Little sister

by Mary Burchell

  "Will you come with me to supper afterwards, Alix?"

  "If you like," she said carelessly.

  "I do like." His mouth hardened in sudden suggestion that he was controlling his temper with difficulty.

  She nodded to him indifferently, and he returned to his seat — finding it as difficult to take an interest in the rest of the opera as she did, Alix supposed.

  In the last, short interval he made no attempt to come and speak to her again, for which Alix was thankful.

  "Did I hear you arranging to have supper with Barry?" Prescott glanced at her curiously.

  "Yes."

  kl Hm. Are you in a mood to listen to advice?"

  "Why?" Alix passed the tip of her tongue over her lips.

  "It would be wiser to turn up at the celebration supper, you know. First night suppers are awkward things to ignore."

  u Fm sorry." Alix spoke coldly. "Give Nina my love, will you, and tell her I hope she will excuse me as I'm going out with Barry. I think she'll understand."

  "Do you?" Prescott looked dryly sceptical. "I think that will take a bigger effort of understanding than Nina is capable of. However, if you're determined—" She shrugged.

  "I am determined," Alix said. And that, curiously enough, was the end of the argument.

  She didn't attempt to go round behind the scenes afterwards. She just crossed the gangway and said to Barry:

  "Shall we' go?"

  "You're not going round to see Nina?"

  "No."

  "All right."

  They went out together into the street.

  "I have my car. It's parked a few yards down, behind the Opera House. Will you wait here while I get it? — or will vou come down with me?"

  'Til walk down."

  It was a warm night, the stars looking more golden than silver in a soft, velvet sky, and she thought how wonderfully romantic it must be for happy people with no problems.

  "Shall we drive a little way out and find somewhere less crowded and more countrified? I know a rather nice place near the river. It won't take very long, with the roads fairly clear." He sounded boyishly eager to please her, and Alix — who, even when she was years older, would never be the kind of woman to demand homage — felt more miserable and ashamed than ever in her life before.

  "Yes, that sounds quite attractive," was all she said, however, and he started the car.

  They drove for some while in silence. Then he said dog-edly:

  "Alix, what's the matter?"

  "Nothing."

  "But it's silly to say that, dear. There obviously is something- wrong."

  She somehow managed to laugh lightly.

  "Oh, Barry, which is the unsophisticated one now?" she said a little scornfully. "Don't your other girl-friends ever tire of the flirtation before you do? Or are you always allowed the amusement of cooling first?"

  He stopped the car abruptly at the side of the quiet road, and turned to her.

  "What the hell do you mean by that?" She saw that he was pale and very angry, and she wondered dazedly where she was finding either the resolution or the clumsy skill to carry on this conversation.

  "There isn't anything very obscure about that, surely?" she said. "Have you got a cigarette?"

  He put his hand into his pocket, and then stopped.

  "I thought you didn't smoke," he said curtly.

  "But you've thought quite a lot of queer things about me, haven't you?"

  To her relief, he thrust the case back into his pocket. She didn't think she could have smoked very convincingly if she had been put to the test.

  But she was not so much relieved when Barry took hold of her and turned her sharply to face him.

  "Will you stop talking in silly, cheap riddles! They don't suit you at all, and they aren't getting us anywhere. Why are you suddenly so utterly different from the — the Alix I know?"

  She smiled reflectively.

  "You liked that Alix quite a lot, didn't you?"

  "I did."

  "That's a pity, because I really can't keep her up any longer. She's becoming too much of a strain. Besides, that particular type of fooling becomes a bore after a while."

  To her extreme astonishment — and perhaps to his — he shook her.

  "What in God's name is the matter with you? Are you playing some idiotic part with the idea of 'proving' me?"

  She angrily freed herself.

  "No, I'm not. But I have played what seems to have been a remarkably convincing part with the idea of fool-m 8 you, and it's certainly succeeded beyond all expecta-

  tions. I hate to say it — but you're contriving to look the most perfect fool at the moment," she added maliciously.

  He didn't seem stung by that. He scarcely seemed to notice it.

  "Why have you been playing a part, Alix?" he asked quietly. "If, indeed, you have."

  "Because," Alix said levelly, "it's very stupid of any man to call me 'the kid sister' and talk of me in the patronizing way you did to Prescott. It was courting a lesson in return. But I think you've had your lesson. You must have had enough 'kid sister' to last you for a lifetime. Only the cream of the joke is that you enjoyed it."

  "Is that what is rankling?" He gave a gasp, half relief and half astonishment. "But, darling, don't be so absurd. Those were only stupid words thrown off in the heat of the moment. I'll apologize for them as much as you like, but they don't really mean a thing. Why—"

  "Oh, you needn't apologize. It's all over now. And the revenge was quite amusing. But it's a relief to be oneself again."

  "To be oneself — again," he repeated slowly. "And what is the real self in this case?"

  She shrugged.

  "Something a little more than the innocent half-wit you seem to prefer your girl-friends to be. Do you really like them all big-eyed and innocent — never been kissed and all unknowing of the world?"

