Free Reluctant Relation by Mary Burchell

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    “When I first met Meg,” began Pearl, “she told me—”
    “Darling, I don’t think Mr. Sontigan wants to hear about me and my family,” Meg interrupted hastily.
    “Of course he does.” Leigh shot her a wicked smile. “Particularly as it happens to be my family too. The horrid stepmother is my sister, Pearl.”
    “But—” Pearl’s pretty mouth fell open “—she can’t be, if she’s horrid.”
    “Thank you, my child, for the charming implication.” He laughingly kissed the tip of her ear. “But perhaps she can’t be horrid, after all, if she’s my sister.”
    “Well— ” Pearl looked doubtfully at Meg.
    “Never mind, love.” Meg had recovered herself. “Relations by marriage don’t always have to like each other devotedly.” She glanced coolly at Leigh, as though to emphasize the particular application of this statement.
    “Don’t you think so?” He rubbed his chin reflectively.
    “Certainly not! The important thing is simply to be pleasant and civilized to each other. And as I told you, Pearl—” she turned to the little girl again “—everything went very well when I saw my father and Claire this morning. So I think we can consider the subject satisfactorily disposed of.”
    “Admirably put,” Leigh said lightly. “Are you both ready to go?”
    They were both ready to go. After settling one or two details in connection with Pearl’s discharge from the hospital, they all went out to Leigh’s car.
    “I think we’ll give you the back seat to yourself,” Leigh told Pearl. “I’ve brought plenty of cushions, so we can fix you up comfortably. Then Meg—” Meg’s eyebrows rose “—can sit in front with me. How’s that?”
    Pearl thought it was splendid, so Meg had no chance to suggest any other arrangement.
    At first Pearl was very talkative, but after a while the motion of the car made her sleepy. Interjections from the back seat grew less and less frequent and finally ceased altogether. Glancing back, Meg saw that her eyes were closed.
    “She’s asleep, ” Meg said softly.
    “I thought she’d probably go off.” Leigh smiled. “I suspect she had a pretty broken night, in a strange bed and with her arm hurting. The less she excites herself now, the better.”
    His tone was so genuinely concerned that Meg was just about to say something congratulatory when, on an entirely different note, he observed, “So you don’t like my sister any more than you like me?”
    “I haven’t said ... Really, do we have to discuss this?” she exclaimed impatiently.
    “Well, it’s a topic that concerns us both,” he pointed out, though good-humoredly.
    “It’s an embarrassing one for me, as you must know,” she retorted. “Of course I wouldn’t have said anything to Pearl, in the beginning, if I’d had the slightest idea she would know the people concerned. She was rather ghoulishly interested to hear I had a stepmother, and wanted to know if I liked her.”
    “And you said you didn’t?”
    “Mr. Sontigan,” Meg spoke dryly, “Claire doesn’t very much like me. She’s perfectly entitled to feel that way, and I might say it doesn’t affect me in the least, so long as she is fond of my father and makes him happy. It’s obvious that she does make him happy, and that’s all that concerns me. I don’t have to like her and she doesn’t have to like me. But I can see no profit in discussing the fact or emphasizing the gap between us.”
    “All right.” He turned his head for a moment, to give her that quick, flashing smile which always slightly disturbed her. “But as we’re likely to see a lot of each other now—”
    “What makes you think that?” she inquired quickly.
    “Blind intuition,” he told her, still with that smile. And, as she did not choose to discuss this absurd statement, they drove the rest of the way in silence.
    When they reached home, Meg had to rouse her little charge, who whimpered rather fretfully and said that her arm hurt.
    “Never