Across the Counter

by Mary Burchell

  “Did it?” Again that quick glance up and down. “You mean it piqued you that I preferred a good job to you.”

  “No,” he said deliberately. “I mean that it hurt like hell, because, from the way you looked at me during the board meeting, I thought you and I had come to a new understanding.”

  “Oh, I know ... when you mean.” She spoke almost in a whisper.

  “Then I didn’t imagine it?”

  “No.” She shook her head. For, whatever the consequences, and however ill-advised the admission, she could not bring herself to deny that magical moment when she had looked at Paul and seen him for the first time as the man she loved.

  There was a short silence. Then he said quietly, “Why did you look at me as though you loved me, and then slap me in the face afterward? It isn’t like you to be cruel.”

  “I didn’t mean to be cruel! I didn’t realize how I looked. It wasn’t intended. And it had nothing to do with my decision one way or the other. I’d already decided to break the engagement before ever the meeting started.”

  “Why?” he asked quickly. “Arnoldson hadn’t made you any offer of a job then.”

  “Oh—” She saw how badly she had slipped, and she clapped her hand to her mouth like a child caught out in a fib.

  For a long moment they looked at each other. Then he said, almost gently, “You invented the bit about the job, didn’t you?”

  She nodded, fascinated into admission by the keenness of his glance.

  “Then what was the real reason, Kate? Just that you didn’t ... like me?”

  She was silent.

  “In spite of the way you looked at me?”

  Still she was silent.

  “And in spite of the fact that I loved you?”

  “Oh—” she buried her face in her hands suddenly “you know it was best for us to end things. You may not have liked the moment I chose, or the way I did it, but haven’t you been thankful since that you were free?”

  “No,” he said categorically. “I haven’t been thankful for anything for one single minute of the day or night since I lost you. Nothing means anything anymore. Nothing has flavor anymore. For what should I feel thankful?”

  “Paul!” She dropped her hands and stared at him. “Is ... is that how you feel?”

  “That’s how I feel,” he said. And he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

  For a wonderful few seconds she allowed herself to return his kiss. Then she drew back almost guiltily and exclaimed, “But you can’t afford to feel like that.”

  “Why the hell not?” he wanted to know.

  “Because—oh, you must know the situation in the Firm at least as well as I do. You know, surely, that your father promised to produce a sizable sum in return for retaining the family interest on the board—your position on the board.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Well, then, the—the money isn’t forthcoming, after all, is it?”

  “No.”

  Until the last possible second, she realized now, she had entertained the faintest hope that her information might be wrong. But now, quite coolly, he had confirmed her fears.

  “It has to be found from someone—somewhere—Paul, if the contract is to stand?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Well then—” she swallowed slightly “—there seemed to be only two solutions. Either you or Geraldine had to marry money. Geraldine hasn’t done so.”

  “Was that why you left me?” he inquired gravely.

  She nodded.

  “The sole reason? Nothing to do with Malcolm—or a wonderful job at Bremmisons?”

  “At first I was concerned with making things easy for Malcolm. He was so desperately anxious to marry Geraldine, and he was afraid she might turn him down for someone richer. But then—” she gripped her hands together in front of her on the desk “—I didn’t really mind much about Malcolm and Geraldine. I saw suddenly that the really important thing was to leave you free so that you could yourself make your position secure. I knew you loved Kendales better than anything else in the world—”

  “But I didn’t, my dear.”

  “That isn’t true,” she cried. “I saw the way you looked at that meeting. You simply dominated the scene, quite naturally—”

  “Didn’t you also see the way I looked at you at that meeting?”

  “Yes, but—” She stopped because he had come and sat on the arm of her chair, and now his arm was around her.

  “Listen, Kate. I’m not going to pretend I don’t love Kendales, or that I’m not determined to fight like mad to retain my position there. But if you really want the truth, I’d rather have you than Kendales and Bremmisons rolled into one.”

  There was a long silence while she slowly savored this incredible, delicious knowledge. Then she said timidly, “Are you sure, Paul?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I’m never unsure about the things that really matter,” he told her with that touch of good-humored arrogance that was part of his charm. “When are you going to marry me?”

  “Oh, please—I can’t take it all in at once?” she cried, half scared, half enchanted. “I never guessed that you felt like this. How could I?”

  “I did ask you to marry me,” he reminded her. “In all seriousness, I mean—that evening when we were driving back from your home.”

  “Then? Did you know then that you ... loved me?”

  “Most certainly.”

  “You didn’t say so,” she reproached him. “You talked almost academically about agreeing with your father that it was time you got married, and you said you thought you could live very happily with me. You didn’t say you loved me.”

  “And if I had, you’d have shied like a frightened pony,” he assured her. “You were in love with Malcolm at that time.”

