But Not For Me Read online

  BUT NOT FOR ME

  Mary Burchell

  Ariane was, quite frankly, making a marriage of convenience with Frank Muldane—but he was very nice and she thought, for her family’s sake, that she could manage to go through with it.

  But that was before she fell in love with his dark, disapproving elder brother, Harvey.

  CHAPTER I

  The girl running along the passage towards Ariane was undeniably lovely, slim and vivid and lightly built, looking ethereal in a long white dress.

  Ariane stopped suddenly. Dark blue eyes smiled back at her, the corners of a very red mouth lifted in amusement. Then suddenly she laughed softly and put her hand against the looking-glass.

  It was hard to believe that the charming creature in front of her was really herself.

  “It’s the dress, of course,” she murmured, turning sideways to get some view of the back. “Anyone would look nice in it. And Mother was quite right about that ribbon in my hair. It’s a bit childish, but very becoming in a Gainsborough way.”

  She picked up the skirt of her dress in both hands, and, treading a little more carefully, went downstairs to the lower hall.

  “Mother!”

  Pushing open a door at the end of the hall, she came into a pleasant, sunlit room, where long windows looked out on to a large and not very tidy garden.

  “Look. Do you like it?”

  Mrs. Dobson turned from her writing-desk with that worried, far-away look which meant she had been struggling—quite ineffectually—with the monthly accounts. But her face brightened when she saw her daughter.

  “My dear, that’s charming. Come here by the window and let me see you properly.”

  Ariane obediently came nearer, and, just for a moment, she too cast a worried look at the pile of account books.

  But her mother was stooping to shake out a fold of the dress, and making her turn round slowly so that she could view the whole effect.

  “Yes. Your hair is sweet with the curls on your neck like that.” Mrs. Dobson nodded her approval. “It’s a great test, Ariane. That hairdressing looks incredibly common on the wrong type of person.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Ariane said rather meekly, because, although she didn’t set very much store by Mother’s rigid standards, she was by nature docile and willing to accept the scale of values laid down for her.

  “It’s just right for a dance like Lady Ventnor’s. I’m glad, dear, that you have such an excellent carriage and hold your head so well.” Ariane straightened up a trifle guiltily. “That’s better. I don’t think many girls there will make a better appearance than you.”

  Ariane felt very faintly uncomfortable. When that worried note crept into Mother’s tone and she voiced these Victorian sentiments, it always suggested a desperate—though, of course, perfectly ladylike—competition. For what?

  Ariane glanced at her slim, ringless hands, and then said hastily:

  “Shall I call Julie to see the dress? She’ll be terribly thrilled.”

  For a moment her mother didn’t answer, which was most unlike her. Then Ariane saw that she was aimlessly flicking over the leaves of those horrible account books, and that a slightly too-bright colour had come into her thin cheeks.

  “Mother, is—is anything wrong?”

  Somehow, as she asked the question, Ariane knew that she was very much afraid of the answer.

  “No, dear—no. Not exactly.” Her mother sat down again with an odd little air of weariness. “But don’t call Julie just now. There is something I think I ought to say to you.”

  “Yes?”

  Ariane too sat down in the big chair opposite, and gazed at her mother with eyes that were wider and more apprehensive than she knew.

  Mrs. Dobson didn’t seem to find it very easy to begin, but after a moment she said:

  “I don’t want you to worry your head too much about it, darling, but of course, the business hasn’t been doing at all well lately. Not at all well.” She sighed. “It’s a shame to tell you a few hours before this dance, when you’re going to enjoy yourself so much, but—Well, Ariane, it just may be that in a way you can help.”

  “I, Mother?”

  Ariane looked astonished. All the more so because her mother’s air of nervous distaste showed that she didn’t like at all what she was making herself say.

  “Yes. You see, my dear, the truth is that unless something quite unexpected happens, the—the factory will have to close its doors and—and your father go into bankruptcy.”

  Ariane was speechless. She had vaguely feared something disastrous, but this—!

