Bargain Wife

by Mary Burchell

  ‘Oh—’ She could have fainted with relief and also with the fear that she had nearly betrayed herself. ‘Oh yes, of course. I didn’t realise what you—it was such an odd expression to use.’

  ‘Was it?’ He smiled and passed his arm round her, as he had earlier in the afternoon. ‘He didn’t actually make himself objectionable, did he? I would have interfered before if I’d realised—’

  ‘No oh no.’ She hastily reassured him, because she longed for nothing so much as to have the whole subject dismissed. ‘I don’t like his manner, of course and I can’t say I was pleased to see him rum up here. But it’s over now. Don’t think anything more about it, Charles. I shan’t.’

  ‘Sure?’ He turned up her face, rather abruptly she couldn’t help thinking, and gave her a worried glance.

  ‘Quite sure.’ She somehow managed to smile at him, and he seemed satisfied for the moment.

  It was not until much later that night, when she was alone in her bedroom, that she was able to face her terrible situation coolly and try to think collectedly of some way of escape. Not that cool, collected thought came naturally to her at that moment. She wandered about the bedroom, picking up things for no reason whatever and putting them down again where they didn’t belong.

  Of course he was not the slightest bit interested in the rights or wrongs of the case. It mattered less man nothing to him whether Tina or Sonia received the fortune involved. That meant that his interest could only arise from something which he expected to turn to his own advantage.

  Again the ugly word ‘blackmail’ seemed to loom very near. It couldn’t mean anything else but that he meant to make her pay over some big sum as the price of his silence. Oh, it would all be carefully wrapped up and called something else, of course, but that was the real meaning of his insistence on the ‘little talk’.

  Until that moment Tina had always had a certain surprised scorn for those people who allowed themselves to be bled of their money in order to hide some guilty secret.

  Now she saw their point of view with a new and dreadful sympathy.

  After all, if Collier would only promise silence and go, it would be worth almost any sum. She had never been rich before. She could do without anything very lavish now. So long as there was enough money to start the nursing-home on a successful basis, that beast of a man could have anything, she felt.

  Only, she knew that the whole technique of blackmailers involved a continuance of their demands. If this man went back to Canada, there was some hope of freedom. If not—

  Tina flung herself face downwards across her bed.

  If only she could tell Charles! But she couldn’t, of course. If she told him, she must face losing him, for even if he didn’t exactly take it upon himself to upbraid her for cheating him personally, he certainly would have no use for a penniless swindler. And a clumsy one at that! With the faintest, miserable smile, Tina acknowledged that there was that element about it too. She hadn’t even managed to be a successful criminal!

  She spent the next few days in a fever of nervous anticipation. She longed yet dreaded to hear from Collier, feeling that until the whole situation was clear in black and white, she could not have a moment’s rest, yet knowing that even this dread uncertainty might be better than the full realisation of his grim intentions.

  It was hard to remember sometimes that she was to be married so soon, and that, as a happy bride, she ought not to have any greater worry than a natural anxiety that everything should go well on her wedding-day. More than once she wondered if she ought to contrive to postpone the ceremony. After all, if everything else failed and Collier did betray her to Charles, through sheer spite, it was unthinkable that she should have added to her offence by marrying the victim of her cheating.

  At this point poor Tina’s head always began to swim, and she wondered unhappily if she were the greatest criminal alive. And then she would remind herself ruthlessly that the only straightforward and right thing to do was to confess to Charles.

  ‘But I can’t lose him!’ she thought despairingly. ‘He may not love me but I love him. And I could make him happy. I know I could make him happy, if I could only have the chance. I won’t throw it all away now. I’ll buy off Collier if it costs everything I have. But I will have my chance of happiness with Charles.’

  She realised that, somehow or other, she must be managing to hide her anxieties well, because no one seemed to notice anything wrong with her. Not Charles himself and he was usually observant enough nor Earle, nor even the insatiably inquisitive Audrey.

