Accompanied by His Wife

by Mary Burchell

  Afterwards they strolled in the forest, where the sunlight, streaming through the trees, made a moving pattern of light and shade on the worn paths and the piles of brown leaf-mould which still lingered from last autumn.

  Deborah ran ahead most of the time, coming back to them at intervals to report on some fresh discovery.

  ‘It’s lovely here, Michael. I’m so glad you thought of coming.’ Patricia slipped her arm into his quite naturally.

  He smiled.

  ‘We used to live quite near here when I was a boy. At least, I used to spend my holidays near here, when I came home from boarding-school. I often spent whole days in the woods. I don’t know what suddenly made me think last night that I would like to come back. Perhaps it’s always remained in my mind as the really carefree and peaceful place, and so I—thought you would like it to-day.’

  She gave his arm a grateful little squeeze, and then turned her attention to some inquiry of Deborah’s. But she was really thinking how extraordinarily nice it was of Michael to bother about her peace of mind at a time when his own must be so seriously disturbed.

  On the way home, Deborah fell fast asleep between them and they had some opportunity of talking of their own affairs.

  It was some little while, however, before either of them spoke. The silence was companionable, rather than strained, and when Patricia finally did break it, it was only to murmur with a contented sigh:

  ‘It’s been beautiful, Michael.’

  ‘I’m so glad. I liked it too.’

  ‘Rather the “peace after the storm” effect,’ she confessed, with a rueful smile.

  He didn’t answer that, but gave her a kindly glance, of which she was very well aware.

  ‘Still of the same opinion about our discussion last night?’ he inquired presently, looking ahead down the road as though he were specially intent on his driving.

  ‘To contest the divorce suit and bring a counter-claim, you mean?’

  ‘Um—hm.’

  ‘Michael, yes. At least, so far as I am concerned. It’s for you to decide your own position.’

  ‘I want whatever is best for you,’ he said quietly.

  ‘But that’s awfully nice of you, Michael. Only it’s not the wisest way to run your life,’ she protested with a smile. ‘Don’t take some decision you’ll regret, simply because of the views of someone you—well, you may hardly see again when this is all over.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ he said without heat. ‘Of course I shall see you again. It isn’t a question of viewpoint. It’s a question of having got you into a pretty unenviable position. Naturally I want the best way out for you.’

  ‘Oh, I see. But I did come into this of my own free will, you know.’ She smiled again. ‘You haven’t any reason to reproach yourself.’

  ‘Hm. Exact division of responsibility, eh?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Very well.’ He smiled too then. ‘It’s agreed—from both points of view—that I contest the divorce. I shall go and see Pat this evening,’ he added, almost in the same breath.

  ‘This evening?’

  ‘Certainly. There’s no point in waiting, is there? And she had better know my decision as soon as possible.’

  ‘Yes, of course. You’re right.’ Patricia admitted the logic of that, while she hardly relished the sensation that a disagreeable crisis was very close upon them. The day in the woods with Michael and Deborah had been only a very pleasant, very short interlude, and now one must come to earth again.

  When they reached home, a sleepy, rather cross Deborah was handed over to Susan, who undertook to give her her supper and put her to bed, since Isobel was still unwell. Mrs. Harnby was reported to be a little better again, but asleep at the moment. And so Michael and Patricia went straight in to a tete-a-tete dinner—the first they had had since this strange affair had started.

  As they sat opposite each other at the polished table, where the candle-light was mirrored in a soft and kindly glow, Patricia thought a little wistfully how pleasant this life was.

  Well, she had been very lucky to have it for so long. Now it was time to face the future without self-pity.

  After dinner, Michael made no further reference to going to see his wife. But he left Patricia as soon as he had finished his coffee, and a few minutes later she heard the car driving away from the house.

  After a while Patricia picked up a book, but before her attention, was really fixed on it, Susan came into the room. She smiled in that grim way of hers and said: ‘Miss Deborah seems to have enjoyed herself very much.’

