Mine for a Day

by Mary Burchell

  With all the skill at her command, Leila assumed the role of the happy bride, and went to visit her supposed mother-in-law.

  “Come in, darling,” Mrs. Morley said, in answer to her knock.

  After the pettiness of Frances’s attitude and the distasteful complications of the deception in which she was involved, Leila found the simplicity and the unemotional charm of Mrs. Morley irresistible. She sat by the bed, happy and relaxed, and talked with her as though they had known each other all their lives. They had much the same sense of humour, they discovered, to their mutual satisfaction. And even the way they regarded Simon was not dissimilar.

  “You see him steadily, and love him faults and all, just as I do,” her supposed mother-in-law remarked, amused but approving. “Very unusual in a young bride. But that is how you do see him, isn’t it?”

  And because she knew that was literally the truth, Leila could only smile reluctantly and say, “Yes.”

  “Most girls are so thankful to have captured the man they love that they put a golden cloud round him in the early days, and usually have a shock, of course, when the cloud starts dispersing. But you seem to have retained the clearness of vision which goes with the even earlier stage,” Mrs. Morley added thoughtfully. “The stage when one isn’t very sure of one’s happiness.”

  Leila gazed at her, fascinated, and a little alarmed, by such penetration.

  “Mrs. Morley, you see a great deal for someone who has to spend all day in bed,” she protested, with a slight, nervous laugh.

  “Darling, I am not a stupid woman, thank heaven.” Mrs. Morley gave her an extraordinarily roguish look. “Silly sometimes, which is quite a different thing, but not stupid. And I use my eyes.”

  “Yes. I—see you do.”

  Simon’s mother glanced at her, speculatively and amusedly.

  “Then if you have accepted that fact, perhaps you won’t be startled by what I am going to say,” she observed pleasantly. “What is the trouble between you and Frances?”

  CHAPTER V

  LEILA gasped.

  “What makes you think—? I haven’t said—”

  “No, darling. You haven’t said a thing,” Mrs. Morley assured her. “You’ve been a model of tactful reticence, and shifted off the subject of Frances every time I have come near it. Frances, too, hasn’t said a word. But her silences are much more informative. I might say she has been a model of tactful reticence. Between the two of you, I can’t help knowing that something is wrong. I wish you’d tell me what it is.”

  For several moments Leila was silent, marvelling really that Simon could ever have supposed that he could practise a well-meant, amateur deception on his very wide-awake mother. Then she said slowly, picking her words carefully:

  “You mustn’t think I’m unkind if I say that it’s—it’s a fairly simple case of jealousy, I’m afraid.”

  Mrs. Morley tapped her admirable front teeth with a thoughtful forefinger.

  “I don’t think you’re unkind at all. And the mention of jealousy leaves me completely unshocked and unsurprised. I know and love both my children very well,” she stated categorically and without self-consciousness, “and so, of course, I know Frances’s fatal tendency to be jealous—especially where Simon is concerned. What I find difficult to follow is that yesterday afternoon, when Frances first brought you up here, she was not jealous. You remember—she spoke to you with genuine friendliness and warmth. But by the time she came to say good night to me, you were a forbidden subject.” And, with a laughing little grimace, Mrs. Morley indicated how clearly she had been assured of this.

  “I—see.”

  “Something must have happened in between. It isn’t just feminine curiosity which makes me ask what?”

  “You mean,” Leila said thoughtfully, “that it worries you?”

  “A little.”

  “It wouldn’t do if I simply told you that there is nothing whatever to worry about?”

  Her supposed mother-in-law smiled.

  “Oddly enough, I should find that more reassuring from you than from either of my children. If you said it, I think it would be true. If they said it—particularly if Simon said it—I should begin to wonder if he were not just keeping something from me, for some mistaken idea that I couldn’t stand an unpleasant truth. I can, you know. Much better than most people. Mind you, I’m quite used to my tiresome Frances being inconsistent.” Mrs. Morley seemed to be pursuing her own thoughts aloud. “But the difference in her manner was too sudden and too complete for mere inconsistency to cover it. It was as though she—regarded you almost as a different person—”

  Leila gave a slight exclamation, and Mrs. Morley paused and looked enquiringly at her.

