The girl in the blue dress (25 page)

But fortunately, before Beverley could be driven to
further dissembling, her mother answered for her.

"She doesn't mean that she mentioned anyone
specifically, Ellen. Don't be silly! I suppose you just made a general
statement, dear?"

Beverley smiled wanly and nodded vaguely, glad that
her mother had never met Mr. Revian and therefore did not know how unlikely he
was to be satisfied by any general statement.

After that there seemed little more to say on the melancholy
subject, and Beverley was able to escape to her own room. But though she had
supposed, for the last few hours, that what she wanted more than anything else
was the luxury of a nice private weep,
as
soon as she found herself free to indulge in this, tears deserted her.

She sat for a while on the side of her bed, thinking
back over the conversations with Geoffrey and his father. And then, because it
was not in her nature to mope idly, she got up with a sigh and unpacked the parcel
of work she had brought from Huntingford Grange the previous day.

She had picked up her needle and thread and already
made a beginning before the fact was suddenly borne in on her, with quite
terrible significance, that she was
resuming work on Sara's trousseau, which
would be
needed after all, because
she would be marrying Geoffrey. And at tins point Beverley really did cry.

The next day she went off to work as usual, outwardly
composed but inwardly full of trepidation. It was not possible to guess how
quickly Geoffrey might have moved, or whether any echo of the new situation had
yet reached the Waynes, or, at least, Sara.

But, whenever this did happen, it seemed inevitable
that there would have to be further explanations and excuses and pretence of
being happy when one was perfectly miserable. And Beverley felt singularly ill equipped
to deal with any such crises at the moment.

Strange to say, however, nothing at all disturbing.
happened, either that day or the following one. Beverley continued to work in
her room at the top of the house, and no one came near her except the maid who brought
her lunch, and Mrs. Wayne who came up to ask her something about a dress she
was making for.

It was on the Wednesday" that the crisis
broke. And
it was Sara herself, who with
rare decision and courage,
gave the first sign of it. Almost as soon as
Beverley had arrived, she came running upstairs and into the room her cheeks
flushed and her eyes sparkling, in a way that made her breathtakingly
beautiful.

"Oh, Beverley, " she closed the door and
leant against it, "don't hate me, will you? No, of course you won't, because
you're so fantastically and wonderfully generous. Oh, I'm so happy, and you're
the last person I should say that to! Please forgive me I don t know what I'm
saying, only, " she came over suddenly and put her arms round Beverley and
kissed her, you've made it all so wonderfully, unbelievably easy. And you could
have spoiled everything. Most girls would have."

"Oh, no! Not most girls. Only some girls, "
Beverley protested. But she kissed Sara back again, because it was impossible
not to when she was so transparently happy and grateful. "It was so
perfectly obvious that it was you Geoffrey wanted. I'd have been an idiot as well
as a beast, to try to hold on to him."

"But the way you did it all! Smoothing
everything with his father. Geoffrey told me about it."

"Oh, well, if one's doing anything at all, one
may as well do it properly." Beverley smiled, with a half amused
indulgence which surprised herself. She supposed it was spiritless of her to
feel so kindly towards her rival, and to go on reassuring her in this
way. And yet, for the first time since Sunday, she
felt
an odd warmth at her chilled heart. A sort of satisfaction over the
righting of some cardinal error with which she had been living for years.

"They had to come together, Geoffrey and this lovely
girl, " she thought suddenly. "They are meant for each other. She
looks a different person, now she knows she is to marry him. And he, " She
recalled almost without pain this time, the shining relief and wonder on
Geoffrey's face when he'-had realized that he was free to marry Sara.

"It's all right, Sara, " she said slowly.
"I'm glad we all found out in time. It would have been so perfectly awful
if all this had happened after I had married Geoffrey."

"You're an amazing girl, " declared Sara,
with a
smiling little shake of her head.
"You manage to speak so objectively and with no ill feeling, ”

"I have no ill feeling!" Beverley
exclaimed sincerely
"This was something
none of us could have foreseen or
prevented."

"But don't you, " Sara hesitated, "I
suppose I
shouldn't ask this, and yet I want
so much to be re
assured don't you feel angry and miserable that such a
thing should have happened to you? Or is there per
haps, Geoffrey hinted there might be someone else with you too?"

Beverley wondered just how closely this dangerous pretence
was going to cling to her. But, with Sara
looking
so eager and anxious, there was only one reply
to make.'

"I can't say much about it yet, Sara, but,
yes, there
might be. Anyway, please don't
spoil your own happiness with any worry about me. Things have a way of working
themselves out, and I don't think this situ
ation is going to be any
exception."

"Oh, Beverley, you darling!" Sara, who
had never
shown herself half so
demonstrative before, hugged Beverley again. "I can really be happy now, without
a bad conscience. Everything is simply wonderful!"

And, radiant with fresh happiness, Sara went off presumably
to tell either her family or Geoffrey that
everything
was indeed all right.

Beverley wished now that she had detained Sara long
enough to hear just what had happened, how
much her parents knew, if they approved and so on. But it was
obvious
that, in her new-found happiness, Sara cared
only
about the one salient fact that she was to marry Geoffrey, after all. Everything
else was a matter of irrelevant detail.

Later, Mrs. Wayne came up, with some sign of
embarrassment in her usually self-possessed
manner, But all she said was,
"Miss Farman, I'm sure you don't want
to discuss
this new development with any of
us. But I hope you don't feel too badly about Sara's engagement. I mean her new
engagement." She coloured slightly and bit her
lip.

