Bargain Wife

by Mary Burchell

  ‘Oh, Charles—’ She laughed protestingly. But she made no protest when he drew her against him and looked down at her more seriously.

  ‘You think I don’t mean all this, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know quite what to think,’ Tina admitted rather helplessly. ‘I can’t imagine that anyone suggested marriage in quite this weird way before.’

  ‘But you won’t turn it down on that alone?’ He was quite grave now. ‘I do want to marry you, Sonia.’ She started at the unfamiliar name. ‘That is true from the bottom of my heart.’

  She looked at him then, and if her smile was quizzical, it was rather sweet too.

  ‘I don’t think your heart has much to do with it, Charles,’ she said.

  ‘As much of it as ever rules my head,’ he assured her lightly. ‘Please say you’ll marry me.’

  She didn’t think the plea came very easily from him. He was much more used to insisting. But there was urgency in the pressure of the arm which held her. He did want to marry her. For whatever reasons and Tina admitted that, even now, these were not particularly clear he did want to marry her. And she?

  Tina tried not to think how attractive she found that dark, imperious face which was so near to hers. His sheer animal attraction and the compelling force of his personality must not be allowed to have anything to do with her decision, because for whatever reason he wished to marry her it certainly was not that he loved her, and therefore she must not lose her head about him.

  Wise decision but how singularly difficult to put into execution! Particularly in the last half-hour. Try as she would to remember that the really important things were the return of the legacy to Charles, the certainty that his work should go on unhampered, the relinquishing of a position which she had so dishonestly acquired she knew that the thought which was really swaying her resolution was:

  This is the most impossible and wonderful and overwhelming thing that has ever happened to me! If I go with him I shall often be angry and sometimes afraid, but I shall never again be without colour and warmth and the wonderful flame of his vitality. This hasn’t anything to do with it, of course, but—

  ‘I’ll marry you, Charles,’ she said in a small, firm voice which she hardly recognised for her own. And then he kissed her, and she knew that when he had said, ‘I’m very fond of you,’ he had stated the exact truth. He was not less than fond of her and certainly no more.

  It was he who should really have shattered the moment first with his instinctive distrust of anything purely romantic, but in point of fact it was she who, having returned his kiss, said:

  ‘And now shall we go and look at the house?’

  She thought for a moment that there was something faintly disconcerted about his laugh. Or perhaps it was only that she puzzled him a little. At any rate, his answer came promptly enough.

  ‘You think of everything, my dear and in the right order. You’ll make the perfect doctor’s wife.’

  Tina said nothing to that, possibly because she was startled to hear herself described, in so many words, as anyone’s wife.

  They drove slowly up the well-kept drive. Evidently the place had not been empty long enough to fall into disrepair, and certainly the brightness of the knocker and the many windows suggested that the caretaker had a serious regard for the cordial invitation ‘to view at any time’ which adorned the notice-board, stating that the place was for sale.

  A knock at the bright knocker brought a diminutive, bustling little woman in black to the door, and her whole efficient manner indicated that, at whatever eccentric time one had chosen ‘to view’, she would have been ready and prepared for the inspection.

  ‘You want to view the house,’ she said, more as a statement than a question, and it was borne in on Tina that this was not the first time that Charles had been here.

  As the little woman in black led the way across the hall, Tina slipped her arm into Charles’ and pulled him back beside her.

  ‘Did you bring me here on purpose today?’ she asked somewhat dryly. But he glanced down at her with unusually boyish honesty and shook his head.

  ‘No. I can’t keep away from the place,’ he stated quite simply. ‘I suppose I just chose this way because I always like to take the chance of passing and making sure that no one else has bought it yet.’

  ‘I see.’ Tina felt her lips twitch with an irresistible smile. Just so must he have flattened a schoolboy nose against shop-windows long ago while he coveted a train or a Meccano set for Christmas. It was a nice, ingenuous streak she had not thought of discovering in Charles, and her heart warmed to him the more.

  They ‘viewed’ the house with a thoroughness dictated by their guide as much as by their own inclination. She had no intention that any of its beauties should be overlooked, and she determinedly regaled them with the full history of its late owners, a certain ‘Sir Thomas and his lady’.

  ‘Brought her here as a bride, he did, on the day our present Queen was born,’ the one-time housekeeper explained with a sigh. ‘Ah, that was a happy day, that was.’

  Tina didn’t like to ask whether its happiness was due to the birth of our present Queen or the advent of Sir Thomas and his bride, so she murmured something sympathetic which could pass for either agreement or mere comment.

  But on the subject of the house itself she could be and was unreservedly enthusiastic.

  It was roomy and gracious and almost amusingly cheerful. Tina felt she could hardly have imagined a more delightful place for harassed or nervous people trying to regain their emotional balance after illness. Incidentally—and she supposed as a somewhat secondary consideration—she could not have imagined a place where she herself (would have more readily decided to live. That was if she and Charles were going to live here too. She glanced at him, wondering quite how she could put that question, and as she did so, he took her arm in his turn, as though he wished to engage her very special attention.