  Dobson’s have to close its doors! Why, it was unthinkable. Dobson’s had been making laces and embroidered muslins and linens for close on two hundred and fifty years. They were the aristocrats of the lace trade.

  Dobson’s close its doors! It was like saying that Westminster Abbey or Oxford University would close its doors. And Ariane knew, perhaps more than anyone else, what a crushing blow it would be to her father’s pride and happiness.

  “Is—is that quite certain?” she got out at last, though she knew, of course, that Mother would never have said it unless she had been sure.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. It’s the competition of these cheap mass-production goods.” Mother’s voice shook a little with contempt and unhappiness. “People like—Muldane’s.”

  There was dead silence. Ariane knew the full significance of that. If Dobson’s was the most distinguished firm in the lace trade, Muldane’s was the most prosperous.

  You might affect to despise Muldane’s, but you could not help wondering at it, and fearing it too.

  Ariane twisted her fingers together nervously.

  “Can’t—anything be done?” she said rather helplessly. And she glanced round the pleasant, shabby, yet invincibly elegant room as though, for the first time, she saw something frightening there.

  Her mother didn’t answer that directly.

  “Ariane, I haven’t told you before, but the Muldanes have come here to live—”

  “Here?”

  “Yes. Oh, quite the other side of the town. That’s why we have seen nothing of them. They’ve taken Moorbank, I’m told. And—well, I’m terribly afraid it can mean only one thing. They intend to start an opposition factory in the very town we have always considered our own.”

  “But how mean! How—how disgusting!” Ariane was quite pale.

  “No, it’s just good business, Ariane—as business is conducted nowadays.” Ariane was too much distressed to question her mother’s belief in the high-souled business methods of the past.

  “What—will Daddy do—exactly?” She knew she was not being specially helpful, but she felt queerly numb and stupid.

  Her mother got up suddenly, as though she didn’t like facing her daughter any longer, and went over to one of the windows.

  Again, she didn’t answer Ariane’s query directly. She said instead:

  “Judging by their usual methods, I think Muldane’s are sure to try to—to buy up Dobson’s. And of course, they will expect to do it for next to nothing.”

  “Mother, we couldn’t! Sell Dobson’s at a bargain price to people like Muldane’s? Surely we’d much better go into bankruptcy, or whatever it is, right away.” Ariane’s colour flamed up and her eyes sparkled. “At least it’s—it’s like dying decently instead of surrendering.”

  Her mother smiled faintly.

  “My dear, I know that sounds very well, and I would have argued that way at one time. But, you see, Ariane, there would be nothing left. We might just manage to pay our creditors—I’m not even sure about that—but we should have nothing left.”

  “We’d manage. I’ll get a job. Most girls of my age earn good salaries. Was that what you meant about my hel
ping? Of course—”

  But her mother shook her head.

  “No, no, my dear. What do you suppose you could do, suddenly shouldering all the responsibility of a family? Your father—your father would never do much once Dobson’s was gone.”

  No, Ariane knew that was true. Her charming, scholarly, rather ineffectual father would have no chance in a modern business world.

  “And then there’s Julie, with the most expensive part of her education just coming on.”

  Yes, of course, there was Julie too. Dear, twelve-year-old Julie, who ought to have every chance.

  For a moment there was that heavy silence again. Then, almost timidly, Ariane said:

  “Are you—are you trying to tell me, Mother, that we’re probably going to have to—crawl to Muldane’s for whatever terms they like to give us?”

  She was sorry, the next moment, to have put it so clumsily, because, suddenly her mother sank down in a chair again and covered her face with her hands.

  “Don’t! Mother darling, I’m so sorry.” Ariane’s arms were round her at once, and she was urging affectionate, illogical, comfort. “Don’t, Mother. It will be all right. I’m sure it will. Something will happen. I’ll think of something. And afterwards we’ll say, ‘Fancy our getting in a panic like that about nothing.’ You’ll see, it will be all right.”

