Accompanied by His Wife

by Mary Burchell

  ‘What an extraordinary way to behave,’ muttered Patricia. Then, remembering that he always resented criticism of his wife, she added, ‘But what is the idea, Michael? If she wants to come back to you, why doesn’t she—well, come? Why write cryptic letters and then disappear into the country.’

  ‘I don’t know, I tell you.’

  Patricia looked at ‘his unhappy face, and then said bluntly:

  ‘Are you going to tell me what was in the letter, or don’t you consider it my business?’

  He sat down on the edge of his desk, his hands thrust into his pockets.

  ‘I don’t mind telling you. It simply says that—that she knows she made a ghastly mistake, and that she wants me to forgive her and take her back. She wants me to—to think it over very carefully. That’s why she didn’t give me the opportunity of saying a peremptory “no” which I might have regretted later. I suppose that was the idea behind this going into the country, somewhere where I couldn’t reach her. She says in the letter, just as they told me at the hotel, that she will be back at the week-end. That’s all.’

  ‘Did she,’ inquired Patricia, with a dryness she could not disguise, ‘did she mention that she was sorry for what she had done?’

  He smiled faintly.

  ‘She’s not very good at expressing these things, Patricia. But—yes, she is sorry.’

  ‘And you are going to forgive her and take her back, of course?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation. Then he said, without expression:

  ‘Of course.’

  She looked at him in a troubled way.

  ‘Michael, it doesn’t seem much like a happy ending, somehow, does it?’

  ‘I don’t imagine there is ever anything much like a happy ending when these things have happened.’

  ‘You mean—it’s spoilt anyway.’

  ‘Don’t let’s discuss it, Patricia. The point is—what are we going to do about the various complications here?’

  ‘Oh, heavens, yes! I’d almost forgotten those.’ Then, after a long pause—‘Michael, I think we’re going to have to tell your mother the whole story. In any case, I saw Phil this afternoon, and—’

  ‘Impossible,’ he said impatiently. ‘I thought that was the solution too at first. After I had been to the hotel I called to see Mother’s doctor, and asked him point-blank if she could stand anything in the way of a shock. I explained there was a piece of—unpleasant family news which she ought to know. But he said she was on no account to be perturbed about anything, and that her apparent brightness and energy is a very insecure thing. I asked when he thought she could be told, and he said—certainly not for a week or two.’ Patricia was silent, thinking—in spite of everything— with an amusement tinged with some malice, that ‘a piece of unpleasant family news’ described the advent of Pat with singular accuracy.

  ‘What were you going to say about your seeing Phil?’ he inquired suddenly, coming out of a brown study.

  ‘Oh, it—doesn’t matter, I suppose, now.’ She thought Phil would have been very much annoyed to hear her say that, and so she added—’I was only hoping that it wouldn’t be too long before we were able to have explanations all round. I’ve told Phil how things stand, and he—he—’

  ‘Doesn’t care about your posing as another man’s wife?’

  ‘Well, no, he doesn’t.’

  ‘I can’t blame him,’ Michael said, with unusual appreciation of Phil’s point of view. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. It’s a vile position for you. But I’ll try to think of a way out, as soon—as soon as I have seen Pat.’

  ‘Yes. It does all rather depend on her attitude, of course.’

  He didn’t say anything, to that, and Patricia found herself wondering if his wife might not be any more pleased about this escapade than Phil was. Then she remembered that Pat was in a somewhat weak position with regard to any protests on the question of her husband’s conduct, and so she kept silence.

  After a moment, he looked across at her and said:

  ‘Did you and Phil—come to any arrangement?’

  She smiled happily, in spite of herself, though she felt it was cruel to be so happy when he must be so terribly conscious of his own broken happiness.

  ‘Yes, Michael. We—well, I suppose we’re engaged. At least ‘—she laughed—’ as much as I can be, at the moment.’

  ‘And you’re very happy about it?’

  ‘Um-hm. Terribly.’

