The girl in the blue dress

by Mary Burchell

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE shock was so unexpected and so complete that for a moment Beverley really thought her heart had stopped beating.She felt unable to move. She could not even have said anything, for no words seemed to drift into her curiously empty mind. She could only stand there, staring at the romantic scene which spelled such misery for herself. Then, suddenly, the fear of being seen in her turn gripped her, and she drew into the shadows, aware that she was trembling and felt slightly sick, that the night was cold and that the music which drifted to her from the ballroom seemed harsh and out of tune. Without warning and without preparation there had come upon her the complete confirmation of all her doubts and fears. For long enough now she had been chasing shadows, scaring herself with miserable possibilities, comforting herself with cheerful probabilities. And now in one romantic moonlit glimpse _ of two figures in a strange garden she had seen the justification of all her misgivings People might, as Toni phrased it, "sort of hug each other for other reasons than being in love."' But no two people withdrew to a secluded comer of a garden and embraced for purely social or casually friendly reasons Then what, she asked herself, in a sudden fury, did Geoffrey suppose he was doing For the first time in her life, blind anger assailed her. How dared he make love to her, ask her to marry him, press his ring upon her, suggest that she name a date for their wedding, when all the time he loved Sara Wayne, and took the first opportunity of embracing her It was monstrous that these two hollow engagements should go on existing. She would break hers off that very evening and she would give her reason for doing 102 so. And if Sara's engagement foundered in the wreckage, it was no concern of hers. In that moment, she was so hurt and furious that she hardly cared who knew the disgraceful truth. She was tired of being hoodwinked. She was tired of seeing Franklin. Lowell hoodwinked, come to that. It was time some plain truths were told and they all returned to a decent and truthful set of values. She found that, while these angry thoughts had been rushing through her mind, she had apparently been walking along one of the cross-paths. She was quite alone now. No one was within sight or sound, and she sat down on a stone bench at the side of the path and buried her face in her hands. , It had been such a lovely evening! and now it was all spoiled. She had been so happy, with her friends and her beloved, in the innocent knowledge that she looked lovely and was admired. And now she felt humiliated and rejected and deceived. In the immensity of her sorrow and disillusionment she began to sob quietly, and once she had started she could not stop. She forgot about Andrew Wayne, who might well be wondering why she did not return to the ballroom. She forgot that she was in a strange garden, at a well-publicized social gathering, and that she would presently have to make a reasonably good appearance again among strangers. She thought only that her world had fallen to pieces, and that she must weep for its utter dissolution. And so she went on crying until someone came along the path and paused in astonishment, and Franklin Lowell's voice said, "For heaven's sake, child! What on earth is the matter?" "Oh !" She looked up, startled and dismayed, aware that, though ten minutes ago she had been willing to tell anyone anything, somehow she must conceal from him his own connection with the scene which had so distressed her. Or, at least, that she must do so until she had time for more mature consideration. 103 "What's the trouble?" He sat down beside her and, without any hesitation, put his arm round her. It was a strong arm, and an amazingly comforting arm, and as he drew her slightly against him, she realized that she was chilled and that the nearness of someone warm and friendly was soothing. "Has someone frightened you upset you?" he en-quired, as she still remained obstinately silent, sobbing occasionally like a child and pulling distractedly and destructively at the lace comer, of her pretty handkerchief. "Here, don't do that. You'll tear it!" He put his hand over hers and she felt the comforting clasp of his long, strong fingers on hers "It's Geoffrey," she said comprehensively at last, the explanation punctuated by a sharp catch of her breath. "Geoffrey? What has he been doing? Have you had a quarrel?" "No." "What, then?" "He was k-kissing someone else." "Oh I see." She had the feeling that he suppressed a desire to smile, but his tone was completely grave as he said, "Was it a very important sort of kiss?" "I think so yes." . "Not just a regrettable but excusable bit of flirting? "No." She shook her head. "You remember I told you once that I used to be afraid he was was fond of someone else. It was that girl." "And it wasn't the what shall