  “It’s your father I’m thinking about,” came in a sad, muffled voice. “I don’t know what the humiliation will do to him. It’s not so bad for you and Julie. You’re young. And I don’t mind for myself. I think I’ve grown used to being humiliated in the last year. Trying to keep up appearances on nothing because we’re afraid of our credit going. Pretending everything is all right, while this great house eats up the little money we have left. But with your father it’s different. He—he never quite faces realities until they’re ready to crush him.”

  Ariane felt cold to her very heart.

  She ought to have known. She ought to have made herself realize more clearly what had been happening. Her mother should not have had to shoulder this miserable burden alone. It was true what she said about Daddy, of course. One couldn’t blame him, somehow, any more than one could blame a nice child. But it meant that someone else had to solve all the problems.

  Mother—with all her queer little old-world limitations about what one could do and what one couldn’t do—was much closer to realities than Daddy. She hated and detested having to readjust her life to standards she secretly despised, but, having recognized the inevitable, she made a magnificent effort to come into line.

  Nervously Ariane stroked her mother’s hair.

  “Perhaps it—it won’t come to that.” She was nothing like so confident now. And then: “What did you mean about my possibly helping? You know I’d do anything.”

  There was another of those difficult pauses. Then her mother raised her head, and looked away from her.

  “It’s so terrible putting it into words. I suppose the very fact that I can do it shows that I’ve—I’ve sunk quite low—”

  “Mother, don’t be silly!” Ariane hugged her earnestly, but she could not feel much response.

  “Ariane, the Muldanes have got three sons, you know.” Mother was hurrying a little now. “The eldest is a quite, quite impossible person. Your father met him once at a conference and he behaved atrociously. The second one is married. But the youngest is—is quite a nice boy, I hear. Dick Ventnor was at college with him, and—”

  “You mean he’s going to be at the Ventnors’ dance tonight?” her daughter interrupted sharply.

  “Well—yes. And—you see, Ariane, if he is really nice, and—and you should happen to like each other—”

  “Mother! What are you thinking of?” Ariane had gone rather pale.

  But her mother’s courage had come in one desperate rush, and she had to say the whole thing at once.

  “I’m thinking, my dear, that if old Mr. Muldane were—related to us by marriage, he wouldn’t try to ruin your father. He would compromise—enter into some partnership—even help to back—”

  “You’re looking rather far ahead, aren’t you?” Ariane’s voice was almost cold.

  “I’ve got to look far ahead, child. Don’t you see it’s the only bit of the future I can dare to look at?”

  “I’m sorry.” Ariane kissed her in quick remorse. “I do understand—at least, I’m trying to understand. But it’s all so strange and—and sudden.”

  “I know, my dear. It sounds terrible, whichever way one puts it. But remember, Ariane, I’m not urging you to do anything. It may be—it may be that this young man is quite impossible too. Only I thought, you know—if you should happen to like each other—”

  Her mother stopped, evidently aware of the fact that she was simply repeating herself. Ariane was acutely, pityingly conscious of it too. It meant that Mother must have rehearsed this miserable little scene to herself many times before she could get up the courage to say what she had.

  Ariane stood there absently patting her mother’s shoulder, in some sort of attempt at comfort. It was easy to blame her, to say that it was a dreadful and mercenary thing even to put such an idea into her daughter’s head. But there was the other side of it too.

  Mother had more than one daughter to think of. There was Julie, there was Daddy, there was everything to do with their pleasant, unexacting, kindly family life. No wonder poor Mother sought desperately for some means of retaining it.

  With a tremendous effort, Ariane spoke in a calm, almost matter-of-fact tone.

  “Really, darling, you mustn’t reproach yourself about making the suggestion. I know these things don’t sound too good actually put into words, but the idea is—is sound. I mean”—her voice shook for a moment—“he may be awfully nice and—”

  “Ariane”—her mother held her convulsively close—“you understand it depends entirely on whether you like—”

  “Mother, of course—”

  They were both talking rather hurriedly, both pitching their voices a trifle too high in a nervous endeavour to reassure each other.