  ‘You see how this small wing is more or less shut away from the rest of the house?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, we could have our quarters there—really like a flat of our own.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tina said again. And for the first time or so it seemed to her she realised that she had indeed committed herself to marrying Charles, to living with him here in this very house probably. The whole thing was suddenly real and clear-cut. She was, she supposed, a fiancée, looking over her future home.

  By the time they left, Tina had made up her mind that the house should be theirs. It seemed an afternoon for quick and improbable decisions, and if she could decide on the spur of the moment to do anything so mad as marry Charles, there was surely nothing incongruous in deciding to buy a large country house within twenty-five miles of London.

  Besides, the real point was that Charles’ own money would be used for Charles’ especial pleasure.

  Over tea they discussed details. Whether the price of the house were reasonable (which it was) how long it would take to furnish the place what staff would be needed, and so on.

  Tina began to wonder if she had always more or less hankered after just such a project as this, or whether it was simply that Charles had the faculty of imparting his own enthusiasm to anyone he wished to interest.

  Once or twice she experienced a flat, left-out-in-the-cold sensation, because it was a little disconcerting that one’s fiancé if she could ever think of Charles like that should seem so much more interested in his future home than his future bride.

  She was not aware of having given away her feelings in her manner. But there was not much that Charles’ observant eyes missed, and on the way home he suddenly said, as though continuing a conversation they had already started:

  ‘And at this point, of course, you’re feeling a bit dismayed?’

  She smiled slightly.

  ‘I shouldn’t put it at “dismayed”, Charles.’

  ‘A little worried then wondering if you have been stampeded into some crazy project which doesn
’t promise much for you personally.’

  ‘And have I?’ she queried, a trifle dryly. ‘Been stampeded, I mean, into the crazy project, etc.?’

  He gave her an unusually troubled glance, and drove on in silence for a few moments. Then he said rather carefully:

  ‘If you feel I am behaving badly or unfairly over this, you can still withdraw, you know.’

  ‘And leave your beautiful project in ruins?’

  The convalescent home is not the only thing to be considered.’ He appeared to be deeply concerned with his driving.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘I’m not so sure of the “of course not”,’ she told him, but not unkindly. ‘There is one question I want to ask, and I should like a plain and unbantering reply to it.’

  ‘You shall have it.’

  ‘Is your chief reason for marrying me the fact that you can have your convalescent home that way?’

  The plain and unbantering reply to that is No.’

  She was conscious of a genuine and pleasurable surprise at that and she smiled a little grimly to find she was so easily pleased.

  ‘But if I had not had the money?’

  ‘Must you ask that one?’

  ‘It’s a rather obvious continuation of the first question. ‘But I’ll change it if you like. What is your chief reason for wanting to marry me?’

  ‘The fact that I like you enormously.’

  She wondered, almost dispassionately, if he were afraid of the word ‘love’ or deliberately avoided it. Aloud she said:

  ‘But not enough to marry me without the money, I take it?’ She found that she could smile rather quizzically about that, and it seemed that it was his turn to be serious. She saw his mouth set obstinately.

  ‘Do you want the brutal truth?’

  ‘The brutal truth,’ she assured him.

  ‘Then I’m damned if I’ll marry anyone without enough money to help found my home, but—’ and suddenly that almost irresistible smile of his flashed out ‘I’m extraordinarily glad that you happen to be the one with it.’

  ‘I see.’ Tina nodded with a reflective smile. ‘Then I may regard myself more or less as a sugared pill the sugar perfectly satisfactory, and the pill not so bad when one gets to it?’

  She laughed. But he didn’t. In fact, with an unexpectedly troubled expression, he drew the car to a standstill by the side of the road.

  ‘We’ve got this all on a wrong basis somewhere.’

  ‘Have we?’

  ‘You know we have. It’s my fault. I thought I could carry it off with a light hand that if I did it with all solemnity, the whole thing would sound too fantastic for acceptance.’

  ‘But then you are a little afraid of serious things, Charles, aren’t you?’ she said quietly. ‘In anything but your work, I mean.’

  ‘No.’ He frowned doubtfully. I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m exactly afraid of anything.’

  She laughed at that and said, quite irrelevantly:

  ‘Charles, you must have been a nice little boy.’

  ‘Why?’ He smiled then, but the doubtful expression remained.

  ‘Why? Oh, I couldn’t explain just now. It would take too long. Besides, we were talking of something more vital. The fact that, on reflection, you don’t much like the way you handled your proposal.’

  ‘No I should think not. Do you?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Hm. In fact, I succeeded in sounding extremely implausible—’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘While you, if I’m not much mistaken, extracted an unnecessary amount of amusement from the whole thing.’

  She smiled demurely and said:

  ‘What do you want to do about it? Begin all over again?’

  His laughing eyes met hers, and he nodded.