  ‘Yes.’ Patricia put down her book and smiled too.

  ‘I think she did. She’s rather a dear little thing, really.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know that I’d call her that.’ Susan smiled dryly. ‘She’s interesting. In some ways she reminds me of Madame.’ Susan often called Mrs. Harnby ‘Madame’ still.

  ‘Of Mrs. Harnby?’ Patricia laughed. ‘I can’t say I can see much likeness. Mrs. Harnby’s so tactful and I should think she is very sweet-tempered. Whereas young Deborah could hardly be called either.’

  ‘Oh no, I’ll grant you that.’ Susan laughed shortly too at the idea of crediting Deborah with tact. ‘But they have the same sort of determination. You wouldn’t believe how obstinate Mrs. Harnby can be. Always sweet and charming about it, of course, but I’ve almost never, seen her fail to get her own way in the end.’ Susan said this with a sort of triumphant complacency, as though she shared personally in Mrs. Harnby’s achieving her own ends. ‘Now you watch Miss Deborah when you think you’ve flummoxed her. She just thinks it all out again—you can see it in her little face—and all she’s busy about is the question of how she’s going to get what she wants a different way.’

  ‘Ye—es.’ Patricia smiled reflectively. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘And if they’re fond of you, you can do almost anything with them—both of them.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Patricia’s mind was still very much on Deborah, and she felt doubtful of the truth of this.

  ‘Think it? I know it,’ Susan assured her scornfully. ‘Have you never noticed that Miss Deborah will do most things for you, if you go about it the right way? She’s very fond of you.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Patricia repeated, but in quite a different tone this time, because she felt rather absurdly gratified.

  ‘Oh yes. She told me so herself to-night, when I was putting her to bed, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Did she?’ Patricia smiled with genuine pleasure.

  ‘So that’s why she obeys me rather more than half the time,’ is it?’

  ‘Oh yes. And Mrs. Harnby’s the same.’ Susan preferred to talk about her. ‘If she likes you, you can do pretty nearly whatever you want with her. Though of course if she doesn’t like you’—Susan chuckled—‘it’s rather a different matter.’

  ‘She’s terribly fond of Michael, isn’t she?’ Patricia said reflectively.

  ‘Yes. And he deserves it. He’s a good boy,’ Susan said, as though Michael had only just taken to long trousers.

  She went off again after that, leaving Patricia to reflect amusedly on these comments, and to feel a certain amount of good-natured envy of the lucky Susan, who would presumably spend most of her life in the service of this likeable family.

  It was after ten by the time Michael came in, and Patricia saw at once from his expression that the interview had not gone particularly well.

  He nodded to her almost casually, and sat down in the chair opposite her, feeling rather absently for his cigarette case, as he did so.

  She struck a light for him, and he said, ‘Oh—thanks,’—but still absently.

  Patricia saw that, if she wanted her curiosity satisfied, she would have to open the subject herself.

  ‘Well, did she—take it badly?’

  ‘The idea of a contested suit, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s very reluctant to “take” the idea at all, Patricia. She ha
d another suggestion to put forward.’

  ‘Had she?’ Patricia was surprised.

  ‘Yes. She suggested that I might like to divorce her, without her contesting the suit. Provided, of course, I made it worth her while.’

  ‘Michael! It’s the rankest blackmail!’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ He frowned impatiently and knocked the ash off his cigarette with unnecessary violence.

  ‘There are, however, some distinct advantages to it.’

  ‘To being blackmailed?’

  ‘If you insist on calling it that—yes.’ She saw he was not in the best of tempers. ‘If I divorce Pat, there is no question of your coming into the business at all, no necessity for our rather—piquant escapade coming to light, and it incidentally provides a much less painful explanation for Mother.’

  There was a silence while Patricia considered this.

  ‘How much does she want for being so accommodating?’ she inquired at last. ‘A life pension?’

  ‘No.’ He was remarkably curt. ‘A lump sum. And I see no reason for your knowing the amount.’

