Accompanied by His Wife

by Mary Burchell

  Suddenly Patricia went cold and felt quite horribly sick. She knew now what she had said.

  What?—the Zoo again?

  ‘Damn the Zoo!’ thought Patricia distractedly. ‘Damn both Zoos, come to that. Why did I have to make that idiotic comment, when there was almost any other remark in the world that I could have made instead?’

  And at that moment Mrs. Harnby looked up from her newspaper and smiled. Her usually slightly secretive eyes were bright and candid, and she looked full at Patricia.

  ‘I’m sorry, dear. You must excuse me. I was reading the critique of last night’s ballet. One never quite loses the old thrill.’

  ‘No, I—I suppose not.’

  (Then perhaps she hadn’t heard! Perhaps she hadn’t noticed! Oh, if only such luck could really be.)

  ‘When I’m better we must go together. That is, if you would like it.’

  ‘I’d love it,’ Patricia assured her feverishly. ‘I—I quite often went when I was in London.’

  ‘Did you?—You know, I’m glad you have so many friends, Patricia.’ (Patricia went cold again.) ‘Michael always used to write of you as though you were rather a friendless little thing when he met you. But I think he was quite wrong. You seem to have plenty of people looking you up, as soon as you come to London.’

  ‘Yes.’ Patricia wished her lips would not feel quite so dry. ‘Yes, I have a good many friends really. I suppose it was just that—in Paris I was rather alone, and—and Michael was kind.’

  ‘I daresay that was it,’ Mrs. Harnby agreed, with that casual little smile of hers, which always seemed to suggest that she accepted whatever you said to her but had her own private thoughts on the subject, all the same.

  That afternoon Patricia took the greatest pains to look her very nicest. After all, this was the most important afternoon of her life. Stripped of its deceptions, its confusions, its absurd masquerade, this meeting with Phil was to be the one thing that had mattered since the death of her father and the complete change of her world. He was going to tell her that he loved her, and she—at last—was to be able to explain what had happened, and how, until this moment, she had not been able to tell him how much she loved him.

  The dress which she chose from the few good ones she had left was the same colour as her eyes—that warm blue which Michael had noticed the very first time he met her.

  Isobel, who met her on the way downstairs, said:

  ‘What a charming outfit. Part of your trousseau, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes,’ Patricia said. ‘Part of my trousseau.’ And she went on down the stairs, and out of the house, to meet Phil.

  He was already there when she arrived, although she herself was early. She saw him from some distance, walking slowly up and down, pausing from time to time to gaze at the flower-beds, as though he really found something there which interested him.

  The smile with which he greeted her was all she could have wanted—affectionate, roguish, completely admiring.

  ‘Darling, how sweet you look!’ He kissed her before she could make up her mind whether she meant to kiss him or not. ‘I’m proud to be your old school-friend.’

  ‘Oh, Phil! It was all so ridiculous.’ She found she was laughing as much as he was. ‘I just had to use the first name that came into my head. I was so afraid you wouldn’t catch on, and would start asking who on earth Marjorie was, or tell the exchange they had the lines mixed.’

  ‘No, no, I’m a little more resourceful than that,’ he assured her. ‘I guessed the dragon of a husband was in the room and that I’d chosen the wrong moment to ring. What happened? Had that sweet child given us away yesterday, and started him off breathing fire and jealousy this morning?’

  ‘Oh no, Phil! It wasn’t the least like that. And it hasn’t anything to do with Michael. I was in his mother’s room and—’

  ‘Oh, I see! She does the sleuthing for him, does she? Well, some of these old women are worse than a suspicious husband.’

  ‘Phil, please! You’ve got them all wrong, as a family. Mrs. Harnby is the dearest and most attractive of women. You couldn’t possibly call her “an old woman”, for one thing. And she’d die rather than do any “sleuthing” as you call it. But—’

  ‘Loyal little daughter-in-law, aren’t you?’ mocked Phil with affectionate amusement.

