Mine for a Day (9 page)

“I’m not angry that you came to me, if you needed some—some sort of refuge,” she said. “But you can’t expect me to remain absolutely unmoved, Rosemary, by the tremendous upheaval you made in all our lives
.
”

“But it didn’t really affect you very much, did it?”

For a moment, Leila thought her cousin’s query was one of pure stupidity or pure impudence. Then she saw suddenly that, of course, from Rosemary’s point of view, she herself was very much a side character in this drama.

“You—assigned me a rather uncomfortable r
ol
e in it, yourself,” Leila pointed out.

“Yes—I know. I’m sorry about that. But what else could I do. Leila?”

Leila drew a deep breath. But she knew it was impossible even to begin to explain to Rosemary. So instead she asked quite quietly: “What brought you here, Rosemary? What has happened?”

As though she were recalled to unpleasant reality, Rosemary stirred sharply in her chair, and her expression changed.

“Everything went wrong,” she said harshly and comprehensively.
“Absolutely everything. Leila, haven’t you anything to eat in the place? I’m—I’m hungry.”

Leila was not completely certain if that catch in her voice were
g
enuine distress and an indication of literal hunger, or whether it
h
ad been put in to complete an artistic whole. But she had to give Rosemary the benefit of the doubt because, after all, she was genuinely fond of her, and the habit of indulgence dies hard.

“Dear, there isn’t much, because I’ve been away for weeks, as you know—”

“Have you only just come from Durominster, then?”

“N-no.” Leila faltered before the interruption. “I’ve been—staying somewhere else. But I’ll tell you about that. The point is that I haven’t been home in between. I think we’d better go out for a meal. I was going to, anyway, and—”

“I haven’t any money,” Rosemary said baldly.

“It’s all right. I have.” Leila’s tone was almost curt, because, somehow, that one unadorned statement was horribly revealing and moved her indescribably.

“There’s a small restaurant, less than five minutes from here.” Leila spoke still in a very matter-of-fact tone, because she did not want Rosemary to know how moved she was. “We’ll go there now. And afterwards you can tell me everything. I mean, whatever you want to tell me.”

Rosemary drew a long sigh. But it was a sigh of relief. Then she stood up and smiled at her cousin.

“Oh, it’s lovely to have you around again, Leila,” she said quite sincerely. “You’re so practical and—and understanding.”

The little place where she took her cousin had high-backed wooden seats which shut one in with an illusion of complete privacy, and Leila had expected that, as soon as they were seated and had chosen their meal, Rosemary would launch into her story. But either she welcomed the chance of postponing what she had to say or else she was genuinely famished. So Leila controlled her anxious curiosity—or perhaps she pandered to her own fear of hearing the truth—and it was not until they were sitting over their coffee that she brought herself to say:

“Aren’t you going to explain now, Rosemary?”

“Yes.” Rosemary leaned forward and traced a pattern on the cloth. But it was not an embarrassed movement, Leila thought. Just a reflective one. And her voice was almost unemotional as she said: “I left Jeremy. I never want to see him again.”

Softly Leila drew a deep breath.

“Do you mean—you didn’t marry him, or—”

“Oh, no.” Rosemary had already passed so far beyond the state of mind in which she had thought of marrying Jeremy that she was genuinely surprised to find that anyone still thought of the situation in those terms. “Oh, no, I didn’t marry him. Thank goodness.”

“But—in that case—” Leila was surprised that she could feel faintly embarrassed with anyone she knew so well as Rosemary. “In that case—what
did
you do?”

“Oh, I didn’t live with him, either, if that’s what you mean,” Rosemary explained with candour. “I’m not
that
sort of girl, Leila. Surely you know that.”

Leila was tempted to say that she sometimes wondered just what sort of girl Rosemary was. She repeated instead, rather patiently: “What did you do then? What happened?”

