Makeshift Marriage

by Marjorie Lewty

  The organ burst out triumphantly and Maggie passed back down the aisle on her husband's arm, a smile fixed on her mouth. It was when they had nearly reached the church door that she saw Fiona, in one of the back pews on the groom's side of the church. She was dressed in scarlet with a tiny scarlet wisp of veiling over her shining white-gold hair. She was a widow of only a few days, but here she was wearing scarlet, the colour of triumph, not of mourning. Last night she had taunted Maggie, gloated over the fact that she would be on the spot to console Blake when he was left standing at the altar. In the event, she had witnessed his marriage to the woman she had sneered at.

  For a split second, as Maggie passed by on her husband's arm, the eyes of the two girls met and Maggie saw the venomous hostility in Fiona's lovely, petulant face. It was Maggie's moment of triumph, but she couldn't savour it; she felt terrible.

  'Come along, dears, the photographer is all ready.' Mrs Webster began to organise the various groups. Maggie walked outside into the sunlight, her arm still in Blake's, her heart down in her ivory satin shoes.

  After that she remembered very little of her wedding. She had done what she had nerved herself to do and now she was in a state of suspended shock, where nothing outside really registered. She supposed she must have smiled and said all the right things, but she moved through the hours like a girl in a dream.

  It was very warm inside the marquee in the garden. The smell of good food mingled with that of cut grass and the perfume of the women. The waitresses flitted round with their trays, champagne corks popped, the guests laughed and talked and always there was an admiring group around Blake and Maggie.

  The cake was cut and handed around, speeches were made, Blake's the shortest and most conventional of them all. When he said, 'My wife and I—' Maggie winced inside as if she was some sort of impostor.

  Mrs Webster moved happily among the crowd, basking in the success of her weeks of work and planning.

  'Everything,' she whispered triumphantly to Maggie, as the reception began to draw to its inevitable close, 'has gone splendidly. And doesn't dear Blake look super? Such an exciting-looking man, and so distinguished. You're a lucky girl, Maggie darling.'

  'Yes, aren't I?' said Maggie, smiling brilliantly.

  'Who's the glamour-girl in red that Blake's talking to?' Mrs Webster's eyes went to the long white-clothed table, where the remains of the wedding cake still rose on its pillared silver platform, dark and moist. Blake was close to Fiona, their backs towards the assembled company. His head was bent towards her and he was talking earnestly.

  'I—I don't think I know her,' Maggie faltered. 'Probably one of the family on Blake's side. His father invited so many people, I haven't met all of them yet.' She swallowed. 'Isn't it time I went up to change? We don't want to be late checking in for the plane.' She supposed they would still be flying to Hong Kong. At any rate, she would act as if they were, until Blake told her otherwise.

  But he was waiting for her when she came downstairs from her bedroom. She wore the cream suit with the cinnamon piping which her mother had fallen in love with when they shopped together. Her curly brown hair was tidy, her face composed—and only she herself knew how much effort it was to keep it that way.

  There were goodbyes to the immediate family. Mrs Webster was a little tearful now the moment of parting had come, Maggie's father a tower of strength, shaking hands with everyone. J.M. was there too, with a sister from Newcastle-on-Tyne. Maggie's brothers gathered around with their wives and the two little bridesmaids, flushed and tired but still exuberant.

  The big hired Daintier that would drive the couple to the airport stood in the drive. As they went out the guests from the marquee swarmed around them, confetti fell in showers, Ian was working away suspiciously at the back of the car. It was a very conventional wedding.

  'Goodbye—goodbye—' Maggie hugged her mother for the final time and climbed in. Blake followed. His father leaned in at the car door, his big, bluff face radiant. 'This is one of the happiest days of my life,' he told them. 'Ring me from Hong Kong, when you arrive.'

  Blake nodded. 'I'll do that.' J.M. shook his hand, patted Maggie's arm and closed the car door. The Daimler moved slowly away down the drive, with Ian's cardboard 'Just Married' sign attached to its rear bumper.

  Maggie sat back exhaustedly. She was so tired that she hardly cared what happened now, what Blake said.