  “Why ... yes, I suppose I was,” she agreed in the tone of one recalling a youthful folly now half-forgotten.

  “Well, now I am asking you again—with the willing admission that I love you. How about it, Kate?”

  “Oh, my dear—” She ran her hand up and down his sleeve in a nervous loving gesture. “Have you considered all the implications? I can’t do a single thing toward helping you to hold your position at Kendales, you know.”

  “I don’t want you to. I’m not marrying you for security. I’m marrying you for love.”

  She laughed protestingly.

  “If you married a really rich girl—”

  “Stop being so mercenary,” he said, kissing the tip of her ear. “I never at any time contemplated marrying someone I didn’t like so that she could buy me a place in my own family firm.”

  “You might have married a rich girl you did like,” she pointed out.

  “If she took the place I wanted for you, I wouldn’t have liked her, rich or poor,” he retorted.

  “Oh, Paul—” she hugged him ecstatically “—I do love you!”

  “Do you know that’s the first time you’ve said that to me?” He ran a tender, teasing finger down her cheek.

  “I’ve said it often enough to myself during the last few weeks,” she admitted somberly.

  “My dear, foolish little Kate! Why did you have to make us both so miserable?”

  “You know why! The reason is still there, as large as life, and we have to face it. Paul—are you going to lose your place on the board of Kendales?”

  “I don’t know. Will you still marry me if I do?”

  “Of course! But won’t it make you utterly wretched?”

  “No. Only one thing could make me utterly wretched now.” He smiled and kissed her.

  “Oh, thank you, darling. But when will the—the decision be made?”

  “In about an hour’s time, I imagine.”

  “In about an hour?” Startled, she glanced at her watch, and dimly sensed that she also had other things to do that morning.

  “I have an appointment with some of the heads of Bremmisons to discuss the general situation in our store. Among other things
, I shall have to make it clear to them that my father promised more, financially speaking, than we can perform.”

  “Oh, Paul, do you mind very much?”

  “I can think of other things I would rather do,” he said lightly. “Making love to you is one of them. But I’m not going to the meeting entirely without cards in my hand, Kate.”

  “The best card would be if you had the money,” said Katherine with a sigh. “You’re sure you don’t want to leave our decision until afterward?”

  “The two things have nothing whatever to do with each other.”

  “But they could have. If you decided, after all, to marry that charming American heiress, for instance.”

  “What American heiress?”

  “Someone said you’d been out with her several times lately, here in London, and that her father was the head of one of the biggest stores in the States.”

  “You do get hold of the news, don’t you?” he said, and he patted her cheek. “Here, I must go, or I’ll be late for my appointment. Shall I find you here later?”

  “Here or in the department.”

  “Very well.” He kissed her briefly and turned away. But at the door he suddenly paused and then came back.

  “Here’s something you’ll be needing again,” he said, and he put a small box on the desk in front of her. Then he was gone, almost before she had realized that it was her engagement ring that he had returned to her.

  She opened the box and gave a little laugh of pure delight. But she did not put the ring on her finger. That was something for Paul to do later. Instead she put it carefully in her handbag and then went out into the department to find Mrs. Culver and discuss the work for the day.

  It was a long, long morning, and it was no good for Katherine to pretend that her attention was fully on her work. But she made up for that by never moving from the department, even for morning coffee. For whatever happened, she must be there when Paul returned.

  Presently, during a slack quarter of an hour, Mrs. Culver came and stood with her for an enjoyable little gossip, and she asked curiously, “Who was that good-looking fellow who was talking to you in the office earlier this morning?”

  “Paul Kendale.” Even to say his name gave her pleasure. “He’s here for a day or two from Morringham to ... to discuss things with some of the heads of Bremmisons.”

  “What things?” asked Mrs. Culver specifically.

  “Oh—” Katherine looked diplomatically vague “—the general situation between Bremmisons and Kendales, I suppose.”

  “I thought it might be something to do with this mysterious combine between a big English store and an American one.”

  “Why—” Katherine looked interested “—what was that?”

  “It’s in the papers,” said Mrs. Culver, meaning it was in the newspaper she herself took—which is the way most of us tend to refer to the daily press. “Right on the front page. No one seems to know exactly who is involved. I wondered if Bremmisons could be the English store concerned.”

  “I shouldn’t think so.” Katherine shook her head. “We’re not exactly American in our outlook.”

  “No. But we’re one of the high spots for most American visitors,” retorted Mrs. Culver shrewdly. “I suppose it could be of mutual advantage to have some sort of link. I must say I like the idea. One might find oneself posted to New York for three months.” She laughed. “Though I suppose—” she looked reflectively at Katherine “—you’d be a more likely choice.”

  “I?” Katherine looked startled. “Oh, I couldn’t go to New York.”

  “Why on earth not? It would be great experience.”

