Mary Burchell - Nobody Asked Me

Very wearily she climbed the stairs. When she had been dancing and talking so happily with Julian Tyndrum, she had forgotten even to think about being tired. But now the reaction had set in. All the hours of strain and tension seemed to gather together in one heavy burden that pressed upon her.

‘Alison, is that you?’

For a moment she was tempted to ignore the cautious whisper from Audrey’s room. Then she went to the door.’

‘Yes. What is it?’

‘Come in a minute. I want to hear about the party.’

‘You ought to be asleep,’ Alison protested feebly, but she came in.

Audrey was sitting up in bed, and even the dim light did little to disguise the determined interest of her face.

‘I’ve been asleep,’ she said. ‘But I woke up with the noise of everybody going.’ Then almost immediately she added, ‘You look awfully pretty in that dress, though it’s not a bit like an evening dress. Did you enjoy yourself?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

It was true. She had enjoyed herself in the end, thanks to the kindness of one person. Strange to think that that one person was engaged to anyone so spiteful as Rosalie.

‘You must go to sleep again now,’ she said.

‘I’m very thirsty. Do you think I could have a drink?’ The resourceful Audrey knew all there was to know about prolonging conversations.

Alison remembered the old dodge, too, but she went over and poured out a glass of water for the little girl.

‘Here you are.’

‘Thank you.’ Audrey drank with convincing eagerness. ‘Was Julian there?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Yes.’

‘I like Julian.’ There was no mistaking Audrey’s approval. ‘Did you?’

‘He seemed very nice,’ Alison agreed carefully.

‘He is. Much too nice for Rosalie,’ said Rosalie’s young stepsister. But Alison refused to take up this challenge, and so she asked, between gradually lengthening sips, ‘Did you dance with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many times?’

‘Oh, several times,’ Alison said carelessly.

‘Several times?’ The pretence of thirst was abruptly abandoned. ‘I bet Rosalie was wild, wasn’t she?’

‘Don’t be silly, Audrey.’ Alison spoke severely. ‘I imagine Mr. Tyndrum was kind enough to feel some social responsibility as-a-as a sort of relation.’

‘I don’t imagine anything of the kind,’ retorted Audrey, reluctantly yielding up the empty glass to Alison’s firm hand. ‘They had an awful row this afternoon, and for once he got his own back on her, instead of the other way round.’

Alison was half-way across the room, the glass in her hand. She stopped suddenly and said in a funny, stifled little voice, ‘What are you talking about?’

‘It’s always happening,’ Audrey said, lying down and pulling the clothes over her. ‘Rosalie loves making rows because it makes her feel important. Then she flirts with someone else, and Julian’s silly enough to be miserable and jealous, so that in the end it’s he who does all the apologising. I’m jolly glad he turned the tables this time and made a fuss of another girl.’

For a second Alison felt unable to move. Then she slowly put down the glass as though it were very heavy.

‘Good night, Audrey. Go to sleep now.’ She went towards the door, hardly hearing the little girl’s sleepy ‘Good night’ in reply. Very quietly she closed the door behind her.

It was quite a short distance to her own room really, but somehow it seemed a long way to carry anything so heavy as her heart.

She didn’t put on the light at first, for the curtains were still drawn back, and the moon shone right into the room. She went slowly over to the window, and stood staring out at the cold black and silver of the moonlit square.

He had just used her to make Rosalie jealous.

Alison leant her forehead against the window, pressed it there until she could feel the stinging, icy glass through her thick fringe.

How easy it was to make a fool of yourself when you were lonely! You snatched at the faintest bit of kindness and read all sorts of things into it.

A dozen little memories came back to hurt her. He’d said it was easy to be kind to her. It had seemed such a sweet compliment at the time, and had made her so happy. Now she saw he had probably been thinking that anyone so silly as herself simplified his plan of campaign.

She winced sharply. He had actually used that word himself, and had smiled as he said it-while she had been silly enough to suppose it had been something on her own behalf.

And then she had assured him clumsily that he must not bother to come to the house because of her. No wonder he had looked astonished and chilly!

‘Oh, whatever sort of a fool must he think me?’ muttered Alison wretchedly as she turned away from the window, chilled and a little stiff: ‘Anyway’-she pressed her unsteady lips together angrily-’I don’t think much of him either. It was a beastly thing to do.’

And she kept up her anger against him all the while she was undressing.

She expected to lie awake, anxious and tormented with worry. But the moment her head was on the pillow she fell asleep-to dream of Julian Tyndrum.

There was a tremendous reception being held somewhere, and Aunt Lydia kept on saying, ‘You can’t possibly go. You’ve nothing decent to wear, and everybody would be ashamed of you.’

And then Julian was there, and he said in his careless, arrogant fashion, ‘Oh, yes, she can. I’ll put the cloak of my protection round her and then she can go.’ And, to Alison’s astonishment, the cloak was a real one-long and magnificent and lined with fur, like the cloak of a Victorian hero.

She snuggled into its wonderful folds, and the fur was so soft and enveloping that it warmed her right through to her very heart. And that was the end of the dream, because she forgot all about going to the reception in the happiness of wearing Julian’s cloak.

The next day, any doubts left on the subject of Alison’s exact position in the household began to be cleared up. She breakfasted with the twins, went out with the twins in the morning, lunched with the twins. Theoretically the after(d)noon was to be her own-to be spent, apparently, either in her own room or else somewhere vaguely described as ‘out’.

On this occasion, however, her aunt came into the schoolroom directly after lunch and said, ‘Alison, my dear, I wonder if you’d come and give me a hand with my correspondence. It’s piled up so much lately. And there arc one or two’ small items of shopping you can do for me. I expect you will be glad of something to do.’

Alison came quite willingly. Her aunt had not done a single thing to make her feel happy or at home since she came into the house. But, on the other hand, Uncle Theodore had maintained her for nearly three years, and he was Aunt Lydia ’s husband. She had an uncomfortable suspicion that duty rather than humanity had moved him to do so, but that didn’t lessen her anxiety to show her gratitude.

In addition-though this, of course, was not at all important-was the feeling at the back of her mind that she would rather be out of the way if Julian called. She didn’t want to see him. She felt passionately that she never wanted to see him again. It wasn’t only that she was so embarrassed as she remembered last evening. She felt angry, too, and quite unbearably hurt.

So she sat in her aunt’s little study and conscientiously wrote answers to invitations, notes about accounts, and a few-a very few-letters to accompany cheques for charity.

At four o’clock her aunt looked in and said, ‘You had better go out now, Alison, or you won’t be back in time for schoolroom tea at five. You can finish those to-morrow.’

Alison was not too simple to see that a good many to-morrows of this sort stretched in front of her. But she did what she was told, thankful to escape from the house.