But Not For Me Read online

  She toyed for a moment with the idea of saying something very casual about Marta, but dismissed it almost immediately in favour of the safer and more conventional:

  “Shall we dance now?”

  It was only when they were actually dancing that Ariane forced herself to look in Marta’s direction.

  Her experience in matrimony appeared to have added an interesting air of melancholy to her face, and a couple of remarkably fine emerald bracelets to her wrists. Her dress was a strange iridescent green, and, as she looked at her, Ariane thought dispassionately: “Snake-woman.”

  Marta’s companions at the moment were the Conningsbys, an exceedingly wealthy family of landowners who lived some miles out of Norchester, and Ariane had very little difficulty in identifying the infatuated Charles Conningsby as the victim who was to be played off against Harvey.

  So far as she could see, there was no glance of greeting between Harvey and Marta, but Ariane scarcely thought Marta had overlooked him.

  She wondered a little if each was equally determined that the other should give the first sign of recognition.

  “Are you all right, Ariane?” Harvey bent his head suddenly to look at her, and she realized then that she could not have been playing her part so well as she had thought. She must be looking pale or strained or something ridiculous, she told herself angrily.

  “Yes,” she assured Harvey. “Yes, I’m perfectly all right. It’s—it’s terribly hot though, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? Come and let’s stand aside here for a minute and get some air.”

  He drew her into a sheltered little alcove, where there was a window, which he opened.

  “Better?”

  “Yes, thank you.” She laughed in a slightly ashamed way. “There was nothing the matter really. Just—”

  “I know,” Harvey said coolly, and somehow she didn’t feel it was necessary to explain any more. She just sat there in silence for a few minutes, her hair faintly ruffled by the breeze from the open window.

  Then at last she looked up.

  “Shall we go back now?”

  “If you like.” He held out his hand then, and, as he did so, the palms at the entry to the alcove were pushed aside, and Marta came in.

  There was always something faintly dramatic about her slightest movement, and at that moment she looked drama personified. But her words and her tone were ordinary enough, as she said:

  “Are you going to run away from me all the evening? You’re really most elusive, Harvey.”

  Harvey bowed slightly to her with quite remarkable calm.

  “There’s no question of running away from you. We just hadn’t happened to meet yet.”

  “Or is it—” Marta’s wicked eyes just slid to Ariane for a moment—“or is it that the new Mrs. Muldane doesn’t let you out of her sight?”

  “I assure you Ariane has a very tactful hand on the matrimonial rein,” Harvey said, keeping his tone determinedly light and flippant.

  “So young, and yet so clever?” Marta gave a cool and deadly smile at Ariane.

  “Oh, not specially clever.” Ariane managed somehow to smile back at her, though her lips felt absurdly stiff. “Just trying to learn, you know.”

  “You are too modest,” Marta told her. “Which reminds me that I have not yet congratulated you—” she paused—“on a very clever catch—What is the expressive English phrase?—Ah, I know. To catch on the rebound. It is one of your sporting terms. So clever. Is that football, Harvey, or cricket?”

  “Neither, my dear,” Harvey said coolly. “At the moment it’s just bad taste. Don’t you think you had better end this conversation?”

  “In consideration for the colourless little Ariane’s colourless little feelings? Harvey—” Marta put her hand on his arm and looked up at him reproachfully. “Have you forgotten—”

  “That’s more than enough.” Harvey brushed her hand from his arm with almost brutal curtness. “I can’t possibly have you speaking of Ariane in that way. She has done me the honour to become my wife—”

  But Marta’s very beautiful laugh stopped him from going any further.

  “She has done you the honour! Done you the honour! Another English expression of delicious absurdity. Why, my dear Harvey, she was waiting there, hoping against hope that you would drop into her lap, besottedly in love with you since long before I met her.”

  Ariane moved sharply, tried wildly to find words—anything to stop her. But, just as Harvey seemed bereft of speech, So her own voice had failed her, and she could only listen while Marta’s sweet, spiteful voice trickled like an ugly stream between them.

  “You thought she was pretending when she told me that she loved you. It was nothing but the crude truth!—a shameless attempt to drag you away from me even then—”

  “No—” began Harvey sharply.

  “Well, look at her if you want your answer.” Marta laughed contemptuously. “Why do you think she broke her engagement to your brother? It wasn’t Frank she wanted. It was you. It was always you. And now she’s got you—nicely caught, with her arms padlocked round your neck.”

  “Be quiet!”

  The tone in which Harvey said that stopped even Marta’s words. Almost sullenly he raised his eyes to Ariane’s white face. And he must indeed have read his answer there, for even Harvey’s eyes had never been bright with quite such lightning anger.

  In that moment it seemed to Ariane that she touched the last depths of humiliation.

  There had been other dreadful moments since her first meeting with Harvey, moments when she had felt stripped of nearly every defence, with her hopes and her fears laid bare. But this was something much more awful than any of those. There was only one thing in her mind now—and that was flight.

  And before anyone could say another word, she had pushed almost blindly past both of them and slipped away.

