Mine for a Day (17 page)

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said at last. Then she sat down at her desk and began to work feverishly. She intended to be ready at five-thirty, if she had to work all through her lunch-time to be so.

It seemed a long day, but a day which had hope at the end. For the first time for nearly two weeks, she felt she was working
towards
something. Until Simon had made this one half-friendly gesture, each hour had seemed like the last one and each day like the last day—and none of them had meant anything.

Now, when she glanced at the clock, she thought: “In four hours—in three hours—in two hours—I shall be with him. We shall be together in the car, just the two of us. It’s impossible that this should not make a difference.”

When it was at last time for her to go and join him, she wished that she had had some warning of this the previous day. She would have worn that misty blue suit which he had once said he liked. A little discontentedly, she stared at herself in the office mirror, and wondered why she had ever bought—much less worn—this tailored navy blue coat which made her look a little severe. Or was it just that she was frightened and, in her effort to hide the fact, she achieved a touch of hardness?

She put on her hat, and then she took it off again and ran her hand through her soft bright hair. She looked less formal like that. Maybe she would go without it.

Leila tossed her hat back into her locker. At that moment it meant nothing to her unless it could make her look endearing to Simon. And, taking her gloves and her handbag, she went out of the office.

He was already waiting for her in the car, and as she came along
the pavement towards him he leant forward and opened the door for her.

“I’m sorry! Am I late?”

She had not intended to sound breathless and apologetic, and he must have thought her attitude a little overdone, because he raised his eyebrows slightly as he said:

“No. Not at all. I was five minutes early myself.”

She slid into the seat beside him, aware, as she had never been before, of a faint self-consciousness in sharing this intimate nearness with him.

“I mustn’t be silly,” she told herself anxiously. “It ought to be easier, not more difficult, to talk like this. I mustn’t be self-conscious. Oh, please God, don’t let me be self-conscious, or I shall spoil everything!”

He started the car and, in a voice which at least sounded cool and self-possessed, she managed to say:

“Tell me about your mother. What is the latest news of her?”

“Not too good.” He frowned. “As you know, the trouble all along has been the difficulty of maintaining her strength. The operation, as such, was completely successful. But she hasn’t rallied anything like as quickly as we had hoped.”

“But she has such a wonderful spirit. It’s that which keeps her going more than anything else,
”
Leila said earnestly.

She had forgotten now about being self-conscious. She was too deeply and genuinely concerned about Mrs. Morley to think about anything else.

“Yes, that’s true. That’s why her mental and—emotional state has so much to do with her rate of recovery. During the last week she seems to have—fretted is the word, I suppose.” He hesitated a moment. Then he said, as though from duty rather than from inclination: “She asked several times about you.”

“About me! What did she ask about me?”

“Oh—how you were, when you were coming to see her, and so on.”

“Did you—tell her anything?”

“I told her you were well, of course, and that I was sure you would be coming to see her quite soon.”

“No. I didn’t mean that.”

There was a silence.

“I didn’t speak about the scene in the office, if you meant that,” he said at last.

“I see.” Leila gripped her hands together in her lap. “Does she know about—Rosemary?”

“No.”

They drove on in silence once more. And immediately she began to wish she had been more specific. Why had she not said something challenging, like, “Does she know you and Rosemary are engaged again?”

Then he would have had to give an answer which would have shown her the real situation.

“Does she know about Rosemary?” could have covered everything she feared, or nothing at all significant.

When she felt the silence had gone on as long as it should, she tried again.

“Did you know Rosemary was staying with me?” she asked, trying to make that sound casual, and as though the very name Rosemary did not evoke uneasy recollections.

“Yes. I knew.”

She thought he set his mouth rather hard. But whether in disapproval of Rosemary’s choice of lodging, or as an indication that the subject was a forbidden one, she was not quite sure.

Presently he pointed out a famous beauty spot to her, and she brightened and said:

“Yes, you mentioned it the first time we drove down, but we had passed it before you thought to draw my attention to it. You said then that you would—you would remember next time we came this way.”

“Well—I remembered next time we came this way,” he said, and for a moment he turned his head and smiled full at her.

Her breath caught in her throat. She managed to smile back at him, but she knew it was a ridiculously scared and yet relieved smile. Not the smile of a sensible, self-possessed person who had taken ruthless—and rather inexcusable—decisions and acted on them.

But she could not help it. She was so happy to have him smile at her again that nothing else mattered. Not the necessity of preserving appearances, nor of considering her pride, nor anything else.

He had referred to their previous drive together, and smiled at her as though they shared a valued recollection.

“I—I was beginning to think there wouldn’t be a next time,” she heard herself say.

“Were you? But didn’t you remember that my mother specifically said she wanted to see you?”

“Ye-es. But—after what had happened—”

He swung the car past an awkward bend in the road before he commented on that.

“It’s only children who take up the ‘I’ll never speak to you again’ attitude, Leila,” he said lightly. “I suppose most friends”—her heart warmed indescribably—“and even acquaintances”—deadly chill set in—“have unfortunate disagreements at some time or another. One can’t govern all future actions by them.
”

“No. Of course not.” Her voice was smaller than she could have wished, and she sounded so subdued that he laughed and asked: “Isn’t the olive branch acceptable?”

“Oh, yes, of
course
.”

“What is it, then?”

“Nothing,” she assured him. “Nothing at all. I—I’m very glad that you feel this way.”