  “Yes, but—” She stopped, partly because it was a little too early to explain, and partly because she saw that Paul had come into the department and was looking around.

  “There’s Paul,” she said to the startled buyer in Costume Jewelry, and she went quickly to meet him.

  They met in the center of the department, without an atom of privacy or seclusion. But he put his arms around her and kissed her and said, “It’s all right. Don’t look so scared.”

  “Paul—do you mean it’s really all right? You’re going to stay on the board of Kendales?”

  “Not only that. I’m going to have a stake in Bremmisons, too,” he told her. And he laughed down at her, showing his strong white teeth with a sort of gay defiance that might have belonged to one of the merchant adventurers of old.

  “But how?”

  She looked ready to hang upon his every word, oblivious of customers and staff alike. Until Mrs. Culver came up and said—but quite kindly, “If you’re going to look at each other like that, you’d better go into the office. It’s bad for business to have such a nice distraction as a romance going on in the center of the department.”

  “Oh—I’m sorry!” Katherine looked at her in a happy daze.

  “On the contrary, we’re not sorry at all,” said Paul agreeably. “But we take your point, and accept your hospitality. In ten minutes you can come in and be the first to congratulate us on our engagement.”

  And putting his arm around Katherine, he led her away into the small office once more, where she flung her arms around him and exclaimed, “Tell me what happened. How did you do it?

  “There was nothing magical about it, my love.” He smiled down at her. “It was just a question of some hardheaded businessmen realizing that they needed me as much as I needed them.”

  “Ye-es?” she said doubtfully. “But how?”

  “Reduced to its simplest terms—when my father demanded a place for me on the board, even though he had never allowed me in the business during his own time, they naturally thought they were going to have to carry a dud. Their terms for accepting the position were correspondingly stiff. In practice, however—”

  “They found they had a treasure,” she interrupted, in a very partial sort of way.

  “That wasn’t quite how they put it.” He grinned. “But at least they indicated that they now viewed me in a rather different light.”

  “And that is the whole explanation?”

  “Oh, no! The heads of Bremmisons are not so starry-eyed as that.” He laughed. “What entirely changed the picture was the fact that I was able to offer them something they had wanted for a very long while.”

  “And that was?”

  “An extremely advantageous link with their big American counterpart in New York.”

  “Oh! Mrs. Culver said there was something about it in her newspaper,” cried Katherine.

  “There was a garbled reference to it,” he replied more exactly. “But the general idea was there.”

  “Andrew held the key to that?”

  “I did.”

  “Through the American heiress!” she exclaimed, and suddenly she looked frightened.

  “No, my darling. Stop being such a timid goose. Through the American heiress’s very enterprising husband, with whom I’ve been friendly for a good many years. We did our early training together in—Well, I won’t mention the name of Bremmisons’s stiffest rival in these hallowed precincts.”

  “Paul—” she laughed incredulously “—I’ve never seen you quite like this! You’re so gay—and boyish.”

  “I feel gay and boyish,” he told her, picking her up off the floor and kissing her. “That’s exactly how any man feels when the gods have given him everything he could ask for.”

  “Oh, how—wonderful!” She slowly savored the fact that she still had Paul and he still had Kendales.

  “Will you marry me before the end of the month,” he wanted to know, “and come with me to New York?”

  “To New York? Is that where we’re going to live?”

  “No, no. We’re merely going there for a couple of months.”

  “But how marvelous! I’d love to go to New York,” Katherine cried as Mrs. Culver knocked discreetly on her own office door and came into the room.

  “You said ten minutes ago that you didn’t want to go,” she remarked, and she
looked at them both indulgently, which was clever of her, for she must have had to fill in a good deal of the situation from deduction and imagination.

  “Did I?” Katherine looked surprised.

  “Yes. You said quite categorically, ‘Oh, I couldn’t go to New York.’ Don’t you remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.” Katherine smiled slowly, as she realized how deliciously life had changed in that short while. “But this is different. Paul will be coming, too.”

  “Yes, yes. It’s always different when one’s Paul comes, too,” agreed Mrs. Culver kindly. “Bless you both—and take her to lunch now, Mr. Kendale. She hasn’t had any, and quite frankly I need my office.” They both laughed and shook Mrs. Culver very heartily by the hand. Indeed, Katherine was tempted to kiss her, only Mrs. Culver was not quite the kissing kind.

  Sedately now—and even managing not to hold hands—they went out of the office and through the department.

  “I feel like a queen,” Katherine said as they slowly descended the great stairway at Bremmisons. “And this was always like a staircase in a palace. Someone once said it accounted for half the charm of Bremmisons.”

  “It’s true.” He smiled at her. “Who said that?”

  “Someone I’ve almost forgotten.” She smiled, and she did take his hand then. “Anyway, he doesn’t matter now.”