  He slowly went extremely white. Only she mustn't notice that, of course. She must go on and say more — hurt him so much in his affections and his pride that he would never want to see her again.

  "It was specially sweet of you to explain the situation between Moerling and Nina in words of one syllable — suitable for childish ears. You ought to write pamphlets on 'simple sex talks to the young'. You'd—"

  "Alix, be quiet. Don't say these horrible things."

  "But that's terribly mild! I thought you were such a man of the world and all that." She laughed. It was not at all difficult to laugh now, she found, but one had to be verj careful not to let it grow hysterical.

  "You little beast," he said quietly. "Have you really been playing with me the whole time? But you couldn't. It

  was much too convincing. I don't believe it. There's something else behind it."

  "You do take defeat badly, don't you?" she observed delicately.

  He flushed angrily.

  "No one could pl&y a part like that," he muttered, but she saw that the humiliating truth was gaining ground.

  "Oh yes, they could. I used to have to do quite a lot of that for Grandma and her friends."

  Barry stared at her.

  "You're just such another as Nina, after all," he said slowly.

  "Only more comfortable to love," she reminded him mockingly.

  That was a master-stroke — even if she did have to drive the nails into the palms of her hands to make herself say it.

  He winced angrily.

  "You said, at the time, that you liked that compliment," he reminded her in a low voice.

  "Well, of course. You so obviously liked it yourself. It wasn't the moment to prick your vanity by telling you I thought it — fatuous."

  He drew in his breath, and then he said obstinately:

  "I suppose all this means that we — that you — don't care a damn about me, after all?"

  "Not a damn," she assured him lightly.

  "That's not true!" He caught her suddenly against him, holding her close, crushing her frightened mouth with angry, pleading kisses.


  It was so unexpected — something she could neither cope with nor prevent. She sagged in his arms for a moment, almost stifled by her own emotions and his. Then somehow she struggled free.

  "How dare you!" She was shaking all over. "How dare you maul me like that! Have you no decency at all that you must choose girls half your own age to hug and paw?"

  "God!" He fell away from her as though she had burnt him, and she saw then that this really was the end.

  He didn't even try to apologize. He simply turned the car and drove back to town, wordless, staring bleakly ahead, while he gripped the wheel with hands that could scarcely have been much steadier than her own.

  Not until they were approaching the hotel did he speak.

  "I apologize. I behaved abominably, of course." His voice was cold and absolutely toneless.

  She groped for words, but they refused to come.

  "I didn't behave too well myself," she got out at last.

  "No. You behaved like the conscienceless little beast you are. But that's no excuse for my disgusting display. We don't seem to have a very good effect on each other, Alix, but this is the last time anything of the sort will happen. For my part, I hope we never see each other again."

  She could only hope in her turn that her silence conveyed the same opinion.

  The car stopped with a jerk, and he leant forward to open the door for her. She didn't look at him or say anything to him, and he seemed to have nothing more to say to her.

  It was terribly difficult to walk calmly and steadily across the pavement and into the hotel. It was even more difficult to cross the great crowded lounge to the lift, keeping her expression unremarkable all the time. She felt that people must fall away from her, whispering, as she went, but no one seemed to notice her.

  She gained the comparative haven of the lift at last and was taken up to the grey and rose corridor on the top floor. Only one more effort and she could reach the suite.

  The corridor seemed so long. She was sobbing tearlessly now, and feeling her way along by the wall as though she couldn't see very well. When her hand finally closed on the silver handle of the door, she scarcely knew it.

  Then she was inside the sitting-room, alone, not a soul in the place but herself.

  Those last two years before Grandma's death — when she had been almost grown-up — she had even wondered whether Grandma were a little possessive, whether she judged her own daughter harshly. And, all the time, Grandma had been right — just as she always was. Every one of those few criticisms she had made of Nina had been justified, and she had known, with the certainty ot the very old and the very wise that for Alix to be with her mother could mean only unhappiness.

  With a little groan Alix buried her face in her hands. She thought of her quivering, eager anticipation when

  she had first entered on the adventure of getting to know her mother, of her joy over Varoni's strange generosities, and the determination with which she ignored the equally strange meannesses.

  She had been stupid, she supposed, and blind. But it had been such loving stupidity and blindness. She had been willing to sacrifice almost everything to it — except Barry. And then—

  Oh, she was back again! The terrible, weary treadmill of her thoughts always brought her back to this culminating point of anguish. Almost wildly, she sprang to her feet, exclaiming aloud:

  "Oh, I can't go on. It's too much — it's too much!"

  And as she stood there, she realized, with a shock that seemed to dislocate her very heart, that she was not alone.

  Moerling was standing just inside the room, leaning against the door, regarding her in profound and troubled silence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FOR SECONDS, Mix thought, she stared at the conductor. Then he said, without moving:

  "What is the matter, my child?"

  "Nothing," Alix answered mechanically, and then could have screamed hysterically at the fatuity of her answer.

  "I can't believe that, you know." He still spoke very quietly. "And I cannot have you in this state without finding out what is wrong."

  She wanted to say it was not his business and that she could look after herself, but something in the suggestion that anyone cared, that anyone had some queer sense of responsibility about her suddenly broke her composure as nothing else could have done.