I say? careless salute to a nostalgic page of the past?" "I don't know what you mean." "I'm not sure that I do," he confessed. "Only I suppose there are all kinds of kisses, given for all sorts of reasons. Some look very picturesque but don't mean a thing. Perhaps you're distressing yourself quite unduly. After all, he has hardly more than put that very handsome ring on your finger." He lifted her hand and inspected the ring approvingly. "Why would he want to 104 be making serious love to another girl within a few days of doing that?" "I tell you he was fond of her before. At least, I'm nearly sure he was. And she was fond of him." "Then why didn't he marry her "He couldn't. There there was a good reason why they couldn't marry." "Do you mean she was married already?" He frowned, and it suddenly struck Beverley that, unless she provided a few false details, so shrewd a man as Franklin would not take long to arrive at the truth of the matter. And then what sort of trouble would they all be in? "Yes," she said hastily, in her panic. "It was something like that." "What do you mean? it was something like that? Either she is married or she isn't." "Well, then she is." "In other words, he is philandering with a married woman." Franklin Lowell was frowning again. "That's not a very nice situation, I admit." "It's not quite like that," Beverley amended hastily, for she was horrified to find she had placed Geoffrey in an even worse light than he deserved. "Perhaps_ I'm exaggerating. Perhaps they were were telling each other that the past was definitely past that they must really say goodbye to each other and make a fresh start." As she said the words, she realized that they might even fit the true situation as well as the fictitious one she had created. But Franklin seemed dissatisfied with this explanation. "I don't know that an embrace was called for, if that was the case," he said dryly. "They might have been overcome by the the moonlight and the music and the the nearness of each other," she suggested, so earnestly that her companion grinned suddenly and said, "Look here, whose side are you on? I thought I was going to have to explain away your doubts for you. But you're making all the excuses yourself." 105 She smiled faintly too. But then she drew a long sigh and exclaimed, "If one could only know ""Then you must ask him outright. You're entitled to do so, if you saw anything which called so loudly for an explanation.""I wonder " she stared almost moodily at Franklin "I wonder if what I saw was the end of it all, and if I shall spoil everything if I ever let him know that I know about the past.""I suppose that could be so," he conceded, but doubtfully. "You mean that you want to be generous and give him the benefit of a rather grave doubt?" "I think so. I feel differently now I've talked to you about it. It doesn't seem so awful, somehow." "I'm glad, my dear girl, if I've lessened your distress in any way. But " He rubbed his obstinate chin with a meditative hand, and then obviously thought better of expressing any doubts he might himself entertain."Tell me," he said abruptly, "does this girl this woman belong to the district?" "Y-yes.""Then I'll give you a piece of advice. If Revian has any degree of success with his exhibition, get him away from here. I'm enough of a realist to know that thousands of men have wonderfully happy marriages, even if they start by thinking there's a broken romance in the background. But it's asking for trouble to live anywhere near the pieces." Beverley laughed faintly and bit her lip. "It might be difficult to arrange." "So what?" he shrugged. "Difficulties can usually be overcome. See what the result of his exhibition is." "You're still willing to to arrange that, even after what I've told you?" she said anxiously, for it struck her that she might well, in her distress, have blurted out much that was damaging to Geoffrey's prospects. "My dear child!" Franklin Lowell got up and pulled her gently to her feet. "Revian's social behaviour is no concern
of mine whatever. What does concern me is 106 your happiness. Now come along back to the house, and I'll find some side door for you, where you can slip in unnoticed and go upstairs and wash away those tearstains and generally make yourself presentable and gay once more." "Oh, you're so kind!" exclaimed Beverley. "I don't know what I would have done without you." "Probably have arrived at the same conclusions on your own," he told her, with cynical kindliness. "But don't look so enchantingly grateful and touching, or I shall probably kiss you in your turn. And then I suppose Sara would somehow come on the scene and draw the wrong conclusions, and the comedy of errors wouldbe complete." For a wild moment, she felt tempted to say that nothing could more truly represent poetic justice. But she suppressed the impulse and went with him towards the house. He was as good as his word, and somehow found a deserted side passage into