  ‘I suppose you’re feeling most frightfully excited by now,’ Audrey said, having managed to corner her in the hotel lounge one afternoon. ‘It’s only a few days, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tina agreed. And then, feeling that needed some amplifying, ‘Yes, of course I’m excited.’

  But she really just felt miserable and nervous.

  ‘You’re not going out right away, are you?’

  ‘No,’ Tina admitted cautiously. ‘Not right away. Why?’

  ‘Because Eileen’s coming this afternoon, and I do want you to meet her at last.’

  ‘Oh yes, I see. I should like that,’ Tina said, quite untruthfully. Though, as a matter of fact, Eileen had become a very minor worry in comparison with the much greater one of Philip Collier.

  ‘Yes, she wants to meet you too,’ Audrey explained.

  Tina felt inclined to ask ‘Why?’ since Eileen’s feelings towards her had never been depicted as particularly friendly, but she suppressed the ungracious question.

  ‘She says,’ Audrey went on, requiring no questions to make her amplify her statements, ‘that it’s absurd to think she hasn’t met you yet, when you’ll be living in the same house.’

  ‘I shall be in our own wing of the house most of the time,’ Tina retorted firmly, hoping that didn’t sound too much of a snub, but feeling sure now that Eileen’s desire to meet her was simply prompted by a curiosity to size up someone she regarded either as an enemy or at least as a rival.

  Not that Eileen didn’t make herself perfectly charming to Tina when they eventually met. But to Audrey her air of barely suppressed impatience seemed perpetually to suggest that she thought her young sister a fool and that, for her part, she was not one to suffer fools gladly.

  Tina felt an indignation which surprised her. Audrey could be trying, of course, but her abundant goodwill and her puppyish desire to please and to enjoy herself on rather little were deserving of something more than this chilling treatment.

  ‘Your sister has been very kind to me,’ she told Eileen with slightly more emphasis than she intended. ‘She was very friendly and made me feel at home almost as soon as I arrived here.’

  Audrey looked gratified and surprised, but Eileen laughed a little slightingly.

  ‘Oh, Audrey makes friends very easily,’ she explained disparagingly.

  ‘I can quite believe it. A very useful gift, don’t you think?’

  Eileen obviously didn’t.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘One would like a little discrimination shown.’

  ‘Meaning that Audrey didn’t display much in making friends with me?’ asked Tina amusedly, and had the satisfaction of seeing Eileen colour.

  ‘No, no, of course I didn’t mean it that way.’ The assurance was given smilingly, but Tina could see that Eileen was considerably annoyed at having her real feelings indicated even apparently in joke. ‘But Audrey hasn’t much discretion.’

  ‘We-ell, had we at that age?’ Tina inquired tolerantly, and was amusedly sure that she had thereby set Eileen guessing at just how their ages compared.

  Eileen soon abandoned the subject of Audrey, however, in favour of the more interesting one of herself and her future.

  ‘I’m looking forward so much to working in Mr. Linton’s nursing-home,’ she said. ‘He’s a wonderful man to work for, you know.’ Either intentionally or otherwise she made that sound as though Tina stood right outside anything so impo
rtant as work.

  ‘I’m sure he is.’ Tina kept that determinedly good-tempered. ‘He tells me you’re a very good nurse.’

  ‘Oh, well, it’s perfectly easy to be a good nurse on his cases. At least, I find it so. I suppose we have something the same outlook.’

  Tina supposed they had nothing of the sort, but hardly saw how she could say so.

  ‘Or else it’s a sort of what shall I say? sympathy between temperaments. We always seemed to work as well together from the very beginning.’

  That must be very satisfactory,’ Tina said coldly, wishing that Charles, who was due to fetch her some time in the next hour, would hurry up and make his appearance, or else that Audrey who seemed to lose her usual loquacity entirely in her sister’s presence would take harmless charge of the conversation once more.

  ‘Are you interested at all in hospital work?’ Eileen asked, but very much as though she thought Tina too frivolous to care about anything which occupied the serious side of her fiancé’s thoughts.

