Choose the One You'll Marry (10 page)

“Why, n-no. I mean—yes. Oh, that sounds dreadfully ungrateful. But—it makes me uncomfortable, I think.
Aunt Henrietta is almost
too
generous, considering that she’s virtually a stranger. I don’t really know why she should want to spend her money on me.”

“I think,” he said equably,
“
that Aunt Henrietta is a very lonely, very affectionate woman. She actually likes to have someone to spend her money on.”

“
Then she’d better spend it on you,” Ruth retorted quickly. “At least you’re her nephew.”

Or was he, she thought in agitated parentheses.

“I don’t need it,” he explained with a smile.

“Well, nor do I. I don’t mean that ungraciously. But, as I explained, I have no intention of pursuing a television career further.”

“Not even if Angus Everton presses you to do so?” he inquired, a little dryly.

And at that moment, Angus came into the hotel lounge, accompanied by Charmian Deal.

It was a slight but unpleasant shock for Ruth, and she thought it was not very pleasing to Michael. For one thing, the other two seemed to be getting along much more affably together than had been the case for some time. He was speaking to her in that intimate, teasing way of his, and she was laughing and looking extraordinarily pretty. Neither of them noticed Ruth and Michael—or indeed anyone else around them—as they passed through the lounge to ensconce themselves in a very secluded corner, where the fact that they could not see much was compensated for by the fact that they also could not be much seen.

There was a very slight silence. Then Ruth said flatly, “I don’t think he’s at all likely to do that.”

“Um-mm—” Michael rubbed his chin meditatively “—no, perhaps not.”

And then he glanced at his watch and said he would have to go, if Ruth had finished her tea. Even if Ruth had not already had enough, she would have felt disinclined for further eating and drinking with the disturbing presence of Charmian and Angus so comparatively near. So she very willingly accompanied him out of the Ritz.

At least—she supposed it was willingly. Though the almost overwhelming desire to run back and see what Angus and Charmian were really doing, which afflicted her as soon as she found herself outside on the sidewalk, did rather confuse things.

Michael called a taxi for her, and just as he was helping her in, she asked, “Will you be home for dinner tonight?”

“I—expect so. I’m not sure.”

And because she had never seen him undecided before, she could not help wondering if he also had been a good deal disturbed by what they had seen. She was not quite sure if this consoled or depressed her. And while she was wondering, he bade her an absent but friendly goodbye, and the taxi drove away.

In a surprisingly short space of time she found herself back at Aunt Henrietta’s apartment, where she was admitted by a Martin whose familiar austerity had magically changed to almost sycophantic interest.

“Madam tells me that on Monday evening you are appearing on
TV
,”
she said, the abbreviation coming strangely from her prim lips, but such is the march of progress. “I’m hoping to see you, miss.”

“Are you, Martin? It’s not a very important appearance, you know,” Ruth felt bound to explain. “Have you got a television set?”

“No, miss, but my married brother has. I don’t approve of my sister-in-law, I might say,” she added censoriously, “but I shall go and visit them on Monday evening.”

Feeling faintly sorry for anyone who had to cope with a visit from Martin in a disapproving mood, Ruth said vaguely that no doubt that would be very nice. Then she went into the drawing room, where she found Aunt Henrietta having a solitary tea.

“Why, hello, dear!” It was evident that Ruth’s arrival gave real pleasure. “Come and have some tea, and tell me all about your day at the studio.”

“I’ve really had tea once,” Ruth explained, but she took little persuasion to accept another cup. And then she proceeded to give a brief but lively account of her day, omitting only the scene in the dressing room with Charmian.

Even so, Aunt Henrietta, with uncanny precision, fastened on the subject of Charmian before all others.

“I don’t like that young woman,” she stated, with a simple candor that found a grateful echo in Ruth’s heart.
“She’s cold and conceited. And she isn’t really much of an artist.”

“A great many people admire her,” said Ruth, with what she felt was admirable objectivity.

“A great many people admired Hitler,” retorted Aunt Henrietta.

“Oh, well—” Ruth felt this was hardly fair, even to Charmian.

