Sue stood there for a moment, against the light, and said gently, “Goodnight, Harriet. You look a little better already. By tomorrow you’ll be surprised how much better it’ll all seem, whatever it is. And Marcus will know what to do to help you. He’s a great helper, is Marcus. Sleep well.”
And she closed the door, leaving Hannah lapped in warmth, aware of the sheer bliss of a hot water bottle at her feet, the hot chocolate inside her and a deep sense of peace, She had awakened eons ago, in Thaxham-on-the-Fen, to fear and misery. She was sleeping again, to a promise of a tomorrow that would bring peace and solutions and— who knew what else?
Sleepily, she put her hand out to touch the pipe that was lying on the bedside table, an old pipe like the one Marcus had been smoking in the restaurant. As she touched it, it moved, and she could smell faintly a hint of tobacco. It brought a vision of his face before her eyes so clearly that she could almost have believed he was there with her.
For someone who was so nervous of her honor, you’re a bit mixed up, she told herself severely, and fell asleep with the abrupt suddenness of a tired child.
Chapter Four
She woke to noise. Traffic thumped heavily from the main road beneath her window, milk bottles clanged as a cheerfully whistling milkman clattered his way from flat to flat and nearer she could hear dishes being moved about, a faint buzz of voices. And she felt marvelous.
She lay still, her hands clasped beneath her head, staring dreamily at the window and the thin sunny blue of the sky, enjoying the sense of well-being that filled her. Somewhere, far away, there was man called Jeffrey who was her husband, a woman who called herself Harriet but who wasn’t, and it just didn’t matter. I’m free, she thought, free as a bird, free as air, free as a cloud, free as every cliché there ever was. And I’m staying that way.
The door moved softly, and Sue peered round it, her face splitting into a wide grin as she saw Harriet was awake.
“Hello! Sleep well? Good! Breakfast is on the way. Hope you like sausages and scrambled eggs, because that’s what there is. Look, do you mind using my gear? I’ve put a brush and comb and some makeup in the bathroom for you, and your clothes are there too, all aired to a turn— will you be long? The sausages are just about ready—”
She didn’t wait for an answer to any of her questions, but gave Harriet a big woolen dressing gown she took from the back of the door, and bustled away, leaving Harriet to find her own way to the bathroom.
When she was dressed, and her hair looked as it should again, and her face was dusted with powder, her mouth lipsticked so that she could believe she looked almost as good as she felt, Harriet went along the narrow corridor to the kitchen, following the sound of dishes and the smell of toast and coffee.
Marcus was sitting sideways at the small table that was under the window, his legs thrust out so that Sue, busily cooking, was in perpetual danger of falling over them. He stood up as Harriet came in, and looked at her in such an approving way that Harriet, to her chagrin, blushed.
“Bless my soul, ma'am, but that ashtray wrought better than he knew when he introduced us. You look positive delightful.”
Well, of course she does, nit,” Sue said. “Any girl would look in a state after what happened to Harriet yesterday. But a night’s sleep and clean clothes and a bit of war paint make all the difference.”
She brought a plate of steaming food to Harriet’s place at the table, urging her along before her so that Harriet had to sit down.
“Marcus has told me what happened, Harriet— I hope you don’t mind. Look, there’s some orange juice and how do you like your coffee?”
“Black, please,” Harriet said. “And of course I don’t mind. I’m very grateful to you, really I am— you’ve been so kind— to a complete stranger—”
“Eat, don’t talk,” Sue commanded, and Harriet obeyed, enjoying the food enormously. It wasn’t until all three of them had finished eating and were sitting with second cups of coffee that Harriet spoke again.
“May I talk now?” she said to Sue, a little wickedly and now it was Sue’s turn to redden.
