Choose the One You'll Marry (7 page)

She made the introductions and saw that, in spite of his powers of self-control, he was a good deal taken aback—presumably at the sight of Michael. She was sorry there had been no time to warn him. But then she had not known herself until the drive down that Michael would be one of their company.

Over the drinks there was the conventional sort of conversation that is the only kind possible between people meeting for the first time, and Ruth realized—a little indignantly—that, in spite of his slighting references to Angus, Michael had not met him personally before.

She was glad, therefore, when she had a few moments alone with Angus at last, while Aunt Henrietta went to her room to get ready, and Michael went to get the car from the nearby garage.

“I’m sorry, Angus—” she turned impulsively to him “—I didn’t have time to let you know about Michael.”

“What about him?” Angus asked absently.

“Why, that—that he’s here at all. I didn’t realize myself that he was going to live here until we were on the way down. And there wasn’t any time to prepare you before he and Aunt Henrietta came in.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m old enough to take an awkward meeting or two in my stride, I guess.” Angus grinned at her.

“But you looked rather taken aback,” she said sympathetically.

“Did I? Well, I was.”

“At the sight of Michael?”

“No. At the sight of your Aunt Henrietta,” Angus said slowly. “I’ve seen her before somewhere. I’ve even known her fairly well, I’m certain. But her name wasn’t Curtis then.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“You
’
ve
seen her before?”
repeated Ruth, in a sort of horrid fascination. “You’ve—known her quite well? But are you sure?”

“Quite sure. I never forget a personality.” Angus was pos
i
tive about that.

“Then,” Ruth said uncomfortably, “either it must have been in the last few weeks, or else it must have been somewhere in New Zealand, or Australia. She’s lived in both countries.”

“Oh, no, no. It was some years back. But it couldn’t have been in New Zealand or Australia. I’ve never been near either of them.”

“You
must
be thinking of someone else,” Ruth insisted, with an eagerness for which she could not quite account. “And probably you caught a glimpse of Aunt Henrietta at the Excelsior, and the two impressions merged.”

But Angus was not even listening to her suggestions. He was pursuing his own elusive ideas, with the air of a man dete
r
mined to remember something.

“Does it—matter?” Ruth asked, almost timidly.

“No. Not really, I suppose.” He laughed and patted her dark head. “Only it’s always irritating when one can’t pin down an exact recollection. If I could just remember—”

“She’s coming,” said Ruth nervously, as she heard footsteps outside the door. “Don’t say anything.”

“No, of course not.” Angus smiled, and his expression changed immediately to nothing more than one of agreeable courtesy and interest.

Whatever Angus might think or assert, it was obvious to Ruth that Aunt Henrietta had no recollection whatever of having met him anywhere before. Or if she had, then she was the most consummate actress.

As they went out to the car, she laughed and talked quite easily with him, and told him how eager she was to hear about Ruth’s proposed part in his program.

“Like last time, she has only to be her delightful self,” Angus explained.

“Yes, but in what circumstances?” Aunt Henrietta wanted to know. “
I
want all the details. Though I suppose you have told Ruth all about it while I was getting ready.”

“No. We talked about something else.”

“Something else? My dear Ruth—” Aunt Henrietta gave her that bright, amused look “—you have more self
-
control than is natural in a girl of your age. Didn’t you want to know all about it right away?”

“I thought I’d wait until we were all having dinner. Then Angus need only tell us once,” Ruth said.

“Quite extraordinary!” declared Aunt Henrietta. Then she got into the car, but this time she went in front with Michael, so that Ruth could be with Angus in the back.

They drove to what Aunt Henrietta described as their favorite restaurant, which turned out to be an excellent Italian one on the border of Soho. And as soon as they had been established at a corner table, with their excellent meal ordered, Ruth said with a smile, “Now perhaps you’ll gratify Aunt Henrietta’s curiosity. And mine.”

“It’s on much the same lines as before,” Angus explained, “only on a more ambitious scale. We’ve had a vote among our viewers for the most noteworthy book written in the last six months. The writers of the three top-ranking books are being invited to the studio, to be interviewed by a small panel of more or less distinguished people. Among those, I want one ordinary—forgive the word, my charming and anything-but-ordinary Ruth
—
member of the reading public. That’s you, my sweet.”

“You mean—I have to interview famous writers!”