  As she thrust her way quickly through the group of people by the door, she had a confused impression that he was following her, but she refused to turn her head. She didn’t want even to see that his anger had lessened. It would certainly be no better to see quiet disgust or—pity written in his eyes. All she wanted was to get away.

  Once out on the landing, she fled to the sanctuary of the cloakroom.

  The elderly attendant got stiffly to her feet, thrusting a bus ticket into her book, to mark her place, as she did so.

  “You’re got going already, are you, madam?”

  “Yes, yes, I must go at once. Can I have my things, please? There’s my ticket. Seventy-three. Yes—that white fur coat—no, the long one. Thank you.”

  She was hastily powdering her nose, thrusting her things into her bag, and finally flinging on her coat.

  But even so, he would have had plenty of time to establish himself outside the door if he wanted to stop her. And at the moment, Ariane could not, could not face questions and explanations and—pity. That was the worst of all. Pity!

  “Is there another way out?” She turned back to the attendant.

  “Besides the main entrance, madam? Oh yes. Turn to the right when you go out of here—”

  “No, no, you don’t understand.” Ariane chewed her underlip with nervous impatience. “I mean, can I get out of here—out of the dressing-room, by any other way but that door? There’s someone outside whom I don’t want to see and—”

  “Oh!” Comprehension dawned on the woman, and she grinned. “I see. Giving him the slip, are you, miss?”

  “S-something like that,” Ariane murmured, and noticed, in passing, that such frivolity apparently deprived her of any married status.

  “Ah well, now—” the woman hesitated. “There’s only the little back stairway here, miss. It’s never used at night and not even lighted. Not for the public at all, miss. They just bring the coals up here and the laundry and so on. I’m not supposed to let anyone else use it, miss, and I’d have to come down and bolt the door later. You see the point, miss.”

  Ariane saw the point, and, fumbling
in her bag, found a florin.

  “Thank you very much, miss. If I hold the door like this you’ll get a little light. Mind your lovely coat. The stairs are none too clean. You’ll find the door at the bottom of the stairs. Just pull the bolt back, miss, and bang the door after you. It shuts itself—”

  Ariane slowly groped her way downwards, guided by the faint light and the stream of directions from above. As she drew back the bolt and opened the door, there was a rush of cold air, and only then did she realize how her cheeks were burning.

  She was out in the street now, a strangely unfamiliar side street in the darkness. Then a bus rumbled past at the end of the road, she found her bearings, and everything became familiar once more.

  If she ran to the end of the street she was quite likely to find a taxi. If there was not one—well, anyway, there must be one. She couldn’t walk all the way home like this.

  There was a taxi, and thankfully she climbed into its dim and slightly musty interior. It started with a jerk, which threw her back against the shiny upholstery, and then at last, she was driving away from that miserable dance, and the odious scene with Marta.

  At first it had seemed as though the relief of getting away would be sufficient in itself to soothe her. But now that the actual problem of escape was solved, the stinging humiliation of it all was overwhelming.

  What was he thinking? What must he be thinking? He would be utterly dismayed, of course. There was nothing more revolting to any man than the knowledge that he was loved by some woman he didn’t want.

  If she had had no connection with him he would probably have thought, like most men: “Lord, that girl’s keen on me! How awful! Well, I’d better keep out of her way, for her sake, poor little devil, as well as mine.”

  But he couldn’t keep out of her way. He was married to her, securely tied to an over-fond wife, who presumably had been waiting and hoping for the kind of thing he couldn’t dream of giving her.

  Every deepening degree of his discomfiture would add to the weight of her humiliation.

  “This the house, ma’am?” The driver was holding open the taxi door.

  “Oh yes—yes, thank you.”

  Ariane got out, paid him hastily, and, running up the steps, opened the door with fingers which trembled a little.

  The place was very quiet. Thank heaven that Mother and Julie were away. There were only the servants at the back of the house, and they had heard nothing.

  She fled upstairs to her room and locked herself in. She was not quite sure why. There was no need, really, to turn the key, since no one was there to disturb her, but somehow the action in itself seemed to shut out part of the misery which was pursuing her.

  What was he doing now? He must have grown pretty tired of waiting for her—if indeed he had waited. He had probably gone back to the ballroom long ago.

  Anyway, of course, it didn’t matter now. Except—she wondered suddenly if he would go off in exasperation and seek consolation with Marta. It was not impossible. Perhaps, after all, she had acted too hastily. She ought not to have yielded to impulse. It would have been more dignified and sensible if—

  At that point she heard the front door open and then close and—a moment later—Harvey’s step as he came springing up the stairs.

  He made straight for her room and rapped sharply on the door.

  “Ariane.”

  Silence. And then: “What do you want?”

  “You,” he said curtly. “Open the door.”

  She felt a strange panic.

  “I don’t want to open the door. I want to be left alone.”

  But he seemed unmoved.

  “Are you going to open this door, Ariane?—or am I going to break it down? It’s one or the other.”

  “You couldn’t! It’s ridiculous. I—” Her voice trailed away. And then she heard him put his shoulder to the door.

  “No—wait! I’ll open it.”