“We quarrelled almost immediately. Over that very question. It seemed there were some formalities—we couldn’t get married right away—and Jeremy wanted us to set up together without waiting. I wouldn’t, and he was wild about it. He even said it was a waste of money for me to be living in an hotel when I could live at his flat. And that was the first thing that made me think, because I don’t like a man who turns mean and thinks of money when he’s supposed to be madly in love with you, do you?”

“No,” said Leila, because she saw she was expected to say something.

“He had to give in, of course, and I went to an hotel that first night. But it wasn’t even a very good hotel, and it made me think again that he was—stingy.”

“But couldn’t you choose—and pay for—your own hotel, Rosemary? It would have been more—satisfactory, in the circumstances. Surely you had money of your own? What has happened to it?”

“Oh, that was another thing that made difficulties! You know, I never had a bank-book of my own. Daddy didn’t approve, for some reason or other. All my money was in the Post Office. And in the hurry and excitement I forgot to take my Post Office book. So there I was with only about a couple of pounds. Jeremy was quite nasty and unreasonable about that, too.”

Leila felt her lips twitch, and the humorous idea crossed her mind that Rosemary must be a maddening person with whom to run away. Particularly if, as seemed to be the case with this Jeremy, love was not unmixed with self-interest.

“Well, go on,” she said, as one might urge a child.

“There isn’t very much more to tell, Leila. We met the next day, of course, and other days, too. But we always seemed to quarrel afresh. He kept on pressing me to come to his flat, and I wouldn’t of course. An
d
there we were.”

Leila thought, not without malice, that she wished she could have seen Rosemary’s simple, mulish obstinacy pitted against the wiles of what was evidently an accomplished bounder.

“Then suddenly he told me that he was going away on tour, and that, if I didn’t come too, that was the end. And I saw then that he hadn’t really intended to marry me at all. Or, if so, he didn’t mind much when we did it. Because he must have known all along that he was going on tour, and that wouldn’t have given us long enough to establish residence and get married. Then
I
was mad, Leila. Much, much madder than he had ever been. Because I realized that he’d deceived me, and no one likes to be deceived. Least of all when one—one’s loved someone.”

“That’s true,” agreed Leila, without much expression. “When did this happen, Rosemary? And what did you do?”

“It happened yesterday. And I told him exactly what I thought of him an
d
that he needn’t ever come near me again. And he went away and
didn’t
come near me again. Then this morning, when I knew he wasn’t coming back, I realized that I couldn’t go on living at the hotel. I didn’t
d
are even have breakfast. But even then the bill was more than all the money I had, and I left my watch as a sort of surety, and came here, hoping you’d be home.”

“I’m very glad you came,” Leila said sincerely. “You—haven’t written yet to Aunt Hester?”

Rosemary shook her head.

“I didn’t want to get into touch with any of them. Not Mother or Simon or anyone—until I’d seen you and heard how things were. And now it’s your turn, Leila. Now you must tell me everything that happened after I left.”

“I think,” Leila said, beckoning to their waitress, “that we’ll go home before I start that story.”

It was the obvious thing to do. But it was also the one way in which Leila could secure a reprieve—just a few minutes longer—in which to decide how much, and in what way, she was to tell her cousin of what had happened during the last few days.

She was not sure whether it was a real state of fact, or just her imagination, but the flat seemed cold and depressing to Leila when they returned there. Rosemary, however, seemed more than happy with everything.

“It’s lovely here. I’d no idea you had made yourself such a comfortable home, Leila,” she said. And, with an air of making herself entirely at home, she switched on the electric fire once more, seated herself in the most comfortable chair.

Leila, who had taken off her outdoor things more slowly, came over to sit in the opposite chair and, though she seldom smoked, reached for a cigarette.

Rosemary shook her head at the proffered case, and waited with obvious impatience while Leila lit her cigarette. Then she burst out: “Do hurry up and begin, Leila. You make me nervous. Is there anything
very
terrible to tell me?”

Leila looked at her almost incredulously.