“Not famous, dear child. Merely successful in our vote. And you will have others on the panel, don’t forget. In fact, with one of them there—not of my choice, I might say—you’ll probably have to fight to get a word in edgeways.”

“And what if I don’t know the books?”

“This time,” he told her with a smile, “we have time to remedy that. I’ve brought you copies of all three. You can read them over the weekend, if you haven’t done so already.”

“Rather a tame London visit for Ruth, if she has to spend all her time reading,” observed Michael.

“It’s all right,” said Ruth quickly. “I did come for this specific purpose. And anyway—” she had by now opened the parcel that Angus had handed to her “—I’ve read two of them. Though I’ll be glad to refresh my memory of them.”

“Who else is on the panel?” Aunt Henrietta wanted to know.

“Gustave Marwell, the critic. Peter Wren, of the big booksellers. And Graham Felling, whose provocative book came last in the voting.”

“Then is Ruth the only woman on the panel?” inquired Michael, with an air of not quite approving, for some reason or other.

“No. There’s one other. A friend of yours, as a matter of fact. Charmian Deal, the actress.”

“How do you know she’s a friend of mine?”

Ruth could sense the antagonism between the two men, even though their actual words were unexceptional.

“I saw you hang—going around with her in Castlemore.”

“I see. And talking of angels,” said Michael—not entirely appropriately, Ruth thought—“here
is
Charmian.” And he got to his feet as Charmian Deal, exquisite in a black dress that made Ruth feel that her own was very ordinary, came slowly down the room.

She was followed by a faintly petulant-looking young man, who seemed vaguely familiar to Ruth, though only from photographs, she felt sure.

“Hello, Michael. Hello, Angus,” said Charmian impartially. “What a
re
you
doing together?”

Simultaneously they hastened, it seemed to Ruth, to make it plain that they were not, so to speak, together. Michael introduced Aunt Henrietta, and made some play with the fact that he was connected with Ruth in an almost family way. While Angus said, almost disagreeably, that he was discussing the program with Ruth, while enjoying the hospitality of her aunt and—reluctantly he included Michael—“her ci-devant cousin, as one might say.”

“How nice for you all,” drawled Charmian. And she smiled a little vaguely at both the men, still more vaguely at Aunt Henrietta, and not at all at Ruth. Then she passed on, followed by her escort, who seemed to have taken remarkably little interest in all this.

“Who was that with Miss Deal?” inquired Ruth, when it seemed there was some difficulty in getting the conversation restarted.

“Chanley Meredith, the playwright,” said Angus gloomily. “He’s supposed to be writing a play for her.”

“He doesn’t look capable of it,” remarked Ruth naively, which made Angus laugh so heartily that his good humor was apparently completely restored.

“Perhaps you’re right. It’s a welcome thought,” he said. “Anyway, here’s to his ignominious failure.” And he cheerfully drained his glass.

But in spite of this lighter episode, the mood of the evening was not an easy one. And Ruth was profoundly relieved when, after dinner, Aunt Henrietta said that she was tired and would like to go home, but that there was no need for the others to follow suit.

“I’ll take you home, Aunt Henrietta,” Michael offered quickly.

“And I’ll take you dancing, my sweet,” Angus told Ruth.
“You
aren’t tired, I take it?”

“No, of course not. May I go, Aunt Henrietta, please?”

“Why, of course, my dear.” Aunt Henrietta looked somewhat touched at being appealed to for permission. “Your time is your own while you are here.”

“I just thought you might not like to have me coming in late.”

“You can do exactly as you like.” Aunt Henrietta smiled. “Give her one of the keys, Michael.”

So Michael gave her a key to the apartment—not very willingly, Ruth thought—and then he and Aunt Henrietta went home while Angus hailed a taxi, to drive them to what he called one of the few places left where one could dance in comfort and with some possibility of displaying one’s skill.

That Angus was a very skillful dancer indeed Ruth discovered in the first few minutes on the dance floor, and at this point she began to enjoy her evening immensely. She still felt slightly apprehensive about the program he had mapped out for her. But she had great faith in Angus’s powers of inspiration and production, and she was not really afraid that she would prove unequal to whatever he required of her.

They danced until nearly midnight, and just as Ruth was about to say she thought she should go home, Angus exclaimed,
“
Come and let’s have a drink or an ice cream or something. I want to ask you some more about your Aunt Henrietta.”

So, nothing loath, Ruth allowed herself to be conducted to a table at the side of the dance floor, and here, over the most delicious ice cream she had ever tasted, she told Angus what she knew of Aunt Henrietta.