  It began almost before the car had left the drive and turned into the main road. Blake leaned deliberately towards Maggie, his eyes blazing savagely into hers.

  'You damned treacherous little bitch!' he ground out between his teeth. 'I must have been bloody mad to think I could trust you. You're just a cheating, lying— —' The horrible words poured out. He must have been holding back the torrent of anger all these hours, and now it erupted over Maggie like scalding lava from a volcano. On and on it went, as if he would never stop finding words that would stab and wound. She felt as if she were being pierced by sharp daggers and she put her hands over her ears, moaning, trying to shut out the pitiless onslaught, but he dragged them away, holding them in a merciless grip so that her arms twisted painfully.

  'Don't,' she pleaded. 'Please don't—the driver—'

  She looked desperately at the back of the uniform cap behind the glass screen.

  Blake laughed nastily. 'He'll think I can't wait to get my hands on my new wife, and how right he is! I'd like to bloody well strangle you, you—' His hands were round her throat, his fingers digging into her soft flesh, his face, dark with rage, only inches from her own.

  'Please—' Her own voice sounded a long way away, thin and shrill. Outside the car window the scene lurched crazily. Then everything blacked out. Maggie had fainted.

  She opened her eyes. The car was still moving steadily among the traffic on the wide main road, the driver still sitting stolidly behind the wheel. Blake was chafing her cold hands, his face devoid of expression.

  'Are you all right?' he said indifferently, as if he thought she had been shamming. He didn't speak her name.

  She dragged herself up, one hand to the throat where it felt sore and bruised.

  'Oh, I'm fine,' she croaked with a watery smile. 'You didn't quite manage to murder me. What headlines that would have made tomorrow morning. Bride strangled in wedding car. Quite a new gimmick!' Her voice rose hysterically.

  'Shut up!' he rapped out. 'It's not funny.'

  'I didn't think it was,' she said. 'But don't they say something about making the best of a bad job? We'll both have to practise, Blake. For a start, you might apologise for your disgusting attack on me just now.'

  She groped in the pocket of her suit for a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. She had a hazy feeling that if she could avoid showing her shock and misery; if she could somehow manage to behave towards Blake as she had always done in the past, when they could tease each other and joke together, it might somehow make the immediate future more bearable.

  'Apologise?' His mouth was a thin, bitter line. 'It's you who should apologise. My God!' His lip curled contemptuously. 'To think I trusted you—that I believed you when you promised to fall in with my plan. I was straight with you, why the hell did you have to be so tricky and devious? Why did you promise—?'

  It was too much to take. 'I didn't promise,' she broke in.

  'You didn't—what the blazes are you saying?' His eyes, hard and cold now that his first anger had expressed itself, accused her. 'Of course you promised. It was all arranged. It—'

  'You arranged it all,' she pointed out reasonably. 'You just took it for granted I would do as you told me, just as I always had done when you were my boss. But you're not my boss any longer, Blake, you're my husband. And if you remember,' she went on steadily, 'I didn't promise to obey.'

  He sat back in his seat, watching her. His grey eyes were hard now and cold and she saw that his temper had worked itself out. 'No,' he said. 'Women don't promise to obey these days, but I'm looking at one woman who will obey.'


  'W-hat do you mean?'

  'I mean,' he said, 'that I intend to extract every little bit of advantage out of the situation. You chose to marry me, so you'll have to take the consequences.'

  She stared back at him, at the menace in the grey-green eyes, at the cruel line of his mouth, and it was like looking at a stranger.

  Her mouth went dry. 'Don't you—don't you want to know why I—why I acted as I did?' she stammered.

  'Not particularly.' He tossed away the suggestion with contempt. 'I've got my own ideas about that, and you'd probably lie anyway.'

  'I wouldn't,' she burst out. 'Indeed I wouldn't, Blake. I can explain what happened—'

  But could she? Could she say, 'I found out how awful Fiona was and I couldn't bear to let you be taken in by her?' Or could she say, 'J.M. told me that you'd ruin your career if you married her?' Or 'I couldn't bear to disappoint my family?'

  There was part of the truth in all those things, but in the end the explanation boiled down to one stark, simple fact that she could never tell him: 'Because I love you.'