  ‘Just that. Sonia I wish you had another name, but you haven’t, so it can’t be helped I think you’re a darling, and have quite the nicest sense of humour I have ever come across. I wish you would marry me, because you would be a delightful person to live with—’

  ‘Be honest! Don’t forget the money!’

  I’m coming to that. But because I am a one-idea man, with a fanatical passion for my work, I must marry someone who can help me—’

  ‘Financially?’

  ‘Well, of course, financially. I don’t need any other kind of help with my work,’ he assured her promptly. ‘But because of what I said it is terribly important, too, that you have money.’

  ‘Go on finish it. “And in fact you wouldn’t have asked me if I hadn’t had it.” ’

  ‘I’m not going to put that into words,’ he said, with a touch of unexpected firmness. And at that she laughed and laughed.

  He took her in his arms with a suddenness which seemed to surprise him as much as her.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘Because I have the nicest sense of humour, of course.’

  He kissed her once or twice not at all as he had kissed her before.

  ‘Will you marry me, darling?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Why?’ The question was abrupt, and he held her a little away from him, so that he could look at her.

  ‘Because I think you’re a darling, and have the nicest sense of humour though one wouldn’t think so at the moment and might be delightful to live with, and—’

  ‘You little devil,’ he said slowly, smiling so that there seemed a light behind his dark eyes. ‘You’re still laughing at me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted slowly. I like it to a ridiculous degree. And now I think we’ll drive on.’

  Which they did, at a good pace, until they reached the outskirts of London once more.

  She was faintly surprised that even later, over dinner, he made no inquiries about her choice of an engagement ring or her ideas for their wedding. The smaller, picturesque details seemed to hold little interest for him.

  ‘And I shouldn’t be very much surprised,’ reflected Tina without rancour, ‘if he forgot altogether about getting me a ring.’

  But when he left her that evening there was something extremely possessive, she thought, about his goodnight kiss. He was not prepared or even qualified, she supposed to play the romantic lover, but he certainly considered that she had become very much his affair. And that perhaps was all one could expect from a man of Charles’ temperament.

  When he had gone and she was alone at last, Tina went almost immediately to her room, anxious to think over quietly the extraordinary developments of the day.

  But she found that, even alone, and with no more to distract her attention than the unexciting surroundings of a conventional hotel bedroom, she was still quite unable to think of the new situation in clear-cut terms.

  Certainly she had solved the problem of how to arrange that at least part of Charles’ money should be spent as he wished. So .much at any rate was clear and it soothed her conscience considerably to reflect on that. But in arranging that, she had committed herself to spending the rest of her life or, on the most cynical estimate, a part of her life, in his company.

  By all the usual arguments she should have been dismayed by the prospect. And she was not. That was the part she found so hard to realise.

  ‘I suppose,’ Tina told herself, ‘Charles is the kind of man one could fall in love with rather easily.’

  And that was the nearest she came to admitting that she had fallen in love with him, and that she was both scared and entranced by the thought of marrying him.

  Characteristically, although he put in no appearance the next day, she received no loving message either by telephone or post. Evidently he was not going to pretend to any feelings he did not possess. If the casual affection cousinly or otherwise which he had for her was not enough, then she must find it out for herself now, before it was too late.

  ‘He isn’t going to be the kind of lover who bores by excessive devotion,’ thought Tina
, not without amusement. And when he did telephone to her the following morning, she hoped that her tone conveyed a casual self-possession to match his own. ‘

  It’s about your ring,’ he explained, as though it were necessary to give some reason for having telephoned to her.

  ‘My ring?’

  ‘Yes. Engagement ring, you know. It’s customary to have one on these occasions.’

  ‘Oh yes of course. Did you want to arrange to come up to town and help me choose it?’ She knew that he was speaking from the hospital just outside London where most of his work was done.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t do that.’ He sounded faintly absent, as though they were discussing something of minor importance, or as though his thoughts were very much on something else. ‘I shall be operating all today and probably tomorrow too. We’ve had a whole lot of new patients in.’

  ‘I don’t mind waiting.’

  ‘Oh why should you? I thought I would telephone Petersen’s in Hatton Garden. They know met here, and you can go in and choose what you like.’

  She didn’t answer for a moment, and he said:

  ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Tina suppressed a desire to answer extremely sharply. How could he be so idiotically tactless? Fancy walking in and buying your own engagement ring!

  ‘You will be able to find it, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No,’ Tina said, with an irony which she hoped travelled over the telephone wires. ‘There’s nothing wrong.’

  He laughed slightly.

  ‘You’re marrying a busy surgeon, you know,’ he told her.

  ‘I know.’ She felt faintly ashamed, though she told herself annoyedly that it was he who should feel ashamed.

  ‘Then that’s arranged?’ There was hardly any question implied in his tone. ‘I hope to be back in town at the beginning of next week. I’ll ring you then. Goodbye, my dear. Choose something you really like.’

  And before she could say that she was not so sure after all that she wanted an engagement ring, he had rung off.

  Tina slowly replaced the receiver with a hand that shook slightly but whether with justifiable anger or small-minded pique she was not quite sure.