “No.” Harvey spoke then. “No, I wasn’t wishing anything of the sort. I was wishing—”

  “What?”

  “Perhaps that I had half your courage and decency.”

  “Why, Harvey! I—I don’t think I know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you? Do you realize that ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have said how ghastly it was for them? You didn’t. You spoke about my difficulties, as though your own feelings didn’t exist.”

  “But it’s so much worse for you,” Ariane said simply.

  “Is it, my dear?” He put his hand lightly over hers. “Well, if you can say that, it’s for me to see you never feel it is worse for you, after all.”

  She wanted to say something else—she scarcely knew what—but just then a servant arrived to set their meal and there was no opportunity to discuss things further. As soon as they had been left alone again, Harvey spoke firmly of something quite different, and somehow it was impossible to force the conversation back to the original point.

  But Ariane found it difficult to make coherent answers. She felt utterly bewildered, not only by the disastrous fact of Marta’s arrival, but because she scarcely knew what to make of Harvey’s reaction.

  That he was miserable and undecided about Marta she knew. But it was odd that, even so, he found time and thought to praise her part in the business.

  “Anyway, I don’t know that I was so specially noble about it,” Ariane reflected honestly. “It’s surely natural to want to help a man when you love him.”

  But then, of course, Harvey didn’t know that she loved him. Perhaps he thought she was clinging with pathetic literalness to the vows she had made a few hours ago. And, in that case, he probably felt that he ought to do the same.

  What was it he had said of Marta? “She’s romance and glamour and fascination to me—and always will be.”

  But since then he had solemnly promised to look after Ariane. And he had meant those promises. He was determined that she should come to no harm through him.

  “That’s what it is, of course,” thought Ariane with a sigh. “The old, old struggle between love and duty. And I’m going to have the unattractive task of representing duty—

  “And so I think we’d better not try to get further than that tonight,” Harvey’s voice broke across her thoughts.

  “No—no, I’m sure you’re right.” She had no idea what they were talking about, but she must go on pretending, keeping up her part in the conversation.

  And behind her smiling, attentive mask, her thoughts were running on:

  “It was utterly absurd to take this on. Much more absurd even than the fiasco with Frank. Because this time I care, and so everything counts so much more. He’s deadly determined to do the right thing by me, and that puts a miserable barrier round me from the first. And he’s scared and impressed by what he thinks my sense of duty. He believes I’m playing my part much more conscientiously than he. Oh, what a horrible muddle!”

  And all the time that her thoughts were darting desperately to and fro, she was agreeably discussing alternative routes with Harvey.

  “Shall we go now?” He suggested at last.

  “I think so.” She got up. “There’s nothing else to keep us.”

  In spite of their intention not to go very far, it was really quite late when they stopped for the night.

  The big hotel they had chosen was a landmark for miles around, and, although some distance from any large town, prided itself on having every luxury.

  Certainly the suite into which they were shown would not have disgraced either London or Paris.

  “Oh, how nice!” Ariane exclaimed involuntarily.

  The manager himself had conducted them there, and he smiled at Ariane’s pleasure.

  “Yes, madam. We call this our honeymoon suite, you know,” he explained. “It has everything I think that you could wish.”

  “Thank you. I’m sure we shall be comfortable.” Ariane’s answering smile was polite, but when he had withdrawn, she stared rather hard at the panels of the door. It was so obvious that he never, for one moment, supposed they were a honeymoon couple.

  “Are we so desperately lacking in all the signs?” thought Ariane with a sort of amused wistfulness. “Funny—most honeymoon couples would be thankful to hide it so well, but I hate our being classed as past the romantic stage.”

  Not that Harvey was inattentive to her, or anything but perfectly courteous when they went down to the palatial dining room. But then, after all, brothers and cousins and fathers could accord you that impersonal courtesy. That wasn’t what you wanted on the first evening of your honeymoon.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ariane told herself sternly. “You knew perfectly well that you couldn’t expect anything else. He told you why he was marrying you. For companionship and a quiet home-life. Why are you complaining?”

  But she wasn’t really complaining, of course. It was only that she couldn’t help asking herself how much “companionship” was supposed to cover.

  She asked herself the same question several times during dinner. But the answer never presented itself.

  It was a little difficult to know what to do, once dinner was over. Each deferred politely to the wishes of die other, with the result that it was impossible to express overwhelming enthusiasm for anything.

  They went into the ballroom and danced a couple of dances. Then Harvey suddenly said with frank sincerity:

  “What I’d really like to do would be to get out into the open air and have a sharp walk. It was a bit cramping in the car, wasn’t it? and I’ve had nearly enough of these Buckingham Palace effects.”

  Ariane opened her lips to agree eagerly. Then she remembered that he was probably longing to get away alone.

