My Sister Celia Read online

  When they returned to Crowmain Court they were, literally and figuratively, arm in arm. And Ada, seeing them come in from the garden, declared that “it made her feel all queer, to see them there as alike as two peas.”

  “But rather nice peas, Ada,” Celia suggested winningly.

  “Yes, miss, certainly,” Ada agreed. But her slightly faded glance lingered on Freda, as though to say that one could have a marked preference, even in peas.

  Illogically, this did so much for Freda’s self-esteem that, when Laurence joined them ten minutes later for tea, she was already in a much happier and livelier mood. So important is it to all of us that someone should think us rather special!

  She found herself talking eagerly about the cottage planning, and it was she who said,

  “During my holiday—in two weeks’ time—Celia and I will come down here to stay for a few days. Then we’ll get everything settled and begin to enjoy the place.”

  “In two weeks’ time?” repeated Laurence thoughtfully. “That will bring us to the twentieth of the month, won’t it? M-yes—I might manage to be down here myself for a week or so then.”

  “That would be wonderful!’ Celia exclaimed. And then, a little guiltily—”Wouldn’t it, Freda?”

  “Yes, indeed.” Freda’s smile was reassuring enough. For, in her heart of hearts, she thought it would be wonderful to have Laurence in Crowmain for a whole week. After all, a lot of things can happen in a week.

  Satisfied that her plans were meeting with approval, Celia sucked in her cheeks consideringly and went on,

  “I wonder if we could get Brian down here for a week too.”

  “Oh, do let’s try!” Freda’s enthusiasm was absolutely genuine, for Brian was someone who invariably soothed and encouraged her. With him she always felt at her best.

  “Where could he stay?” Celia looked thoughtful.

  “At The Peacock and Peahen?” Freda suggested. “It’s quite nice and—”

  “He could stay here, of course. Heaven knows, the place is big enough,” Laurence pointed out. “But could he get away while your father is abroad?”

  “He might. It’s the Long Vacation in the Courts, you know, and that always makes things easier in a legal firm,” Celia explained.

  “Then tell him he’s welcome,” Laurence said, if not with marked enthusiasm, at least with careless good humour.

  And so it was settled, to the satisfaction of all. After that, there was only time for them to finish their tea hastily before Laurence drove them over in the car to Dalling, where they caught their train for London.

  “What a lovely day it was!” Celia exclaimed when, alone in the compartment, they were on their way. “It was the most wonderful antidote to the depression about Mother. The cottage is so beautiful—and so is Crowmain Court—and I can’t help liking Laurence—and now there’s this superb idea that we should all four be down there together. Too lovely!”

  “Do you think Brian will agree?” Freda smiled indulgently.

  “We’ll make him agree,” Celia asserted. “I can usually talk him round,” she added carelessly. “Besides, he can see for himself that it’s a perfect foursome.”

  “Y-yes?”

  “Well, naturally. I’ll take Laurence off your hands—more than willingly, I might say,” Celia interjected with a laugh. “And Brian can pair off with you. You’ll like that, won’t you?” she said coaxingly. “You like Brian?”

  “Yes, of course I like Brian. It wouldn’t be possible to do otherwise. But—”

  “Then that’s settled! And very well settled, to my way of thinking,” Celia declared candidly. “Don’t you agree?” She glanced a little doubtfully at Freda. “What’s the matter? You look rather solemn.”

  “Oh, I was just thinking—It seems a rather arbitrary way of dividing us up. After all, you too like Brian, don’t you?”

  “Why, of course!” Celia laughed. “He’s been like a brother to me for years. But that’s not quite the same thing.”

  “No, I suppose it wouldn’t be.”

  “Laurence Clumber—I don’t quite know how to put it—thrills me, does things to me.”

  Freda was silent, for there seemed no possible way of saying that Laurence Clumber thrilled her and did things to her.

  “To tell the truth,” Celia went on dreamily, “I believe I could fall for Laurence in a big way.” Freda swallowed an almost uncontrollable lump in her throat.

