The girl in the blue dress (11 page)

"May I pour you some coffee?" Sara's
voice enquired politely and formally behind her.

"Yes, please, I mean, no, thank you, "

Beverley turned, with sudden resolution and faced
the other girl. "Never mind about the coffee for the moment." She
spoke quite gently. "There's something else we must talk about."

"Are you sure?" Sara raised her beautiful
eyes and looked Beverley full in the face. "Aren't some things better left
unsaid?"

"Sometimes, perhaps. But not in this
case." Beverley came over and sat down again, facing the other girl.
"Sara, " in that moment any social distinction between them was wiped
out, "I simply have to ask you something. You're in love with Geoffrey Revian
yourself, aren't you?"

Even up to that very last moment, perhaps she had some
wild hope that all her fears would be proved groundless. But, if so, the hope
was dashed by the
way Sara caught her breath
at the question. There was
a moment's hesitation, then she said quietly,
"Yes." Though she added almost immediately. "But it isn't any
good."

"How do you mean? it isn't any good?"

"There was never any question of our, marrying.

There is no reason why you should not be engaged to
him."

"But, you can't just dispose of it like
that!" Beverley was aghast, both at the final confirmation of her worst
fears and at Sara's over-simplification of a tragically complicated issue.
"I can't possibly marry Geoffrey knowing that he, he loves someone else."

Again there was an infinitesimal pause. Then Sara spoke,
with an effort, Beverley thought. "I didn't say that he loved me. I only
said I loved him."

"Oh, my dear, " Beverley put out her hand,
and in that moment of compassion she felt that one was almost as much of a
barrier as the other. "I'm sorry to, to make you talk of your most private
feelings, but, "

"It doesn't matter. I suppose we had to talk
of them, after what happened half an hour ago." Sara was strangely calm
about it all now. "How did you
guess, by
the way?"

"That you loved
Geoffrey?"

"Yes."

"Oh, one. or two things made me wonder, Beverley
was not going to betray Toni even now, "but only quite passingly. Then, the
way you looked when I spoke of my engagement, "

"Did I give myself away so completely?"

"N-no. But you went white and looked, stunned."

"Do you think Franklin noticed?"

"Only enough to think you unwell. He accepted the
headache excuse, I'm sure. Men are rather dense about these things, "
Beverley said consolingly.

"Not Franklin, " replied Sara dryly, but
she seemed reassured. Then she rather deliberately poured out coffee for them
both and said, "Tell me about yourself and, Geoffrey."

This was not quite what Beverley had intended. She
had wanted Sara to tell her about herself and Geoffrey. But she could not
refuse to answer a request put with so little offence, even if, in a sense, she
were talking to her rival.

"I've known him since I was a child, as I told
you, " she began hesitatingly. "I, I think I have always loved him, though
not, of course, always in quite the same way, over the years. But he, he always
seemed, in some way, to be, mine. I didn't often think specifically about
marrying him,
because I never thought of him
as being in a position
to
marry."

"He's not, I suppose, even now, " Sara
remarked,
with a faint smile.
"That's
why I assumed there, there wouldn't be anyone else in his life."

Beverley hesitated for a moment, while she reviewed
the hopes and fears of the immediate past and wondered what she could venture
to tell Sara. Then she saw it was impossible to enlarge on those, and she said
lamely, "Then, quite unexpectedly, last night he asked me to marry
him."

"Last night?" Sara
spoke almost under her breath.
It was
so recent? Only -, last night!"

"Yes." Beverley had not meant her voice
to sound forlorn, but the fearful drop from the high hopes of last evening to
the disillusionment of the last half-hour could not be borne without a quiver
in one's tone.

Perhaps that was what suddenly roused Sara to the
realization that someone else's happiness was at
stake.

"Listen, Beverley-, " she leaned forward
and put her hand on Beverley's arm, "you're not to let this interfere with
your happiness, or his. As you can see, I m going to marry someone else. I have
my life mapped out in front of me. I'm sorry I hadn't the self-discipline to
hide my feelings better just now, but the weakness is past. I shall marry
Franklin and be a very fortunate girl in many ways, and all my family will be
delighted. You will marry Geoffrey and, I beg you, forget anything that
happened
or was said this afternoon."

"I can't' you know'" Beverley replied
quite simply.
"Human nature doesn't
react that way."

"But what do you propose to do?" Sara
opened her eyes wide.

"I don't know."

"You wouldn't be so foolish as to -, to bring
the
subject up with Geoffrey."

"I don't know, " Beverley said again.
"No, I don't think so. But, " she summoned all her resolution, Sara, there
is something I simply must know, either from you or from him. You said just now
that, that you loved him, but that you had made no assertion that he loved you.
Did that mean, " she swal
lowed, "was that your way of saying that
he doesn't
love you?"

"I suppose so." Sara looked straight in
front of her, rather stonily.

"But, can't you be more categorical?"
cried Beverley. "Oh, I know it's awful to ask you to define his attitude, when
you feel as you do. But, don't
you see? I'm
tormented by the idea that he, he
just decided to marry me on the
rebound. I wouldn't be prepared to accept that. I'd rather, "

"Beverley, " suddenly the other girl
spoke, with
an instinctive half-bitter sort
of knowledge quite unlike her usual passionless attitude, "don't you know that
things are never satisfactorily black or white in this life? I can only tell
you that if Geoffrey ever loved me at all, he certainly didn't love me well
enough to alter his life in the only way that would have made
it
possible for us to marry."

