ACCOMPANIED BY HIS WIFE
by
Mary Burchell
The deception grew entirely out of hand
For the sake of Mrs. Harnby, Michael’s sweet but ailing mother, Patricia agreed to the fantastic suggestion that she masquerade for a few days as Michael Harnby’s new wife.
How was she to know the deception would spread so widely—with disastrous consequences that would threaten both her future and Michael’s?
But the most unexpected consequence was the realization that Patricia actually enjoyed having Michael as a “mock” husband, even though she knew he was pining for the woman he had lost!
CHAPTER I
Mrs. Enderby Elmes regarded Patricia with, vague, pale blue eyes and slowly shook her head.
‘No. I’m afraid, in those circumstances, you would not do at all. I don’t know how I came to confuse you in my mind with Miss Browne—I think it must have been Miss Browne. My memory is so bad—I’m not very strong, you know.’
‘If she means she’s weak in the head, I agree,’ thought Patricia viciously. But aloud she simply said:
‘It is easy to get strangers mixed, of course. But, since I am here, don’t you think you might give me a trial? I really would love to look after your two little girls, and—’
‘Quite impossible!’ Mrs. Enderby Elmes was emphatic. ‘My dear husband was quite explicit. He wished the children to be brought up by someone with French training. French children are always taught to behave so beautifully. That was why he wanted an Englishwoman with French experience. He considered it the ideal combination. I could have sworn that it was your letter which mentioned experience in a French family.’
She gazed appealingly at Patricia, as though, even now, Patricia might recollect several years’ residence in France which had slipped her memory for the moment.
But Patricia smiled regretfully and shook her head.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Elmes. You did indeed confuse my letter with someone else’s. I can’t claim any experience in a French family.’
Mrs. Enderby Elmes sighed again.
‘Well then, I’m afraid that does settle it. I am very sorry. Naturally, I will pay your fare back to town.’
With the terrible consciousness that her purse contained exactly four and eleven pence halfpenny, Patricia wondered distractedly if she could bring herself to insist that she should be paid the return fare, since she had already been put to the expense of coming to Fallershaw.
However, with a generous air of striking the balance between the single and return fares, Mrs. Elmes was already taking two pound notes from her handbag. As she held them out languidly, any protest which Patricia might have made died in her throat.
‘I am extremely sorry,’ Mrs. Elmes repeated, but this time her tone indicated quite clearly that the interview was over.
A very correct and singularly prosperous-looking maid showed Patricia out. The handsome front door was shut quietly upon her, and two minutes later she was walking down the drive, away from the job which had been going to solve all her problems.
As Patricia turned into the lane which led to the station, she was aware of a terrible and aching blankness. She was not a girl who cried easily, or tears would most certainly have come at that moment. As it was, she walked steadily on, a little as though she were in a nightmare, hardly able, even now, to take in the fact that this last blow had really fallen.
Two pounds four shillings and eleven pence halfpenny. And then—nothing. Quite literally nothing, because she had already sold whatever was saleable.
That was the worst of it. There was such a terrible completeness about the financial disaster which had overtaken Father. It had swept away everything. Not only income and capital, but the roof over one’s head, the very bed in which one slept—even the table from which one might have eaten the meals which had become so curiously inadequate.
Since the disgrace of utter failure had literally broken Father’s heart, the only thing one could decently do after he had gone had been to sell up everything and pay as many as possible of the debts which had distressed him so terribly. It was a good thing really that Mother had died so many years ago—except that Patricia sometimes thought even extra responsibility would have been better than the feeling of being utterly alone.
Friends were kind, of course—some of them embarrassingly kind. But then Father’s failure had involved more than one of them, and. how could one take from people who had already lost through knowing one’s family?
Patricia’s steps grew slower. It was hot, and the dusty walk had made her tired and thirsty. She would sit down for a while on the grass at the side of the road. She had time now—all the time in the world. And it didn’t matter if she crumpled her linen suit. The necessity for looking cool and well-groomed and spick-and-span had tragically ceased to exist.
For two or three minutes she remained absolutely still. Then realities asserted themselves again. It was absurd to sit there doing nothing. She might be missing the last train back to London, for there could be only two or three in the day. And then what was she to do?
The urgency of that brought her to her feet—a good deal dazzled by the sudden return of the bright sunlight. Without thinking what she was doing, she stepped out into the road, still shading her eyes from the sun. And at that moment, round the corner swept a long, low-built sports car, travelling at considerable speed.
There was the scream of brakes applied too late, the skidding of wheels in the soft white dust of the road, and the next thing Patricia knew was that she was lying at the side of the road again, very much more dazed than when she had stood up.
She was vaguely aware that the car had come to a standstill a few yards away, and that a tall man was bending over her, speaking with a sort of impatient anxiety.
‘Good lord! I’m sorry. But what a damn-fool thing for you to do—charging out into the road like that. Are you hurt?’
‘N—no, I don’t think so. At least, not much.’