“Then she isn’t really a relative at all?”

“Oh, no. Just an old family friend.”

“And you’d never heard of her until a week or so ago?”

“Well, not quite that,” Ruth explained. “I’ve heard mother speak of her from time to time over the years—just as one’s parents do speak of people from the past. But she wasn’t a—what shall I say—a known personality to me.”

“And then she just turned up from New Zealand, without warning?”

“From Australia. She emigrated to New Zealand, but went to Australia later, I gather. She sent a letter first. Mother herself hadn’t seen her since just after her own marriage.”

“And she recognized her at once?”

“I wonder why you say that,” Ruth said curiously. “The odd thing was that mother
didn’t
recognize her. At least, I mean—she wasn’t absolutely satisfied that it was Aunt Henrietta. But then, though my mother is a darling and very shrewd about lots of things, she can also be strangely obstinate and unreasonable. My father thinks it’s just some crazy idea of hers, because Aunt Henrietta has, quite understandably, changed with the years. But mother isn’t convinced. She just says this isn’t the Aunt Henrietta she knew years ago, and who went to New Zealand a good twenty years ago.”

“
She’s right, too,” Angus said slowly. “I’ve remember
e
d now where I saw your Aunt Henrietta before.”

“Oh, Angus—” Ruth looked at him almost apprehensively “—are you sure?”

“Yes. It was some years ago. Ten years at least. I must have been around eighteen at the time. It was when I was a small-part touring actor. She was doing a turn at a music hall where I was appearing.”

“She couldn’t have been!” Ruth was oddly shocked to think of her elegant Aunt Henrietta doing a turn at a music hall. “What
sort
of a turn?”

“Impersonations. It was one of the cleverest things I ever saw, but not actually funny enough for most audiences. I mean—she’d never have got very far in the profession, because she didn’t make people either laugh or cry. There was nothing emotional about it. She was just darned clever. I was fascinated just from the professional point of view, but as a show she was a very moderate success.”

“You must be mistaken,” Ruth reiterated. “How could you be sure, after all this time?”

“Because I went and watched her every night for a week,” Angus replied, unshaken by her protests. “There was nothing else to do, in the third-rate place where we were. I know the way she walks, the way she comes onto a stage—or into a room—and particularly the way she sinks herself in the interest of the moment, as though you’re the one person, talking of the one subject that matters.”

“Yes,” Ruth admitted reluctantly, “I’ve noticed that about her myself.”

“That was how she was in her work. She simply shed one identity and assumed another.”

“And you’re certain you saw her doing this—something like ten years ago?”

“Quite certain.”

“But she was in New Zealand—or Australia—then.”

“No,” said Angus. “The
real
Aunt Henrietta may have been in New Zealand then. This one wasn’t. Perhaps she’s never even been there.”

“But she must have been,” cried Ruth. “She described the whole journey home, in detail—and so interestingly that we hung on every word.”

“Perhaps she read it all up,” said Angus.

“Oh, she
couldn’t
have! No one could read up that sort of thing. She spoke of real experiences. Of that I’m sure. Whatever else is bogus about her, she
did
recently come from Australia.”

“All right. I’ll give you that one,” Angus conceded with a grin, “but in all other respects, she’s the woman I saw doing impersonations in a small place in Lancashire ten years ago.”

“What,” asked Ruth reluctantly, “was her name then?”

“That’s the maddening part of it—I can’t remember. She went under some queer professional term, I think. Called herself Protea or something of the sort. Something to suggest a perpetual change of identity, you know. I doubt if I ever knew her actu
a
l name.”

Ruth was silent for a minute, unwillingly digesting the information so confidently given.

“I don’t know why she would want to impersonate Aunt Henrietta Curtis,” she said at last. “From all accounts she was a completely undistinguished, ordinary person.”

“But if she wanted to do such a thing, think how well equipped she would be for the venture,” Angus returned. “Then—she must have taken in Michael, too.”

“Unless he’s in it himself,” replied Angus, who seemed rather pleased at the idea of involving Michael in a discreditable piece of deception.

Ruth, however, would have none of this.

“He couldn’t be,” she asserted firmly. “He told me quite a bit about himself, on the journey down. And Aunt Henrietta—I mean—oh, well, I’ll have to go on calling her that because there’s nothing else to call her—Aunt Henrietta was nearly as little known to him as to us.”