  ‘Oh, it isn’t that. I’m terribly fond of her, as a matter of fact. But that wasn’t what I was going to tell you.’

  ‘I hope it wasn’t, my darling. It isn’t your love for your mother-in-law that interests me,’ he assured her. ‘But anyway, it needs no explaining. You were unfortunately in your mother-in-law’s room, and you could hardly make an assignation with the man who loves you while she checked up on the conversation. It’s quite simple.’

  ‘Phi—’ She took his arm. ‘There’s an awful lot to talk about.’

  ‘There is, my dearest,’ he agreed, ‘quite an astonishing amount to talk about. But most of it is quite unimportant. There is only one thing that matters. I love you and you love me and we’ve found each other at last.’

  ‘I call that three things,’ Patricia observed, with an uncontrollable smile.

  ‘No, three parts of the same thing,’ he insisted. ‘Let’s go along this way. We shan’t be disturbed here. I’ve explored the whole darned place and found the one bit of real privacy to be had.’

  As they turned a bend in the path and the trees shut them in, so that they seemed to be alone, even in the centre of a London park, he caught her against him and kissed her. Not once, but over and over again—hot, eager kisses that frightened her a little although she had wanted them so much.

  After a moment she kissed him back again, and, with a long sigh of satisfaction, he said:

  ‘Ah, you do love me too.’

  ‘Phil, of course, of course. You must have known it. And there’s no reason why I shouldn’t love you, really—’

  ‘No reason in the world.’ He smiled down at her now. ‘In fact, there’s every reason why you should.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it that way.’ She laughed, and hugged him in that rather ingenuous way which had made Michael call her a child. ‘I mean that there’s nothing wrong in it, after all, because—’

  ‘Of course there’s nothing wrong in it,’ he interrupted her impatiently. ‘How could there be anything wrong in two people loving as we do? The only “wrong” was that some other man came in between. But he’s of no account. You do realise that at last, darling, don’t you? I know it’s a shock to anyone with your dear, absurd black-and-white ideas of right and wrong. But these things do happen sometimes. It’s no good going back now over why you married him, or why you shouldn’t have married him. It’s done. But there’s no reason why it should spoil both our lives. You don’t really owe anything to him. He’s—’

  ‘Stop, Phil!’

  He stopped—in sheer astonishment at the fierceness of her interruption.

  ‘Well—what is it?’ His tone had changed a little from its passionate, pleading intensity.

  ‘Were you suggesting I should have an affair with you?’ she inquired, with a directness that had something almost brutal about it, in spite of the softness of her voice.

  ‘My darling,’ he spoke more quietly too now, ‘don’t call things by names which you associate with something quite different. You mean—did I intend to insult you, by treating you lightly, don’t you? It isn’t a question of that. You’re married. All right—I accept that. But—’

  ‘I’m not married,’ she said very faintly, aware that this was the last way in the world she had intended to make her explanations. Only she had to stop him before he put things more clearly.

  ‘You’re—’ He fell away from her in his astonishment. ‘God in heaven! Do you mean to say you’re Harnby’s mistress?’

  ‘No, of course not! How dare you suggest such a thing?’ And, because she was so angry and wrought up that he should think her poised between two disreputable affaires, she raised her hand and slapped h
is cheek soundly.

  ‘Well—damn it!’ He put up his hand to his smarting cheek. ‘What are you trying to say, then? First you tell me you’re his wife—and you appear to be accepted as his wife in his house—then you say you’re not really married. And when I draw the obvious conclusion, you slap my face.’

  ‘Oh, Phil, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you. Did I hurt you?’

  ‘Not much.’ He grinned at her. ‘You haven’t got a heavy hand exactly. But will you please explain, my dear?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I will. It’s my fault, Phil. I’m awfully sorry. I hadn’t any right to be angry with you, because you—you wouldn’t have started saying such things to me if you hadn’t been desperate, thinking I was out of your reach. Would you?’ She couldn’t help adding that eagerly, because she wanted so much to know the answer.

