Mine for a Day (14 page)

She laughed quite gaily.

“Very proper, too, considering that you were marrying Rosemary within a matter of weeks,” she said.

He laughed.

“All right—I accept that. Look, here is the place where I thought we’d have dinner. The dining-room looks out on the river and it’s rather attractive.”

She thought it the most beautiful place possible for dinner. But perhaps that was because of the mood and the company. Anyway, the head waiter found them a table on the glassed-in terrace, where they could eat and talk in comparative privacy, and watch the evening sun setting across the river.

“It’s a heavenly place, Simon,” she said, and hoped he had never brought Rosemary there. Then she remembered that was most unlikely, as it was near his home.

“Like it? I thought you would.” And he smiled at her across the table with the contented air of someone who had thought
o
ut a plan carefully and was pleased to see it materializing with perfect success.

“It must be wonderful here in the spring.” She looked rather dreamily across the water to the thinning trees, and imagined them with the first green mist of the early leaves on them. But perhaps nothing would ever be more beautiful than this autumn evening with Simon.

“Yes, it’s very lovely here about April or May. I’ll bring you next spring, and you shall see for yourself.”

“Will you really?” She looked back at him once more and smiled. And her eyes looked bright and faintly dazzled—either from looking into the setting sun, or because Simon spoke so confidently of future plans for them.

“Would you like that so much?” His voice changed again to that curious note of significance which she had noticed before.

She nodded an
d
said: “So much,” and was not quite sure if she were relieved or disappointed that the waiter came up at that moment and broke the tension.

It was a leisurely and indescribably pleasant meal. Once or twice she had the impression that he was surprised to find that he could enjoy himself so much. But then Simon had been through a good deal in the last few weeks, between his broken engagement and his anxiety about his mother. It was natural that he should find a very special relaxation and delight in the undemanding evening in company with a charming girl whom he was just beginning to know really well.

They talked of books they had read and plays they had seen. And, again, she thought he was astonished to find anyone with tastes and preferences so much in line with his own. Even when they disagreed—and they did so sharply once or twice—the argument was amusing and stimulating.

It pleased her immensely to see him push away his coffee-cup, cross his arms in front of him on the table, and settle down to a discussion with every sign of enjoyment
and interest. He could not, she supposed, have had many discussions of that sort with Rosemary. Not that Rosemary was unintelligent in her way, but nothing mattered very much to her. And it is a little difficult to have a really stimulating discussion with someone who hardly minds which way the argument goes.

Neither of them noticed the time—strange, she thought afterwards, how she always forgot the time when she was with Simon—and it was almost completely dark when he exclaimed: “Here, I’d better be seeing about getting you back to town. It’s quite a drive.”

“Oh, Simon, you don’t need to take me right back to London! Just drive me to the nearest station, and we’ll see what trains there are.”

But he laughed that aside.

“Certainly not.”

“It’s such a long drive—and then you’ll have to do it all the way back again.”

“I can bear that.” He grinned at her.

“And tomorrow morning—off again on the same road!”

“Here, are you trying to get rid of me?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then you be a good girl, and stop talking about trains. I’m driving you back to town.”

“All right,” she said, and smiled. “Though I did promise your mother I’d look after you, you know.”

“She didn’t mean it in that way,” he replied, and they got up to go, so that she was not able to ask him exactly what way he thought his mother did want her to look after him.

If possible, the friendly intimacy of driving in the dark was almost more delightful than the drive down by daylight. They talked very little, but she was aware—and she thought he was, too—of the most complete harmony between them.

It was as though they had known each other a long time—perhaps always—and they could enjoy each other’s company almost without words. In all her life, Leila thought, she had never enjoyed any relationship like this. It made her feel more alive, more real, more significant as a human being.

“It’s because I’m in love,” she thought. “And not quite hopelessly in love this time.”

As they neared her home, she said, rather softly:

“I don’t know how to thank you, Simon. It’s been such a perfectly lovely evening.”

“My dear, the thanks are on me,” he assured her. “If anyone had told me a week or two ago that I could feel as well-satisfied with life as I do at this moment, I should have laughed.”

“Is—is that really true?”

“Um-hm.”

“I’m terribly glad,” she said, so fervently that he laughed and replied, rather moved:

“You’re sweet.”

He thought, of course, that she was terribly glad on his account only. But she did not, and indeed could not, correct him. So she just enjoyed being called “sweet” and left it at that.

He didn’t attempt to kiss her when he said good night to her. She guessed he was not a man who kissed easily or frequently, and she was glad of that. But he held her hand for a moment longer than was necessary, and said:

“We must do this again quite soon.”

“That would be lovely. And perhaps one evening you’d like to come and have dinner with me. In my flat, I mean. I can’t manage such a ritzy meal as this evening, but I’ll guarantee to feed you pretty well.”

“It’s a date,” he assured her. “I’d like nothing better.”

Then he said good night and drove away; And Leila, dazed and a little pale with happiness, let herself into her flat.

Lying on the mat, dropped from the letter-box, was a letter from Rosemary. She recognized the writing, even before she picked it up. And just as, once before, Rosemary’s writing had brought her a c
h
ill of apprehension, so this time she felt her mood of joyous elation fade before a guilty nervousness which she could not control.

Without even waiting to take off her hat she opened the letter, standing there in the
hal
l by the mirror which reflected an even paler Leila than the one who had come in a moment or two ago. This time it was not a happy pallor.

