My Sister Celia

by Mary Burchell

  “I’m asking you to pretend to an engagement between us,” he retorted coolly. “Nothing less will do.”

  “Oh, Brian! That’s taking things too far!”

  “On the contrary. There’s nothing else which will speak the language of finality to Celia. You and I could flirt with each other, go out with each other, be affectionately friendly to each other—she would still believe in her heart, and rightly so, that I really belonged to her. Only the shock of finding that I’d left her finally for someone else would make her realize—for good or ill—what I really mean to her. I’m backing my belief in her real love for me, Freda, and I can’t believe I’m wrong.”

  “But, Brian, you forget, if what you fear is true, she’s already toying with the idea of leaving you for someone else.”

  “There’s a world of difference between leaving and being left,” was the dry reply. “Even if she married Clumber”—Freda winced at the thought— “she’d still imagine I’d be there in the background. I shouldn’t, of course. I’d have to make it my business not to see her any more.”

  “And then,” said Freda, half to herself, “she’d find out when it was too late.”

  “Yes. That’s what haunts me.”

  “Oh, Brian, you sound so—so horribly sure!”

  “I am horribly sure.” He looked at her haggardly. “That’s why I’m urging you to do this thing. Do you think I’d interfere to this extent if I really thought she’d be happy with this Clumber fellow?” Even then, Freda faintly resented having Laurence described thus. But she realized that Brian was in no mood to hand out compliments to his rival.

  They had been standing still for some time now, talking to each other urgently in the fading evening light. But now they began to walk slowly towards the house.

  “May I have time to think it over?” she said at last.

  “No.”

  “No?” She was shaken by the ruthlessness of that.

  “There’s no time to think it over,” Brian said curtly. “Besides—if you think it over, you won’t do it.”

  She laughed faintly.

  “You can tell me that, quite frankly?”

  “Yes, of course it’s the truth. In the ordinary way, one should never decide on impulse. But sometimes, for someone one loves very much, it’s the only thing to do. Will you decide—now?’

  “For Celia’s sake?” she said, half to herself.

  “Perhaps for all our sakes,” he replied sombrely.

  She was silent for perhaps three seconds longer. Then slowly she said,

  “All right. I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “GOOD girl!” exclaimed Brian, with satisfaction. But it was a grim sort of satisfaction, which carried no sense of elation with it. Indeed, in spite of having spoken with resolution, Freda was already feeling qualms about what she had undertaken to do.

  “We’d better go and find the others and tell them our news,” he said, as though thinking aloud.

  “Oh, Brian—so soon?” She hung back a little.

  “I’ve told you—it has to be now.”

  “But—just a minute. We have to arrange what to say—how to behave. We can’t just plunge into this thing without a good deal of consultation.”

  “I don’t agree. If we’re to carry it off naturally, it’s no good our planning in too much detail.”

  “But I must have some sort of guidance. Otherwise I’ll just look as though I don’t know what’s hit me and—”

  “That’s fine,” he told her, with a smile. “That’s just how you should look. Remember, the whole thing’s supposed to be a monumental discovery for us both. It hasn’t come to us gradually. We just suddenly found what we meant to each other.”

  “You do realize what all this is going to entail, don’t you?” she said warningly, for even now she would have liked to persuade him against the plan. “You’ll have to make love to me when people are around—”

  “That won’t be difficult,” he interrupted, with a quick, charming smile.

  “—You’ll have to buy me an engagement ring, explain things to your parents, allow people to discuss a wedding date—oh, a dozen embarrassing and difficult details. Have you thought of all that?”

  “I’ve thought that I don’t intend Celia to marry Laurence Clumber,” he retorted. “The rest will follow on from there.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right,” she said, with a sigh. “If this is a fiasco, after all—”

  “It mustn’t be a fiasco,” he interrupted almost fiercely. “You will play your part for all your worth, won’t you, Freda? It won’t be for long.”

  “How sure you are of that.” She looked at him almost wonderingly. “How can you say that it won’t be for long?”

  “I’ll either be proved right within a short time, or so crashingly wrong that no further pretence will be of any point,” he replied grimly.

  “And what,” asked Freda delicately, “do we do if you’re proved wrong? I’m sorry to mention the possibility, but I don’t think we can ignore it.”

  “Do?” He looked at her almost absently. “We don’t do anything. There won’t be anything to do.”

  “We shall still be engaged, remember, in the eyes of the world,” Freda pointed out patiently.

  “Oh—that—There are always ways of dissolving an engagement quietly,” he assured her carelessly.

  If I were a conceited girl, thought Freda, not without humour, I suppose I’d box his ears at this moment. But aloud she merely said,

  “You certainly are a one-idea man, Brian.”

  “Am I?” He glanced at her. Then he laughed suddenly and put his arm round her, and looked much more like the Brian she knew. “I’m sorry. I know I’m behaving abominably. When this madness is over, I suppose I’ll be deservedly ashamed of myself. But I can’t excuse it or explain it further, Freda. I can only tell you I love Celia—I can’t lose her.” He looked so unhappy again as he said this that Freda’s heart melted afresh.