“Not that
I
mean they have much in common—except boundless self-love,” Aunt Henrietta conceded. “But—people are so silly. Particularly men,” she added elliptically. “
I
do hope Michael isn’t taking her seriously. I don’t like to question him, of course—”

“Oh, no!” said Ruth, who came of a family that prided itself on minding its own business.

“But I would hate to see him throw himself away on a head of red hair and a clothes prop.”

Ruth was so enchanted by this description of Charmian that she almost lost the thread of the discussion. But then she looked reflectively at Aunt Henrietta and asked, “Would you have any—influence on him, do you suppose?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” was the realistic reply. “It would be a poor-spirited young man who would take his aunt’s advice about his girl friends.”

Even if she
were
his aunt,
thought Ruth. But she laughed and said, “I suppose you’re right.” Then she glanced at the older woman curiously and added, almost involuntarily, “You know a good deal about the world, don’t you, Aunt Henrietta?”

“I’ve been quite a long time in it,” was the dry retort, but Aunt Henrietta smiled, as though what she recalled over those years had not been without its attraction.

“Tell me about your years in Australia,” Ruth exclaimed on impulse. “You told us a lot about your journey home, but very little about—about the years in between.”

“It’s old history. And not very interesting.”

“But you have a flair for making things sound interesting,” Ruth insisted. For suddenly she wanted, not to trip Aunt Henrietta into some verbal error, but to lead her on to say something that, against all probability, would somehow demolish the suspicions roused by both Angus and her mother.

“Well—” Aunt Henrietta smiled faintly “—the early years after
I
left England were spent in New Zealand, you know. During—my husband’s lifetime. Then—he died and I went to Australia, and lived in a small place in Queensland that you wouldn’t even have heard about.”

It sounded quite flat and uninspired. Not at all as her account of the journey home to England had sounded. “Weren’t you—happy there, Aunt Henrietta?”

“Not very. I wanted to come home. Most of the time I was there, I wanted nothing so much as to come home to England.”

“Even while you were in New Zealand—with your husband?” In some odd way, Ruth was shocked.

“Oh, well—no. Not so much during his lifetime. But—afterward. After I went to Australia.”

“But then why didn’t you come home?” Ruth couldn’t help asking. “I mean—why didn’t you come home to England, instead of going and settling all alone in Australia?”

“It was a long way, Ruth.” Aunt Henrietta sighed. “And it cost a great deal of money. I couldn’t come.”

Ruth digested that hard fact and wondered how she could, with delicacy, point out that Aunt Henrietta’s circumstances appeared to have changed considerably at some point.

“I wasn’t actually poor,” Aunt Henrietta went on. “There was enough for me to live modestly, in a small place. But there was nothing for an expensive trip home, to an uncertain future.”

“Then what,” asked Ruth boldly, “changed the situation? I mean—you did come home in the end. And—and everything seems to be all right now.”

“I had a tremendous stroke of luck,” Aunt Henrietta said slowly and, in some odd way, defiantly. “I won a large sum of money in a national sweepstakes.”

“Di—did you?” Unaccountably, Ruth felt uncomfortable. For though, of course, people did win fortunes in sweepstakes, somehow one never
knew
anyone who did, and this unexpectedly picturesque detail lent a distressing air of improbability to Aunt Henrietta’s tale, which vaguely disconcerted Ruth.

“It didn’t exactly make me a rich woman overnight,” Aunt Henrietta went on. “It was a substantial sum, rather than an actual fortune. But with that behind me,
I
began to speculate on the stock market.
I
have always had a certain talent in that line,” she stated coolly. “In little more than a year, I was a reasonably wealthy woman.”

“Aunt Henrietta! It—it’s quite a thrilling story,” exclaimed Ruth, aware that her father would have said, “Tch, tch,” at this point, to indicate that one should work steadily for one’s money and not gamble improvidently.

“It had its moments,” Aunt Henrietta agreed, but with a touch of grimness rather than elation, Ruth thought. “Then I decided that the moment had arrived for me to come home. So—I came.”

“And the first thing you did was to seek out Michael?”