  He took her arm slowly, and began to walk with her again.

  ‘I think we’ll have the facts straight first, dear. And then I’ll tell you what I have to say,’ he said rather quietly.

  ‘Yes, of course. Phil, you mustn’t be angry, because there’s not the least bit of—of what you think in it. But Michael is really married to someone else—’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘They hadn’t been married very long, and she left him—’

  ‘Don’t blame her,’ muttered Phil, but the pressure of Patricia’s hand on his arm silenced him once more.

  ‘She was beastly about it,’ Patricia retorted rather curtly. ‘Went off with someone else, when they were still on an extended honeymoon. By the way, she was the woman you saw with him in Paris at Christmas-time.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Please go on.’

  ‘They were on their way home, you understand, when this happened—her going off with the other man, I mean—and he received a cable, about the same time, saying that his mother was dying. She had never seen Michael’s wife—whose name, incidentally, happened to be the same as mine—but she was simply living for the day when he should bring his wife home. He knew that it would be the most terrible blow for her—the kind of shock that would destroy any possible chance there was of recovery. But he had to go home, all the same. And, on the way, he knocked me down with his car.’

  ‘Careless brute!’

  ‘No, it was mostly my fault. I just stepped out into the road without thinking. I wasn’t much hurt, and’ while he was giving me a lift on my way, we got talking and I learned about his frightful predicament.’

  ‘And then he had the damned sauce to ask you to start running around as his wife, just because he didn’t know where the other one was?’

  ‘It wasn’t sauce. And, as a matter of fact, I think the idea was at least half mine. I suppose the fact that I had the same name first started the notion in our minds. Anyway, when we began to work it out, it was rather astonishingly simple. Or it—it would have been if things had turned out as we expected.’

  ‘You mean if the mother had obligingly died, according to plan?’

  ‘Phil, don’t talk like that. I didn’t expect to love her, but I do, and I wouldn’t have anything happen to her for the world. I’m only too thankful that she seems likely to recover. Only, of course, it’s—made things awkward.’

  ‘I should imagine it has,’ Phil said grimly. ‘For all except the fortunate Michael.’

  ‘It’s just as bad for him,’ Patricia retorted sharply. ‘You don’t suppose he wanted this—this most difficult deception to go on a moment longer than it need, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know, my dear. I can imagine lots of more unpleasant things than playing substitute husband to you.’

  ‘But, Phil, I’ve told you. There’s—well, I mean, there’s nothing in it for him except a great deal of anxiety and unpleasantness, and the constant fear for both of us that someone will find out.’

  ‘I think the whole thing’s damned fishy,’ retorted Phil sulkily.

  ‘Meaning that you don’t altogether accept my word for what has happened?’ she said coldly, and she drew her arm away from his as she spoke.

  ‘Oh yes, I do, Patricia.’ He stopped her, and held her arm so that she could not draw it completely away from him. ‘I’m sure you think it’s all as you’ve described it. But I don’t know that I believe his ingenuous and improbable story.’

  ‘It’s not improbable. Why on earth should he tell it to me, if it isn’t true?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Phil admitted, but he looked dissatisfied. Then he added impatiently, ‘Anyway, you can hardly expect me to like the fact that you’re masquerading as another man’s wife.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Phil,’ she said earnestly. ‘I know it’s a rotten position for you. But it won’t be for very much longer.’

  ‘Very much longer! My dear girl, it can’t go on any further now. You must see that.’

  ‘But we can’t spoil everything now! I’ve only told you in the strictest confidence. No one else must know. I couldn’t even tell you without asking Michael first, because—’

  ‘Without asking Michael first?’ Phil flushed with anger. ‘Do you really suppose I’m going to allow our affairs to be regulated by the convenience of Michael and his preposterous mother?’

  ‘She isn’t preposterous. And I can’t back out now, Phil—right in the middle of everything. You must see that. I have to wait until Mrs. Harnby is better and can be told what has really happened.’

