With All My Worldly Goods by Mary Burchell Page A

if her voice betrayed a trace of sarcasm, but if so Agatha failed to hear it.
    Millicent Dymster came in for dinner—she used to drop in casually once or twice a week at least—and so it was not specially noticeable that Leonora was rather quiet. In any case, she managed to carry her part in the conversation fairly well. Only once her composure faltered slightly, and that was when Millicent said: “I suppose you’re getting married very soon now, Lora?”
    “I suppose so,” Leonora said, and then, at Agatha’s surprised glance: “In fact, of course we are.”
    “Have you fixed the date yet?”
    “No, not exactly. Some time before the end of next month, I think.”
    “That only gives you about six weeks?”
    “Yes.”
    Leonora thought: “It is more than enough time to break it all off. Oh, I wish it were over and done with.”
    “And are you going to live in London?” Millicent was not really curious, only asking the perfunctory questions one was expected to ask.
    “Bruce prefers very much to live in the country,” Leonora said carefully.
    “And you?”
    “Oh yes.” She bit her lip sharply, for she suddenly remembered Bruce kneeling beside her, holding her close and begging passionately that they should live somewhere “green and cool” together.
    Had that been acting too?
    But why?
    For a moment she felt in such bewilderment that she nearly buried her face in her hands. Then she recollected herself in time, and came back to earth to find that Millicent was just leaving.
    “I’m sorry you must go so early, Millicent,” Agatha was saying. “But I shall be seeing you on Thursday.”
    Leonora rather wished she would have stayed. There might have been a chance for her to escape to her own room then. As it was, she would have to keep up a tête à tête with Agatha herself, and it was so difficult to go on pretending indefinitely.
    Agatha, however, seemed rather pleased with the prospect of a talk. She took out her tapestry, which she worked most exquisitely, and settled herself in her favorite chair.
    “This is very pleasant, Lora dear. We don’t often get a chat together, and we really have quite a lot to talk about.”
    “Have we?” thought Leonora. But since she was rather touched by the friendly overture, she smiled sympathetically in answer.
    “I was so glad to hear you say you wanted to live in the country,” Agatha went on, as she carefully drew a strand of wool through her work. “Bruce feels so very strongly about it.”
    “I know.” Leonora hoped they were not going to talk about Bruce all the time. But, of course, he was the most obvious topic of discussion for his sister and his fiancée.
    “It was always the same, even when he was a child. We always lived in the country then. But perhaps he told you that?” Agatha looked up for a moment.
    “No. I never heard anything about Bruce as a child. Tell me about him.” Leonora half despised herself for the eager interest that clutched at her heart. She ought to hate Bruce—she was planning to have done with him. And yet here she was—hungry for dear, absurd details of him as a little boy.
    She came and sat on the rug at Agatha’s feet, partly, perhaps, so that the expression of her face would be hidden.
    For a minute or two Bruce’s sister was silent. Then she said:
    “Bruce and I are only half brother and sister, you know.”
    “Are you?” Leonora looked surprised.
    “Yes. My mother died a year after I was born, and when I was about eleven my father married again. She was the prettiest thing you ever saw—years younger than he was and, to tell the truth, very frivolous and silly. But he simply adored her.”
    Leonora smiled irresistibly.
    “Do you mean to say that Bruce actually had a pretty, frivolous mother?”
    “Yes.” Agatha smiled too. “It doesn’t seem possible, I know. He was not in the least like her, of course.”
    “Of course not.”
    “You must understand, there was no real harm in her,” Agatha said