Patricia sat up slowly, a good deal relieved to find there was an arm to lean against, because she felt very dizzy.
‘You don’t feel any pain anywhere?’
‘No.’ She thoughtfully rubbed a much bruised leg.
‘That’s a bit bruised, I think.’
‘I expect it is. I caught you with my left mudguard.’
Patricia looked up into imperious, searching dark eyes, and managed to smile.
‘I’m all right—really. And it was my own fault, anyway.’
‘Well, yes—it was.’ He made no polite protestations about that. ‘But I was travelling fast,’ he admitted. And then—‘I’m afraid I was—worried, and wasn’t thinking about the possibility of young women throwing themselves under my wheels.’
‘I was worried too,’ Patricia said slowly, ‘and I suppose that’s why I stepped out into the road without looking.’
He didn’t take that up, but said instead:
‘Anyway, I don’t think there is any serious harm done. Would you like to see if you can stand?’
Patricia got slowly to her feet, his arm still supporting her, and then he stooped to retrieve her handbag and the expensive gloves.
‘All right?’
‘Yes. Quite all right now, thank you.’
‘Can I give you a lift-anywhere? I daresay you still feel a bit shaky.’
‘Oh—I don’t want to take you out of your way.’
He shrugged.
‘I’m going to London. A slight detour would hardly matter.’
To London! And the fare was thirty shillings.
Without giving herself time to reflect, Patricia spoke breathlessly.
‘Could you—could you possibly take me to London, plea
se?’
She felt sure, from the way his eyebrows shot up, that he thought her request an imposition. But, having just practically run, her over he could hardly refuse.
‘Certainly, if that is where you want to go,’ he said stiffly.
‘It’s very—important,’ she explained, and felt her colour rise.
‘Then please come.’ He held open the door of the car for her. ‘Though, if it is a question of time,’ he pointed out dryly, ‘you would probably do it more quickly by train.’
‘It—it isn’t a question of time,’ Patricia said, and with difficulty restrained herself from adding that it was a question of money.
He settled her in the car and offered her a rug.
‘No, thank-you.’ And then she suddenly remembered something else. ‘Oh, please—I’m so sorry, but could we—could we call at the station? I have a case there.’
Again she saw that fleeting expression of disagreeable astonishment, and although he said, ‘Of course,’ she felt sure he was putting her down as a pretty cadger.
‘You will have to tell me where the station is,’ was all he said, as he started the car. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know this part of the world. I’ve just motored up from the coast.’
Patricia directed him, and when they reached the station he collected her case and put it in the back of the car with a fairly good grace, though she could not help thinking his whole air suggested that he didn’t often get himself landed with the job of collecting luggage for strange young women.
Perhaps Patricia’s companion thought that he was entitled to a little curiosity by now. Or perhaps he just felt that some sort of conversation was called for if they were to make the several hours’ journey to London together.
‘Are you cutting short a boring visit?’ he hazarded, after they had driven some way in silence.
‘Oh—no.’ Patricia roused herself with an effort.
‘No, it wasn’t that.’ Then, suddenly deciding that he was indeed entitled to some sort of explanation, ‘I really went there to take up a job. I was to be governess-companion to two little girls. But their mother had got me mixed with another applicant. I didn’t happen to have the one qualification she considered essential. So I—I lost the job, after all.’
‘Hard lines,’ he said casually, evidently without the slightest idea of the magnitude of the disaster.
‘Yes, it is rather—awkward.’ Patricia’s voice was suddenly much smaller than she had meant it to be. ‘That was why I—I had to pluck up courage to ask you for a lift.’
‘I don’t quite see the connection,’ he said with brutal frankness. ‘Unless, of course, there wasn’t a train back to town so late in the afternoon.’
‘Then I think,’ Patricia said, with a faint but irrepressible smile, ‘that you have never known what it is to be really hard up.’
He looked haughtily astonished for a moment at such a personal remark. Then, as her meaning dawned on him, he said:
‘Oh, good heavens, I beg your pardon for being so dense. I ought to have understood before. I am very glad you asked me for the lift if—’ he flushed slightly, and finished—‘I mean, in the circumstances.’
‘Thank you. That’s nice of you.’
There was silence after that for a few minutes. Then he said slowly:
‘So that was what you meant when you said you were worried, and stepped into the road without looking.’
‘Yes.’
‘Rather a blow, losing that job?’ he inquired, not quite so casually this time.
‘Very much so.’
‘Your kind of job isn’t specially easy to get, I take it?’
‘Not specially. Particularly if you haven’t any experience. And I haven’t.’
‘No. You didn’t somehow look like a governess.’
‘Didn’t I? I’m disappointed.’ Patricia smiled. ‘I tried very hard to look the part.’
‘You look more interesting than a governess,’ he said.
That was a simple statement of fact, she saw, and was not in any way intended as a compliment.
‘Oh, thank you.’ Patricia smiled slightly. ‘But I wouldn’t mind looking deadly uninteresting at the moment, if it would mean a job.’
