Across the Counter

by Mary Burchell

  She thought she must somehow plead illness in the morning and cancel both the dinner and the dance. But the practical difficulties of dealing with both the Fallodens’ sympathetic interest and Geraldine Kendale’s inevitable inquiries made her dismiss the idea almost as soon as it formed.

  She pushed back her hair from a damp forehead. And as she did so the telephone rang just beside her. With her mind still full of her own anxieties she reached for the receiver, and Paul Kendale’s voice said, “May I speak to Miss Renner, if she’s there?”

  “Yes, I am. I mean, I’m speaking.”

  “Oh—Well, I think I should tell you that my sister is on her way down to you now with a rather awkward proposition—”

  “Yes, I know. She’s been in and very kindly invited me to dinner at your home tomorrow night,” said Katherine rather formally, in case anyone should overhear. “You know about it, then?”

  “Yes.

  “I’m extremely sorry. It’s a situation I hadn’t foreseen—which was perhaps rather stupid of me. I did try to get you out of it—”

  “So I hear. Thank you. It was very kind of you.”

  “It was the least I could do,” he replied curtly. “And anyway, I’m afraid it didn’t work. What answer did you make to her?”

  “I thanked her and accepted, of course.”

  “You did?” She thought she detected a tinge of admiration in his tone. “I must say you have courage.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Katherine told him in a small voice. “I feel at the moment that I haven’t a grain of it. But there was nothing else I could do.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said again, and oddly enough, she thought he really was. “I feel it was my fault for involving you in this without thinking of the very likely complication.”

  “One can’t think of everything, and in any case it was very nice of you to invite me to the ball,” replied Katherine, trying not to remember what Aileen Lester had so gracefully said about his only inviting her because he wanted to annoy herself. “I shall manage all right. But I shall come a little late so that I don’t have to engage in too much conversation before the actual dinner.”

  “I’ll fetch you in the car,” he informed her. “Are you still at the Bellevue?”

  “Oh, no. I’m a little way out of town, and you don’t have to feel—”

  “I’ve told you—I never do things because I feel I have to.” She knew suddenly from his tone that he was smiling slightly. “What is the new address?”

  She told him then, and he promised to be there just before six-thirty.

  “That will mean that we get back to our place just in time to have a drink before going in to dinner. Will that do?”

  “Yes, certainly—if it suits you.”

  “Anything suits me,” he informed her before he hung up. And Katherine was left wondering with real curiosity whether he meant that he was a very adaptable sort of fellow, or that nothing much mattered now, anyway.

  When Katherine explained that evening about her further invitation, Jane was full of jubilant congratulation. “My dear, how wonderful! You simply must look stunning for the occasion. I’d hate you not to beat the Lester on her own ground,” she declared with endearing partisanship. “Have you got a really nice dress?”

  “I thought it pretty good when I bought it,” Katherine said with a smile. But then she bit her lip. For of course she had bought that infinitely becoming gold brocade in the belief that she would wear it on many, many happy evenings as Malcolm’s fiancée and wife.

  She felt then that she would never have any pleasure in it again. But when she was dressed and ready for inspection the following evening, Jane’s delighted approval lifted even her subdued spirits.

  “I only wish you had about fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of blond mink to go with it,” she declared. “But apart from that, you couldn’t look better. You really are a beauty in your own line, Katherine.”

  “Who’s talking?” asked Katherine, laughing. “You’re just as pretty as a picture yourself”—which was true. “I’m glad you won’t be all done up in your best before Paul Kendale arrives, or he might decide to take you instead.”

  But when Paul Kendale did arrive he seemed quite extraordinarily preoccupied, and he collected Katherine more in the manner of one collecting a parcel than a pretty girl.

  She felt faintly piqued in spite of her own agitated concern for the approaching dinner party. And as they drove off—followed, as she knew, by interested glances, from behind the Falloden curtains—she asked coolly, “Is anything the matter?”

  He glanced at her then.

  “The matter? Oh, I’m sorry. Was I being a bit glum and ungallant?”

  “Well, a trifle preoccupied, shall we say? What is it? You’re not scared, are you, that I shall make some sort of scene? Because I—”

  “You?” He looked genuinely astonished. “You’re not the sort to make scenes. No. If you really want to know, I’m as nearly scared as I ever am that my old man is going to make a scene.”

  “Your father?”

  “Yes. I have a somewhat difficult parent,” he added brusquely, “in case no one else has told you.”

  “I’ve heard something of the sort,” Katherine conceded. “What will he make a scene about?”

  “I’m not quite sure. That’s the awkward thing—or else I could head him off.”

  “It’s not about—your sister’s engagement?”

  “Oh, no. Anything Geraldine does is right in his eyes,” Paul Kendale said without rancor. “But I’m not sure that her getting engaged hasn’t started one of his favorite bees buzzing in his bonnet again. It’s one of his most furious obsessions that I should get married.”

  “I see.”

  “And what’s more, he would like to choose my wife for me.”