  “Isn’t it rather—early to be certain of that?” she said.

  “To be a hundred per cent certain—yes,” Celia agreed with a laugh. “But not too early to be ninety per cent certain—which is a lovely state to be in,” she added, half seriously, half laughingly. “Have you ever been in love, Freda?”

  “I don’t know,” Freda said, almost stolidly, because she felt that if she started showing any emotion she might begin to cry.

  “Don’t know? Of course you know!” declared Celia, both amused and scandalised. “I didn’t mean the once-and-for-all full-scale business that either transports one or kills one. I meant pleasantly and romantically thrilled and excited.”

  “The way you are about Laurence Clumber?” enquired Freda, though the effort nearly choked her.

  “Yes,” said Celia. “No—I mean”—she paused, once more poised halfway between laughter and seriousness—“Funny, but I can’t really answer that question. I don’t know how I feel about Laurence. I thought it was like the other half-dozen times I’ve fallen in and out of love,” she explained, with engaging candour. “But now”—suddenly her voice dropped to a whisper and she spoke almost to herself—“now I don’t know.”

  It’s real, thought Freda, in a moment of absolute despair. It’s real—and so there’s not a thing I can do about it. Except wish her well and hope that she’ll get her heart’s desire.

  And if it happened to be Freda’s heart’s desire as well, that was just too bad. She had the cottage, hadn’t she?—and a darling sister, who had been almost given back to her from the dead. Did she have to have Larry too?

  Yes, her heart said angrily, she did!—But not if Celia really wanted him.

  “Well, anyway”—Celia laughingly brushed away the moment of half puzzled emotion—“you see why it’s going to be almost essential that we should get Brian down to Crowmain. Quite apart from your not wanting to have much to do with Laurence—”

  Freda resisted a desire to scream.

  “—A threesome wouldn’t be at all the right pattern in which to develop one’s—one’s hope’s.”

  “No,” Freda agreed. “It wouldn’t. But, even if Brian doesn’t feel he can come, I’ll manage to—keep out of the way.”

  “But that isn’t what I want at all,” Celia explained earnestly. “I don’t want you pushed aside, as it were. I want”—she groped unsuccessfully for words in which to describe what it was she wanted for Freda.

  “You want me to be happily employed elsewhere,” suggested Freda, with a hint of humour, even in this unhappy moment.

  “Exactly. And that’s why Brian would be ideal. He can be the most charming company, you know.”

  “I know he can,” said Freda gravely.

  “Well then, that’s splendid,” declared Celia, evidently under the impression that Freda was as pleased with the arrangement as she was.

  After that, there was nothing to do but chat happily about the coming visit in the terms in which Celia had cast it.

  When they reached home they found Brian a trifle depressed by the circumstance of his parents’ departure, but unfeignedly glad to see them both.

  “They went off all right,” he explained, in answer to Celia’s eager questions. “No—Mother wasn’t too much upset about your not being here. It was much the best arrangement, really. Father telephoned from Switzerland about half an hour ago. They arrived safely and Mother stood the journey well.”

  “Why, that’s wonderful!” Celia’s resilient spirits bounded up, and Freda saw this had the effect of making Brian look
much happier too. “Now we can talk about our own plans for the future.”

  “Have we any?” enquired Brian.

  “Most certainly we have!” Celia assured him. And she launched into an account of their day in Crowmain, ending with the tentative arrangement for a joint holiday there in a couple of weeks’ time.

  “But I’m not at all sure I want to accept Clumber’s hospitality,” objected Brian. “I don’t think I care much for the fellow.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Brian! You hardly know him,” protested Celia impatiently.

  “Well then, perhaps I don’t want to stay with someone I hardly know.”

  “But it’s such a wonderful arrangement for everyone,” declared Celia, who honestly thought that was the case, since she herself wanted it so much. We can’t put you up at the cottage. It’s too small. I think it was extraordinarily nice of Laurence to invite you.”