  “N-nothing. You’re almost too acute—that’s all.”

  Mrs. Morley smiled, and smoothed her already smooth hair like a pleased child.

  “Dear, you make me feel like the clever detective in the last page but one. Only he always knows the complete explanation by then. Forgive me for resorting even to pathos, in my attempt to arrive at the truth—it’s rather unscrupulous of me—but, I should like to know the explanation of all this before I die.”

  “Mrs. Morley, don’t say such things!”

  “It was horrid of me, wasn’t it? You see, anyone else can use that expression, and it’s just a figure of speech. But I know—it’s mean of me to trade on the sense of shock that it gives you all if I even mention the word ‘death’—but, I want to know about you and Frances, and I’m obstinate enough to think I have a right to know.”.

  Again there was a short, telling silence, during which Leila thought: “Our scale of values has been all mixed up. Of course, she has a right to know. She’s much more intelligent and courageous than our silly scheme gave her credit for being. In a way, it’s a sort of insult not to tell her.”

  Then at last, aloud, she said:

  “Will you tell me something first? Were you very happy about Simon’s marriage?”

  Mrs. Morley gave her an extraordinarily sharp glance.

  “And you want the unvarnished truth?”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well,” her companion said slowly. “I was not at all happy about Simon’s marriage, until I saw you. In spite of all his enthusiasm for you, my dear, I somehow had the impression of someone—superficial and not very warm-hearted. I did you a considerable injustice. I realize that now. But, as I told you yesterday, you were not in the least as I imagined you. Perhaps I gathered a wrong impression from your letter—”

  “My letter? Oh, yes—of course.”

  “Perhaps I foolishly allowed myself to be disproportionately chilled by the fact that you never came to see me. You see, I am being quite frank with you. It was not so much that I resented any slight to myself as that I thought anyone who—who did that was unlikely to be the sort of impulsive, warm-hearted creature I hoped Simon would marry. As I have said, I realize now that I was quite mistaken about you. There must have been a perfectly good reason for your omission, but—”

  “But, if Simon had suddenly told you, two or three days ago, that he was not going to marry Rosemary Lorne after all, you could have borne it quite well?” suggested Leila.

  Mrs. Morley laughed.

  “Since you said you wanted the unvarnished truth—I’m afraid I could, dear. Apart from the fact that I should have been deeply worried on Simon’s behalf, and hated his being unhappy. However, I am very glad now that I had a chance of seeing how mistaken I was. You are the ideal girl for him, and I am only glad—”

  “Mrs. Morley, I haven’t really the right to tell you this on my own authority alone, and I hope Simon will forgive me,” Leila interrupted quickly, because she felt she simply must not let Simon’s mother commit herself any further. “Simon might well have come to you a few days ago and told you he was not going to marry Rosemary Lorne. That was exactly what happened. That she refused to marry him, I mean.”

  Mrs. Morley frowned.

  “But you did ma
rry him, darling. And here you are—proving a very satisfactory daughter-in-law.”

  “No”—Leila shook her head—“I’m not Rosemary Lorne, I’m her cousin, Leila. And I’m not married to Simon,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

  “Oh—dear.” Mrs. Morley regarded her for a long, thoughtful moment in silence. “How very stupid of me. I ought to have realized, of course.”

  “I don’t see how you possibly could," Leila said. “It was such a completely unreal and fantastic situation.”

  “I mean—I ought to have realized that you couldn’t, in any circumstances, be the girl I have heard about during the last few months.”

  “But”—Leila smiled rather doubtfully—“surely Simon said only nice things of Rosemary?”

  “Oh, of course,” Simon’s mother agreed. “It’s usually what a man doesn’t say that counts, though.”

