Across the Counter

by Mary Burchell

  “I simply don’t know how to apologize to you,” he said. “But if I hadn’t done what I did, I would now either be irrevocably engaged to someone I don’t want, or have had to insult her with a public refusal.”

  “But you are engaged to someone you don’t want,” she reminded him with a faint flicker of humor.

  “But not irrevocably,” he countered quickly.

  “No—that’s true,” Katherine agreed, and she drew her first breath of relief that evening. “Even so—”

  “Even so,” he caught her up, “I know it was inexcusable. There’s no way in which I can apologize to you. Or thank you for having backed me up,” he added.

  “I don’t know what else I could have done,” she admitted frankly. “If I’d repudiated the—your announcement, the position would have been even more impossible. I think it was cowardice, probably, rather than cooperation.”

  He laughed slightly at that. Then he said, “Katherine—may I call you Katherine?”

  “You have to, if you’re engaged to me,” she pointed out practically.

  “I’ll get you out of this as soon as I possibly can. It was a relatively small group who heard the announcement, and I hope we can keep it within that circle for this evening at least.”

  She hoped so, too. But she privately thought he might as well try to stem a forest fire with a garden hose as control the sort of gossip and conjecture that would break out the moment it was even hinted that the assistant managing director had become engaged to a member of the staff.

  “All the guests were more or less intimates of our family circle,” he went on a little as though he was thinking aloud. “There wasn’t one who doesn’t know my father’s eccentric degree of domestic tyranny. It should be possible to do some quiet explaining, even this evening—”

  “On what lines?” she inquired with genuine curiosity.

  “The truth, I suppose,” he replied with a shrug. “That I realized my father intended to stampede me into marriage, and that in order to stop a most painful public scene I leaned heavily on the tact and cooperation of an excellent business colleague and friend.”

  “Oh, yes, I see.” She smiled suddenly and mischievously. “It sounds rather good, put that way. But they’re bound to start guessing whom your father had in mind,” she added doubtfully.

  “That I can’t help,” he said coldly.

  “It’s a bit hard on her.”

  “It would have been a bit hard on me if the ruse had succeeded,” he retorted dryly, so that she saw that he at least believed Aileen had been party to the whole disreputable business.

  “Well,” she said after a slight pause, “if we do manage to keep the story within bounds this evening—what do we do after that?”

  “Coolly deny any rumors that have spread.”

  “It’s not going to be easy.”

  “Nothing about this business is going to be easy,” he replied curtly. “That’s why I’m beginning to kick myself for ever having involved you in it.”

  “That’s all right.” Somehow she felt she had to offer him some word of reassurance. “As you said yourself, there was very little else you could do.”

  “Thank you,” he said briefly. And then they arrived at the really beautiful Assembly Rooms, where the ball was already in progress.

  “I’ll meet you here,” he told her as she parted from him in the great entry hall to go and deposit her evening coat.

  She had a queer, unprotected feeling as she turned away from him. But as she approached the ladies’ cloakroom she saw Jane Falloden coming toward her and she felt her confidence return. For hardly more than a couple of seconds, however, for Jane caught her immediately by the arm and exclaimed, “Katherine is it really true? I simply can’t believe it, even now.” Katherine felt her heart miss a couple of beats.

  “Is what true?” she countered as calmly as she could.

  “Why, this ... this story about your being engaged to Paul Kendale.”

  “Who told you that?” Katherine asked, feeling she must prevaricate just as long as she could.

  “No one told me personally. Miss Kendale—Geraldine Kendale—just walked straight into the crowded ladies’ room and said, ‘You must forgive us for being so late, but we’ve had an exciting sort of dinner party. My brother’s just got engaged to Katherine Renner from Bremmisons.’ ”

  Katherine took a deep breath. If it had been stated as categorically as that, and on the authority of no less a person than her supposed future sister-in-law, there was remarkably little she could do about it.

  “It’s true the announcement was made—though a bit prematurely,” she added with masterly understatement. “We were slightly put out about it, and really, Jane, we’d both rather not have it discussed much yet.”

  “Not have it discussed!” Jane laughed. “Then, my dear, you should have arrived here first—or briefed Geraldine Kendale. In two minutes flat, after she’d made her little speech, the whole place was sizzling with it.”

  “Oh, dear! I wish we had arrived here first,” exclaimed Katherine.

  “I expect you took the longest way around. You must have had a lot to say to each other,” declared Jane indulgently, speaking more accurately than she knew.

  “Come back with me while I deposit my coat and powder my nose,” Katherine begged. “I need some moral support. Are there many people in the cloakroom?”

  “Quite a few,” Jane assured her cheerfully. “I expect they’re hoping to catch a glimpse of you.”

  There was nothing to do but go through with it—just as with the dinner party. But to comb one’s hair and powder one’s nose while knowing one was an object of the most passionate interest was not easy.