  “Oh, but—” Katherine looked genuinely shocked “—isn’t that terribly old-fashioned of him?”

  “My dear girl, my father is old-fashioned. Except insofar as Geraldine and I have forced modifications, his parental views are those of about the eighteen-sixties.” Katherine considered that in silence for a moment, but felt unable to take much of this seriously.

  “It must be very disagreeable for you,” she said at last. “But I find it quite impossible to imagine your allowing anyone to make a major decision for you.”

  “No, of course I wouldn’t allow it.” The corners of his mouth curled in a grim little smile. “But I very much dislike the kind of scene that my refusal can provoke. And if he makes a semipublic issue of it, the position can be quite insufferable.”

  “Well ... yes. I do see that. But perhaps he won’t do anything, after all. What makes you think he might pick on this evening for trouble?”

  “Partly the choice of guests and partly the fact that I had words with him just before I left.”

  “O-oh...” She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was almost eavesdropping on what did not concern her, but he seemed determined to go on.

  “He was jubilating about Geraldine’s engagement—with which he seems remarkably pleased,” Paul Kendale added, “and then he said it was time I made a similar announcement. We went over atrociously familiar ground once more, and he got a bit apoplectic and finished by saying that if I didn’t do something soon he would ‘force the issue’—a favorite term of his. I had to leave at that point, in order to collect you. And that was why I looked—” he flashed a sudden smile “—a trifle preoccupied!”

  “Explanation accepted without reserve,” Katherine told him and she, too, smiled.

  To which he said, “Thanks. How’s your own morale?”

  “Not too bad.” This was not quite true, but Katherine saw no point in telling him that her nerves were taut, her throat dry and her knees uncertain. She had to go through with this thing, and she might as well make as little fuss as possible about it.

  When it came to the point, Paul Kendale contrived to ease things considerably for her. He allowed her only a few conventional w
ords with Geraldine and a slightly tense Malcolm. Then he took her away, saying that she must come and meet his father.

  In spite of her own troubles, Katherine was genuinely curious to meet old Mr. Kendale, who turned out to be a tall, fine-looking man with a curious resemblance to his son. He looked Katherine up and down and said, “So you’re the young woman from Bremmisons who knows all about running a provincial store?”

  “No. I’m the young woman from Bremmisons who is beginning to learn something about running a provincial store,” Katherine told him with a smile. “But I have what I think are some good ideas, and if I get a chance to try them out, I believe you’ll think so, too.”

  “Well, well...” Mr. Kendale seemed pleased rather than otherwise that she was apparently not intimidated by him, and he kept her beside him while she drank her excellent sherry. Presently he introduced her to another formidable-looking elderly man who, it seemed, was Aileen Lester’s father.

  He regarded Katherine with considerably less approval, but perhaps that was inevitable. However, she held her ground pretty well until Aileen appeared, was greeted as a prime favorite and bestowed upon Mr. Kendale something very like a daughterly kiss.

  So that’s the way it’s done, thought Katherine, half amused, half disgusted. Clever girl, our Miss Lester. Then she chatted with slightly synthetic amiability to Aileen Lester until dinner was announced.

  At the dinner table, Katherine found to her dismay that although of course she had Paul Kendale on one side, on the other was Malcolm. And though undoubtedly he would be as anxious as she to keep their conversation brief and impersonal, there were going to be some terribly difficult moments when they simply had to take their turn at talking to each other.

  The inevitable moment came before they had reached the end of the second course. Both Paul and Geraldine were engaged with the people on the other side of them, and Katherine and Malcolm sat stiffly side by side, wordless in their mutual dismay.

  Then with a tremendous effort she said, as though he were just any pleasant colleague from London, “Morringham’s an attractive city, isn’t it? Are you enjoying your stay here?”

  It was not a very brilliant question to ask a man who had just become engaged and therefore presumably regarded this as a blessed spot, but it was the best she could do. And Malcolm responded well.

  He started to tell her about the structural alterations he had designed and was having carried out in the store, and she listened with seeming attention.

  In a way it was easier than she had expected, and in a way it was even more horrible. For in the old days, too, Malcolm had told her a great deal about his work—pouring out his ideas and plans in an eager stream. But then she had been the loving, natural recipient of his hopes and intentions, with a special and very precious right to his confidence. Now she was simply the girl on the other side of him at dinner, making conventional conversation about a job.

  Presently Paul Kendale rescued her. And although presumably he had his own troubles, he put such a good face on things, and looked so relaxed and charming and almost lazily amused that Katherine found herself insensibly relaxing, too.

  It was not, of course, the kind of dinner party at which anyone expected speeches, and Katherine was as surprised as anyone when old Mr. Kendale rose to his feet with the obvious intention of proposing a toast. Then with horror she realized that he was calling his guests to drink to the recent engagement of his dear daughter to Malcolm Fordham.