the house. So that she was able to do just what he had suggested slip upstairs unnoticed and remove all traces of the distressing tears she had shed. It was a rather grave Beverley who came downstairs for the second time, but no one could have guessed from her general demeanour that less than half an hour ago she had been crying her heart out in the garden. There are few influences on our behaviour which are stronger than the compulsion to keep up appearances in public. And throughout the rest of that evening Beverley contrived to give an impression of gaiety and light heartedness which half surprised herself. The most difficult moment, she knew, would be when she came to the drive home with Geoffrey. How was she to talk to him with any real candour or openness"? But equally, how could she erect a barrier of deceit between herself and the one person who meant most to her? In the end, she hit on a compromise. She would talk of Franklin Lowell's suggestion for their future, but 107 without giving any hint of how she and he had come to discuss this. And Geoffrey himself presented her with the required opening when he said, "I noticed how well you get on with Lowell. I'm not surprised now that he made you that munificent offer." "The offer concerns you more personally than me," Beverley pointed out a trifle coolly, "even if he was largely moved by a friendly feeling for me. Which reminds me he is quite willing to arrange the exhibition as soon as possible, Geoffrey, without waiting for for our wedding." "Is that so?" Geoffrey sounded a little curt. Or perhaps he was just preoccupied."Yes. He said the sooner you were made into a successful and prosperous portrait painter, the better." Geoffrey laughed slightly. "That's looking far ahead.""But one does want to look far ahead at such a time, doesn't one?" she suggested timidly. "At what time?" "When one is going to be married." "Oh, yes, of course!" Did she detect an odd note of remorse in his tone? "I just didn't get what you meant, for the moment." "I've been thinking, Geoffrey. Suppose you did make a great success with this exhibition " "Dearest girl! let's wait, first, and see what happens. It may be the most almighty flop, however well it's organized.'""Yes, I know. And I won't moan if it is, she assured him stoutly. "But Franklin doesn't think it's going to be, and he is a pretty shrewd man of business. He is quite a judge of what the public wants. If it is a success, and you really became in demand, you wouldn't want to go on living here, would you?" There was quite a long pause. Then Geoffrey said, "What makes you think that?" "Well, it wouldn't even be very practical, would it? A man who aspires to paint portraits " 108 "I'm not aiming to be a portrait painter only," he interrupted a trifle irritably. "i 'i But you're fabulous at that, and it would probably be the really money-making side of your work. Only you can't paint people's portraits if you live in the depths of the country. I suppose we might even have to live in London, mightn't we?" Again there was quite a pause, while she held her breath. "We might, I suppose," he said slowly at last. And then half to himself "It might be the best way " I just wanted you to-know that if you did decide it was the best way, I wouldn't mind at all." 'What about your mother?" he asked, as they drew up outside Bevel-ley's home. "I don't know," she confessed. "We should have to make some arrangements so that she was not too far away from us. But one can always get round difficulties just want what is best for your happiness " And, inspite of all that had happened that evening the anger and disillusionment her voice broke slightly as she uttered the sad but inescapable truth " He caught her against him suddenly and kissed her on her cheek and on her lips "You're such a good, darling child. I'm not half good enough of you! , " All the common sense in. Beverley and there was a strong vein of it-told her that it is not a good sign when a man starts saying he is not good enough for a girl. But it was so wonderful to be kissed like that and to lull one's fears with the idea that perhaps a new beginning had indeed been made that evening that Beverley was more than half comforted She returned his kisses very willingly, and then bidding him goodnight ran up the Path and went on quite normally after that. Beverley had supposed, when she first witnessed that scene in the garden, that all the familiar pattern of existence must surely be disrupted. There must in109 evitably be a break with Geoffrey possibly a break between Sara and Franklin. And this, in turn, would presumably put an end to her work at Huntingford- Grange (also a prospect to be viewed with dismay) -and certainly to any good offices which Andrew Wayne ' might try to exercise on her behalf with his uncle. : Instead of that, however, the surface of her day-today life remained unbroken both at home and at Huntingford. Indeed, plans for Sara's wedding seemed