  She stared blindly out of the car window. 'Are you going to drop me off somewhere before we get to Heathrow?' she asked dully. 'I don't suppose you want me with you any longer.'

  'Drop you off?' He spoke in a jeering voice she had never heard before. 'Not on your life, my girl. You don't get out of it as easily as that. You're coming to Hong Kong with me, as arranged. We're on our honeymoon— remember? I've booked us in at a quiet, old-fashioned hotel in Macau. Just the place for a honeymoon, they tell me, peaceful and off the beaten track. We'll have a long, wonderful weekend there before we go across to Hong Kong Island and start on the job. Don't you think that's a lovely idea, darling little wife?'

  She bit her lip. 'I—I don't know what to say. I feel I don't know you, Blake, not when you're like this.'

  His lips curled. 'Too true you don't know me! You've got a lot to learn, my dear Maggie. I hope you're going to enjoy it. Now, suppose we consider the conversation closed. I've no wish to spend the flight making light conversation.' He leaned back and shut his eyes.

  There was certainly no light conversation on the long, tedious journey. In fact, there was nothing that could be called conversation at all. Blake took charge of everything—checking in, tickets, luggage, passports. He strode through the busy terminal at Heathrow with an air of insolent arrogance that had the effect of making the less assured passengers move out of his way, so that he jumped queues shamelessly. Maggie watched him with a burning love-hate emotion and tagged along behind. Back to square one, she told herself with a feeble attempt at humour, and me being Blake's poodle, following obediently after the Great Man. At the moment she was too exhausted, physically and emotionally, to do anything else, but once they arrived, she promised herself, it would all be different.

  Somehow the hours passed. She leafed through the magazines that Blake had tossed into her lap when they took their seats on the plane. She pretended to sleep most of the time, because when her eyes were closed she didn't have to see Blake's profile, hard and grim, his head bent over the papers he had taken from his briefcase and spread out on the table in front of his seat. Most of the time he ignored her completely, except when meals were served, and then he treated her to the minimum of attention.

  He wasn't rude, he was ice-cold now, which was almost worse. Maggie began to feel like a criminal who was being escorted to some foreign prison. In spite of his furious threats, she couldn't believe that Blake really intended to harm her when they reached their destination, but little wriggles of fear became more and more frequent as the long hours dragged past.

  Twenty hours flying time (it felt more like twenty years), then a taxi-ride through colourful, crowded streets enclosed by high buildings, through a tunnel and out again within sight of the busy harbour she had glimpsed when the plane came down to land.

  The taxi took them to what looked like a quay or landing stage. Blake paid the driver and turned to Maggie. 'We get a jetfoil from here to Macau,' he said shortly,' speaking directly to her for the first time for hours. 'You wait here with the luggage and I'll see what I can book.'

  Maggie stood obediently beside their travelling cases. It was very, very hot, with a humid heat that seeped straight through her light suit, leaving her skin damp and clammy. Her head was aching and she felt confused and tired to the point of collapse.

  When a man's voice, vaguely familiar, came from behind she started violently. 'Maggie—my dear girl, but what a lucky chance that we should meet so soon! When did you arrive, and where's your new husband? I was devastated that I couldn't make it to your wedding. J.M. cabled me an invitation, but I was in the wilds of Mexico.'

  Maggie blinked against the dazzle of the sun on the blue water and saw the pleasant face of Nicholas Grant, the Corporation's consultant architect. 'Nick—how lovely! I never dreamed of meeting up with you here.' She felt a quick rush of relief, after the hours of strain and silence between herself and Blake.

  They stood on the quayside, with the heat burning down on their heads, and the water of the harbour rippling below their feet, and smiled at each other with pleasure. To Maggie, the sight of Nicholas Grant's square goodhumoured face seemed like a temporary reprieve from Blake's anger. She liked Nicholas and had enjoyed his undemanding company on the one or two dates they had had. He was always easy and kind and thoughtful, and she could never understand how his wife could bear to leave him. 'I'm afraid she didn't find me very exciting, that's all there was to it,' was the dry explanation he offered, and he never spoke of her to Maggie again, but she had seen the pain behind his crooked smile, and had understood only too well the agony of loving someone who didn't love you.

