Unwary Heart

by Anne Hampson

  ‘Andrew,’ he said at length, in a deeply troubled tone, ‘are you sure you’re not doing Muriel an injustice? You remarked just now that she told Miss Cook she had something important to say to you; I do think, as she was so persistent, you might have listened to her.’

  Andrew turned his head sharply.

  ‘You’re sorry for the girl?’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ Bill admitted, thinking of the wan figure they had just passed. ‘I was never as hard as you, Andrew,’ he added on a rather self-conscious note.

  A bitter smile touched his friend’s lips; he was not so hard as Bill believed. In fact, after the discovery on Saturday that Muriel still worked in the factory, he had spent the most miserable week-end of his life. He must have misjudged her. She would never have remained unless circumstances forced her to do so.

  The past was forgotten; he could not recall what the Muriel Paterson of the cruise even looked like. He saw only the girl in the factory, with her glorious hair and those lovely eyes clouded with unhappiness. A hundred times during the week-end he heard the warning from somewhere in the dim subconsciousness—‘You’re a fool’, and a hundred times he had dismissed it.

  He could send for her and even put her in a better position without falling into danger, he assured himself.

  That he loved her he had already freely admitted ... but he would never marry her. Nevertheless, he could not bear to think of her unhappy and in want.

  All most illogical, but for once in his life he was weak, powerless to resist the emotional forces that were driving him.

  He knew exactly what he would do. First thing on Monday morning he would send for her, and after discovering the reason for her entering the factory, he would transfer her to a more suitable position where she would work fewer hours and receive a higher salary.

  But on entering the office he became assailed by doubts and misgivings, unsure of his own strength and invulnerability.

  Supposing she donned that mask of innocence and candour? Could he resist her indefinitely? Should he decide to establish her in the office he would be in daily contact with her—and where else could he put her?

  He had been deep in this cross-questioning of his own feelings when his secretary had announced that Muriel was outside and wanted to see him. At once his suspicions returned, though it was fear—yes, he had to admit it was fear—that prompted his refusal to see her. But immediately he had sent her away remorse overwhelmed him and he was about to tell Miss Cook to call her back when he became caught up in a long telephone discussion about a new insulating material the firm’s chemists had recently invented. After that he decided to go over to the research department and see the results of the tests for himself. Returning to the office, and deciding to send for Muriel immediately after lunch, he had happened to glance into the building in which she worked...

  Why hadn’t he dismissed her instantly? All the afternoon the question plagued him. Even with the fainting episode coming barely five minutes after seeing her in another man’s arms, he found it impossible to send for her foreman and give orders for her dismissal. What had the girl done to him? She must be a witch. He’d heard of such women, luring their victims on by some mysterious spell, causing them to become so infatuated that they lost all power of rational thought. He had never imagined himself as one of those victims!

  ‘You know, Andrew,’ Bill was saying, ‘that fainting business ... I can’t believe it. I’ve come to the conclusion that it must have been genuine.’

  ‘At that particular moment?—at that particular spot?’ Andrew shook his head. ‘That’s asking too much, Bill.’ Yet even as he spoke he saw Muriel again and realized with a sort of astonished bewilderment that she had looked rather shaky and washed-out. Why hadn’t he noticed it at the time? he wondered, then immediately recalled that he had been so filled with revulsion and disgust that his one desire was to remove himself from her presence as quickly as he could.

  ‘I tell you it must have been,’ Bill insisted, but Andrew made no comment. Having turned into a wide, tree-lined drive in one of the most select parts of Barston, he pulled up before his friend’s house. Bill stood by the car for a moment. ‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said. ‘I hope my car’s ready tomorrow, I’m lost without it.’ He paused. ‘Muriel ... I know it’s none of my business, but—you’re not going to sack her?’

  Andrew brushed a hand through his hair in the manner of one harassed to distraction, though his voice sounded quiet and composed when he spoke.

  ‘No, Bill. I’m going to find out what it’s all about.’

  It was raining hard when Muriel alighted from the bus, and she ran all the way down the street and up the narrow little path leading to the front door of her home.

  Her aunt stood shivering in the tiny porch.