Dear Leila [the letter said],

Everything is all right now with Mother and Dad, and even Peter has given up being brotherly and critical. It was nice to be home, but Durominster is a bit dull after all the excitement. (Because, even if going with Jeremy was a mistake, it certainly made life exciting!) I expect I’m missing Simon. And, now that I’ve satisfied the old folks at home about my being good and safe, I don’t want to put off tackling Simon any longer. Obviously, I can’t ask him to come and see me here—and,
if
I did, I presume he wouldn’t come. So the only alternative is to inflict myself on you again for a few days, darling, and I’ve decided to come this weekend, before my courage can ooze away again. I’ll probably arrive on Friday when you’re at the office, but if you leave the key with Mrs. What’s-her-name, the housekeeper, or tell her to let me in anyway, I’ll look after myself all right and even have a meal ready for you when you come in.

Don’t be cross about my deciding on all this so suddenly. One has to do these things suddenly or not at all. I was silly to put off tackling Simon for so long as it is. But I’m determined to remedy that as soon as possible.

If you have any plans yourself for Friday, go right ahead and don’t mind me. I’ll be all right at the flat, so long as you can arrange to have me let in.

Love,

ROSEMARY.

Leila looked up at her frightened reflection and said aloud:

“But that’s tomorrow! Friday is tomorrow. I must stop her! I can’t possibly have her coming here
now
.”

She even moved towa
r
ds the telephone, seeking desperately in her mind for some pretext on which she could put off her cousin.

But Rosemary had provided for everything. She had urged Leila to go on with any plans of her own, insisting that she would manage perfectly well. What could one possibly invent that would make even Rosemary see that she could not come?

Only if one invented another resident visitor—insisted that no
bed was free—lied right and left—

“I can’t!” Again Leila spoke aloud. “I can’t go on with this concealing and deceiving. And I can’t start a series of specific lies. She will have to come, and I must accept this as the moment when I must let Simon know about her. There is time to think of how I will put it. I’ll tell him in the office tomorrow. I can risk it now. Oh, surely I can!—I might tell him that she is coming to see me, and let him think that it was her letter which gave me all the information about her not marrying Jeremy after all. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. If I put it carefully, it will be all right. And oh, how thankful I shall be to have everything straightforward and truthful again!”

She even told herself that she was glad Rosemary had written, and forced her hand like this. And, although she still experienced a few tremors when she thought of the actual moment of explanation, there was a sort of terrible relief in the knowledge that the weekends of uncertainty and deception were to end.

Her evening with Simon was partly responsible, no doubt, for her feeling less afraid about the future. It was impossible not to gather confidence and hope from the knowledge that to Simon she was at last a valued and intimate associate.

If there had not been this complication about Rosemary, she would, at this point, have been enjoying that delicious phase of uncertainty when friendship has not quite developed into love, but shows every sign of doing so.

There was still the danger, of course, that, however much Rosemary’s defection might have shocked and hurt him, Simon still loved her beyond any argument or logic. But that was something which had to be faced some time. It was possible that Leila would never be in a stronger position than now for facing that test.

In spite of various doubts and misgivings, therefore, Leila’s general mood when she went to bed was hopeful. Perhaps that accounted for the fact that she slept well and dreamlessly, and went to the office the next morning full of a courageous determination to tell Simon about Rosemary at the first opportunity.

Her good resolution received something of a check when she learned that, after all, Simon would not be in during the morning. Something requiring his personal attention had occurred at some works just outside London, and Mr. Barraclough had telephoned to him early, asking him to go straight from home to the place concerned.

She had plenty to occupy her from the previous day but, having screwed her courage to the point of telling Simon most of the truth, she found it almost unbearable to have to postpone the ordeal.

No one seemed to know if he would even come in during the afternoon. And as the day wore on the cowardly idea began to grow in Leila’s mind that it might be better to make a clean breast of things to Rosemary, rather than Simon.

If Simon did not put in an appearance at all during the day, and Rosemary was waiting for her at the flat when she returned home, would it not be easier to explain literally everything to her not ungenerous young cousin—even the fact that she herself loved Simon—and trust to the fact that Rosemary’s love for him was not really so deep that she could not bear to think of giving him up? She had given him up once, quite willingly, for Jeremy. Why not give him up again for her cousin’s sake?

At times this seemed a wonderful solution to Leila. At other times it seemed futile and absurd. And most of the afternoon she wavered to and fro between the two opposing views.

Then, towards the end of the afternoon, just as she had decided finally, as she believed, that Rosemary should be recipient of her confidences, the buzzer on her desk sounded. This meant that Simon had arrived, after all, and wished to dictate to her.

For the last hour at least she had decided that he was not coming in to the office that
d
ay, and her only problem had been to make up her mind about how much or how little he should tell Rosemary that evening. Now, with a suddenness that was unnerving, she had to decide how much or how little she was to tell Simon.

With her heart thumping uncomfortably, she picked up her note-book and pencil.

He would dictate first, of course. Even with most of her attention on her work, she should be able to decide whether his mood were a suitable one for disclosures. She need not
absolutely
decide what she was going to do until she saw him. But probably it would be best—

She was at the door now, with her hand on the handle. When she saw him, she must make her final decision.

Leila went into the room. As she did so, two people turned a puzzled and questioning gaze upon her. One was Simon. The other was Rosemary.