The seaside one summer—Iris envying Rosemary who was a ‘big girl’ and could swim!
Rosemary going to boarding school—coming home for the holidays. Then she herself at school, and Rosemary being ‘finished’ in Paris. Schoolgirl Rosemary; clumsy, all arms and legs. ‘Finished’ Rosemary coming back from Paris with a strange new frightening elegance, soft voiced, graceful, with a swaying undulating figure, with red gold chestnut hair and big black fringed dark blue eyes. A disturbing beautiful creature—grown up—in a different world!
From then on they had seen very little of each other, the six-year gap had been at its widest.
Iris had been still at school, Rosemary in the full swing of a ‘season.’ Even when Iris came home, the gap remained. Rosemary’s life was one of late mornings in bed, fork luncheons with other débutantes, dances most evenings of the week. Iris had been in the schoolroom with Mademoiselle, had gone for walks in the park, had had supper at nine o’clock and gone to bed at ten. The intercourse between the sisters had been limited to such brief interchanges as:
‘Hullo, Iris, telephone for a taxi for me, there’s a lamb, I’m going to be devastatingly late,’ or
‘I don’t like that new frock, Rosemary. It doesn’t suit you. It’s all bunch and fuss.’
Then had come Rosemary’s engagement to George Barton. Excitement, shopping, streams of parcels, bridesmaids’ dresses.
The wedding. Walking up the aisle behind Rosemary, hearing whispers:
‘What a beautiful bride she makes …’
Why had Rosemary married George? Even at the time Iris had been vaguely surprised. There had been so many exciting young men, ringing Rosemary up, taking her out. Why choose George Barton, fifteen years older than herself, kindly, pleasant, but definitely dull?
George was well off, but it wasn’t money. Rosemary had her own money, a great deal of it.
Uncle Paul’s money …
Iris searched her mind carefully, seeking to differentiate between what she knew now and what she had known then: Uncle Paul, for instance?
He wasn’t really an uncle, she had always known that. Without ever having been definitely told them she knew certain facts. Paul Bennett had been in love with their mother. She had preferred another and a poorer man. Paul Bennett had taken his defeat in a romantic spirit. He had remained the family friend, adopted an attitude of romantic platonic devotion. He had become Uncle Paul, had stood godfather to the first-born child, Rosemary. When he died, it was found that he had left his entire fortune to his little god-daughter, then a child of thirteen.
Rosemary, besides her beauty, had been an heiress. And she had married nice dull George Barton.
Why? Iris had wondered then. She wondered now. Iris didn’t believe that Rosemary had ever been in love with him. But she had seemed very happy with him and she had been fond of him—yes, definitely fond of him. Iris had good opportunities for knowing, for a year after the marriage, their mother, lovely delicate Viola Marle, had died, and Iris, a girl of seventeen, had gone to live with Rosemary Barton and her husband.
A girl of seventeen. Iris pondered over the picture of herself. What had she been like? What had she felt, thought, seen?
She came to the conclusion that that young Iris Marle had been slow of development—unthinking, acquiescing in things as they were. Had she resented, for instance, her mother’s earlier absorption in Rosemary? On the whole she thought not. She had accepted, unhesitatingly, the fact that Rosemary was the important one. Rosemary was ‘out’—naturally her mother was occupied as far as her health permitted with her elder daughter. That had been natural enough. Her own turn would come some day. Viola Marle had always been a somewhat remote mother, preoccupied mainly with her own health, relegating her children to nurses, governesses, schools, but invariably charming to them in those brief moments when she came across them. Hector Marle had died when Iris was five years old. The knowledge that he drank more than was good for him had permeated so subtly that she had not the least idea how it had actually come to her.
Seventeen-year-old Iris Marle had accepted life as it came, had duly mourned for her mother, had worn black clothes, had gone to live with her sister and her sister’s husband at their house in Elvaston Square.
Sometimes it had been rather dull in that house. Iris wasn’t to come out, officially, until the following year. In the meantime she took French and German lessons three times a week, and also attended domestic science classes. There were times when she had nothing much to do and nobody to talk to. George was kind, invariably affectionate and brotherly. His attitude had never varied. He was the same now.
And Rosemary? Iris had seen very little of Rosemary. Rosemary had been out a good deal. Dressmakers, cocktail parties, bridge …
What did she really know about Rosemary when she came to think of it? Of her tastes, of her hopes, of her fears? Frightening, really, how little you might know of a person after living in the same house with them! There had been little or no intimacy between the sisters.
But she’d got to think now. She’d got to remember. It might be important.
Certainly Rosemary had seemed happy enough …
Until that day—a week before it happened.
She, Iris, would never forget that day. It stood out crystal clear—each detail, each word. The shining mahogany table, the pushed back chair, the hurried characteristic writing …
Iris closed her eyes and let the scene come back …
Her own entry into Rosemary’s sitting-room, her sudden stop.
It had startled her so; what she saw! Rosemary, sitting at the writing table, her head laid down on her outstretched arms. Rosemary weeping with a deep abandoned sobbing. She’d never seen Rosemary cry before—and this bitter, violent weeping frightened her.
True, Rosemary had had a bad go of ’flu. She’d only been up a day or two. And everyone knew that ’flu did leave you depressed. Still—
Iris had cried out, her voice childish, startled:
‘Oh, Rosemary, what is it?’
Rosemary sat up, swept the hair back from her disfigured face. She struggled to regain command of herself. She said quickly:
‘It’s nothing—nothing—don’t stare at me like that!’
She got up and passing her sister, she ran out of the room.
Puzzled, upset, Iris went farther into the room. Her eyes, drawn wonderingly to the writing table, caught sight of her own name in her sister’s handwriting. Had Rosemary been writing to her then?
She drew nearer, looked down on the sheet of blue notepaper with the big characteristic sprawling writing, even more sprawling than usual owing to the haste and agitation behind the hand that held the pen.
Darling Iris,
There isn’t any point in my making a will because my money goes to you anyway, but I’d like certain of my things to be given to certain people.
To George, the jewellery he’s given me, and the little enamel casket we bought together when we were engaged.
To Gloria King, my platinum cigarette case.
To Maisie, my Chinese Pottery horse that she’s always admir—
It stopped there, with a frantic scrawl of the pen as Rosemary had dashed it down and given way to uncontrollable weeping.
Iris stood as though turned to stone.
What did it mean? Rosemary wasn’t going to die, was she? She’d been very ill with influenza, but