For she could not tell him, naturally, that she had been cut to the heart by his implications that perhaps “friends” no longer applied to them.

She told herself that she was being fanciful, that he had not meant it that way at all. And after a while she almost convinced herself, and the last half of the drive was accomplished in an atmosphere of easier friendliness than she had dared to hope.

At the nursing-home, they were immediately admitted to Mrs. Morley’s room, where Leila—who had not seen her for some time—was rather hopefully impressed by what seemed to her an improvement, at any rate in general appearance.

But, though affectionate, Mrs. Morley was languid and showed little of her usual brightness and energy. Indeed, after a few minutes, she even said that she found two visitors a little exhausting, and suggested that Simon should go and have a chat with one of the other patients whom he knew.

He complied with her request immediately, but Leila saw that he was worried, and she glanced after him sympathetically as he went out of the room.

The moment the door had closed behind him, however, Mrs. Morley drew a quick sigh of something which sounded extraordinarily like satisfaction, and said, in a much more energetic tone than she had employed so far:

“It’s all right, darling. I’m sorry I had to make him anxious, but it was the only way I could think of to get rid of him. Now tell me quickly—what is the matter?”

“The—the matter?” Leila stammered, looking at Mrs. Morley in astonishment. “What do you mean?
”

“
Just exactly what I say,” Mrs. Morley assured her briskly. “And be a good child, and don’t waste our time by hedging. Everything was going along beautifully when you last came to see me. And then, suddenly, Simon stopped talking about bringing you here again—and, anyway, you didn’t co
m
e, and before I could frighten him into bringing you, I had to work very hard at being a fading lily. Fortunately I was able to keep him from having a serious talk with the doctor. But really it was very depressing having to droop every time poor Simon came near me.”

“Mrs. Morley, you’re incorrigible!” Leila laughed vexedly. “You’re more like a naughty child than Simon’s mother. Do you mean to say that all this worrying set-back was sheer make-believe?”

“No, not entirely. I did have a slight relapse about a week ago,” Mrs. Morley explained with candour. “And Simon kept on asking me so pressingly if there was anything I would specially like that I thought it was time I asked to see you. When he started to put me off, I saw I had better not begin to improve until I had got what I wanted. Now, tell me quickly, have you two quarrelled?”

“Not—quarrelled, exactly.”

Leila paused unhappily, and Mrs. Morley said impatiently:

“If I have to extract every fact like a reluctant tooth, we shall not have got very far by the time Simon comes back, you know.”

“Rosemary has returned,” Leila stated baldly, goaded into producing the one salient fact, because it never entere
d
her head to query Mrs. Morley’s right to question.

“Oh—dear! How tiresome! I never thought of that. The man didn’t marry her, of course?”

“No.”

“Don’t tell me that she is playing ‘broken blossom’ to my poor, foolish Simon?”

“Oh, dear me, no! There isn’t anything of the broken blossom about Rosemary. She extricated herself very neatly from the situation before any damage had been done, I’m glad to say. So far as she was concerned, the only problem was when and how soon could she and Simon take up things where they had left off?”

“What impertinence!” said Simon’s mother, but without heat.
“And how silly even the best of men are. Did Simon—respond to the overtures?”

“I don’t—really know. I kept them apart as long as possible—”

“Thank you, my dear.“

“—by most unscrupulous means, I’m afraid.”

“Well, well,” murmured Mrs. Morley tolerantly.

“Then they came together quite unexpectedly, before I—I had had time to think how I was going to explain my part in things. And I naturally appeared in a very bad light.”

“In what way?

“We-ell”—Leila stirred unhappily in her seat—“it just looked as though I’d
b
een trying to make mischief between two people who meant a great deal to each other.”

Mrs. Morley studied her for a while in silence.

“Are you sure that’s how Simon saw it?”

“I don’t see what else he could have thought. He—he said it was unwarrantable interference on my part.”

“Such a difficult phrase to get out when one is really angry,” murmured Mrs. Morley reflectively. “I wonder just how much was real anger, and how much was the feeling that he ought to be angry.”

“Oh, Mrs. Morley, I’m afraid that’s simply wishful thinking,” Leila said sadly. “He was very angry.”

“And you haven’t made it up since?”

“Well—” She thought of that scene on the way down. “He did tell me, on the way down in the car today, that one couldn’t keep up this sort of thing. He said something about not being able to govern all one’s future actions by a dispute between friends or—or acquaintances.”

“Acquaintances?” repeated Mrs. Morley, and made a face. “Did he mean you and himself by that, or was it just a generalization?”

“I don t know. I wish I did. And oh,” exclaimed Leila with a sigh, “how I wish I knew what the present situation is between him and Rosemary!”

“Don’t bother too much about that,” Mrs. Morley advised realistically. “That’s a negative approach. The really important thing is the situation between you and Simon.”

“But I don’t think—there was ever—”

“Of course there was! Don’t underestimate your own powers of attraction,” Mrs. Morley said, looking amused. “And don’t overload yourself with a sense of guilt, child. If you did try to keep him and Rosemary apart, I can assure you that you have his mother’s blessing on the enterprise.”

Leila laughed reluctantly.

“You make me feel so much better,” she declared, and then looked faintly put out, because Simon chose that moment to return, and naturally seemed slightly surprised to find these words issuing from the wrong mouth.