  “Would you like me to come too?” Her voice was very casual. But he glanced at her quickly.

  “Why—of course.” He seemed very much taken aback. “But only if you want to,” he added politely, the next minute.

  “I’d love to,” she cried, with what she afterwards thought indecent eagerness. “It was only—Will you wait five minutes while I change? I won’t be long, really.”

  “I don’t mind waiting,” he told her with a slightly puzzled smile. And as he watched her run up the stairs, his face said very plainly that he didn’t think he understood Ariane very well.

  She was very little more than the promised five minutes, and when she came down again—in a navy trouser suit with a yellow jumper that made her look about fifteen—he was sitting at a desk in the lounge scribbling something in pencil.

  “Ready?” She sounded quite gay as she called across to him. But at the slightly startled way he jumped to his feet, she felt her heart give a sickening little jerk. And as he stuffed his scribblings into his pocket, she knew what he had been doing. Roughing out a letter to Marta.

  They went out together.

  It was really quite cool when they got outside, and beyond the hotel grounds there was nothing but a glimmer of moonlight to guide them.

  “Sure you’re warm enough?”

  “Oh yes, thank you.”

  “And you’re not nervous?”

  “Of what?” She laughed a little.

  “Oh, I don’t know—The dark and the loneliness, I suppose.”

  “It’s Ariane you’re taking out, you know—not Julie,” she reminded him with a hint of amusement again.

  And he said, “I’m sorry, my dear. H
ow absurd of me,” and took her arm after that.

  It comforted her immeasurably, even though it probably only meant that he didn’t want her to stumble. The very touch of his arm was something.

  They didn’t talk very much, any more than they had in the car when they first drove away from home. But she felt, somehow, as though they had captured something of that pleasant content again.

  Only when they had turned back again and he spoke quite casually of their home and the way they intended to have it, did she remember there was something that she wanted to say to him.

  “Harvey—you know when you said all those—nice things to me last night?” (Was it really only last night?) “About being good to me, I mean?”

  “Um-hm?” He sounded faintly amused and faintly embarrassed.

  “Well, I—didn’t say so at the time, but I want you to know that—that I’ll try hard, too, you know. I expect I shall make some pretty clumsy mistakes at first—”

  “I don’t expect for one moment that you will,” he interrupted calmly. “You almost invariably do exactly the right thing.”

  “Oh no—oh no, really.” She was rather more distressed than gratified by that. “Please don’t expect too much, or else I shall fall very far short, and then you’ll be—”

  “Bad-tempered?” He drew her arm close against his side. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”

  “No, I wasn’t going to say that at all.”

  “What, then?”

  “Well, I was only trying to say that I’d do my best to be a—a good wife, and please don’t expect too much, but just give me the credit for trying. That’s all,” she finished rather lamely.

  “All right, I’ll remember,” he said.

  She thought he was not going to add anything to that, but as they came to the deep patch of shadow thrown by the trees at the entrance of the hotel grounds, he said very quietly:

  “Ariane.”

  “Yes?”

  “Kiss me, will you?”

  Perhaps he knew that, with Ariane, there would be no whys and wherefores and tiresome questions. At any rate, if he thought that, he was right. She simply put up her face to his, and gave him a sweet, firm kiss on his mouth.

  Then they went on through the grounds and into the hotel.

  Even in the light, Ariane looked perfectly calm and collected. She knew instinctively that that was how he would have her look. But that kiss could not have meant nothing. It simply couldn’t—surely? And all the while, her mind was searching frantically, hopefully, for a reason.

  Was Marta—agitating, fascinating creature that she was—to be forced into the background even of his thoughts? Was he going to give this marriage with Ariane a fair trial as a genuine marriage, instead of just the inhuman, unnatural bargain they had made. Surely he must know from the way she had kissed him that whatever he chose to do she would accept.

  Or did a kiss ever betray so much? His kiss had not told her much, after all.

  She saw from the clock in their sitting-room that it was late when they got in, and she said almost immediately:

  “I think I’ll go to bed now.”

  “All right. Would you like anything?—a hot drink of some sort?”

  “No, thank you. I’m not cold a bit; only rather tired.”

  He nodded.

  “Good night, then. I shan’t be long myself.”

  “Good night,” Ariane said, and went into her room.

  Perhaps he considered one kiss enough for the evening. Or perhaps he had only intended to say a partial good night. Did “I shan’t be long” mean anything but that he was going to his own room in a minute or two?

  She couldn’t possibly have said.

  Ariane undressed rather slowly. She was in a curious state of mind between apprehension and excitement, and sometimes she thought that kiss had meant everything—and sometimes that it had meant nothing.

  She got into bed presently, and switched off the light, leaving only the moonlight. At least—no, not only the moonlight, for her room led straight into the sitting-room, and there was a line of light under the door, telling her that Harvey was still in there.