  She thought: “No one but Harvey would be so ridiculously melodramatic.” But that made no difference. She had to do what he said. And, running across to the door, she fumblingly turned the key.

  CHAPTER XIV

  It was his hand in the end, not hers, which opened the door.

  As he closed it again she took a quick step away. But she was a second too late for, putting out his hand, he snatched her back into his arms, and the next moment he was kissing her deliberately, all over her face, and even, very softly, on her throat.

  “You little idiot! You absolute little idiot! How dare you run away from me at the most important moment of our lives?”

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I don’t understand.” Then her lips were trembling so that she bit back any further words, and the tears were so near that she had to close her eyes.

  “What is it, dearest? Have I frightened you?” His voice was very gentle now. “Forgive me. Please forgive me for that, as well as for all the rest.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” she got out very huskily.

  “Oh, yes, there is. Stupidity and cruelty and selfishness—and a dozen things I hardly dare to think of.”

  “No—don’t.” She hid her face against him. “You’re saying all this because you’re sorry for me. And I d-don’t want your pity.”

  “No, I know.” He lifted her right off her feet then, and carrying her over to the bed, sat down with her in his arms. “It’s my love you want—and you have it. I’m not pitying you. I’m pitying myself for coming so near to losing anything so precious. And to think it needed Marta herself to open my eyes! Don’t cry, my little love—please don’t cry like that—”

  She felt utterly bewildered, but, putting her arms round his neck, she clung to him, trying to stifle her sobs. And then, at last, the murmur of his voice and the touch of his hands had their effect, and she lay quite quiet against him, but still with her face hidden.

  “Won’t you look up at me, Ariane? I can’t kiss you if you lie so close against me.”

  She looked up then.

  “D-don’t you love Marta any more?”

  It wasn’t at all what she had meant to say. She had wanted to sound self-controlled and dignified. And all she could do was to stammer out that crude, pitiful inquiry.

  But perhaps he understood that it filled her whole life, all the same, because he answered with equal simplicity:

  “No, Ariane, I don’t love her any more. I didn’t know my feeling for her had been dying all these weeks. I only knew it was utterly dead when she insulted you this evening.”

  “Oh—” Ariane pressed gratefully against him. “Do you—do you mean I’ll do instead?”

  “No, my God, I don’t!” He laughed and kissed her almost angrily. “You couldn’t be a substitute for anyone. You’re too much your darling self. I meant—Oh, it’s so difficult to explain. I don’t expect you’d understand how I felt about Marta at all.”

  “Shouldn’t I? Try,” Ariane said, and she was aware of a faint, delicious stirring of her sense of humour again, because men always supposed their feelings were much too complicated for anyone to understand them.

  “It was a sort of—slavery—sickness, almost,” he said, frowning. “I hated it and I hated myself half the time, yet I couldn’t get away.”

  “I think I see,” Ariane said gently, as though she had never heard of anyone being infatuated by a worthless woman before. He sighed and passed his hand over his hair impatiently.

  “I don’t know quite when your sweet sanity began to have its effect, Ariane. But one can’t be near you and your scale of values without recovering a little from any emotional fever.”

  She was really exceedingly touched by that, and put up her hand to pat his cheek. He turned his face immediately and kissed the palm of her hand.

  “Must I explain the rest?” he said unhappily. “I don’t really understand it myself. It was something to do with always having your sweetness and sincerity to measure her up against.”

  “Then we’ll leave it alone, and perha
ps one day I’ll explain it to you,” she told him, with an irresistible curve of her mouth.

  He held her very close.

  “Are you laughing at me, you little beast?”

  “Only a very little. Mustn’t I?”

  He laughed slightly himself.

  “You can do whatever you like. For the rest of our lives, you shall do what you like,” he told her. “And now what do you want to do with the rest of this evening, as a start?”

  “Isn’t it late—”

  “No. Quite early yet.” He showed her his watch, and she gave a little gasp. It was less than an hour since she had left the ball, with her life, as she thought, in ruins.

  “Would you like to go back? There’s plenty of time yet, sweetheart.”

  Ariane’s smile deepened until her eyes were dark and sparkling.

  “I think I should,” she said slowly. “I’ve always wanted to go to a dance as—your sweetheart, and not just—”

  He didn’t let her finish that before he caught her up and kissed her afresh. Then he let her go, and stood by smiling, while she combed her tumbled fair hair, and smoothed the crumples from her frock.

  “Ready,” she said with a smile in her turn, and they went out to the car.

  It was really such a little while since she had fled from the place in that taxi, now she came to think of it. She supposed the cloakroom attendant would put her down as an amiable lunatic.

  But, actually, the woman was nothing like so much surprised as Ariane had expected.

  “Well, well, miss, here you are again,” she said with undeniable truth. “Don’t I know? Out the back to avoid one of them, and in again at the front with another. Many’s the time I’ve seen it done, and enjoy yourselves while you can, I say. But it stops when you marries and settles down, miss. Oh yes, it stops then, mark my words.”

  “Does it?” Ariane said politely.

  “Oh yes, miss. You wait till it’s your husband that’s waiting outside the door. You won’t be asking me then to show you the back way out.” And she chuckled.