  “It’s all right.” She patted his arm reassuringly. “I do understand. But let’s arrange that we have a certain amount of gaiety and lightness about this. You don’t want to look strained and anxious, or they’ll think I did all the running. Then your whole plan will fall to the ground.”

  “I shan’t look strained or anxious,” he assured her. “I shall look the happy engaged man.”

  “And how will you do that?” she enquired shrewdly. “By pretending to yourself that I’m my own twin sister, I suppose?”

  He had the grace to flush at that. But she laughed kindly and said,

  “All right. I don’t mind. That’s probably the most practical way of doing things. Shall we go in now? I see there’s a light in the drawing-room. I think Celia and Laurence must have returned to the house.”

  As they walked up the slope of the lawn together, they could see the other two, dancing to the music of a gramophone. They looked curiously like people on a stage. But Freda thought, It’s Brian and I who are the people on the stage, really. It’s we who are going to play a part. I only hope the audience reacts as we expect.

  Then she and Brian entered by the french windows, and Celia called gaily,

  “Come and dance. It’s a wonderful floor. Oh, wait a minute, while Larry puts on another record.”

  “Never mind the record.” As Laurence crossed over to the gramophone, Brian stood there, smiling and completely master of himself—so much so that Freda found it hard to believe it was the same man who had spoken to her so urgently in the garden. “Freda and I have something to tell you.”

  The gramophone stopped abruptly, as the automatic brake checked the turntable, and it seemed to Freda for a moment as though everyone and everything else stopped too. It was as though they were all held suspended in a bubble of time, entirely shut off from the familiar world. Then Brian said calmly, “We want you to be the first to know. Freda and I have just got engaged.”

  For a second longer the bubble seemed to hold. Then it was shatte
red by the sound of Celia’s voice, on an unexpectedly high note.

  “You’re engaged? To Freda? But you c—I mean —how wonderful.”

  But she didn’t sound as though she thought it wonderful. She sounded as though she simply could not believe her ears. That was understandable, Freda supposed, from any point of view, for there had been nothing at all to prepare her for this bombshell.

  With an effort, Freda, who had been gazing at the ground, now raised her head and smiled. It was almost a timid smile, she knew, but perhaps that was not entirely out of character for a girl who was still rather bewildered by her own engagement. Then she looked, not at Celia, but at Laurence.

  He was still standing by the gramophone, and his face was so completely expressionless that she had the queer idea that he knew this was all a fake. He couldn’t possibly, of course, for he was not sufficiently acquainted with either Brian or herself for him to feel complete conviction one way or the other.

  Then he smiled and came forward with outstretched hands, and the bright look which one reserves for other people’s engagements.

  “Good luck to you both,” he said. “This calls for a drink, I think.”

  She felt him take her hand, and she knew she was smiling satisfactorily. But then she looked past him at Celia, and her heart smote her. For Celia was slightly paler than usual, and although she too wore a smile, it was a queer, set sort of smile. The smile of someone who had received a great shock.

  Well, that was the whole idea, of course. It was no good weakening at this juncture and being sorry for Celia. She was supposed to have this salutary shock. Only so would she learn how she felt about Brian.

  At least—that was the theory.

  But suddenly Freda just hated the whole theory. She despised it and distrusted it and could not imagine how she had ever allowed herself to be inveigled into this impossible situation. If Brian had not been half crazy with worry and shock himself, he would never have thought of it either. Of that she was sure.

  Here they were, caught in their own silly trap. And, all the time, she had to go on looking happy, and making whatever small talk seemed appropriate to someone who had suddenly become engaged.

  To her surprise, she found herself hanging affectionately on Brian’s arm and looking up at him from time to time, and the part of her mind which was not concerned with this ridiculous scene calmly registered the fact that she was a considerably better actress than she had ever supposed.

  Presently she was aware that Celia had joined in the conversation, and seemed gay and cheerful enough. In fact, she laughed rather more than usual.

  “It was the most complete surprise,” she told Freda. “Such a surprise that it almost felt like a shock. I must have looked a real dumb cluck for a moment.”

  “If you did, I didn’t notice,” Freda assured her. “I was too busy getting over my own surprise.”

  “But it couldn’t have been such a surprise for you, darling,” Celia protested. “One does know something of one’s feelings beforehand, surely?”

  “Oh, I knew my own feelings,” Freda conceded with a smile. “It was Brian’s attitude which came as a surprise.” And she thought that a rather neat way of skirting an awkward conversational corner, without actually descending to a lie.

  “Yes.” Celia glanced across to where the two men were talking together with a certain amount of forced cheerfulness. “I simply couldn’t have believed—” She paused and bit her lip. “I’ve never known Brian look twice at another girl.”

  “Well, that’s very reassuring,” Freda said with a laugh. “Do you remember?—it was you who said that you thought I was Brian’s type of girl.”

  “Did I?” Celia looked oddly startled.

  “Yes. The time we were discussing—things, in my bedroom. You opened your heart to me about— someone else.” She smiled understandingly and dropped her voice. “And you told me how fond you were of Brian, but that you’d never be able to think of him in a romantic light.”