  ‘Very well.’ Patricia shrugged. She looked across at him, as he sat there still frowning. ‘What did you say you would do?’

  ‘That I would think it over, of course. One doesn’t decide on a proposition like that in the first moment.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  Again there was a silence, while she too tried to view the matter impartially.

  ‘It’s still a case of her profiting outrageously,’ she burst out at last. ‘When, all the time, each one of us knows that she was the only one who really behaved badly.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ Michael explained dryly, ‘as she herself says, she has to live on something and—’

  ‘She seems to have lived remarkably well on her wits, up to now,’ Patricia interrupted caustically. ‘I don’t think you need expend much pity on her situation.’

  ‘It isn’t a question of pity,’ he said in that rather expressionless way he used when he was moved. ‘She is—or she was—my wife, however you care to look at it. I can’t feel quite indifferent to what happens to her, and I suppose whichever way we tackle this confounded and much-discussed divorce, I should still feel bound to—protect her from absolute want.’

  ‘Would you really?’ Patricia said. And then hoped she hadn’t sounded too callous. It was useless—and perhaps would be ungenerous—even to try to point out that Pat was admirably equipped for protecting herself from absolute want.

  ‘Well, Michael—’ Patricia got up and, coming over to him, put her hand on his shoulder—’it certainly isn’t for me to urge you to take a more ungenerous view of things. This part of the affair is your own business. I expect I’ve interfered more than I should, as it is, but I didn’t like the idea of your being exploited, when I felt sure you have been at least as good to her as you have to me. Don’t think I’m being spiteful if I do point out one more thing.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘That she could quite easily take the money as soon as the decree had been pronounced—for I think she will want the best part of her profits at that point—and then raise her price pretty steeply, with the threat that she could wreck the case before the decree was made absolute.’

  His shoulder moved slightly under her hand. ‘Had you thought of that?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He gave a slight, rather bitter laugh. ‘You and I are becoming well versed in the complications of the divorce laws. I had thought of that, and if you want me to be candid, that was what made me hesitate.’

  ‘You mean that you—you’re afraid she is quite capable of that?’ Patricia spoke a little diffidently, because she felt a sudden distaste for running down another woman so thoroughly, even when she felt perfectly sure she was doing her no less than justice.

  ‘My dear—’ Michael patted her hand, and stood up in his turn—‘I know she’s capable of that. I would have knocked down anyone who suggested it a month ago, but’—he shrugged—‘that was a month ago. One can learn a great deal in a month.’

  Patricia bit her lip.

  ‘It isn’t only what I’ve said, is it?’

  ‘You? Good heavens no, Patricia. It’s nearly all what Pat herself has said,’ he explained extremely dryly.

  ‘And yet you want to be—generous?’ She glanced at him curiously.

  ‘I’m not sure that I’d call it generosity,’ He smiled slightly. ‘If ever I do have a chance of putting this damned business behind me, I’d like to feel that at least I’d done my best over it. That I didn’t take all I could in the beginning, and slip out of all I could in the end. That’s all.’

  ‘I see. It’s queer, Michael—’ she spoke slowly—‘it hasn’t embittered you at all.’

  He laughed.

  ‘I hope not,’ he said, rather lightly for him. ‘It’s only given me a marked distaste for marriage or anything to do with it.’

  If Michael had finally made up his mind the next morning, he said nothing to Patricia about it, and conversation at breakfast was more or less confined to inquiries after Isobel’s health, and Isobel’s own somewhat exhaustive questioning of what they and her darling had done the previous day.

  It was a not very satisfactory day, Patricia thought. The kind of day when you started to do something with enthusiasm—and then found yourself thinking so hard about something else that you had almost forgotten what it was you had started on. The ‘something else’ invariably of course turned out to be Pat and the pressure she was putting upon Michael.

  Well, it was no good worrying about it. The whole thing was something for him to decide, and whatever he decided, there would soon be an end to this pleasant, happy existence in Mrs. Harnby’s house. No more long talks with Michael, no more hot drinks brought by a smiling, indulgent Michael, no more outings with Michael in the car. Strange how Michael entered into everything, and how great the gap would be when she went out of Michael’s life.