“Yes, of course. And the next was to find your mother—and her family.”

It sounded perfectly all right, put that way, of course. It was even rather touching to think that she had remembered an old friend all those years. And yet—how did it square with Angus’s story?

He must be mistaken,
Ruth thought. And in that moment she was almost completely convinced of the fact.

But then she remembered her mother’s doubts—and she was not so sure, after all.

Ruth wondered if further questions would sound as though she had some doubts about Aunt Henrietta’s statements. And yet she could not resist asking for more information.

“You—you didn’t write home much during those years, did you, Aunt Henrietta?” She strove to make that sound inoffensive.

“No. But then one gets out of the habit of writing,” Aunt Henrietta replied calmly. “Particularly when there is very little to write about.”

“I suppose you—you lived a very quiet life in the small place you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Did you live alone?”

“No,” said Aunt Henrietta, somewhat to Ruth’s surprise. “For some years I had a friend living with me. We shared a small house. We were both widows, and neither of us could quite afford to live alone. Janet died only about a month before—well, before the big change came.”

“Oh, what a shame! Then she didn’t live to enjoy any of the new prosperity?” exclaimed Ruth, assuming unhesitatingly that, with anyone as generous as Aunt Henrietta, the unknown Janet would also have benefited from the changed circumstances.

“No,” Aunt Henrietta said. “She didn’t live to enjoy any of it.” And there was something strange and remote in her voice.

“Aunt Henrietta, were you—were you very much upset by your friend’s death?” Ruth asked timidly. “I mean—were you greatly devoted to each other?”

“We got on quite amicably always. I wouldn’t say we had a great deal in common. But it’s always distressing to have to break a long association,” Aunt Henrietta replied, though impersonally, Ruth thought, so that this time it really was not possible to continue the subject.

There was a slight silence, except for the soft, precise ticking of the little French clock on the mantelpiece. Then Aunt Henrietta asked, “Have you any plans for this evening, dear? Is Angus Everton taking you out?”

Ruth shook her head, and was just about to explain about the program conference when the telephone rang. “Answer it, would you, dear? I expect it’s Michael.”

But it was not Michael’s voice that spoke in Ruth’s ear. It was Angus who said, “Is that you, Ruth? It’s all right, my sweet. The conference is off and I’m free for the evening. May I come along and pick you up in something like half an hour?”

“Oh, Angus!” The slight depression—engendered partly by her-conversation with Aunt Henrietta and partly by the sight of Angus and Charmian together—dropped from her on the instant. “I’d love that. Wait a minute.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone and said, more excitedly than she knew, “It’s Angus. He’s free
this evening, after all. Is it all right if I—if he comes along here to take me out?”

“Yes, of course.” A smile passed over the older woman’s face. “You haven’t arranged anything with Michael, I take it?”

“Oh, no—no, certainly not.” She airily dismissed Michael from the scene and, speaking once more into the telephone, assured Angus that he might come and get her. “I’ll be ready in half an hour,” she promised.

“You don’t mind my going out and leaving you?” Ruth paused remorsefully beside Aunt Henrietta’s chair, before hurrying away to her own room to prepare for her date with Angus.

“No, of course not.” Again there was that indulgent smile. “Enjoy yourself as much as you can while you’re here. I’d rather you were going out with Michael—but that’s just a personal preference, and aunts can’t arrange these things.”

“With Michael? Oh, Aunt Henrietta, what an odd idea!”

“Not really at all odd,” was the amused reply. But there was no time just then to stay and explain that, while Michael might be a very nice sort of cousin, Angus was romance itself.

It took Ruth less than the stipulated half hour to get ready, but she was looking quite lovely as she returned to the drawing room. Her dress was blue—the same blue as her eyes—and although it was very simply cut, it showed off her charming figure to perfection.

The room was empty, Aunt Henrietta having evidently also gone to her room to change. But almost immediately there was a ring at the front doorbell, and a few moments later Martin showed Angus in, with a subtle air of approval.

“Hello, darling.” He lightly kissed Ruth, and she had to remind herself that this was a not unusual form of greeting with Angus and his circle.