  “I—told you that?”

  “More or less,” said Freda easily. “You said something about his being always there.”

  “Yes, of course. He—he was always there,” Celia repeated. And then suddenly she turned away and seemed absorbed in something outside the window, even though it was almost too dark now to see anything in the garden.

  “Well, darling”—Brian came across and slipped his arm round Freda—”feeling a little more inclined to believe in your happiness now?”

  “Yes, of course.” She smiled up at him, though really what she wanted to do was to rush to Celia and hug her and reassure her. “There’s still the question of your parents, though.”

  “My parents?”

  “It’s going to be a big surprise—perhaps a shock—for them too.”

  “My father’s already devoted to you,” Brian said easily. “And Mother only needs to get to know you better.”

  “I hope so. But—I’ve just been thinking”— convincingly, Freda assumed an air of having a sudden inspiration—“I don’t think we ought to tell her at present, Brian. It might even do her some harm, in her present condition. Why don’t we wait?”

  “Wait?” he repeated, in the tone of one who felt unable to wait for happiness. “How do you mean—wait?”

  “We don’t have to announce our engagement yet. It’s—it’s enough that we know. Don’t you think so, Celia?” She appealed suddenly to her sister.

  “Why—yes—perhaps you’re right.” Celia’s voice was faintly husky, but, as she turned to face them again, her expression was quite composed. “Mother might take it badly, since she hardly knows you. If you felt you could put off any announcement for a while—”

  “I don’t like the idea,” Brian frowned. ‘We don’t want to make any secret of our engagement.”

  “But in the special circumstances, darling,” pleaded Freda tactfully. “A little patience and tact now might make all the difference to your mother’s attitude later.”

  “Is that really what you want?” Brian looked down at her so fondly that Freda felt almost embarrassed

  “Yes, I do. And I’m sure both Celia and Larry will be willing to keep our secret.”

  “Of course,” said Celia mechanically.

  And, “Of course,” said Laurence Clumber in a faintly bored tone, as though he had really had quite enough of this engagement already.

  He’s not the only one, thought Freda, in rather irritated parenthesis.

  “Very well, then,” said Brian, in the tone of a man being convinced against his better judgment, “we’ll leave it at that for the present.”

  At this point Celia produced her slightly strained smile again and said,

  “I suppose you want to sit up and talk to each other for some while longer, and I’m sure Larry will willingly give you house-room for the purpose. But, for my part, I’m beginning to feel the effects of a very early start and a pretty heavy day, and I’m going to get you to drive me home, Larry. The thought of my own bed, in my own little cottage bedroom, is the most attractive thing in the world to me just now.”

  The thought of her own bed, m her own little cottage bedroom, sounded remarkably attractive to Freda too. But she had to go on being the happy fiancée who could hardly tear herself away from her beloved.

  So Laurence brought round his car, and Celia said a casual good night to Brian and Freda, and they went off together.

  For some minutes after the sound of the car had died away there was silence between the other two. Then Brian said,

  “Thank you, Freda. You backed me up splendidly.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  He glanced at her.

  “I’m sorry. It was quite a heavy strain for you, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes. It was rather.”

  He smiled lightly.

  “How are you feeling now?”

  “An absolute worm,” said Freda angrily. “I don’t know why on earth I ever let you persuade me into this horrible position.
I just loathed myself when I saw the tears come into her eyes. I wish, I wish I’d never agreed to do this.”

  “But it’s worked, Freda,” he said quietly.

  She stared at him.

  “Do you think so? Already?”

  “I have no doubt of it.” He was the calm, quiet, good-humoured Brian once more. “I loathed it too when I saw tears in her eyes. But she’d better shed a few now, for a non-existent reason, than cry unavailingly when it’s too late to help her.”

  “Well—yes, of course,” agreed Freda uneasily. “But you needn’t talk as though, if she married Larry, she’d be a wretched, down-trodden sort of wife. I reckon he could make most women happy.”

  “The wrong man has never made any woman happy,” retorted Brian drily. “Reasonably contented for a while maybe. But not happy, in the real sense of the word.”

  “I suppose you’re right. At any rate, for the purposes of the argument, we’ll say you’re right,” Freda conceded. “And you really think the sheer announcement of our engagement was enough to make her see daylight?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then why don’t we tell her the truth now?” Freda sprang to her feet. “We’ve let her go off alone to the cottage, feeling perfectly miserable, when all the time—”

  “Wait a minute.” Brian put out a hand, as though literally to detain her. “What do you think you can tell her at this stage?”

  “Why, the truth, of course!”

  “Nonsense. You can’t do any such thing. And don’t be melted into a mood of contrite confession when you’re alone with her in the cottage, either,” he warned. “If she really knew we’d practised this—this deception on her, she’d be furious. And rightly so.”

  “I don’t understand you.” Freda came back slowly to where he was sitting. “When are we going to tell her?”

  “Never—if you mean the exact story of this evening’s masquerade,” he replied firmly. “At least” —he smiled reflectively—“I might tell her when I’ve been married to her for five years. But, as it is, we must go through the stages of finding this engagement was a mistake and—”