  ‘I’m so glad, Patricia,’ he said earnestly.

  ‘Thank you.’ She held out her hand to him suddenly, and he took it—rather surprisingly—in both of his. ‘It’s specially nice of you to be glad about my happiness, when—when things aren’t going very well for you.’

  He laughed then.

  ‘I hope I’m not so self-centred as to demand happiness for myself before I can find pleasure in the happiness of my friends. Besides—’ she wondered afterwards if she only fancied that his tone became ironical here—‘have you forgotten that Pat is coming back to me?’

  ‘Of course.’ She felt extremely uncomfortable about that, somehow, and she was genuinely relieved to hear Isobel and Deborah come in just then.

  ‘Where’s Aunty Patricia?’ Deborah was demanding in her penetrating treble. And that meant the end of any private discussion.

  The last few days of that week seemed to drag unendingly. Perhaps it was because she had no opportunity of seeing Phil, or perhaps, it was because of the acute sense of anticipation which seemed to concentrate itself upon the coming Saturday.

  She knew that Michael was preoccupied and not at all happy. And that troubled her more than she would have thought possible a week ago. She had become so .closely identified with his affairs—and his feelings, she supposed—that she hated to know that he was bewildered and wretched.

  It could hardly be otherwise, she supposed. He had stated finally enough, and without qualification, that he was prepared to take Pat back and—if one must use the expression—forgive her. But when that sort of complication thrust its way into one’s own life, it was useless to pretend that things could ever be the same again. Particularly with a man of Michael’s standards.

  ‘And then,’ thought Patricia, ‘without wanting to be smug, I’m sure she’s not good enough for him. It’s just a plain fact. Michael is a husband in a million. I ought to know—I’ve tried him ‘—and she smiled to herself—‘whereas everything I hear about her makes her out anything but the perfect wife.’

  It said much for Isobel’s pleasant obtuseness that she noticed nothing wrong with either Michael or Patricia during these trying days. And, by a supreme effort, they both contrived to appear carefree during their short visits to Mrs. Harnby.

  Patricia’s fur coat was ‘taken out of store’ during these few days, and was brought home, inspected by Isobel and pronounced enchanting.

  ‘Michael certainly knows how to choose sumptuous presents. Don’t let him lose the knack, Patricia.’

  Patricia laughed.

  ‘I’ll try to keep him up to the mark,’ she promised. But she was thinking of Phil, really, and wondering idly if he would very much mind her coming to her wedding in a coat which another man had bought. It was certain she would never look nicer in anything else, but of course one really had to think of other things as well!

  It was on Friday afternoon that Patricia felt her nervous excitement at its highest. This time tomorrow Michael should have seen his wife, and perhaps, in some grand reconciliation scene, they would find their happiness again. She didn’t disguise the fact that it would add greatly to her own happiness to know that Michael’s affairs had turned out well after all. And if such a satisfactory reconciliation did seem more pleasant than probable, there was no harm in indulging at least in the hope that it might take place.

  The house was very quiet—quieter even than usual. Deborah and her mother were out, and Mrs. Harnby asleep. So that when the front door bell rang faintly in the kitchen regions, Patricia heard it, even where she was—cur
led up comfortably with a book in a corner of the drawing-room settee.

  She heard Julia go through the hall to answer the door, and the slight murmur of voices as someone outside spoke to her. Then Julia came into the room.

  Madam, there is a lady here who wanted to see Mr. Harnby. Will you see her instead? She wouldn’t give her name.’

  ‘Very well, Julia. I will see her, of course.’

  Julia went out of the room, and a moment later she showed in a slim, exquisite creature, whose perfectly simple cream suit and hat only served to show off her wonderful dark hair.

  Neither Patricia nor her visitor spoke a word until Julia had closed the door quietly again. Then Patricia said, with a calmness which astonished herself:

  ‘I suppose you are Michael’s wife?’

  ‘One of them, it seems,’ was the almost careless retort. ‘Somehow, I never thought of Michael as polygamous.’