even more definitely taking shape, while the family . plans which depended on that event were also more clearly defined when Madeleine blew into the sewing- ,': room early the following week to announce, "My dear, I've managed it!" "Managed what-?" enquired Beverey smiling, for Madeleine looked so gay and pretty and lively that one smiled instinctively at her."I'm going to have my year in London at the Academy of Dramatic Art.""No? really?" Beverley was genuinely delighted on her behalf. '"Your father has agreed " "Not Father no." Madeleine dismissed her parent's usefulness in this direction with scornful, if goodhumoured, emphasis. "I've discussed the whole thing with Franklin. I don't know why I didn't do so before. And he says he is perfectly willing to finance me for ' an experimental year.""Is he?" said Beverley soberly, and she found herself wondering if Franidin shrewd business man though he was tended to be curiously easily exploited by those he was fond of. "Have you anything against it?" Madeleine glanced . at Beverley in some surprise."No, of course not! I just wondered how you persuaded him. I mean have you convinced him that you really were sufficiently talented to merit the experiment." "I didn't," said Madeleine cheerfully. "In fact. he was extraordinarily cynical about any likelihood of my success," she added, without rancour. "But he said that if that was what would really make me happy, he saw 110 no reason why he shouldn't indulge his future sister-inlaw to that extent. And he added which I suppose is true that it would cost less to keep me as a studentfor- a year in London than to provide me with a mixk coat." "Was he going to give you a mink coat, then?" _ "Not that I know of. But rich men do give their sisters-in-law that sort of present sometimes, I suppose," replied Madeleine airily."I suppose they might," agreed Beverley. "But you still look disapproving!" "Not disapproving no. It isn't my business either to approve or disapprove," replied Beverley very truly."And I'm very glad for your sake that he feels like making the gesture. It only reminds me that I too have agreed to a very generous gesture. And I hoped he wasn't letting his good heart betray him into too much generosity." "Oh, my dear, he can afford to throw around much more money than that," Madeleine assured Beverley confidently. "But what is he going to do for you? "She looked curious. "Perhaps he told you. He wants to pay for an exhibition of Geoffrey's paintings in London, as a wedding present to us both." "Really?" Madeleine was generously delighted on Beverley's behalf. "What a good idea! I've often wondered why anyone so talented as Geoffrey pokes himself away in Binwick, instead of getting out and about among the smart set who really buy art,, as distinct from admiring it on someone else's wall." . "It's very simple," Beverley said, without offence."Lack of money.""But his father's really very well off, isn't he Revian's is one of the soundest businesses in Castleton. I've heard Father say so often." "I suppose so. But Geof
frey and his father don't get on together. They haven't for years.""My goodness, I'd make it my business to get on with any sort of parent, if I were the only child of a rich father," observed Madeleine frankly. "So you 111 mean that Geoffrey is more or less a poor man by choice?" .1 "I suppose you could say so." Beverley smiled slightly. "That was the only way he could pursue the art he loves."3 "You have to respect him for it," conceded Made-3 leine, with an air of recognizing, without being able to understand, some amiable form of insanity. "Who will get all the money when the old man dies?" "I have no idea." Madeleine threw up her hands and laughed.' "It's all too, too high-minded for me," she declared. "But possibly that's what preserved Geoffrey safely for you, my child. He's very attractive, and if he'd been rich as well, I can think of one or two people who might have snapped him up." And she looked rather, droll, but so entirely without offence that Beverley could smile too and say, with curious sincerity, "Perhaps it was my good fortune that Geoffrey was poor." "'i During the next week or two she worked hard at Sara's trousseau, while the days grew longer and hotter, and everyone said that this fine weather must break sometime soon. . Geoffrey too was working hard almost feverishly to complete one or two unfinished pictures which would~ add value and importance to any exhibition of his work.i He had had a long business talk with Franklin Lowell,I in which presumably the two men had successfully camouflaged their dislike of each other, for he hadI emerged from it in very good humour, to tell Beverley that Franklin Lowell certainly had very handsome ideas' about the way he intended to discharge his promise to promote a London exhibition, "I told you he was genuinely bind and generous," Beverley reminded him. "Well all right. But he's a damned lucky fellow too," Geoffrey retorted. "Perhaps