‘No reason at all,’ Simon said lightly. ‘Only, as best man, I naturally want to have everything clear.’
‘Naturally,’ Julian agreed, just a little drily.
‘Well, I won’t keep you two any longer.’ Simon turned to Alison with a smile. ‘Good night, Alison. When I see you to-morrow you mustn’t be looking so pale as this. Don’t have too many regrets for Buenos Aires. We’ll contrive to give you quite a good time in London.’
‘Thank you, Simon.’ Alison managed to smile in return.
The two men exchanged a nod, and Simon went out of the room. They heard him say a word to one of the servants as he crossed the hall. There was the sound of the front door closing. And then-silence.
With an effort, Alison raised her eyes to Julian’s face, and in return she received that sombre, absent look which seemed to take no account of her in his scheme of things.
There were a dozen things she might have said-tactful, well-considered things that would have helped to gloss the moment over.
She said none of them. She merely stated crudely and painfully: ‘You-don’t have to marry me, Julian.’
‘What do you mean?’
The very slightest smile broke the tenseness of his expression.
Alison dropped her eyes, her own expression almost sulky in the effort not to betray her feelings.
‘Well, your reason for the marriage is gone, isn’t it?’ she reminded him doggedly. ‘You were only marrying because it was necessary to have a wife in this South American job. Now that you can’t have the job anyway, you-you don’t need a wife.’
‘But your reason is still there,’ he said gently, and, loosing her hand at last, he put his arm round her. ‘You don’t really suppose I should back out now, do you?’
‘It’s terribly like being-caught, though,’ Alison murmured unhappily. ‘In a way, I rushed us both into this. If you’d taken normal time to think about it-’
But he wouldn’t let her finish.
‘My dear child, it was I who insisted on rushing things. It’s easy enough for us to be wise now and say we should have waited, but I absolutely refuse to have you blaming yourself. In any case, if we were going to do it at all, we had to do it quickly. It’s just bad luck that things haven’t turned out as we expected.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Alison’s voice was very little more than a whisper. ‘Only I-I don’t want to hold you to the bargain. I mean-well, it’s rather awful for you staying here among all the people you know, married to someone for a reason that no longer exists.’
‘Do you propose that I should jilt you?’ he asked quietly.
‘We could just say we had made a mistake.’
‘And what do you suppose it would be like for you, being thrust back on your aunt’s hands?’
Alison moved slightly in the circle of his arm.
‘Well, that’s my affair, isn’t it?’ she said a little sulkily. ‘Not yours.’
‘No, Alison.’ Julian spoke quietly. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. You are my affair now. For good or bad we made that decision four weeks ago. God knows what sort of a muddle we’ve landed ourselves in. You were just as unprepared for this as I, and will probably have some difficult readjusting, too. But at least we’re in it now-and we’ve got to go on.’
‘But I don’t want you making such a sacrifice-’ began Alison desperately.
‘Hush.’ He very lightly put his hand against her startled mouth. ‘There’s no question of sacrifice. Don’t you see that it would be as unpleasant for me as for you if we called everything off now? I simply can’t afford another fiasco after the business with-Rosalie. I’m not exactly sensitive’- (‘That’s not true,’ thought Alison with quick tenderness)-’but I must confess I couldn’t face much more.’
‘Do you really mean that?’ She looked up at him very earnestly.’
‘I do’ He gave his grave smile at her.
‘Then we’ll go on with it,’ she said with a little sigh.
‘Good child.’ He tightened his arm for a moment before he let her go.
Then. glancing at his watch, he gave an exclamation.
‘I had no idea it was so late. I must go. There are several things I shall have to do before to-morrow. For one, I must see about keeping on my flat until we can get something that suite us better.’
‘Yes,’ Alison said. And she was oddly stirred at the mention of their future life together, just as she had been when Jennifer had spoken of their honeymoon.
‘Would you like me to see your aunt and uncle, and explain about our remaining in England?’
‘No, it doesn’t matter.’ Alison smiled faintly at his unconscious assumption that she needed to have things done for her. He would never think of her as entirely grown up. ‘I’ll explain. I’ll just say we’re postponing the trip indefinitely.’
‘Yes, that might be best.’
She went with him into the hall, and he said good night to her kindly but a little absently, his thoughts already on the many things he had to do.
When he had gone, she went slowly upstairs. She hung the wonderful mink coat in the wardrobe beside her wedding-dress. It looked very beautiful there.
‘The bridegroom’s present to the bride was a mink coat.’
But the bride had not been able to kiss him for it. Even that had been denied her. He had forgotten all about that timid suggestion of hers, of course. It was quite natural that he should. But she had remembered. That was natural, too.
She put out her hand and touched the coat wistfully.
Then very quietly she closed the wardrobe door on her wedding-dress and the present from the bridegroom.
She supposed she ought to go downstairs and explain to the others about the change of plans. But for the moment she flinched from the thought of playing her part in front of them all over again-being questioned, perhaps even being laughed at by Rosalie, who had come home from her prolonged visit only that afternoon.
And as she sat there on the side of her bed, trying to get up her courage, there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
Alison looked up as the door opened and Audrey, in her dressing-gown, insinuated herself round it.
‘Why, Audrey, you ought to be in bed and asleep!’
‘Yes, I know.’ Audrey was quite unabashed. ‘But I wanted to see your wedding-dress. I haven’t seen anything interesting-not being allowed to come home from school until to-day, and then being hustled in and out of my own dress and having my hair done, and being sent off to bed early and all that sort of thing. You’d think it was Mother’s own wedding,’ she added bitterly.
Alison laughed.
‘But you’ll see my dress to-morrow,’ she said.
‘That’s not the same thing at all.’ Audrey was firm.
‘All right,’ Alison went over and opened the wardrobe door once more.
‘Ooooh!’ Audrey sucked in her breath on an admiring sigh. ‘You’ll look awfully good in that.’
‘I hope so,’ Alison said, touched by the little girl’s interest.
‘And what a marvellous fur coat!’ Audrey turned her attention to that next.
‘Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Alison felt her own pleasure in the coat revive at Audrey’s enthusiasm ‘That’s Julian’s present to me,’ she added a little shyly.
‘My goodness! I should think Rosalie’ll be sick she lost him when she sees that,’ Audrey remarked with great candour.
‘Audrey! You mustn’t say such things.’ Distress and nervousness sharpened Alison’s voice.
‘Sorry. But it’s true. Rosalie would almost have put up with going to South America to have that. Still, she’d have loathed South America, when it came to the point,’ Audrey added. ‘And I expect you’ll quite enjoy it.’
There was a second or two’s silence, and then Alison said flatly:
‘We’re not going to South America.’
‘Not going?’
‘No.’ Alison went on hastily, because she felt she couldn’t bear too many exclamations and questions. ‘Julian’s firm have just cabled to say they’re making other arrangements.’