  ‘Aunt Edith!’ Muriel halted abruptly in surprise. ‘Is anything the matter?’

  ‘Matter?—matter?’ Aunt Edith prodded the step with her umbrella. ‘I don’t often inflict my presence on my relations, but when I do decide to pay them a visit they have to be out!’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Aunt Edith. But you didn’t let Mother know you were coming, did you?’

  ‘I didn’t write, if that’s what you mean, but with so many people living in the house I took it for granted someone would be in.’ She paused to glare at her niece, and then went on testily, ‘Well, well, don’t stand there; haven’t you a key?’

  ‘Yes.’ Muriel was already taking it from her handbag. She unlocked the door, snapped on the light, and when her aunt had entered she closed the door, putting a mat against it. For when the wind was in this particular direction the rain came bubbling under the door and ran in little streams down the narrow passage which served as a hall. ‘Dil’s gone to a party—a housewarming. One of her friends has just moved into one of the council houses on the new estate. Fred’s going there straight from work. Peter’s staying late at school, practising for the play they’re giving at Christmas, and Mother has gone on a trip to the Opera House with the Elstone Wheelers.’

  ‘The what?’ Aunt Edith, in the act of shaking her coat vigorously before placing it on a hanger, paused to regard Muriel in astonishment. ‘Are you telling me your mother’s taken up cycling?’

  ‘No.’ Muriel’s face broke with difficulty into a smile, and her aunt’s expression underwent a rapid change. ‘You can be a member of the club without taking part in the cycling. They have all sorts of entertainments. Last month they had a trip to a large biscuit factory.’ Aunt Edith still watched her with that odd expression, but all she said for the moment was,

  ‘I should have thought your mother could find something better to do with her time and money. And another thing, she ought to be in, with a hot meal waiting. I don’t believe in pampering children, but it’s a mother’s duty to see that her children are properly fed.’ They were in the living-room by this time, and Muriel went down on her knees to rake the dead ashes from the grate.

  ‘We are properly fed,’ she returned indignantly. ‘And Mother hardly ever goes out at night. There’ll be something ready in the kitchen.’ She blew vigorously and a tiny flame appeared. ‘I’ll just fetch some coal and then put the kettle on. There’ll be a cup of tea ready in less than five minutes.’

  When the coal was on, and she was sure the fire would bum without further coaxing, Muriel went into the kitchen to see what her mother had left for her tea. She found a plate of cold meat, and as it was the end of the joint, there was a more generous portion than usual. Putting half of it on to another plate, Muriel found tomatoes and chutney to go with it; then she began cutting the bread. How long would her aunt stay? she wondered. She would hardly go immediately after tea ... and Muriel could not go out and leave her alone. Why had she come, anyway? As she herself had said, she did not often visit her relations; and when she did it was never in the winter.

  ‘Did you want to see Mother about something important?’ she asked, realizing that her aunt had come into the kitchen and was standing with
the teapot in her hand, looking vaguely about her. ‘The tea caddy’s over there—that green tin on the shelf.’

  The old lady moved to the shelf and reached for the tin.

  ‘I had no particular reason for calling,’ she said. ‘I had to go into Barston to see my solicitor, so I thought I’d come back this way round and have a look at you all.’ Turning, she once again eyed her niece curiously.

  ‘What’s the matter? Have you been ill?’

  ‘Ill? No, I’m fine.’

  ‘You certainly don’t look fine. Been losing weight; your cheeks are sunken in. I noticed them out there in the hall. What is it?’

  ‘Daddy,’ Muriel replied hastily. ‘I can’t seem to forget him.’ She turned, her eyes brimming. ‘You have no idea how I miss him, Aunt Edith. He was so—soft, so understanding. I could talk to him—so much easier than I can talk to Mother.’

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’ The deep voice was without expression, though the old lady’s eyes were wide and alert.

  ‘Nothing—nothing at all. I just tried to explain about Daddy.’ With everything on the tray, Muriel picked it up, hastening into the other room, where she found that her aunt had spread the cloth and laid the cutlery. ‘Will you bring the tea, and a jug of hot water?’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Then we have all we need.’