  It seemed such an unnecessary refinement of cruelty, when there had already been an engagement party, which she had managed to avoid. But presumably he was thinking particularly of his own friends who had not been present on that occasion. In any case there was nothing to do but to rise almost tremblingly with the rest of them and drink to what amounted to her own unhappiness.

  As she almost sank down again into her seat, she was vaguely glad that Paul Kendale started talking to her immediately. She was not very sure what he was saying, but it apparently required no answer from her, and after a few seconds she felt clearer and more collected.

  At the same time she realized that old Mr. Kendale had risen once more to his feet.

  “And now,” he said, “I have another most happy announcement to make—”

  Though she could not have said why, Katherine felt there was something almost menacing about the geniality of his smile, and she was aware that Paul, beside her, had abruptly stopped speaking and was looking at his father—his eyes slightly narrowed in assort of grim alertness.

  “This time it concerns my son,” the old man went on. And glancing across the table Katherine saw a faint self-conscious smile pass over Aileen Lester’s face.

  Good heavens, he can’t, thought Katherine. But she thought she knew just what this obstinate and tyrannical old man was going to do in his favorite role of the one who forced issues.

  “It isn’t often that a father has the pleasure of announcing two engagements in one week—” There was a slight, enjoyable gasp from the company. But before the old man could go on Paul got to his feet—apparently unhurriedly, but with resistless authority.

  “You’re not going to steal my thunder by announcing my own engagement for me, father,” he said pleasantly but firmly, “I would like to be the one to ask you all to drink to my engagement to the charming girl beside me—Katherine Renner.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Everyone gasped in chorus at Paul Kendale’s sensational announcement, so that Katherine’s faint exclamation was lost in the general excitement. And as she instinctively dropped her glance before the barrage of interested stares, her bewilderment and protest went unnoticed and she merely looked like the slightly overcome heroine of the occasion.

  “Katherine ... Renner?” Paul’s father repeated the unfamiliar name on a note of stupefaction quite out of keeping with the confident way he had previously started to make the engagement announcement. “But I thought—”

  “Yes, father. But it doesn’t do to jump to conclusions,” his son told him with easy good humor. “I told you I hoped to become engaged this evening—” Katherine did glance up then, and noted the hard stare with which Paul dared his father to challenge that “—but I didn’t tell you to whom. That was why I had to make my own announcement. I couldn’t have you making embarrassing guesses in public.”

  “It’s sensationally sudden, isn’t it?” That was Malcolm speaking a little hoarsely beside Katherine.

  “But these things often are sudden, aren’t they?” Paul turned his smile on Malcolm then. “You should know,” he added, still with that air of almost dangerous good humor. “You didn’t exactly waste time about your own arrangements, did you?”

  “Well ... no.” Malcolm seemed strangely nonplussed.

  It was Geraldine who—whatever her disappointment might be on behalf of her friend Aileen—imparted some air of probability to the scene by exclaiming, “Well, it’s certainly a-dramatic way of doing things—and terribly like you, Paul. When did you settle things, the pair of you? On the way here?”

  “On the way here,” her brother agreed. “Didn’t we, Katherine?” And as he bent down with apparent devotion to speak to Katherine, he said under his breath—but with tremendous urgency—the one word, “Please!” She knew it was his appeal to her not to let him down—to accept, however temporarily and in whatever form, the extraordinary position that he had thrust upon her. It was an incredible thing to ask of anyone—without explanation or qualification—and for a second she thought she must refuse.

  But he had been curiously understanding about her own dilemma and...

  Afterward she was not sure if she made a decision or if, in sheer cowardice, she just let things slide. In any case she heard herself say, a little huskily, but with firmness, “Yes. We ... settled things on the way here. But I ... still can’t quite believe it. So please don’t ask me to ... to say much about it.”

  “I know exactly how you feel,” declared Geraldine who did not in the least, of course. “
And it’s a shame to turn the limelight full on you like this. Please all drink your coffee, my dears, because we really ought to be starting for the ball any minute now.”

  It was a good effort on her part. And although, naturally, it was not possible to dismiss the whole subject quite so lightly, at least most of the guests appeared to turn their attention to their coffee, and one or two actually managed to introduce some other topic.

  As for Katherine, she ventured at last to cast a glance across the table at Aileen Lester, for whom she felt genuinely sorry at this moment. Unquestionably, she had behaved very badly on more than one occasion, and almost certainly she had connived at old Mr. Kendale’s absurd attempt to stampede Paul into an engagement. But whatever her errors, she had been most richly punished.

  She looked a little pale, but she was talking animatedly to the man beside her and outwardly she was calm. She did not look at Katherine. But if ever anyone managed to emanate fury and dislike without so much as a glance, it was Aileen Lester at that moment.

  It was over at last—this most embarrassing meal in which Katherine had ever taken part. And to her unspeakable relief, the company broke up immediately into small groups so that she and Paul were able to go out at once to his car.

  She said nothing to him until she was seated beside him and they were driving away from the house. And even then it was difficult to know how to begin. Inevitably, it was he who spoke first.