  “And it also depends on whether he likes me.” Ariane laughed again, although there was nothing specially amusing in what they were saying.

  Her mother looked at her with a wistful smile. “I think he would be hard to please if he didn’t like you in that,” was all she said.

  “Oh—” Ariane smoothed her hands nervously over the soft folds of her dress. She had really forgotten all her pleasure in the frock, but she would have to pretend some measure of enthusiasm. “Yes, it certainly is the—the prettiest dress I ever had.”

  “I think so too. I should go along and show Julie now, if I were you. And—don’t worry too much about what we’ve been saying, dear.”

  “No, I won’t,” Ariane promised brightly, as though it were quite easy to forget the fact that the future of the family probably depended on her efforts to intrigue a man she had never seen and would probably detest.

  She went rather slowly out of the room in search of Julie. Somehow, it seemed stupid, after all, to want to show the dress to anyone.

  But Julie thought otherwise.

  She was in the library when her sister found her, curled up in one corner of the handsome but slightly shabby settee, and she let out a long whistle which her mother would have deprecated.

  “Ariane Dobson, you look like a model.”

  “Think so? It’s nice, isn’t it?” Ariane smiled affectionately at her.

  “Oh, I wish I were twenty!” wailed Julie, “so that I could wear marvellous dresses to the floor and go out to dances and things.”

  “Well, you will, all in good time,” Ariane began in the reassuring tone of an elder sister. Then her voice trailed off halfheartedly, because she was suddenly remembering how little there would be for Julie at twenty unless—well, unless something quite unexpected happened, as Mother put it.

  But Julie didn’t seem to notice.

  “Of course, I shan’t choose white,” she sai
d. “It’s lovely for you with your blue eyes and that fair hair. But I shall have frightfully slinky black or scarlet or something.” And Julie sighed ecstatically at this vision of herself in the future.

  “And long ear-rings, of course,” added Ariane sympathetically, because she was never mean enough to laugh at her sister’s desire to look like what she referred to vaguely as “a European adventuress.” Julie’s ambition to present this glamorous picture never wavered even before the fact that, at present, she looked like nothing but a nice little English schoolgirl, with bright grey eyes, bright brown hair, and a nose that was indefensibly snub.

  “Yes—long ear-rings,” she agreed. “I wonder if there’ll be anyone quite new at your dance tonight, Ariane.”

  “There—might be.” Ariane couldn’t infuse much enthusiasm into that.

  “Just imagine if there were someone who looked like a Russian prince in disguise, or an Austrian arch-duke or something like that.”

  “It’s most unlikely,” Ariane felt bound to point out.

  “I know. But one never knows, does one? Anything can happen.”

  “I suppose so.” Ariane laughed and felt suddenly cheered by her young sister’s optimism. Julie was right. Anything could happen. And it didn’t seem possible that everything was as terrible and strange as it had been ten minutes ago. The pleasant, uneventful happy life which had been hers for twenty years couldn’t be shattered. Something must happen to restore it to its delightful normality.

  This brighter mood persisted, in spite of the queer little shivers of misgiving which attacked her from time to time during the next few hours. And by the time the big grey Daimler drew up outside the door, ready to take her and her parents to Ventnor Lodge, Ariane had almost convinced herself that the evening was to be a carefree one after all.

  Lady Ventnor’s affairs were always of the slightly ceremonious type. Mrs. Dobson approved of them wholeheartedly, and, to tell the truth, there were very few among the younger set in the district who didn’t ardently covet an invitation.

  The ballroom at Ventnor Lodge, with the open fireplace at either end, had a wonderful floor and lent itself admirably to the most picturesque type of decoration. And if Lady Ventnor presided with kindly but rigid ceremony over the rooms where the elders played bridge, the tone of the ballroom was set by her two children, Dick and Caroline—neither of whom could be described as in the least rigid or ceremonious.