  ‘Habit is an extraordinary thing,’ Patricia muttered to herself. And then she found herself wondering if all this were a habit that Michael too would regret. On the whole, she thought not. The times when he looked most carefree and happy were when he spoke of being free of this whole unfortunate muddle. And, if he meant primarily his entanglement with Pat, undoubtedly she herself was an integral part of the whole thing.

  This time Patricia was so deep in her own thoughts that she even failed to notice the sound of the front-door bell. The first warning of drama which she had was the appearance of the ever polite Julia.

  ‘Madam, it’s the lady who came about the charity subscription once before. She wouldn’t give her name, you remember.’

  ‘Charity subscription?’ Patricia looked blank, though she felt instinctively that she knew who it was.

  ‘Yes, madam. Mrs. Harnby told me afterwards that you said that was what she wanted.’

  Of course! Patricia remembered her hastily concocted story now. Then it was Pat—here again—and on no good errand, she felt sure. Not all. Julia’s excellent training could hide the fact that she felt extremely curious about something, and Patricia said hastily:

  ‘Show her in, Julia,’ And she added with what she hoped was a perfectly natural air, ‘It’s possible she will stay and have a cup of tea. Have it ready, will you? I don’t expect she would want to wait about.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’ With every appearance of having taken Patricia’s air of mild interest at its face value, Julia withdrew. And a moment, later she returned with Pat.

  This time Pat was wearing a simply cut blue crepe frock, the colour of her eyes, and the short jacket of perfectly matched smoky fox struck a note of absolute and expensive simplicity. There was not an extra line or fold or frill anywhere. She might have been a mannequin; judging by the perfection of her figure or, indeed, the coolly impersonal glance with which she regarded Patricia.

  This time Patricia decided to cut the farce of polite greeting and cigarette-smoking. As the door closed behind Julia, she inquired
curtly:

  ‘Well, what is it this time?’

  Pat, however, was a great deal better at this sort of thing than she was.

  ‘You don’t seem exactly pleased to see me,’ she remarked, taking the seat which Patricia had not offered her.

  ‘Did you expect me to be pleased?’

  ‘Not exactly. Though you could afford to be generous, you know. After all, your star is in the ascendant, while mine’—she smiled with slight but unmistakable malice—‘could be said to be setting.’

  Patricia didn’t bother to analyse that. She said dryly:

  ‘I don’t imagine you came here to discuss stars—either rising or setting.’

  ‘Well, no. It was something rather more practical, of course. The question of a small settlement, in fact.’

  ‘If you’re talking of the amount of blackmail you are levying on Michael, I’m afraid—’

  The girl interrupted with a cool, amused little laugh.

  ‘You do dislike me, don’t you? Doesn’t your fiancé mind your championing dear Michael in this fierce, protective manner?’

  ‘My fiancé? Oh—’ For a moment Patricia couldn’t think of a retort to that, and her voice trailed away.

  Her visitor laughed again in that cool, scornful way.

  ‘Ah, I thought there wasn’t very much in the fiancé story, somehow.’

  For the life of her, Patricia could not bring herself to insist that there was and had been a fiancé in all reality. And as she stood there in helpless silence, Michael’s wife went on—as though there was not even any need for Patricia to deny or confirm her guess.

  ‘Well, it isn’t very hard to see who intends to be the next Mrs. Harnby. I don’t altogether blame you, for if the story you told me was even half true, Michael must have seemed the answer to an unemployed girl’s prayer. You’d have been a fool not to use your chance. But—’

  ‘I suppose,’ interrupted Patricia coldly, now that she had regained her control, ‘it is a waste of time to tell you that you have that all wrong, and that you are merely judging me by what you yourself would have done in the circumstances. For what it is worth, I assure you that I am not going to be the next Mrs. Harnby, and I don’t wish to be.’