  Aunt Edith followed, pouring out the tea before sitting down at the table opposite to her niece. She regarded Muriel in silence for a little while and then said in her usual brusque and direct manner,

  ‘It’s that Burke fellow—you’ve not got over him yet. No, you needn’t start protesting and saying you didn’t fall in love with him. I know you did! Well, I warned you you’d find yourself in trouble, and you have! It’s a case of the biter bit, isn’t it? And serve you right! Perhaps next time you’ll take heed of someone wiser than yourself! I suppose it’s never occurred to you that this is a sort of punishment?’

  It had occurred to Muriel, many, many times. But she did not think she had done anything wicked enough to deserve this terrible heartache, this unspeakable emptiness that engulfed her from the moment she woke in the morning until she drifted off into a restless, troubled sleep again at night.

  ‘Yes, Aunt Edith, it has.’

  ‘Then I’m glad to hear it.’ Although her tone held its customary sharpness, it contained a strange underlying note which brought Muriel’s head up with a jerk. No expression in the faded blue eyes, no relaxing of the small, uncompromising line of the mouth, yet there was a softness somewhere in the tiny, imperious face.

  ‘I know it was very wrong to get an idea like that, Aunt Edith,’ she said in a small voice. ‘But after I met Andrew it didn’t seem important. In fact, the idea seemed to fade from my mind altogether.’

  ‘You’d got your mug then,’ the old lady retorted. ‘At least, you thought you had.’

  ‘I didn’t think of Andrew like that,’ she protested. ‘I wouldn’t have cared if he’d been poor—poorer even than Daddy was.’ Her eyes were beseeching; she craved for sympathy and understanding; wanted her aunt to believe that Andrew’s money had nothing whatever to do with her feelings towards him. She longed desperately to tell her aunt everything; and that was very strange, for she had always looked upon her as a rather terrifying person, cold, impersonal, and totally without pity. It had always been difficult to believe that she was a mother, and more difficult still to believe that it had taken her several years to get over her husband’s death.

  ‘You’d have married him if he had been as poor as your father?—had he asked you, of course?’

  Married ... Muriel’s lips trembled and her throat tightened with emotion.

  ‘I would,’ she returned huskily, and a little silence followed before her aunt spoke again.

  ‘You didn’t tell me much about what happened that last evening, Muriel, but the fact of your shirking the final goodbye the following morning revealed a lot. On the train, when I mentioned the young man, you said it had been a lighthearted friendship between you, nothing more—but you were much too emphatic about it. Also, you asked me not to mention him to your family. Had it been so light an affair there was no need for secrecy, but you were afraid that if your family did hear about Andrew they’d guess the truth because you would give yourself away, reveal that you loved him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  When her aunt spoke again there was an odd quality of gentleness in her tone.

  ‘Tell me, Muriel, did Andrew Burke ever give you any reason to believe he was serious in his attentions?’ She watched her niece closely, recalling her suspicion that Andrew had known exactly what Muriel was planning.

  ‘Yes,’ said Muriel after a long hesitation. ‘He talked quite often of the future; once said I would love the country where he lived. It’s near a forest—and he said I would love the trees in his garden; his grandfather had a passion for trees and brought them from many parts of the world. He asked me if I could skate, because there was a lake in the grounds and when it froze over in the winter all the family skated on it, and friends from round about, too. I can’t think what happened, Aunt Edith, I feel sure he meant all those things when he said them.’

  Aunt Edith felt sure he had not, but she refrained from saying so. Just as she had expected; he had seen through the girl. Probably met many such money-seeking women in his time, and she felt that in the normal way he would have avoided them like the plague. But for some reason he had chosen to amuse himself with Muriel. It was quite clear that he had gone out of his way to make her feel that the end of the cruise was not to be the end of the friendship. Well, it was entirely her own fault. If she allowed herself to be led by a minx like Christine she deserved all that had come to her. As she glanced again at Muriel’s pallid face, however, the old lady’s eyes softened. No excuse for Andrew Burke, either. He should have left Muriel alone. He might have decided she needed a lesson, but it was not for him to give her one!