that makes it easier8 to throw largess around. I suppose he has almost every-a thing in the world that most people want. Health, wealth, a reasonably interesting ob, a fine house and 112 'I a beautiful wife. At least he will have that last in a very short time now." "Then you think anyone who married Sara would ' be a lucky man?" enquired Beverley, amazed that she suddenly found, she could put the question almost casually. "I suppose so yes." Geoffrey cast her a quid glance. "She's lovely to look at, and she's a nice girl too. Don't you think so?" "Yes, of course. But I think there's a hard streak in her." "Hard?" Geoffrey looked astonished. "Well perhaps more hard-headed. I don't think," Beverley said, coolly and deliberately, "that Sara would marry a poor man, just because she loved him, do you?" There was a second's pause. Then Geoffrey spoke equally coolly. "No. I suppose you're right there." "Don't you call that being a little hard?" "Not necessarily. I think I understand how she feels." Geoffrey spoke slowly. "There are some things one simply cannot give up. With Sara, it's a way of life, I guess, and the desire to put everything right for that family of hers. It's a question of what a thing is worth to you personally. Not unlike the way I felt about breaking with the old man because I just couldn't or wouldn't face life without painting." "I don't think it's the same thing at all," exclaimed Beverley, with energy. "You sacrificed your comfort and prosperity in order to follow your art. In her case, she sacrificed I mean we are suggesting she would sacrifice a worth-while man for the sake of material prosperity." "Well " Geoffrey smiled and ruffled her hair, the way he used to when she was a child "nothing is ever in quite such simple terms as that, I expect. Perhaps the answer is that if a man wanted Sara enough he jolly well ought to make it his business to be rich." He laughed as he said that. But Beverley did not laugh. She merely decided that she would never again 113 discuss Sara with him. For what satisfaction had she extracted from it? . ,. ,Fortunately, he was so deeply concerned with the arrangements for the proposed exhibition that there was little need to talk of anything else. A suitable gallery had now been selected, a date had been fixed in the early autumn, when people would be returning to town after the holidays, and a certain amount of what Franklin called "indirect publicity" was already in hand. To Beverley it seemed that Geoffrey had never, been more deeply absorbed in his work, nor more eagerly optimistic about the future. The mood of confidence was even reflected in his work and, partial though she was, Beverley knew it was true that he was doing some of the best painting he had ever done.Insensibly her own optimism and confidence deepened, and she began to dare to hope that the unhappy infatuation for Sara the existence of which she could no longer doubt might perhaps die a natural death, in the glow of a long-delayed artistic success.Almost every evening she would go down to the studio and watch him work almost as she had in the days when she was a child and, to her infinite pleasure he started a portrait of herself, declaring that he must have her in the exhibition, if only as his mascot. "Franklin is going to lend you the one in the blue and white dress, in any case," she told him. But she was happy that he should want one of her as she was, in addition. . , , ,.He worked with extraordinary rapidity, as though the sureness of his hand simply could not fail him, where she was concerned, and as she saw the portrait taking shape beneath his hand, she knew it was the best thing he had ever done. Within a matter of days all the main, work of the painting had been accomplished, and wh'en Beverley strolled down the village street, one bright July evening, she guessed that he would finish the work either that evening or the next day. She felt happy about it and she felt happy about him. Much happier than she had done for a long time. 114 For in painting her picture he had seemed, in some strange way, to grow nearer to her again, and, as he did so, to achieve a certain inner tranquillity which she realized now had been missing for a long time. Beverley was all the more .distressed, therefore, to find him almost on the doorstep, ready to go out although he must have been expecting her. And she saw immediately, from his almost agitated expression, that something was wrong. "Oh, Geoffrey, what is it?" She tried to keep the alarm out of her tone and failed. "Something has happened -" his voice was even a little hoarse. "Not about the exhibition? Nothing has gone wrong about that?" she cried anxiously. "The exhibition? No, no that's all right. It's my father," he said, and he passed a slightly bewildered hand over his face. "He's had a bad heart attack, and they don't expect him to live the night. And he's asked for me, Beverley. After' all these years he's asked for me."