  For a long time she lay watching it, and wondering what he was doing. Reading?—smoking?—thinking things over? But surely they had both thought things over for long enough.

  Whatever it was, he was taking a long time about it.

  And then suddenly she knew.

  She called herself a fool for having forgotten, anyway. Of course—he was writing to Marta. And it was taking him a very long time to do it.

  It was hard to say why, but at that her power of resting suddenly vanished.

  It was nothing to do with jealousy. It was not even curiosity. She only knew that if she could see his face as he wrote those lines to Marta she would have some clue to how she should act in future.

  Ariane got out of bed.

  It was no attempt to spy on him. She only wanted help—some sort of guide—in the maze in which she had found herself.

  Very quietly she opened the door slightly.

  There was no question of his hearing her, for the doors of the luxury suite moved as though by magic. There was also no question of his seeing her, for he was sitting with his back to her.

  He was not writing, she saw, but a second later she realized that he had been doing so, for he was reading from an unfolded sheet of paper in his hand.

  And then, even as she watched him, he must have reached the last words, for, with a little wordless sound, he suddenly put his head down on his arms.

  She stood there staring at him in utter dismay. Never in her life had she so longed to do anything as to run to him and put her arms round him.

  But she must not, she knew. She was quite outside this inner life of his. It was something she could neither share nor help.

  Very quietly, she closed the door once more, and as she did so, she shut out her ridiculous hopes and thoughts of ten minutes ago.

  One kiss. What did that mean? It was Marta he wanted, not herself.

  After that, it was no surprise to hear him get up and go to his own room. The line of light under the door disappeared. Harvey had gone to bed. She might as well do the same.

  But she didn’t.

  She sat on the side of her bed instead, watching the faint moonlight travel slowly across the carpet. And all the while, growing deeper every minute, was a cold humiliation of spirit that was more bitter than anything she had ever known.

  He didn’t want her. That was all—the beginning and the end of it.

  She climbed stiffly into her luxurious bed at last. But the pale moonlight had given place to a pale dawn before she finally fell asleep.

  Once or twice during the next few days, Ariane found herself wondering who was responsible for starting that most trying institution, the honeymoon.

  Of course, if two people adored each other, or had every thought in common, it was probably all right. Though even then, she reflected, it must: be something of a strain suddenly to have to share every particular of your life with someone, without even the security round you of the people and places you knew.

  But in her case it was hopelessly difficult. She had to hide her feelings. She had to hide the fact that she knew his feelings. And they both had to pretend to a situation which didn’t exist, for the benefit of any third person.

  Perhaps they managed better than Ariane supposed, because the days slid slowly past without any ruffling of the calm relationship between herself and Harvey.

  The evenings were the worst part. It was not so bad during the long hours of September sunshine, when one could swim or walk or lie reading on the smooth sand of the little Cornish cove. And it was not so bad at night when—at least sometimes—one could sleep.

  But the evenings, when the deepening twilight seemed gradually to shut away the outer world, and everything narrowed down to one’s own immediate surroundings!

  Ariane supposed that was the time which honeymoon lovers valued most of all. T
he time when they exchanged their most intimate thoughts, and were happy in their growing understanding of each other.

  She could not, by any stretch of imagination, see herself and Harvey exchanging their most intimate thoughts. It would probably mean a series of violent shocks on both sides if they did, she reflected with faint humour. And, in consequence, this was the time when, instead of understanding each other better, they seemed to drift farther apart every moment.

  Only bed-time released her from what was a nightly struggle to find subjects of conversation which did not lead straight to their tangled problems.

  Nothing more was said about Marta, although the day of her return had come and gone. And then, towards the end of the second week, Ariane saw a photograph of her in one of the newspapers in the hotel reading-room.

  Those long, lovely eyes seemed to smile up at her from the table, where the paper had been thrown, and, with a feeling of frightened defiance, Ariane leant over to read the interview printed beneath it.

  It was expressed in journalese of the more sensational order, and drew attention to itself by a heavy black heading, announcing that:

  “money doesn’t mean happiness,” declares

  MARTA ROMA AFTER WHIRLWIND COURTSHIP AND DISSILLUSIONMENT

  In it, Marta was understood to express herself—with a frankness which might, of course, have been her own or the reporter’s—on the subject of her very brief marriage.

  So far as Ariane could gather, it had taken her (or perhaps the millionaire) only a few weeks to find that they had made a mistake. But the magic phrase “temperamentally unsuited” appeared to have separated them again with the usual miraculous ease.

  The interviewer even added that they had parted in a perfectly friendly spirit, though Ariane could not help wondering if the millionaire had parted in the same perfectly friendly spirit with that portion of his millions which, doubtless, had had to accompany Marta.