  Jane chatted gaily to her most of the time, and at least no one offered either good wishes or comment. Even the one or two who knew her slightly ventured no more than a curious smile. And she realized with something between amusement and irritation that her supposed new position had put her in a sort of ivory tower, as far as her day-to-day colleagues were concerned.

  Outside in the big hall once more, Jane rejoined her somewhat devoted-looking partner, and Katherine went up to Paul Kendale who was standing near the bottom of the magnificent Regency staircase.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been rather long,” she said. And then in a slightly agitated undertone. “I’m afraid the news was broken even more thoroughly than anything we feared.”

  “How do you mean?” He, too, spoke in an undertone as they slowly mounted the stairs.

  “Your sister broadcast the information in the ladies’ room. Probably even the drummer in the band knows it by now.”

  She was pretty sure he uttered a swearword under his breath. But at that moment they arrived at the top of the stairs and, inevitably, at the doorway to the truly beautiful ballroom.

  At any other time the sheer loveliness of the place—with its perfect proportions and blazing chandeliers—would have taken her breath away. Now what made her gasp slightly was the fact that the band broke off as she and Paul entered. Everyone stopped dancing and turned to look at them. It was like something in a bad dream.

  Then the master of ceremonies—evidently under the impression that he was timing things to perfection—made a gesture to the band and they somewhat incongruously but with great goodwill broke into, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

  Someone began to clap, and as this sort of thing is invariably catching, everyone followed suit, and Katherine and Paul Kendale made their entry to hearty applause based on the irrefutable fact that all the world loves a lover.

  “You see what I mean?” she muttered.

  “Yes. Confound it!” he replied in the same tone.

  “Well, smile and look as though you like it,” she admonished him softly. “Otherwise they’ll all think I pushed you into this.”

  Something about that must really have amused him. Because as she smiled up compellingly at him he actually laughed outright. Immediately there was quite a barrage of poppin
g flashbulbs and clicking cameras, evidence of the fact that the local press photographers who were there to “cover” the ball had no intention of missing what amounted to a minor sensation. Already, in a moment of distressing clarity, Katherine visualized the resulting photographs gracing the display board outside the canteen at Bremmisons.

  At this point the master of ceremonies shook them both heartily by the hand, expressed the good wishes of all present and suggested that Mr. Kendale should now lead out his partner for the next dance. The band, having completed their unwelcome tribute to the occasion, broke into a lively foxtrot and—with feelings more mixed than anyone there could possibly have imagined Paul Kendale and Katherine swung out onto the dance floor.

  Gradually everyone else began to dance again and they felt a trifle less conspicuous. But even so he found it necessary to say quietly to her, “Now it’s you who are looking grave. Could you give me another of those charming and encouraging smiles?”

  She laughed then. But she looked up at him.

  “It’s the most impossible situation,” she protested. “Almost funny if it weren’t so awkward. But where do we go from here? Have you any idea how we can put a stop to the situation before it becomes even more complicated?”

  “None that wouldn’t involve us both in acute embarrassment,” he admitted.

  “Then what can we do?” She tried not to look as anxious as she felt, but it was difficult.

  “My dear, there’s only one thing we can do. And that is—go on with things as they are,” he told her coolly.

  “Oh, but we can’t!” She forgot about appearances then and would have stopped dead in consternation if he had not firmly guided her onward.

  “Of course we can—for the month that you’re here.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Look happy, Katherine,” he admonished her teasingly. “Or I shall have to kiss you in order to impart an air of probability to a deteriorating scene.”

  She knew then—indeed, she had been suspecting it for some minutes now—that he was deriving a certain amount of enjoyable amusement from their joint dilemma, and the discovery annoyed her.

  “You’d better not try to kiss me,” she informed him in a chilly little voice, “or—”

  “Or what?” he inquired. And as though to put the matter to the test, he bent his head and just touched her cheek with his lips.

  It did the most extraordinary things to her. If it lighted a flame of anger in her, it also engendered a sensation of reckless bravado quite unlike her usual cool, sensible reactions. And prompted by this—or perhaps merely on the principle that he should not hand out all the surprises—she coolly reached up and returned the kiss.

  There was nothing studied or serious about it. The whole incident was carried through with the lightest touch. But as she felt his arm tighten slightly around her and saw him set his mouth, she knew that their relationship had undergone some subtle change.

  Inevitably, the evening provided many difficult moments. But the worst of all was when Geraldine claimed gaily that she must have at least one dance with her brother on this happy evening and that in exchange she would lend Katherine her Malcolm.

  No one could possibly demur at this most natural arrangement. And once more Katherine found herself on the dance floor—only this time it was Malcolm’s arm that was around her.

  There was nothing new about it for her—but that was what made the situation so infinitely distressing. For etched on her mind, with the acid of bitter recollection, were the many other occasions when she had danced with him as the happy girl who expected one day to marry him.

  She supposed he, too, was recalling those times and finding it difficult to think of anything to say. But then he uttered something at last and, to her surprise what he said was, “Katherine, you can’t possibly do this thing.”