  ‘You must try and forget all about it,’ she advised, in the same gentle tone. ‘I should have expected you to have less time to think now you’re working. Where are you? You wrote saying you’d found work in Barston—are you in a shop?’

  ‘No.’ Muriel knew the question must come, and she’d been dreading it. But it had to be answered; there was no fencing round a subject, or cleverly dropping it, not with Aunt Edith. ‘I’m working at Burke and Groves—in the Park.’

  ‘You—’ Aunt Edith’s fork clattered on the plate. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I’m working at Andrew’s factory—not in the office or anywhere nice like that, but in the works.’ And as her aunt continued to stare at her Muriel went on to explain why she had been forced to go there. Her aunt’s pale eyes remained fixed on Muriel’s face and she added hastily, ‘I suppose you’re thinking I could have found work elsewhere, but I couldn’t. I tried for weeks and weeks—went all over the town.’

  ‘No.’ Her aunt shook her head. ‘I’m not thinking you went there after him, but I’ll wager Andrew Burke did. You have seen him?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t really expect to, not for a long time, anyway, for there are thousands of employees. He did think I was running after him; he practically said so.’

  ‘Said so?’ The deep voice resumed its sharpness.

  ‘Not in so many words,’ Muriel admitted, going on to describe the conversation in Andrew’s office. ‘Then he just told me to go back to my work,’ she added quiveringly. ‘He spoke in a curt sort of voice, as if we had never been ... friends; just as though he—he h-hated m-me.’

  ‘Did he now...?’ Aunt Edith seemed to be speaking to herself. ‘Acted as though he hated you. I wonder why he should do that?’ She toyed for a moment with the bread on her plate, a most odd expression on her face.

  Muriel wondered if she had exaggerated; Andrew’s tones were brusque and impersonal, but he had displayed no open hostility towards her.

  ‘I can’t quite remember how he was. I know I had the impression that he didn’t want me anywhere ne
ar him.’ Her voice broke, but her aunt did not notice. She was frowning in a strangely preoccupied way.

  ‘That was an odd impression to have. You parted friends, you told me?’

  ‘I suppose we did.’ Muriel suddenly had some doubts about that.

  ‘Have you seen him since he sent for you to go to his office?’

  Muriel hesitated. No use trying to hide anything from her aunt. If Andrew and Christine were to be married she would hear of it shortly in any case, would be invited to the wedding.

  Better to tell her now, so that the invitation would not come as a shock.

  ‘I saw him last Saturday, with Christine. They’re practically engaged.’

  An amazed silence followed. Aunt Edith looked as though she had not heard aright.

  ‘Engaged? Andrew Burke ... and that young hussy!’

  ‘He’s the man I told you about—the one Christine had decided she was going to marry.’

  ‘Ah... The one who does a great deal of business with her father.’ She raised an imperative hand as Muriel would have spoken. ‘What gave you the idea they were as friendly as all that?’

  ‘I was speaking to Christine just before he met her, and she said—said I could be her—her bridesmaid—’

  It was a little time before Muriel was able to go on and tell her aunt more about the conversation with her cousin. And then, to her surprise, she found herself relating all that had happened, both on the cruise, and since she had gone to work at the factory.

  The story came out in confused, disjointed sentences, but Aunt Edith had no difficulty in reducing the chaos into some sort of order. Almost immediately she knew that Andrew Burke was as much in love with Muriel as she was with him, that his refusal to see her was due entirely to fear.

  What an incredibly stupid pair they were!

  If he knew half as much about women as he thought he did, he would have seen, after the first five minutes, that Muriel was as inexperienced as a baby! And if she had had an atom of sense she’d know that he wouldn’t marry Christine if she were the last woman on earth! They wanted their heads banging together! Her pale lips compressing tightly, Aunt Edith pondered on whether or not she should take a hand in the matter. ‘You were a stupid little fool to try and see him,’ she snapped impatiently at last. ‘And as for falling in a faint just as he came out of the office—’ She grunted in disgust. ‘When you felt it coming on why the dickens didn’t you put as much distance as possible between you and that office? No wonder he assumed it to be a stunt!’