  “Couldn’t I stay at the local pub or something? asked Brian, without commenting on the niceness of Laurence’s offer.

  “You could—” began Freda. But Celia interrupted. “Not after Laurence has had the decency to invite you to Crowmain Court. It would be a frightful snub. Besides—why shouldn’t you go to his place?”

  Brian smiled, and his eyes glinted.

  “Maybe I’m on Freda’s side,” he said mischievously, “and feel that anyone who threatened the cottage at any time should be treated with reserve.”

  “It’s all right, Brian.” Freda smiled back at him, though, to tell the truth, her heart warmed strangely at this piece of friendly nonsense. “We’ve buried the hatchet, so far as the cottage is concerned, and I—I quite like Laurence now.”

  “There you are!” said Celia triumphantly. “If Freda is satisfied with the arrangement, you can be too.”

  “And you’d really like me to come, Freda?”

  “Oh, I’d love it,” Freda said shyly. “It would make it much easier for me.”

  “Really?” He looked faintly surprised at her choice of word. “In what way?”

  “It’s always nicer to have two men around when there are two girls,” his sister explained impatiently. “Do be co-operative, Brian.”

  “So that’s what you call it?” Again he gave that faintly indulgent smile, which not only touched his lips but brought a warm sparkle to his eyes. “I’ll have to see how things are at the office before I can absolutely promise to get away. But I ought to be able to manage a few days, anyway.”

  “Make it a week,” Celia said, and she blew a light kiss to him across the table.

  How well she manages him, thought Freda. Or is it that he manages her? I’m not quite sure.

  During the next ten days, life in the Vanner household settled into a definite and, for Freda, a most enjoyable pattern.

  They all three had breakfast together and, although Freda usually left for her office before Brian did for his, there were occasions when he had an early appointment, and then he would give her a lift in his car.

  She immensely enjoyed these brief journeys. For, although Brian was not particularly talkative early in the morning, there was something about his sheer presence which gave her a feeling of confidence and put her in a good mood for the day.

  I know exactly why Celia accepts him so completely as a brother, she thought. He’s just about ideal for the role.

  During the day, although she worked as hard and conscientiously as ever, she always had, at the back of her mind, the pleasant awareness that, when she went home, she would not be going to a solitary bed-sitting-room, but to a lovely house and the company of two people who were becoming very dear to her.

  It surprised her a little to find that she could apply such a term to Brian. But the fact was that it was extraordinarily difficult to be Celia’s sister, in Celia’s home, without finding that, in some sense, one had a strong bond with Brian too.

  His office hours were too unpredictable for him to undertake to pick Freda up on the way home, But, as soon as she came into the house, Celia rushed to greet her, if she were home. If not, then Freda went to her own lovely room, to relax and change and make herself ready for a delightful evening with her sister and—as she half laughingly called him to herself—her brother, once removed.

  Celia was a very social creature, and Brian—if not quite so gay and exuberant in the company of others—was an admirable escort. And quite often they took Freda out to meet various friends of theirs.

  Occasionally they went to a theatre, and sometimes they just stayed at home, which Freda thought was almost the nicest of all. Brian had an excellent collection of gramophone records, and when he found that Freda was truly fond of music, he made her free of his study. It was all so exactly what her vague dreams of happy family life had been that sometimes she felt the tears come into her eyes, for sheer pleasure at the reality proving equal to imagination.

  Another enchanting novelty to Freda was that Celia would sometimes meet her at lunchtime, and they would whisk into a taxi—Celia’s special and personal extravagance, this—and hurry off to buy things for the cottage.

  “We’ll have a couple of days of solid shopping, once your holiday begins,” Celia declared. “But if I do some scouting first, there’s quite a lot we can settle in a lunchtime, or in the evening when the stores stay open late.”

  And so, together, they settled on chintzes and bed-linen, china and kitchen-ware, with an occasional sidelong glance at more important items of furniture, as they sped happily on their way through one big store or another.