  ‘Your instinct was quite correct,’ Patricia assured her dryly, determined that if the repentant wife was going to take this tone she should receive as good as she gave. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

  The girl sat down, without any appearance of being put out by the situation in which she found herself. And, since she chose to study Patricia with cool deliberation before saying anything further, Patricia allowed herself the same indulgence. After all, it was her visitor who had sought this interview. The disadvantage of having to make the first remark should be left to her.

  ‘You don’t mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Patricia politely set an ash-tray at her elbow, and watched her take a cigarette from a slim gold case, reflecting as she did so that the case was undoubtedly a present from Michael. It bore just the stamp of his extravagant generosity.

  The girl’s pretty, well-manicured hands were absolutely steady as she lit her cigarette, and the blue eyes which surveyed Patricia were without a shadow of embarrassment. They were a clear, cold blue, those eyes quite astonishingly beautiful in their size, and the lashes were so thick and long that they seemed to shadow the eyes.

  No doubt Michael had found them appealing.

  Evidently the girl had used her few moments of scrutiny well too. For at last she said, in that same casual way:

  ‘Michael seems to run to brunettes, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better,’ Patricia suggested with chilly smoothness, ‘to have explanations before accusations?’

  ‘Why, yes.’ The girl smiled straight at her, with a hint of impertinence. ‘By all means let us have explanations. Which of us is Mrs. Harnby, by the way?’

  ‘You are, of course.’

  ‘And you’re just—’ she made an indescribably eloquent gesture, indicative of what she thought Patricia’s position was.

  ‘No.’ Patricia refused to be angered. ‘I’m not Michael’s mistress. As you must know, he doesn’t deal in that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yet I find you here in his house—regarded by the servants as his wife. It’s a little—odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘No. Not if you think over the position in which you left him.’

  The blue eyes narrowed slightly.

  ‘Oh, so you know all about that?’

  ‘Naturally I know all about that. How else did you suppose I came into this story?’

  ‘The old and sympathetic friend, eh? who, like the charlady, doesn’t mind “obliging”. And, in my absence, you have very kindly played my part for me—’

  ‘Oh no, not for you,’ Patricia assured her quietly. ‘Believe me, I hadn’t the’ slightest interest in preserving your position for you. I was only, concerned with helping Michael when he was in a terrible position, and in making what we certainly thought were Mrs. Harnby’s last hours more peaceful.’

  ‘And how much did Michael pay you for this beautiful and disinterested behaviour?’

  The question came with such cool curiosity that the full impertinence of it was lost on Patricia for a moment. Then she flushed slightly and, resisting with difficulty the desire to lay hands on her visitor, she said dryly:

  ‘Any question of payment is naturally entirely between me and Michael.’

  ‘Oh, naturally.’ The girl looked amused. ‘But do tell me how you worked out this—masquerade, and also how far it has answered its purpose.’

  Patricia hated even having to speak civilly to this girl, but since it was necessary that she too should know how things stood, there was nothing to do but comply with her request. So, for the second time—and with considerably fewer interruptions than when she had told Phil—she explained how she and Michael had evolved their desperate plan, and how, because of Mrs. Harnby’s recovery, they had been forced to keep up a situation which had never been intended to last more than a few days.

  The girl listened attentively—even with some amusement. At the end she simply said:

  ‘And are you asking me to believe that throughout all this the behaviour of you and Michael was irreproachable?—the kind of thing his wife might safely know all about?’

  I’m not asking you to believe anything,’ Patricia retorted coldly. ‘I’m merely stating it as a simple fact that Michael and I are—nothing to each other. As a matter of fact, I’m engaged to someone else.’

  ‘My God! And did he O.K. this extraordinary business before you started on it?’ She sounded genuinely curious.

  ‘No.’ Patricia thought fleetingly of just what Phil’s reaction had been! ‘No, he did not. We became engaged only a few days ago. But he—knows all about this.’

  ‘And approves?’