“Oh, lumme! Am I such a bully? I’m sorry— but I’m a great believer in creature comforts. You talk away, Harriet. I’m dying to hear everything— from you, I mean, not old Marcus here. It’s the most exciting business I’ve ever heard in all my life. Things like that never happen to me—”
“I don’t think you’d really want this to happen to you, Sue,” Harriet said soberly, stirring her coffee. “I don’t want to sound self-pitying or anything, but it was horrid, yesterday—”
Susan rested her arms on the table, recklessly shoving dirty plates to one side, and said eagerly, “Well? Tell me all about it— every bit. What’s he like, this husband of yours? Do you love him? I mean, is that the worst part of it, being rejected by a man you—”
“Susan, dear,” Marcus said softly. “Go away.”
“Eh?”
“Depart. Vamoos. Hop it. Scram. Do I make myself clear?”
“Marcus! You revolting creature! Harriet said she didn’t mind my knowing all about it—”
“Maybe not. But you’ve got a job to go to.”
“So have you! And old droopy drawers can get a girl from the pool today— I’ll tell him his favorite secretary’s got cholera or something—”
“And he’ll fire you again. No, Sue. Got to the office. I’ll take care of Harriet. I can take some time off and get away with it, and anyway—” He smiled at Harriet gently. “Harriet’s still a bit shaken, however well she looks this morning. Be a good girl now, and leave her in peace.”
“Oh, all right!” Sue said cheerfully. “I know when I’m not really wanted. Don’t let him bully you, Harriet. Not that he will really— I think he’s got a soft spot for you already— and I don’t blame him.”
Dodging the slap Marcus aimed at her round bottom, she went, shouting cheerfully, “Bye!” as she slammed the front door behind her.
“You must forgive her, Harriet,” Marcus said. “She’s an ebullient type— more energy than sense and as much tact as a bulldozer.”
“She’s a darling,” Harriet said warmly. “I haven’t been so well looked after since— oh, I don’t know when.”
There was a companionable silence for a moment, and then Harriet stood up, began collecting the dishes and taking them over to the sink.
“I’ll help you with the dishes, and then— I really must say thank you and good-bye. You’ve been marvelous, both of you, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am.—”
“Then don’t try.” Marcus began to help her, drying the dishes as she washed them, stacking them neatly with economical movements.
“And supposing I just let you say thank you and good-bye. What would you do then?”
“Get a job,” Harriet said, industriously, scouring the frying pan. “And somewhere to live— a bed-sitter probably.”
“And then what?”
“Keep the job. Look after myself.”
“And what about your husband? And the other woman?”
She smiled at him, brilliantly. “What about them? They’re hardly like to come bothering me. And I’m certainly not going to bother them. I told you last night— I’m free now. And I’m staying that way.”
He pulled her around, taking her wet hands in his, drying them on the teatowel he was holding and she let him, finding his touch remarkably pleasant.
“You foolish creature,” he said. “You absurd infant. You silly, silly girl—”
“I am not a child,” she said a little stiffly, pulling back from him. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, really I am, however silly I may have seemed last night. I was tired then, and— well, frightened, I suppose— but now I’m fine, and grateful to you, but I can manage perfectly well—”
He held onto her hands and smiled into her face. “Of course you can. But if you think you’re free you’re silly, and foolish and absurd. You’re tied to the man you married, whether you like it or not, whether someone
else is pretending to be you or not. You’re still Mrs. Darnell, in law and in fact. Do you really want to go on being Mrs. Darnell?”
She said nothing, but couldn’t look at him.
“Susan put it very bluntly, I know— but she made the point very clear. Do you love your husband?”
She pulled away properly this time and began to wipe the draining board dry, very carefully.
“I don’t see— well, that that has anything to do with—”
“Mind my own business? But I am. Very much so.”
“I don’t want to sound ill-mannered, but this is my concern, really— and I’d rather— well, keep it that way.—”
“Sue was right about something else, too. I’ve a remarkable soft spot for you already. An almost soggy spot. And I’ve decided that whatever concerns you concerns me. I always meddle with the affairs of people I care for. You should hear Sue on the subject. Very annoyed she gets about it sometimes, but she’s given up fighting me. When I make up my mind to meddle, meddle I do. And I have made up my mind about you. Harriet—”
He moved, leaning across the draining board so that she had to look at him. “Harriet. Don’t shut me out, please. I want to help you. Very much.”