  Leila laughed reluctantly. Then she said:

  “Please don’t get an entirely false picture of Rosemary. I know you can’t feel very warmly towards her just now—and there’s no real reason why you should—but she is rather a dear girl, really. She’s irresponsible, I know, and sometimes cruel in the way that irresponsible and unthinking people can be. But she isn’t a bad girl, Mrs. Morley, and she is capable of some very charming and endearing actions.”

  “You’re very generous, my dear,” Mrs. Morley said a little dryly.

  “What made you take this thing on—Leila?”

  “I was so sorry about you—” Leila began. But Mrs. Morley stopped her, with a smile and a slight shake of her head.

  “Very sweet of you, child. But you didn’t even know me, you know.” There was a pause. Then she said, in an almost matter-of-fact tone: “You must be very fond of Simon.”

  Leila’s lips parted slightly. She stared at the other woman in silence, until it was too Tate to say any of the conventional things about having felt affectionately sorry for her cousin’s poor fiancé, in his dilemma. What she said slowly, at last, was:

  “He has no idea, you know.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “You won’t let him have any idea, will you?”

  “Again—of course not.”

  Leila drew a long sigh.

  “Oh, dear—my sole usefulness in coming here was supposed to be that I could save you anxiety,” she said, with a rueful little smile. “And all I have done is to unload all my own troubles on to you, including one that no one else has ever even suspected.”

  Mrs. Morley put out a hand and patted hers briskly.

  “You have no idea how stimulated and, interested it has made me feel, dear,” she asserted. “And please don’t be shocked or pained if I put into words the fact that I have no intention whatever of dying before something of this has been straightened out.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Morley!”

  “I mean it. One’s mental attitude has quite a lot to do with one’s chances, and rate, of recovery after an operation of this sort. Simon thinks of me as a sweet, delicate thing who needs constantly wrapping in cotton-wool. I won’t say I don’t enjoy some of the cotton-wool sometimes”—she gave Leila that roguish smile again—“but I can exist without it. And sometimes I definitely do better without it. You’ll see.”

  “You’re sweet!” Leila leant over and kissed her cheek—not, this time, because she was Simon’s mother, who had to be lulled into false security, but because she was a dear and stimulating friend. “It seems, then, that our elaborate deception on your behalf was just a silly business, without reason and without effect.”

  “Oh, dear me, no. I shouldn’t have known you without it,” Mrs. Morley pointed out, with energy. “And as I told you before—only I thought you were Rosemary then, which is very confusing—I wouldn’t have missed knowing you for anything, child.”

  Leila laughed.

  “It’s very nice of you. And of course I feel the same about you. What is worrying me now is—how are we going to tell Simon? And I think it’s his step I can hear.”

  She looked uneasy, but Mrs. Morley looked towards the door with an air of pleased anticipation.

  “It will be perfectly easy, she assured Leila. “After all, Simon doesn’t have to be saved from shocks.” And, when her son entered, she greeted him smilingly with “Come in, darling. Leila has just been telling me about this amusing idea of yours.”

  “Leila—!” Simon looked terribly taken aback, and the glance which he directed at Leila was both reproachful and angry.

  “There is no need to look at the child like that,” his mother assured him, before Leila had time to say a word in her own defence. “I guessed most of it, anyway. And I must say, dear, that the only thing I hold against you is your thinking I could possibly be so stupid as not to suspect anything was wrong.”

  “Mother—really—you’re the most unpredictable creature!” He sat down by the bed and smiled at her, half protesting, half relieved.

  “You mean that you feel I ought to be sniffing sal volatile and crying?” his mother retorted contemptuously. “Don’t you know me better than that?”

  “I have seen you sniff sal volatile,” her son reminded her, with a slight smile again.

  “And seen me cry,” Mrs. Morley conceded. “But only when there is absolutely nothing else left to do,” she added firmly. At which Leila laughed so much that the other two looked at her, and presently joined in—Simon a little reluctantly still, however.