‘You’ve been rather suddenly thrown on your own resources, haven’t you?’ he said, looking ahead down the straight road in front of them.
‘Yes. How did you guess?’
‘Oh—from the various things you said. Would you like to tell me about it? I don’t want to seem inquisitive, but we have a long drive in front of us, and I suppose we must talk about something.’
‘It’s not inquisitive. In fact, it’s nice of you to be interested—if you would be interested.’
‘I’m sure I should. Besides, sometimes one is glad to get away from one’s own thoughts.’
She glanced at him then, and decided, for the first time, that behind that air of rather haughty coolness that was something else, he was deadly worried.
‘I’m afraid it isn’t a specially interesting story.’ She wondered with sudden diffidence if it would not be more of a nuisance than a diversion. But the silence seemed to invite her to go on.
‘Shall I begin with my name?’
‘Unless you like to remain anonymous.’
‘No. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t know it—and the surname explains most of my story. It’s Rolman—Patricia Rolman.’
The car swerved very slightly.
‘Did you say—Patricia?’ He seemed completely taken aback by that. So much that the rest of her name appeared to pass unnoticed.
‘Well—yes. Why not?’ Patricia, was surprised.
‘What an extraordinary thing!’ he muttered.
‘But it’s not a very uncommon name.’ She looked amused.
‘No, no. I know. But it happens to be my wife’s name.’
Even so, thought Patricia, that hardly warranted such stupefaction.
‘It isn’t like Ermyntrude or Georgiana,’ she pointed out. ‘Quite a lot of people are called Patricia, you know.’
‘Yes, yes. I know.’ He was not the least bit amused, she saw. ‘Only, in the circumstances—well, please go on. I’m interrupting the story.’
‘There’s remarkably little to tell, I’m just realising. Only that my father was Edgar Rolman—’
‘Who came a financial cropper at the end of last year?’
‘Yes.’
‘Big copper interests, hadn’t he?’
‘Yes. That was the main thing. But I’m afraid he speculated in other things too. He lost everything—absolutely everything, down to the last farthing. I didn’t know one could be comfortably off one week and so entirely without anything the next.’
‘No. It’s a pretty hard world if you come down heavily on the wrong side of the fence,’ he agreed. ‘What happened to your father after that? I don’t think I ever heard.’
‘He died,’ Patricia said flatly.
‘Oh, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have asked so bluntly if—’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Patricia told him. ‘It’s strange how one grows used to anything. I thought I should never get over the shock of his death as—as well as the other. But now I can talk of it quite calmly.’
‘Well, I suppose death isn’t the hardest thing to get used to,’ he said rather sombrely.
‘No.’ Again she wondered just what it was that accounted for that air of restless anxiety which from time to time broke through the cool surface of his manner.
‘And so you were left quite alone?’ He glanced at her.
‘Yes. My mother had died some years ago, and I was the only child. There was no one else. I sold everything that could be sold, and settled up as much I could. Then I had to set about getting some sort of job—in a fiercely competitive world, and with remarkably few qualifications.’
‘You would have done better to have laid out a little money on some sort of business training,’ he told her briefly.
‘But the money just wasn’t th
ere.’ Patricia gave a slight shrug. ‘One has to live, even while one is learning. I thought this way—managing to go as a governess-companion—I might be able to save enough to train for something else later. But for the moment the most pressing problem was to find somewhere I could live and eat.’ She paused, a little shocked to find she had been so frank to a stranger.
‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘One never thinks of that happening to people like—us. I mean, no one would imagine, to look at you—’
‘I know. That’s the worst part of it.’ She laughed rather uncertainly. ‘To have to have ladderless stockings, and a well-pressed suit and—and expensive gloves—’ She broke off again, wishing that the strange luxury of having someone to talk to would not make her so desperately anxious to say everything.
He nodded, however, as though he really did understand.
‘Yes, I see. Always to have had everything within reason, and then suddenly to be breaking into the last ten pounds. It must be pretty grim.’
‘It is even more grim,’ Patricia assured him, ‘when you break into the last ten shillings.’
He really did look startled then.
‘You don’t mean—’
‘No—really. It’s not so bad.’ She laughed that off hastily, wishing that she had not gone so far. ‘You see, at least I was given my fare back to London, and, in spite of that, a kind stranger gave me a lift—so I’m in clover again.’
‘I don’t call two or three pounds in clover,’ he said curtly.
‘No? Well then, you just don’t know what being in clover means.’
He was silent—disturbed against his will, she saw, and yet with his thoughts obviously busy on something else as well.
‘Well, we—we seem to have exhausted the subject of me pretty thoroughly, don’t we?’ she said. ‘I suppose you don’t feel like telling me why you said you were worried and weren’t thinking of your driving when you ran me down?’
He looked astonished and extremely haughty at this suggestion. Apparently it was all very well for her to make confidences, but quite another matter for him to tell her his personal affairs.
Accompanied by His Wife Page 1