  “Do what thing?” She looked up at him in genuine surprise.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean!” He sounded nervously impatient and in some queer way worried. “You can’t marry Paul Kendale. You hardly know him.”

  “My dear Malcolm, don’t be absurd!” She was indignant as well as surprised by this unexpected reaction, and this lent more emphasis to her words than she would otherwise have achieved. “As Paul himself said to you, you’re the last one who should take that line. You didn’t take long about making up your mind either.”

  “I took a good deal longer than five days,” he retorted doggedly. “And anyway, that isn’t the aspect of my engagement that I’d advocate anyone copying.”

  “You don’t have to advocate anything, as far as I am concerned, Malcolm,” she said a little coldly. “It’s simply not your business, if I decide to marry Paul—or anyone else, come to that.”

  “Of course it is, in the circumstances,” he insisted irritably. “I feel responsible.”

  “You do?” Again she was genuinely astonished. “Why on earth should you?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Katherine—you know perfectly well. You’re not going to tell me you’d be engaged to Paul Kendale on Saturday if I hadn’t ... hadn’t given you such a confounded shock on Tuesday.”

  “Oh—I see. You think I’m marrying Paul on the rebound.”

  “Well, aren’t you?” he said, with brutal directness. She had been so concerned with the circumstances that had landed her in this tangle that she had omitted to see how inevitably Malcolm must jump to this conclusion.

  “I suppose it must seem like that,” she agreed slowly. “But it ... it isn’t quite so simple.”

  “Are you going to tell me you’re madly in love with him?”

  “No. I’m not,” she said deliberately, for she saw it would be useless to offer that explanation to Malcolm, who already knew so much about her. “I like and respect him—”

  But he let her get no further than the well-worn phrase. “You don’t really know a thing about him,” he interrupted her curtly. “You haven’t known him long enough to judge him. And he hasn’t known you long enough to make any decision on the grounds of feelings. He’s simply exploiting you in some way for his own ends.”

  “Malcolm, I won’t have you say such things about the man I’ve just agreed to—”

  “Someone has to say these things to you. I tell you—I know these Kendales a great deal better than you do. They’re single-minded and ruthless—all of them.”

  “Malcolm!” She looked taken aback. “You’re speaking of your own fiancée—and her family.”

  “I know ... I know. But being mad about Geraldine doesn’t make me unrealistic about her—or the others. I take none of it back.”

  “You mean you think that she, too, is single-minded and ... ruthless?”

  “I know she is,” he said coolly. “That’s partly why she fascinates me.”

  Katherine managed not to wince at that, and to maintain an appearance of being unaffected now by his reactions to Geraldine.

  “Then by the same argument,” she said just as coolly, “why shouldn’t that be partly what fascinates me about Paul?”

  “Does he fascinate you?” inquired Malcolm somberly.

  “Yes, he does,” she replied deliberately, and suddenly she had the queer inner-conviction that this was not entirely untrue.

  “It won’t work, you know,” he said unhappily. “You’re much too gentle and loving to take permanent pleasure in someone else’s ruthlessness.”

  She wished he would not describe her like that. It brought the sudden tears to her eyes, and she had to look down quickly so that he would not see them.

  If only they could have put back the clock and never known the Kendales at all! If he could still speak of her in that almost tender way, how could he be fascinated by the streak of ruthlessness in Geraldine? And come to that, by what possible process of accident and improvisation had she come to get herself engaged—however temporarily—to Paul?

  There’s something dangerous about these Kendales, she thought unhappily, quite apart from their ruthlessness.
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  And at the same moment Malcolm said, almost gently, “Think about it a little longer, Katherine, before you absolutely decide.”

  “Perhaps ... I will.” There was no harm, really, in saying at least that. It would prepare the way for the announcement that she and Paul were not going to marry after all—whenever that might come.

  They finished the rest of the dance in silence, and presently Paul claimed her once more, and Malcolm went away with Geraldine.

  “Would you like to have something to eat—or drink?” Paul inquired politely.

  “Not really, thank you. I just wish we could get away somewhere and talk.”

  “Well, I don’t know why we shouldn’t. I’m sure it’s expected of us.” He smiled slightly. “And this place is very well provided with sitting rooms. Let’s see if we can find one that’s reasonably deserted.”

  They did even better than that. They found a small, secluded room that was completely deserted, and here Katherine sat down at one end of a charming striped sofa that looked as though Madame Recamier might once have reclined upon it.

  At first Paul walked up and down a trifle moodily, with his hands in his pockets. But then she said, “Please come and sit down. It makes me nervous if you pace around.”

  “Does it really?” He looked amused. But he came and sat at the other end of the sofa. “I didn’t know that anything made you nervous. You’ve been so cool about this business that I’m lost in admiration and almost wish our arrangement were a genuine one.”

  “That isn’t particularly funny,” she said coldly.

  “I don’t know that it was meant to be particularly funny,” he retorted good-humoredly, which threw her off slightly.

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said with an effort, “We simply must decide just what we’re going to do.”