  ‘That is hardly your business,’ Patricia reminded her smoothly, and, presumably admitting the justice of that, the girl shrugged.

  ‘So you’re engaged,’ she said slowly, as though the fact had suddenly assumed some special interest in her mind. She thoughtfully and quite unhurriedly stubbed out her cigarette, and all the time Patricia had the horrid impression that her mind was busy with something that would certainly be of little good to any of them.

  ‘She’s a terrible woman,’ Patricia thought with a slight shudder. ‘Michael must have been mad to marry her. Only of course she never behaved like this to him. He hasn’t any real idea what she is like.’

  And on sudden impulse, she said:

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘Why not, if I wanted to come back to my husband?’

  ‘But I thought it was already arranged that you were to see him tomorrow. He was coming to your hotel.’

  ‘Well,’ the girl said, with quite indescribable insolence, ‘I found I couldn’t wait.’

  ‘She had some rotten motive behind her visit,’ Patricia thought immediately. ‘I’m sure of that.’

  Aloud she said:

  ‘I don’t quite understand why you wanted to come back at all.’

  ‘No? But then perhaps you’re not fond of Michael. I am.’

  Patricia was dumb for a moment before such effrontery. And in the short silence they heard the sound of Michael’s key in the front door.

  With an instinct she could not have explained, Patricia sprang to her feet, with the confused idea that she must warn him—prevent him from coming into the room unprepared for the fact that Pat was waiting there.

  ‘Do you always rush to meet him with that affectionate eagerness?’ inquired the slightly mocking voice behind her. And Patricia stopped as abruptly as she had started forward. ‘I can do my own announcing, thanks.’

  As Michael came into the room his wife stood up. Patricia had her back to her and was facing Michael, so that it was his change of expression she saw—not that of the girl behind her.

  He stopped dead, most of the colour leaving his face with a suddenness that was startling, and he said just the one word—‘Pat,’ very quietly.

  With the overwhelming consciousness that she had no business here now, Patricia started for the door. But the voice of Michael’s wife stopped her again.

  ‘No, don’t go;’ she said, but the tone had miraculously changed from amused m
ockery to one of quiet dignity. ‘I think you have your part in this discussion too.’

  Patricia swung round, amazed at the change. But she was still more amazed at the alteration in the girl’s whole appearance. She stood there, very slim and straight, defiant and alone—against a hostile world. If ever anyone presented a picture of moving and pathetic dignity, it was Michael’s wife at this moment.

  He went over to her and would have taken her hand, but she drew it away from him, quietly and without rancour.

  ‘It seems, Michael,’ she said almost gently, ‘you’re not the only one to have to do some forgiving.’

  ‘Eh?’ Michael was at least as startled as she intended him to be. ‘What do you mean?’ He gave an angry, agitated glance from her to Patricia.

  ‘When I came to see you here this afternoon, I hardly expected to be received by—your wife.’

  ‘But surely you understand? Hasn’t Patricia explained?’

  ‘I’ve explained very fully,’ Patricia said extremely dryly. ‘She understands perfectly.’

  ‘Patricia’—her voice lingered slightly over the name—‘has explained to me how you—picked her up on the road, and how she has been living here as your wife since then, and apparently intends to go on doing so indefinitely. I know I—forfeited any right to your consideration when I—left you at Marseilles.’ There was nothing so inartistic as a break in her voice. Only the faintest hesitation from time to time. ‘But any idea I had that we might be—reconciled seems rather fully answered now, doesn’t it, Michael? There just isn’t any place for me.’

  ‘That’s absurd!’ He took both her hands, whether she liked it or not, and turned her almost roughly to face him. ‘You must understand that what we did was a desperate expedient, and that there was not the slightest—the slightest infidelity to you, either real or implied.’ Anxious though she was to escape from this scene, Patricia found herself watching the girl’s face carefully. She was certain that no one had ever been more determined than this young woman, from the moment Michael had come into the room, but her expression of hurt indecision now was a triumph of art.