  ‘I’ve never done any nursing, if you mean that,’ Tina explained crisply. ‘But—’

  ‘Oh no, I remember now. Mr. Linton said that music was your chief interest.’ With the slight but skilful emphasis on the word ‘music’, Eileen managed to imply that, incredible though it seemed, there were still people concerning themselves with trifles while people like herself and Charles Linton got on with the real work of the world.

  ‘How dare Charles discuss me with this minx!’ was the first and furious thought which sprang into Tina’s mind. But it was banished the next moment by the voice of Charles himself speaking behind them and as he did so.

  Three heads turned simultaneously, as though jerked on a string.

  ‘I can’t imagine that I ever made such an assertion,’ He was standing there regarding them with smiling coolness. ‘I naturally assume that I am my fiancee’s chief interest and should be exceedingly disconcerted to find myself wrong.’

  Eileen, Tina saw, was considerably taken aback, though she made an admirable recovery and smiled at him with a warmth and interest which she had certainly not wasted on her young sister or Tina.

  ‘I didn’t see you come in, Charles, though I thought I kept an eye on the entrance.’

  ‘I came in by the side entrance,’ he explained, and something about that seemed to amuse him.

  Tina hoped it was not petty of her to wonder with some satisfaction whether Eileen were trying to recall just how candid she had been, and just how much of the conversation Charles was likely to have overheard. Audrey’s open countenance displayed all too obviously that this was just what she was thinking.

  ‘I was telling Miss Frayne how much I’m looking forward to working in your nursing-home,’ Eileen explained quickly, perhaps to forestall any unfortunate conversational blunder on Audrey’s part.

  ‘In her nursing-home,’ Charles corrected, quite charmingly but firmly.

  ‘Oh, but I thought—’

  ‘I’m quite sure you did. But the home was suggested, financed, and largely arranged by my fiancée. And I can’t imagine,’ he put his arm round Tina in that careless way of his, ‘that anyone of her temperament won’t eventually take a good part in helping with some of the psychologically difficult cases.’

  To Tina’s surprise, Eileen turned a sweet and enthusiastic smile on her.

  ‘But how splendid! I do think it’s marvellous of you to feel like that about it.’

  ‘Like what?’ thought Tina ungraciously. But aloud she said, ‘Of course I shall be terribly happy if I can help at all,’ and she pressed Charles’ arm a little nervously against her. She felt more disconcerted by Eileen’s approval than by her disparagement. There was so little doubt that it was put on for Charles’ benefit only.

  There was a short silence after the two girls had gone. Then Charles said:

  ‘That was the first time you had met Nurse Unsworth, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I knew the younger sister quite well already.’

  ‘I remember. How do you like her?’

  ‘The sister?’

  ‘No, no. The elder one.’

  Tina resisted a prompt desire to say that she found her detestable. She felt that here was the opportunity to say something, if any protest against her employment at the nursing-home were ever to be made. But with so little obvious grounds for objection, how was one to do it without sounding catty?

  ‘She’s extremely pretty, of course.’

  ‘But—?’

  Tina laughed and flushed slightly.

  ‘I should say she could make trouble.’

  ‘Of what sort?’

  ‘Well, what sort do you think, Charles? The usual sort, of course. On the staff of a big hospital she might be quite harmless. But with a much smaller staff in a nursing-home—’ Tina broke off. Then she said: ‘I think she has some idea that she’s going to be of special importance in the nursing-home.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Charles looked annoyed. ‘She wouldn’t be such a fool. She must know quite well that only one woman will have any special importance there.’

  ‘The matron?’ Tina suggested, quite sincerely.

  ‘The matron?’ Charles laughed and flushed unexpectedly in his turn. ‘No you, of course.’

  He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and she thought he was faintly surprised himself to find that he had said that.

  ‘Oh, Charles,’ she was at least as much surprised as he, ‘how nice of you and how unexpected.’ She smiled a little doubtfully.

  ‘Good lord, it’s not specially nice to tell one’s fiancée that, surely. And come here and tell me why on earth it should be unexpected.’ He sat down on the settee and drew her down beside him.

