Mary Burchell - Nobody Asked Me

‘Julian!’

She coloured deeply, and he laughed and said:

‘Oh, no. Now they don’t match at all.’

Alison was silent, overwhelmed by a wave of sweet yet painful emotion.

‘I’ll have this ring, please,’ she said at last in a voice that shook slightly.

And so it was settled.

Outside in the car again, she gave him back his signet ring. She hadn’t thought she could bear to part with it, but now the wrench scarcely hurt at all, because of what he had said about the one she had in its place.

Then he took her to lunch at some exclusive little place like nothing she had ever seen before. She left the choosing of the meal to him, and was pleased to find he either knew or guessed her tastes exceedingly well.

Over coffee he began to discuss their wedding, but so calmly that Alison found herself much more at ease about it.

She explained that her uncle was in favour of a church wedding with a certain amount of publicity, and, to her surprise, Julian agreed.

‘Most certainly,’ he said. ‘A very quiet wedding would be a mistake.’

‘Why?’ Alison couldn’t help asking.

‘Because, in the circumstances, the uncharitable might read almost anything into it,’ he told her drily.And, on reflection, Alison supposed, a little uncomfortably, that was true.

Afterwards, he drove her back to the house, and left her there with a promise to call for her at a quarter to eight that evening.

As Alison came into the hall, her aunt came out of her study.

‘Have you been shopping, Alison?’ she asked, without much show of interest in whatever Alison had been doing.

‘Yes’ At least, we-we went to buy my engagement ring. Do you like it?’

She held out her hand a little timidly for her aunt’s inspection.

‘Very nice,’ commented Aunt Lydia, as though it had come out of a Christmas cracker. ‘You’re not superstitious, then?’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, nothing. Only some people think pearls are very unlucky.’

‘She would say something like that,’ thought Alison indignantly.

But, without giving her a chance to reply, her aunt went on, ‘Have you made any arrangements about your trousseau?’

‘Well, yes. At least, a friend of Julian’s is going to help me choose it, as you are too-too busy.’

‘Really? What friend of Julian’s?’ Aunt Lydia seemed surprised.

‘Someone called Jennifer Langtoft. She’s the sister-’

‘Jennifer Langtoft!’ Her aunt made a significant little face. ‘And Julian suggested her?’

‘Yes.’

‘How exactly like a man. They really are the most blind and tactless creatures.’

‘Why? What is the matter with Jennifer Langtoft?’ Alison spoke a little apprehensively.

‘There’s nothing the matter with her, exactly,’ Aunt Lydia said. ‘Except that she’s always been extremely sweet on Julian herself. I believe Rosalie had quite a lot of trouble putting her in her place. I should have imagined that she would be the one to snap him up the moment he was free. However, of course, it’s a little late to say anything now.’

And with that she went back into her study and shut the door.

FOR a moment Alison stood staring after her aunt until the door closed. Then she turned away and slowly began to mount the stairs.

Was it just tactlessness or real malice that made Aunt Lydia say these things? she wondered.

There hadn’t been the smallest reason to make such a comment, quite apart from the fact that it was very unfair to the unknown Jennifer.

‘She just wanted to make me feel uneasy and miserable,’ Alison thought. And then: ‘Well, I won’t give her that satisfaction. It’s all too petty and absurd to worry any sane person.’

But of course, she couldn’t dismiss it entirely from her mind like that. Instead, she remembered the interest in Julian’s voice when he had said, ‘Oh, Jennifer is good-looking-very.’

‘And what about it?’ Alison asked herself fiercely. Hadn’t he also said that he had known her and her brother for years? And, in that case, if he had been going to fall for her, he would have done so long ago.

She tried not to listen to the little voice which said that there had always been Rosalie before to occupy his thoughts. Now there was no Rosalie-only the other half of ‘a business proposition’.

Alison sighed impatiently as she tossed down her hat on her bed. She had better go and find something to do if being unoccupied meant having these ridiculous fancies’

She went down again to her aunt’s study, and put her head in.

‘Can I do anything for you, Aunt Lydia?’

She managed to make that sound quite pleasant, although her feelings towards her aunt were not cordial.

‘Yes, Alison, you certainly can. I have been wondering how I was to get through all this.’ Aunt Lydia fingered a not very formidable pile of correspondence. ‘It’s most awkward having you so much occupied just now.’

Alison forbore to ask if she would have found it any less awkward at any other time.

‘I’ll do them for you, shall I?’ she offered.

‘I wish you would.’ Her aunt immediately gave up her thin pretence of examining them herself. Then, after a pause, she added, ‘I suppose I mustn’t expect much help from you, now that you don’t feel it necessary to study me any longer.’

‘How she does judge other people by herself,’ thought Alison. ‘No wonder Uncle Theodore despises her.’

But aloud she said, ‘I don’t imagine I shall be so busy as all that, Aunt Lydia. I’ll still do what I can to help you, of course.’

Her aunt appeared satisfied with that, although she didn’t seem to think that any thanks were called for.

Presently Alison looked up and said, ‘Do you think Audrey would like to be my bridesmaid?’

‘I suppose so.’ Her aunt sounded completely indifferent. ‘I don’t see that it matters much in any case. The whole thing is rather a farce, isn’t it?’

Alison bit her lip angrily.

‘You don’t expect me to agree with that, I suppose?’ she said curtly, without looking up.

‘Well, I don’t know what else one can think. Everyone knows that until eight o’clock yesterday evening Julian was infatuatedly in love with Rosalie. By nine he appears to have proposed to you-or you to him, I really can’t imagine which-and we’re all asked to regard the affair as perfectly normal.’

Alison was completely silent, her pen motionless in her hand. Put like that, in her aunt’s tone of slightly plaintive ridicule, the whole thing sounded absurd and hollow.

Was that how it was going to seem to Julian when he had had time to cool down and regard the whole situation calmly?

She stared unseeingly at the sheet of notepaper in front of her. And then, quite a long time afterwards, when it seemed that her aunt had nothing to add to her crushing analysis, Alison slowly went on writing. But she was not very sure what she was writing about.

It took more than an hour of patient work to finish all that Aunt Lydia wanted done, and then Alison went upstairs to her own room once more.

Sitting on the side of the bed, she tried to review the whole situation quite dispassionately.

In the first impulse of that crazy proposal they had both agreed that they had nothing to lose. She saw now that that was not strictly true. To refuse to take dangerous chances always meant that you retained a certain negative sense of safety and peace of mind.

The moment you embarked on anything like this fantastic arrangement you said good-bye to any security. Just now she was feeling like someone who had started to cross a raging torrent by means of a single-plank bridge. She had lost her nerve half-way, and now she didn’t know which was more impossible-to go forward or to go back.