"I don't understand."

"No. How should
you?" Sara passed her hand over her face, as though literally clearing
away the cobwebs from her own vision. "It's not very simple to
people who don't know our family well. But I'll try
to explain, "

"Please do." Beverley looked at her
anxiously, as though she were talking some different and not very familiar
language.

"We're poor and we're ambitious, Beverley.
Almost
all of us, except perhaps Toni, "
Sara smiled faintly. "I'm not free from the same outlook myself. I don't
think I'd be prepared to be a poor man's
wife, even if I were left
entirely to my own choice. But whether I would or not just doesn't arise. What
I do affects all the others in the family, in a
lesser or greater degree. I'm almost the best asset they have, " she said
it without conceit and without false modesty, "I'm the beautiful eldest
daughter who
always has to marry money, "

"But they can't, " began Beverley in
horrified protest.

"Wait, " Sara held up her hand, again
with that faint smile. "You mustn't think there is anything melodramatic
or cruel about it. No one would actually put violent pressure on me, except
emotionally speaking, ' if I refused to play ball. But unless I marry money, the
family situation will be pretty grim. Lots of girls, I suppose, have to do the
same, "

"Indeed they don't!" exclaimed Beverley, in
ener
getic protest.

"Oh, yes, they do. Not as a clear-cut issue, perhaps.
But their family needs, and, to a certain
extent,
their own tastes and inclinations, lead them
inevitably that way. I
don't mean that I would marry an odious man, just because he was rich, and no one
in the family would expect me to do so, "

"I should think not, indeed!"

"But Franklin is quite a dear, " Beverley
found herself hoping, passingly, that the gay, high-spirited, rather arrogant
Franklin Lowell would never know that Sara spoke of him in that casual way.
"He is the answer to all our prayers. I shall marry him."

"And, Geoffrey?"

"Geoffrey just wouldn't do, " Sara said
quietly and deliberately. "A poor, struggling artist would be nothing less
than a disaster in our" family."

Beverley stared at the other girl, still unable to take
in completely a view of life so totally different from her own. After a moment
she said slowly, "Then you never seriously considered Geoffrey as a, a
husband?" A sort of hope, undefined but real, began to stir in her heart
again.

"Not as things are."

Hope died, and an acute
anxiety took its place.

"You said something just now, that he wouldn't
alter his life in the only way that would have made a, a marriage possible.
What, exactly, did you mean by that? Did you, discuss the subject with
him?"

"Oh, Beverley, " Sara shrugged, half-humourously,
half-despairingly, "where is the dividing line be
tween our hopes and our suggestions? I, let him
know that I
couldn't think of marrying a poor
man.

"Quite academically speaking?"
interrupted Beverley sharply.

There was the faintest pause. Then Sara said, though
without looking at Beverley "Quite academically speaking. If he wanted me
enough, he must have known from that, that he
would
have to make things up with his father, "

"But he couldn't do that without giving up his
painting!" Beverley, who had followed
all the details of that struggle so sympathetically, was aghast at the
idea.
But Sara was less impressed.

"That was up to him, " she said calmly.
"He could
have made a reconciliation - if
he wanted to. And his father is quite a wealthy man. Not so rich as Franklin, of
course, but rich enough to make his only son acceptable in my family, provided
they were on good
terms. Geoffrey was not prepared to do that, "

"Did he say as much?" Beverley asked
quickly.
And she almost prayed that the
other girl would look her in the face when she replied, so that she would know
positively and forever if the real truth were
being told.

But Sara's long lashes came down, in that faintly secretive
way of hers, and her face was expressionless as she said, "It was never
discussed categorically. The facts spoke for themselves."

Beverley thought it was hopelessly, maddeningly
unsatisfactory to have facts speaking for
themselves. She wanted someone to say, in so many words, that, even if Geoffrey
had once been very much attracted
to Sara, that was over and done with, and
had, in any case, never amounted to very much. But Geoffrey was the only one
who could make that categorical statement. And how could one, with any decency
and dignity, ask Geoffrey?

Possibly Sara could have said more. Or possibly she
chose to conceal more, both for her own self respect and a genuine concern for
Beverley's peace of mind. In any case, they seemed suddenly to have come to the
end of the extraordinary flood of candour which had broken loose over them, and
now they sat silently facing each other over the coffee and sandwiches.

So they were sitting when Franklin came back again,
with apologies for having left them so long. If he detected any strain in their
manner, he concealed the fact admirably and, with a tremendous effort, Beverley
once more contrived to take a reasonable part in the conventional conversation
which filled the gap until it was time to go.

At this point Sara pleaded that her headache had become
worse, and asked if Beverley would mind their dropping her first at Huntingford
Grange before making the journey to Binwick.

"No, of course not." Beverley tried to
look completely convinced of the genuineness of this excuse, while Franklin
Lowell, in the manner of most thoroughly healthy people faced by even a minor
indisposition in someone else, looked rather nonplussed.

"It's nothing, really, " Sara explained
almost impatiently. "I'll be all right in the morning."

And so they drove back to Huntingford Grange, where
Sara bade them both a very brief goodnight
and
left them.

"You had better come and sit in front now, "
Franklin suggested to Beverley, when Sara had disappeared into the house.
"It's more companionable that way."

So Beverley changed her seat. And presently when the
somewhat sobering effect of Sara's pale presence had passed, her companion
began to ask her in a friendly way about her own affairs, when she and Geoffrey
hoped to get married and what their future
plans
might be.