  ‘Well,’ she was rather at a loss to put what she meant into words, but he prompted her with an imperious ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was thinking just how we went into his. The rather unromantic kind of proposal you made to me—’

  ‘Have I got to be haunted by that damned proposal for the rest of my days?’ he exclaimed with impatience. ‘Isn’t it a bit,’ he groped for the right word with less than his usual assurance, ‘a bit out of date in our relationship?’

  ‘Is it?’ She turned to him with an eagerness she could not hide. And at that moment a polite hotel porter, unaware that never in his life had he been less welcome, came up to her and said;

  ‘You’re wanted on the telephone, madam.’

  ‘The telephone?’ For a moment Tina looked as though she had never heard of such an instrument.

  ‘Yes, madam; a Mr. Collier, I think the name was.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  WITH the suddenness of an electric shock, the man’s respectful announcement jerked Tina back from happy security to an acute realisation of her real position.

  ‘Mr. Collier?’ she repeated stupidly. And then, ‘Oh yes, of course Mr. Collier.’

  The man withdrew, and Tina, with an effort that made her physically tired, made to stand up. But Charles held her back for a moment with a puzzled smile.

  ‘Why “of course”?’ he wanted to know. ‘I thought we’d seen and heard the last of that man.’

  ‘So did I.’ She somehow managed to smile faintly. ‘But I suppose there’s something he wants to know. I said “of course” because because well, I couldn’t place the name at first, and then I remembered. I shan’t be a moment, Charles.’ She was on her feet now and managing to smile down at him quite naturally.

  ‘How about my taking the call for you?’ He grinned up at her lazily. ‘Wouldn’t that be the best way?’

  ‘Oh no. No really, Charles, it’s all right. I expect it’s some some trifle. I shan’t be long,’ she repeated a little feverishly now, and he nodded casually. If he noticed anything wrong he made no sign of the fact.

  She hurried to the telephone-box, though there was a leaden sensation about her feet that made it difficult to move quickly. And even when she had shut the door of the box behind her, she felt that there was something terribly
public about all this that someone must see her through the glass panel and be able to detect from her expression that she was agitated beyond measure.

  ‘Yes?’ She spoke rather sharply into the instrument. ‘This is Miss Frayne speaking.’

  ‘Who?’ drawled the unpleasant, familiar voice the other end. ‘Oh Miss Frayne. My little friend Miss Frayne, eh? Collier speaking.’

  ‘So I gathered.’ She made that as aloof and indifferent as possible. But when a slight silence succeeded her remark, anxiety forced her to take the initiative with an urgent, ‘Well, what do you want?’

  ‘How did you know I wanted something? That was clever of you. As a matter of fact, I’m in rather a jam and I wondered if you could help me for the sake of old times, you know.’

  Anything less like the tone of a man really asking a favour could hardly have been imagined, and Tina guessed, with a cold, unpleasant sensation, that the degree of his offensive familiarity was an indication of his belief in his power over her.

  ‘What is it you want me to do?’ She spoke coldly, but in a tone that did not preclude further conversation. At any rate it seemed to satisfy him, because he laughed slightly.

  ‘It’s rather embarrassing—’ He didn’t sound in the least embarrassed. ‘A question of—money.’

  There was a long silence. Then he said:

  ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tina said dully, I’m still here.’

  She could hardly believe that the moment had really come, that the demand of a blackmailer was being conveyed to her in smooth and faintly menacing tones over the telephone. She knew that the very essence of dealing with this sort of thing was to be firm from the first. And yet—

  ‘How much do you need?’ she heard herself saying.

  ‘Why, that’s awfully nice of you. Not even to ask about the circumstances, I mean.’

  ‘The circumstances don’t interest me,’ Tina said curtly.

  ‘No? Well, I feel bound to explain to you that I’ve been expecting a cheque from Canada and it hasn’t come. Very inconvenient, you know, when one is so far from home. And I started casting round in my mind as to who there was I could ask to accommodate me for the moment. And I thought, “Why, Miss Frayne, of course! She’s been so lucky herself. She’s bound to sympathise with someone who’s out of luck.”