And he lifted her hand, turning the palm upward, and kissed it gently, closing her fingers over the place his lips had touched. “Please?”
It really is absurd, part of her mind said, as she stood looking down at her closed fist held in both his hands. This man is a stranger. He’s been kind to you, but that’s no reason to let yourself melt like a lump of candle wax when he touches you. It’s gratitude that makes your knees feel like cotton wool, that’s all, just gratitude. You’ve had enough trouble with Jeffrey, for heaven’s sake— don’t go getting involved with another man as soon as you’re rid of one. Say thank you nicely, and good-bye, and go.
“All right,” she said, almost in a whisper. “If you really want to— meddle.” She looked at him then, and the expression on his face made her breathless. No one had ever looked at her like that, as though she were the most wonderful woman who ever existed, with such warmth, and approval—
To cover her embarrassment and the pleasure she found in it, she moved away, smoothing the tablecloth meticulously, finding a broom and sweeping the floor, and he watched her, his face full of laughter, but he didn’t attempt to touch her again.
“But you mustn’t try to make me go back to Jeffrey,” she said. “Because I couldn’t— not ever.”
“The last thing I want you to do is go back to him, to live with him. I want you to be free of him, for always. And that means going to see him —”
“No!” she almost shouted it, abandoning her sweeping of the already well-swept floor. “No. Look, you asked if I loved him. Well, I not only don’t love him— I hate him. I’ve hated him for years, years and years. He’s a bully, an abominable man who treated me like a— like a doormat, and I never had the courage to leave him because he frightened me to a jelly. I’m still frightened of him— and if I had to see him again, I’d be just as stupid and spineless as I ever was. Now I’m away from him, the only way I’ll ever be happy is to stay away from him— please, Marcus. Please, try to understand—”
“I hate him too.” And Marcus' expressive face looked so full of hate that it warmed her. “And I wouldn’t let you face him alone for anything. Listen—”
He came across the kitchen and pushed her into a chair, sitting perched on the table beside her.
“I’ve planned it all. We’ll drive down to Thaxham this morning— we can be there soon after lunch—” He rode over her attempts to interrupt. “And we’ll see this Jeffrey of yours. We’ll find out what the hell is going on, who this woman was you saw last night. And we’ll tell him you’re leaving him for good. That you want a divorce. You do, don’t you? Want a divorce?”
“I— haven’t thought about it.”
“Then it’s time you did. Do you want to be completely rid of him or not?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you want a divorce. Come on, Harriet. Get your coat.” He laughed then. “You’ll need some clothes anyway. You can pack a few of your things while we’re there. And—” He put his hands on her shoulders for a moment. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay with you all the time. I promise. You won’t have to face him alone.”
He had hired a car, he told her cheerfully as they left the flat and she couldn’t help laughing.
“How could you be so sure I’d do what you wanted me to?”
“I told you,” he said airily. “I’d made up my mind.”
He was a skilled driver, manipulating the small fast car through the heavy London traffic with a sublime disregard for other drivers’ rights of way, shooting away from traffic lights with a speed that almost alarmed her. But she relaxed, and let herself enjoy the sense of security his calm assumption of male superiority created in her. It was ever agreeable to lean on someone as she was coming to lean on him, very agreeable indeed.
When they reached the main London-Southend road, he pulled a map from the glove compartment and thrust it at her.
“Navigate, Harriet, will you? I’ve marked a route— B road all the way. Even Essex and Suffolk can be attractive at this time of the year— and we might as well have a pleasant journey.”
And pleasant it was. The sky remained blue, and the sunshine gave the countryside the look of April rather than late February. There were even a few early catkins in the hedges, and when Harriet caught a glimpse of white on a bank beside the lane they were traveling along, he stopped the car and backed up, so they could get out and pick the snowdrops she had found.