  Her days were so full and her thoughts so well occupied that it was not until she was alone in her bedroom that Freda felt the full force of the one unhappiness hovering on the edge of her consciousness.

  She tried not to think of Laurence too much. Or, if he refused to be excluded from her thoughts, she tried to think of him with the indifference—even the resentment—he had at first inspired in her. But she was not very successful in either effort.

  As soon as she was alone, his handsome, vivid face, with the half provocative smile, rose before her mental vision. And then she would sit dreamily recalling the agitating, but enchanting, scene when he had told her of Miss Clumber’s plans for him. She would see Ada come in again with the photograph of herself with Belshazzar, and she would almost feel Laurence lean over her shoulder to look at the photograph and hear him say,

  “I say—you’re rather sweet, aren’t you?”

  “He didn’t really mean anything,” she told herself angrily. “It was on a par with the careless compliments he probably spills on a dozen different girls. And anyway, he didn’t kiss me...” How she wished now that he had! “It was Celia he kissed.” And then she would be back again on the final, inescapable decision that, if Celia were truly falling in love with him, there was nothing that she, Freda, could do but forget him. As far, that was to say, as one could forget one’s brother-in-law. For that, of course, would be what he would eventually become.

  And, at the thought of this fresh and odious complication, Freda would switch her mind painfully away from the whole problem. Until her heart would betray all her good intentions—and the wearisome procession of argument and counter-argument would start all over again.

  The worst evening of all was when Laurence telephoned and it was Celia who took the call. Freda could not help hearing her end of the conversation and, having once realized who it was who had rung up, she sat there in the most exquisite impatience and anguish, unable to demand a word with Laurence and yet unable to bear the thought that she was being completely excluded from the conversation.

  It should have been quite easy to say carelessly, “Is that Larry? Don’t ring off until I’ve had a word with him.”

  But by now it was virtually impossible to do or say anything casual, so far as he was concerned. The whole issue had become one of such distressful importance that Freda found herself quite unable to be natural about it. And, while she was trying to think of some easy way to join in, Celia called a “Goodbye” and hung up the
receiver.

  “That was Laurence,” she announced unnecessarily.

  “Yes. I thought so.” It was all Freda could do to keep her voice steady.

  “He’s delighted about all the arrangements, and intends to be at Crowmain for at least as long as we are.”

  “Does he?”

  “I explained that we’ll be shopping on Monday and Tuesday of next week, but that we hope to get the furniture down there by Thursday anyway. And I said that you’d be coming down on the Friday evening, Brian”—she turned to her brother—“and staying over the weekend and for as much as you could of the following week.”

  “But I haven’t settled yet that I can do that.”

  “Of course you can!” Celia said impatiently. “We shall need you to help move furniture.”

  “Well, I shall be there for the weekend, anyway,” Brian agreed. “I’ll see about the rest later.”

  “Did Laurence say anything else?” Freda enquired.

  “I don’t think so. Oh, yes. He said that Mead was getting on well with the garden.”

  “Oh.” Freda swallowed hard. “I should have liked to—to talk to him about that.”

  “Would you? I’m sorry, Freda. I thought you’d probably prefer to have him infer you weren’t here. I mean—you didn’t want to talk, just for talking’s sake? I knew that.”

  That was so exactly what Freda had wanted to do that she could hardly control her angry disappointment.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered. But so badly was she hiding her feelings by now that she was thankful for the fact that another friend rang up Celia at this moment.

  Obviously Celia was about to engage on a long and enjoyable exchange of news, views and gossip, so Freda slipped out into the garden, feeling that if she stayed in the room a moment longer she would burst into tears.

  “It’s all so trivial,” she kept on telling herself, without any conviction at all. “What does it matter whether you speak to him on the telephone or not? How can a few words about the garden matter, one way or the other?”

  But she was sick for the sound of his voice. So quickly, she realized in utter dismay, had her feelings gained ground. If she had just heard him say “Hello” and “Good-bye” she would not have felt so forlorn. At least, that was how it seemed to her. As it was...