  “I still can’t get used to the idea that all this isn’t very bad for you,” he said, glancing fondly, and a little worriedly, at his mother. “I never imagined you could take it all so lightly, or—”

  “Darling, don’t think I’m taking it lightly,” his mother interrupted quickly. “At least, I’m certainly not taking your unhappiness lightly. But I’m trying to take it sensibly—a very different thing. It was really very clever of you, my dears. I’m beginning to see that now. If you’d just come and told me, in cold blood, that Rosemary had run away and that there would be no wedding, I suppose, Simon, that I might have been terribly upset. I am upset—if I were not, it would mean I had no natural feeling for you—but”—she turned her thoughtful glance on Leila—“having this dear girl has made a great deal of difference. She has lessened the shock for me wonderfully.”

  “Leila”—Simon gave her a rather abstracted look—“oh, yes, of course. You’ve been a brick over this, Leila.”

  She smiled at him. She managed to make it a friendly, impersonal smile, even though she knew that, this time, someone besides herself knew how much that smile cost.

  “I was very glad to help, Simon. And I still feel rather guilty about being the one who gave the show away. But perhaps, in view of the effect on your mother, it doesn’t matter so very much,” she said.

  “That’s how it looks, anyway,” he conceded, with a slight smile. But it was an absent smile, and she had the impression that, since she was no longer needed to play a part for his mother’s good, she made remarkably little impression on Simon’s consciousness.

  “Well, I’ll leave you two to have a chat.” She got up. “I’ve several things to do. Packing and—”

  “Packing, my dear? You don’t have to leave us, do you?” Mrs. Morley’s tone was one of energetic protest.

  “Well, there isn’t really any reason now why I—why I—”

  “Oh, nonsense!” To her astonishment, it was Simon who spoke that time. “We don’t want you to go yet, Leila. There isn’t any hurry, is there?”

  She longed desperately to ask him what were his personal reasons for wishing her to stay. But it was quite impossible to do that, of course.

  “If you want to keep me, and I can be of any use, of course I’ll be very glad to stay for a few days. Anyway, until Mrs. Morley goes to the nursing home.”

  “That’s settled then,” Simon stated, with decision.

  Leila went downstairs slowly, and when she reached the bottom of the wide, shallow flight, she paused and looked thoughtfully across the sun-filled
hall and through the open door into the garden.

  How completely—how deliciously—her position in this household had changed during the last hour. She was no longer here on false pretences. She was to stay as a welcome guest, invited because she was approved and liked in her own identity.

  And yet—so perverse is human nature, and particularly human nature in love—she wondered if, after all, she had not been happier in the perilous position of Simon’s secret ally, when he and she had shared something important from which everyone else must necessarily be excluded.

  “How silly I am,” she thought. “It meant nothing to him, anyway.” But the foolish idea persisted that it might have come to mean something to him.

  She went out into the garden after a few minutes, and as soon as she stepped out of doors she saw that Frances was at the far end the garden—picking runner beans, with a savage concentration which suggested either temper or unhappiness.

  Leila hesitated a moment, then she went to her.

  “Frances”—she began to pick beans, too, the other side of the row, but she came to the point immediately—“your mother knows the whole story about Rosemary and me now. She’s nothing like so upset as we feared.”

  Frances’s busy, ruthless hands stopped.

  “Who told her?” she asked, in a slightly breathless tone.

  “I did.”

  “Why? Because you were afraid I should give you away? I shouldn’t have. Simon knew that. He knows he can trust me, once I’ve given my word.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Leila said equably. “The fact was that your mother suspected something vaguely”—Leila saw no reason to refer to Frances’s own suspicious behaviour—“largely because I didn’t fit her previous idea of me in any respect. She asked me some questions, and—oh, showed so much good sense and self-control—that the whole thing became foolish and unreal, and I told her the truth.”

  “You would have done better to do that from the start,” Frances remarked in a cold, unfriendly tone.