“I don’t know what you would call ‘very terrible,”’ she replied rather soberly. “Your parents were extremely upset—naturally.”

“And angry?” enquired Rosemary.

“To a certain extent—yes. Not so much because you changed your mind, Rosemary. But because of the way in which you did it. Aunt Hester felt very badly about being left to do all the explaining and excusing, and I think she had a right to feel that way.”

“She had you,” Rosemary pointed out, with a sort of naive shamelessness. “She will get over it, Leila. She has probably got over it now.”

“I don’t know about that.” Leila thought of her aunt’s angry, distressed voice on the telephone.

“And then—Simon.” Rosemary
did hesitate a moment before she said his name. “Will it be
very
difficult to make Simon forgive me, Leila?”

There was dead silence in the room. Leila felt as though time stopped, and a terrible chill of inevitability touched her. She was surprised to hear herself clear her throat and ask, in a normal-sounding voice:

“Do you mean—forgive you in a purely academic way? Or are
you—are you hoping to take things up with Simon again?”

“I suppose,” Rosemary replied thoughtfully, “that depends on Simon’s attitude. Was he very angry, Leila?”

“He was simply furious,” Leila said coldly. “And he had every right to be.”

“Oh! Was he?”

In some obscure way, it pleased her to see how completely startled Rosemary looked at last.

“What else did you expect? He came home the day before his wedding, worried to death about his mother—”

“Oh, yes, of course. Poor Simon. I forgot about his mother. How is she?” Rosemary asked rather absently.

Leila held herself carefully in check.

“She is dangerously ill. They are operating on her tomorrow, and it was essential that she should not be shocked or upset in any way. The only thing she wanted was to see Simon’s—wife before she went into the nursing-home. Simon came to Durominster, meaning to ask you to postpone the honeymoon long enough to go with him to his home. You can imagine what it was like, having to tell him that there would be no wedding because you had run off with another man.”

“Oh, dear! I’m truly sorry, Leila. I didn’t know it would be as difficult as all that for you. Or for him,” she added, looking solemn and remorseful, as a child might look solemn and remorseful. “Whatever did you do?”

“I went instead of you,” Leila stated coolly and clearly. “I accompanied Simon to his home and was introduced to his mother and sister as you.”

“
Leila
!”
Consternation and amazement and a sort of amused admiration chased each other across Rosemary’s expressive face. “What a nerve! And”—she considered the position for a moment—“did you get away with it?”

“Yes,” Leila said, without hesitation and without amplification, “we got away with it.” Rosemary was not the only one who had been considering the position, and Leila added, almost immediately: “That’s why, for the moment, whatever you wish to do, you mustn’t make any sort of contact with Simon.”

She was ashamed the moment she had said it. But she was frightenedly exultant, too. Here was the perfect way of ensuring that no immediate disaster overtook her. She would have time to consider the position—time to think what was right and what was merely excusable. Time to decide what would be best for Simon. Time to find out if Rosemary’s feelings for Simon had anything deep or genuine about them.

There was nothing fundamentally unfair, she assured herself, in making Rosemary wait. It was Rosemary herself who had created this situation. But none of these inner protests really quieted her conscience, and she knew why as soon as Rosemary asked her next question.

“Did both his mother and sister accept you quite without question, quite without suspicion?”

Here was the testing moment. The point at which she had to decide how far she was prepared to go in defence of her precious,
b
ut fatally light, hold on Simon. She prevaricated desperately. She said:

“Why should they have any sort of suspicion? Simon introduced me as you, and they had never-seen you before.”

“Ye-es. Of course, that’s true.” Rosemary bit her lip thoughtfully. “How long did you stay?”

“I left there only today—when his mother went to the nursing-home.”

Rosemary’s eyes grew suddenly round.

“You were there
several days,
as Simon’s wife?”

“Of—of course.”

“My goodness, Leila! I’d never have thought of you as being willing to put yourself in such a position.” And she added, rather soberly: “You must be very fond of me.”