"No, of course not." Beverley wondered
how many more people she was going to have to reassure, in this synthetically
bright way. "Geoffrey and I made a mistake. We both recognized the fact.
And I hope Sara and he will be very happy."

"Thank you." Mrs. Wayne hesitated again.
Then she went on determinedly. "Do you still feel willing to go on working
for us?"

It was Beverley who hesitated that time. For she
saw
herself, m her mind's eye, stitching
away at Sara's wedding dress. But she could not afford to quarrel with her
bread and butter, for a matter of sentiment, she told
herself. And so
she replied quite calmly,

"I don't at all mind continuing to work for
you, Mrs.
Wayne. But I don't feel that it
would be very suitable for me to make Sara's actual wedding-dress."

"No, of course not, " Mrs. Wayne agreed
very willingly. And then she went away, with the air of a woman whose problems
were working out better than she had dared to hope.

For the rest of the day Beverley worked on without
interruption, until, late in the afternoon, the
sound of footsteps galloping up the stairs intimated that Toni was home from
school and on her way up to the sewing-room.

She burst in, breathless and evidently full of news
and drama, and her first words were, "Oh, Miss Farman, I was right about
Sara and Geoffrey Revian, all those weeks ago, wasn't I?"

"Yes." Beverley smiled slightly. "It
seems that you were."

"It's all settled. Did you know? She's going
to marry Geoffrey."

"Yes, I know."

Toni drew near. "It all
happened so suddenly, didn't it? Have you
heard
about it?"

"Not in detail. But you
can tell me, if it isn't pri
vate."
"Oh it isn't
private. The whole family knows, " Toni
declared.
"It seems Geoffrey rang Sara up yesterday
and asked her to meet him
in the afternoon, and she found he wasn't engaged to you, after all, and so she
got engaged to him herself, and then they came back here in the early evening, it
would be just after you'd
gone, I think, and
they told us all."

"I see. How did your parents take it?"

"Oh the usual way parents do, you know, "
said
Toni tolerantly. "They were a bit
taken aback at first,
but quite pleased afterwards, because, even if
Geoffrey isn't such a good match as Franklin, he's pretty good now he and his
father are friends. And they'd been so upset about Sara not marrying Franklin, that
I suppose they were quite relieved and delighted that at least she was going to
marry Geoffrey."

"I suppose they were, "
agreed Beverley a trifle dryly.

"Anyway, Geoffrey said his father wanted to
see Sara" Beverley had a sudden desire to laugh nervously at the
familiarity of that, "and so he took her back to his home with him. And I
went too.

"You went too?" Beverley looked
astonished. How on earth did you manage that?"

"I asked, " Toni said simply.
"Several times. And after a while, Geoffrey, who was in a wonderfully good
mood and ready to do anything for anyone, said, 'Why don't we take her? The old
man will like her, and it might help things.'"

"I suppose it well might." Beverley
looked at the little girl before her with some amusement and appreciation
"I imagine you got on very well with him."

"Oh yes I did, " agreed Toni, with no
false modesty.

"And afterwards, when Geoffrey and Sara went
downstairs together, to talk to each other the way people
do when they've just got engaged, I stayed with
old Mr.
Revian and we had a nice long talk. And that, Miss
Farman, " she added, dropping her voice confidentially,
"was when he told me about you and Franklin. And I'm so glad.
Otherwise I'd have been quite miserable about your not having anyone, now that
Sara has
Geoffrey."

'About, about me and Franklin?" repeated
Beverley, with the odd sensation that someone had slipped a piece of ice down
her spine. "What did he tell you about me, and Franklin?"

"About your getting engaged too, "
explained Toni comprehensively. "And he said___"

”But we're not!" cried Beverley, in great
agitation.

“Oh, not absolutely officially. I do understand
that, Miss Farman. It would be almost too much of a good thing lf You and Sara
just changed round like that. But I told him how worried I was about you.
Because I like you, Miss Farman." Toni beamed at her affectionately.
"And he said I needn't cry about you___"

"Did you cry about me?" asked Beverley, touched
even in the midst of her anxiety.

"Just a bit, you know. But he said I needn't, and
that he'd tell me a secret. And so he did, and then I knew it was all going to
be all right. And I'm so glad."

'Th-thank you, " said Beverley helplessly.
"It's very
sweet of you to be so
concerned about me. But you do
understand, don't you, that this is
absolutely private for the moment. You mustn't mention a word of it to
anyone. Not to anyone."

"Oh, yes. I do understand that, " Toni
agreed solemnly. And as though to add weight to her assertion, she licked her
forefinger and drew it significantly across her throat. "I wouldn't breath
a word of it to anyone in the family."

"Nor anyone outside the family, either, "
cried Beverley, prickling with apprehension.

"No, of course not. The only person I
mentioned it to was Franklin himself, because he gave me a lift home
from school. But it was all right mentioning it to
him,
wasn't it. Miss Farman? because of course he knows all about' it, doesn't
he?"

"YOU told, Franklin?" Beverley stared
back at Toni in such glassy horror that the little girl blenched slightly.

"Well, I didn't exactly tell him, Miss Farman,
be
cause he knew already, didn't he? I just
told him I
very glad to hear he was going to marry you, as
all the fuss about Sara and Geoffrey had died. But
that wasn't telling him anything, because he ….

"But he didn't." said Beverley helplessly,
unable
let Toni repeat yet again that
Franklin knew all it.

"Didn't what?" enquired Toni, looking
confused.
"Didn't know about marrying
you? But he must have.
Because if he asked you, "
 
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