And when they had collected the small bunch, he tucked it into the buttonhole of her coat and told her that the green of the frail stems was no greener than her eyes, and she giggled like a schoolgirl. By the time they reached a small town about fifteen miles south of Thaxham, Harriet had to acknowledge a fact that she had been trying to avoid all morning.
“I was halfway in love with him before we left London,” she told herself wryly. “And now I’m three quarters gone, God help me by the time we get to Thaxham. Idiotic woman, Harriet Darnell. Idiotic happy woman—” and she looked sideways at him, at the sharp line of his profile, and he turned his head and smiled companionably at her before returning his attention to the road. Harriet snuggled into her coat, her nose against the snowdrops in her lapel, and let herself a slide a little farther into the last quartersof complete abandonment to her feelings.
They lunched at Saxmundham, at a small and perfect eighteenth-century pub, giggling like children at the elderly and doddering waiter who brought them tomato soup and grilled plaice and ice-cream, making up scurrilous stories about the other lunchers in the tiny dining room, red-faced farmers and shrill-voiced country women who would have been startled to hear the lurid pasts that Marcus invented for them.
Even when they returned to the car and started on the last fifteen miles that would bring them to Thaxham, Harriet’s mood of elation remained with her. But as they left the narrow streets of the town behind them and drove out onto the flat straight roads, the smell of the salt marshes filled her nose and memory came rushing back and with it, fear.
The weather had changed too, during lunch. The blue had gone from the sky, to be replaced by shreds of gray scudding clouds, and the wind shrilled across the marshes, getting into the car despite its heater, so that Harriet shivered and fell silent.
“The sooner we get there, the sooner we’ll get away,” Marcus said and smiled at her, dropping one hand from the wheel to pat her arm. “Think about tonight, Harriet. We’ll go out, shall we? We’ll go to the Player’s Theatre and sing bawdy music-hall songs and drink beer— you’ll enjoy that. Think about that instead of Jeffrey.”
“I’ll try,” she said in a small voice, and did. But all she could think of was Jeffrey, the way he would look at her, what he would say, how his voice would sound—
The road Marcus had chosen would bring them to
the house without going through the village and for that she was obscurely grateful. She knew few enough people in the village and cared little for them, but she didn’t want to be seen driving through the streets with a stranger. And there was that business about the train journey, too. Perhaps Joe had seen her; would know now she hadn’t paid for a train ticket last night. She worried absurdly about her stolen journey, transferring all her anxiety to her guilt in a pathetic attempt to prevent herself from thinking more about Jeffrey.
“You’ll have to direct me,” Marcus said at length, as the car reached the crossroads where the garage was.
“Yes,” Harriet said, with an effort. “Yes, of course— the bicycle is still there.”
“Mmm?”
“The bicycle I borrowed,” she explained. “Yesterday. It’s still outside the garage— look, turn left here. The house is just down this lane— on the right—”
He stopped the car a few yards short of the gate, and as the engine died, the silence of the gray landscape filled her and, to her shame, she began to shiver, again on the edge of tears.
Marcus turned to her, putting one arm around her shoulders, holding her close.
“Don’t, my love. Don’t,” he murmured. “I’m here— remember? No one can hurt you—”
She looked up at him, at the face so close to her own, and tried to smile, feeling her lips waver. He bent his head and kissed her, gently at first, and then more urgently. And after a brief moment in which she tried to resist, she reponded, clinging to him desperately.
When she pulled away from him, still shaking, both for a very different reason now, she said breathlessly, “This is crazy—”
“Isn’t it?” he said softly, and kissed her again. And again. “Falling in love with damsels in distress must be an occupational hazard with rescuers. I wouldn’t know. I never fell in love before.”
“Nor I.” she whispered, and raised her face for more kisses, holding his head in her hands, running her fingers through his crisp hair.
“Stupid man, Darnell must be,” Marcus said. “Not loving you— having you, and not loving you—”
The House on the Fen Page 4