  ‘My God, it seems to me you’ve made a pretty muddle of it between you!’ Phil didn’t attempt to hide his anger. ‘How long is it going to take this sick woman to get up sufficiently strong nerves to hear such a hotchpotch of nonsense, I’d like to know? I should have thought the one shock of knowing that her son’s wife hadn’t been able to stand him would have been a lot less dangerous than asking her to accept this ridiculous impersonation story.’

  ‘Yes, I know. It—it does seem rather like that now,’ Patricia admitted unhappily. ‘But at the time it seemed the only thing, Phil. I don’t want to keep on saying this, because we neither of us want it to happen. But we did think she was going to die, you know.’

  ‘Well, why not let her die in peace, instead of plaguing her with a bogus daughter-in-law?’ demanded Phil impatiently.

  ‘I’ve told you. You’re just deliberately refusing to understand. Please, Phil! You’re spoiling everything.’

  He drew her into his arms and kissed her then.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. I’m trying to make you see there’s my side to it too. You must forgive me. I love you, and I want you with me—not him.’

  ‘Yes, I do understand. And I’ll try to have things put right as soon as ever possible. She is getting better, Phil. It shouldn’t be long now.’

  ‘All right, darling.’ He bent his head and kissed her again.

  ‘And you won’t say a word to anyone, will you?’

  He frowned. But after a moment he said:

  ‘There’s no one to say anything to, is there?’

  ‘Well, I mean, you won’t say anything to people about being engaged to me, will you? People who remember me by name, that is. I’ve found such awful coincidences seem to happen, once you’ve started on anything like this. I should be sure to run into someone I know, and be reintroduced as Mrs. Harnby just as they were going to wish me well on my engagement to you.’

  He didn’t smile over that. He simply said rather dryly:

  ‘I promise not to say anything to anyone about an engagement.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Phil. And now I must go, dear.’

  Phil came with her as far as Charing Cross, but she refused to let him accompany her any further.

  ‘I don’t want anything—difficult to happen now,’ she explained. ‘And I shall be walking home from here across the Park.’

  ‘I hate to hear you call that fellow’s house “home”,’ he said discontentedly. But he accepted her decision.

  As she let herself into the house, Michael himself came out into the hall, exclaiming as he came

  ‘Patricia, is that you? Where
have you been?’

  In spite of the urgency of his tone, however, she realised at once that it was not angry urgency. He was not really interested to know where she had been. He simply meant that he had been waiting with anxious impatience for her to come in.

  ‘Yes, I’m here. What is it?’ She came over to him quickly. Then, seeing the pale, set expression of his face, she added sharply, ‘Your mother isn’t worse, is she?’

  ‘No, no. Come in here.’ He put a strangely nervous hand round her arm, and drew her into the small room which he used as a study. ‘It’s something quite different. Something I never thought of, somehow.’

  ‘Michael, do tell me quickly, please!’ She felt her nerves stretch like wires with the sudden acute anxiety of the moment.

  ‘It’s Pat,’ he said, in that flat, rather expressionless tone which he always seemed to use on dramatic occasions. ‘She has chosen this moment to come back.’

  CHAPTER VII

  ‘Come back?—Pat? It’s impossible. Do you mean she is here in the house?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ His misery and anxiety made him impatient. ‘She has written to me.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘No. The letter arrived at the office by the afternoon post.’

  ‘But does she know the address of this house?’ Patricia said mechanically, with a vague idea of Pat arriving in person at any moment, and upsetting every plan they had ever made.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why didn’t she come here, then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He began to walk up and down the room. ‘She seems to have had some idea of preparing me. In any case, I suppose she felt she couldn’t come here until she knew just—just what had happened.’

  ‘Was there an address on the letter?’

  ‘Yes. A hotel in town. I went there at once, of course, but she was not in. All I could get out of them at the desk was that she had gone into the country for a few days but would be back on Saturday.’