  "It's nothing — you could — help,'* she gasped, and, dropping into the chair again, she crouched there weeping with a violence that almost frightened her, herself.

  Moerling crossed the room quickly and bent over her although he didn't put his arm round her.

  "You mustn't do this, Alix. You will make yourself ill."

  She thought she scarcely minded, and in any case she couldn't help it.

  "Tell me, has someone frightened or insulted you?"

  "No — oh no." She saw he thought it was something a good deal worse.

  "Then has Nina done anything to upset you?"

  She couldn't tell him, of course. Of all people, Moerling could not be told. But her sobs — much less violent now — told him without any words.

  "What has she done?" he asked quietly.

  "It's nothing she's actually done."

  "No? But you must explain, I think."

  "I — can't. It's nothing I could tell you, of all people."

  "Why not me, of all people?"

  "Because — you're so fond — of her," Alix got out in desperation.

  He was silent at that. Then he said gently:

  "Now listen to me—"

  She still sobbed quietly, but after a moment she said:

  "I'm listening."

  She felt his hand very lightly on her hair.

  "It is quite true that I am fond of her," he said slowly. "I love her much more than life or eternity or any of the other things by which one usually swears. But I know also that there are times when she can be very nearly a wicked woman. There is nothing you can tell me about her that will either surprise me or alter my feeling. Now will you tell me?"

  "Do you know her and love her so well?" Alix sobbed.

  "Yes."

  "You must have known her a very long time."

  "Oh yes."

  "How long?"

  He smiled slightly.

  "Since before you were born, I imagine."

  The significance of that expression made her wince.

  "I don't think you could have." She spoke sadly.

  "Why? Are you so old, my child?" he said kindly.

  • "No, but—" She hesitated. Then her earnest brown eyes looked up into his. "I'm twenty, you know — nearly twenty-one. Did you really know her before that?"

  He was puzzled and faintly amused by her persistence, she saw, but to satisfy her he considered that seriously.

  "Yes," he admitted, "I must have known her even a little before that."

  "Then do you know that I'm her daughter, not her sister?"

  Moerling gave vent to some foreign exclamation she didn't understand, and took a step backwards. He had said she could tell him nothing about Varoni that would surprise him, but that was wrong. She had surprised him with this question to the point of stupefaction, and he stood there now, pale under his tan, his eyes as wide and dark as her own.

  "Her daughter?" he said at last. "Nina's daughter?" And then he added puzzledly: "But have you only just — found out? Is that what has distressed you?"

  "No— oh, no. I — I loved being her daughter. It sometimes made me unhappy that she wou— couldn't own me, but that was all."

  "Then you still haven't told me what is wrong?"

  "I — can't." Alix's head drooped again.

  "I am sorry, my child, but you must." That unmistakable note of authority had come back into his voice, kind though the tone was. "If you cannot or will not tell me, I shall send for Nina and ask her myself."

  "No, no — you mustn't do that!" Alix was wild with fright at the idea of being confronted by her mother at a moment when she had just let all this out to Moerling.
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  "Very well then. It is something to do with a man, isn't it?"

  There was a miserable silence, but her inborn awe of Moerling forced the answer at last.

  "Yes."

  "What man?" Moerling frowned thoughtfully. "Who are your men friends? Why haven't I noticed more?" he said half to himself. "I never seem to have seen you with anyone but Barry Elton."

  Even so slight a start as hers could not get past the observant conductor.

  ^Elton?" he said in astonishment. "Is he the trouble?" He sat down on the arm of her chair and put his arm round her. She could never have believed that so light a touch could be so comforting, and, on an impulse of which she was faintly ashamed, she leant her head against him. "But, you baby, you surely haven't got yourself involved in an affair with Barry Elton? Besides, he's not the—"

  "Oh no, of course not!" She pressed against Moerling's arm in silent misery. "It wasn't I who had the affair with him."

  "Who, then?"

  "Nina," she whispered desperately.

  "What?" He almost shook her.- "What do you mean? When?"

  "Then. All those years ago — don't you understand? — before I was born. And I had no idea. I thought I loved—" Her voice broke off, and she went even paler than before.

  Moerling passed his hand over his hair in a characteristic gesture of bewilderment. Then, as though he had suddenly noticed how pale she was, he got up and fetched her a small glass of brandy. "Drink that." Alix drank it obediently and handed him back the glass.

  He went over deliberately and set it on the table, and then came back to her before he attempted to say anything else.

  "N ow —" he stood in front of her, looking down at her — "who told you this farrago of nonsense?"

  "Wh-what?" stammered Alix.

  "Who told you this preposterous tale about Elton?"

  "Nina."

  "Gottr muttered Moerling. "Does she grudge even her own child an admirer?"

  "What did you say?" Alix asked timidly.

  He didn't answer at once. Then he gave her a grim but kindly smile.

  "How old do you imagine Barry Elton is? I don't think he would thank you for the implication of your tears."

  Alix didn't reply — only stared back at him with sad, bewildered eyes until he took her hand and bent down to speak to her as though she were a child.