  His eyes were creased at the corners as he leaned forward and kissed her now. 'A privilege to kiss the bride,' he smiled. 'I missed the chance at your wedding. Tell me, how did everything go off?'

  'Oh, very well indeed. We had a lovely day for it.' Maggie returned his smile brilliantly.

  'Good, I'm glad. You deserve to be happy, Maggie, if ever a girl deserves it. Blake's a lucky fellow, I hope he knows it.'

  It was a conventionally light remark, but it hit Maggie where it hurt most and she winced involuntarily.

  Nicholas leaned towards her, frowning. 'Are you O.K., Maggie? You look all in.'

  She swallowed, fighting a desire to howl, just because Nicholas had noticed the way she was looking and feeling. Blake certainly hadn't, or if he had he wasn't showing any sympathy.

  She grinned wryly. 'I seem to be a rotten traveller, that's all it is. It's been a long flight and the journey isn't over yet.'

  He looked down at the luggage at her feet. 'Where are you off to now?'

  'We're going to Macau. Blake's taking me there for the weekend.'

  'Bright idea,' approved Nicholas. 'Just the place for a honeymoon—a romantic spot, and quiet. The very opposite of Hong Kong.'

  A quiet romantic spot! And Blake would have her alone there, to punish her as he wanted! She felt suddenly dizzy and swayed on her feet. Nicholas's arm shot out to steady her and he clicked his tongue worriedly. 'He's not going to have a honeymoon at all if he doesn't take better care of his wife. Where's he got to, by the way? Ah, here he is.'

  Blake came striding towards them. 'Nick Grant! What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were in Mexico.'

  The eyes of the two men met and suddenly there was a kind of tension between them that Maggie had never noticed before.

  'I was, and now I'm here,' Nicholas said shortly. 'But we won't go into that now, there are more important things to be attended to. Your new wife seems in need of care and attention.' He spoke lightly, but the set of his mouth denoted a certain criticism.

  Blake looked down at Maggie, still enclosed by Nicholas's supporting arm, and his face hardened fleetingly. 'Weddings are apt to be something of a strain, aren't they—darling?' He gave her what she recognised as a falsely loving smile and grasped her arm, pulling her out of Nicholas's grasp. 'She'll be
fine when we get to Macau. She can't wait, can you, my love?' His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her arm. 'Come along, sweetie, or the jetfoil will sail without us.' He released her arm and picked up their two travel bags. 'Thanks for your solicitude, Nick,' he said with a cool glance at the other man.

  'Shall I give you a hand with your luggage?' Nicholas offered, looking doubtfully at Maggie, as if she needed carrying too.

  'No, thanks,' Blake said shortly. 'Come along—darling.' Over his shoulder he said casually to Nicholas, 'Shall I see you again before you leave?'

  'I'm not leaving.' Nicholas's feet were planted firmly on the quay as if he were ready to resist any attempt to move him. 'Dave James is having family trouble, so I'm here to stand in for him and see the new project under way.'

  Blake didn't look pleased. 'I see, I hadn't heard. Oh well, then, we'll contact each other in the office on Monday.'

  Maggie smiled warmly at Nicholas. 'Lovely to see you, Nick, we'll meet again soon.' Reluctantly, she turned and followed Blake's tall, unyielding back.

  Meeting Nicholas had worked like a shot in the arm for Maggie and knowing he would be here in Hong Kong was reassuring. He was the kind of friend one could always turn to in trouble, and she was fairly sure she was going to be in trouble soon. But meanwhile she must act as naturally as possible and hope that Blake's anger would abate and that he would become more reasonable so that they could discuss the situation.

  On the upper deck of the jetfoil she looked out of the window and tried to take in the amazing scene in the harbour. She had never before travelled on such a modern, exotic craft, and she marvelled at the speed at which it skimmed and bumped over the choppy blue water. It seemed a miracle that it managed to avoid the amazing variety of vessels in the harbour. Maggie recognised the Chinese junks and sampans from photographs and films, but there were larger steamers, ferries, tankers, yachts, tiny busy motorboats, and on the far side, an enormous white ocean-going liner was pulling away from its berth.