by Susan Barrie
THE MARRIAGE WHEEL
by
Susan Barrie
Humphrey Lestrode had not wanted a female chauffeur, and he had only taken on Frederica Wells because at the time he had no alternative. But it was the behaviour of her family that was causing Frederica the most embarrassment in her new job!
CHAPTER ONE
Frederica felt that the woman behind the desk was regarding her a trifle dubiously, and she said anxiously that she was quite sure she could satisfy Mr. Lestrode if he would only have the courage to engage her. After all, she had driven Lady Allerdale for two years, and as Lady Allerdale’s testimonial proved, she had given excellent service. She had been responsible for the care and maintenance of an old-fashioned Daimler car that would have tested the temper of a good many men with more actual driving experience if they had been entrusted with the charge of such an unwieldy vehicle.
But still the woman behind the desk looked unconvinced.
“And Lady Allerdale,” she said, “has gone abroad? That is the only reason why you are not now working for her?”
Frederica nodded eagerly.
“That is the only reason. She has gone to live with her sister in the South of France, and it wasn’t very convenient to take me with her. Besides, the car was getting a bit too old ... and it used up petrol like a thirsty horse. Lady Allerdale decided to sell it.”
It would have been more strictly accurate if she had stated that her recent employer had parted with the Daimler without receiving very much for it ... It was that kind of car.
The woman in the agency nodded.
“Of course, we are quite familiar with Lady Allerdale,” she admitted. “We have supplied her with staff for a number of years. But Mr. Lestrode is rather a different matter ... I mean, you would find him a very different type of employer from Lady Allerdale. He,” she hesitated for a few moments, groping for words, “he is a business gentleman with interests on the Continent, and in addition he travels about quite a lot in this country. He has just bought Farthing Hall in Gloucestershire and is in the process of settling down there at the moment. You would be required to drive him and look after any other cars he owns.”
“And you say he has just bought a new Daimler V-8?”
“Yes.” Once again the dubious expression. “But apart from anything else, I’m sure Lady Allerdale disliked travelling at speed, and Mr. Lestrode is entirely the opposite ... I mean, I can’t imagine him crawling along at twenty miles an hour, or even being particularly considerate,” with honesty. “He is a slightly impetuous gentleman with a very dominating personality.”
“If he’s impetuous,” Frederica argued persuasively, “he might be willing to take a chance on me. And I don’t always drive at twenty miles an hour,” she added. “I’ve touched a hundred and twenty in my sister Rosaleen’s boy-friend’s car.
“Yes, but—”
Frederica leaned across the desk towards her.
“Please,” she urged. “It’s so difficult for a girl like me, who can only drive, and can’t even do shorthand, to get a job I know I’m going to like. And Mr. Lestrode can always give me the sack if I don’t suit him ... And I’m not in the least likely to smash him up, or anything like that!”
Her face was eager, and vivid as a flower, framed in long bright hair. It was such wonderfully bright hair that it could have been chestnut in one light and deep gold in another. But it made her look very young, and her eyes were a clear green that affected anyone who gazed at her for long with the impression that they were swimming about in light green water.
She used make-up sparingly, but it increased her air of being extremely feminine—and rather a useless female type at that. She was slenderly built, and her bones were small ... Her hands, on the wheel of a car, would look like a couple of pale butterflies come to rest there. Try as hard as she would the woman in the agency simply could not see her lying under a car with grease dripping on her, or jacking up a wheel in order to change a tyre.
But Lady Allerdale had given her a wonderful reference, and was even willing to enter into correspondence with any prospective future employer on the subject of the chauffeuse she had been forced to dispense with.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” the agency clerk said with unusual impulsiveness, because Frederica Wells occasionally affected otherwise rational and somewhat conservative people in that way. “I’ll take a chance on you, because Mr. Lestrode has made it rather easy for me to do so. He doesn’t want to interview prospective employees, and he does want someone in rather a hurry ... and at the moment we’re rather short of suitable applicants. He has said nothing about objecting to a member of the opposite sex driving him, and he has entrusted us with the power to engage a qualified chauffeur on his behalf. You have had two years’ experience, and if you honestly think you can cope...” an extremely doubtful note in her voice nevertheless.
“I’m absolutely certain I can cope,” Frederica assured her, thrusting the long bright hair back with her hand. “In fact, I know I can!”
“Despite the fact that you’re accustomed to an old-fashioned car?”
“Despite that.”
“You may find Mr. Lestrode... a difficult employer!”
“I don’t mind!”
“Certainly an exacting one.”
“I don’t mind,” Frederica repeated happily. “Lady Allerdale was not always easy to handle, and she was very fussy about the way the car was kept. I had to maintain it at the pitch of perfection ... And I’m a pretty good mechanic, although I say it myself.” She enquired a trifle more breathlessly: “You did say there’s a cottage that goes with the job, didn’t you? I need somewhere for my family to live. In fact, I’ve got to have somewhere for them to live!”
“Your family?”
“My mother and sister. They’re living in a flat in Notting Hill at the moment, but it isn’t at all satisfactory, and the rent’s much too high. That’s why it’s so important that there should be a cottage.”
“There is a cottage,” the clerk agreed, “but whether it’s furnished or not I’m afraid I can’t tell you. However, the salary Mr. Lestrode is offering is extremely generous—”
“How much?” Frederica enquired in a whisper.
Her curiosity was satisfied, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Marvellous! I’ve simply got to get this job.”
Her interrogator felt a return of her nervousness. “In connection with the cottage,” she began. “Is it likely that your mother and sister would be willing to help in the house if Mr. Lestrode’s housekeeper required extra help?”
Frederica seemed definitely taken aback by this suggestion. If the woman on the other side of the desk had been able to appreciate why she would have felt even more uneasy than she did feel.
“Well,” in a distinctly dubious tone, “I suppose they could, in an emergency.”
“Your sister hasn’t already got a job?”
“No.” Frederica looked as if this was strange language to her. “She’s never had a job in her life.”
“Then she’s much younger than you?”
“No, older.”
The clerk decided to give it up, and to hope for the best. She was doing a very unwise thing, she felt reasonably certain, and it was quite possible it would recoil on herself. She had been at the agency for fifteen years, and she thought she was a fairly shrewd judge of character ... but there was something about this young woman that defeated her, and made her feel a little helpless at the same time.
She wanted to help her ... and she quite liked her. She felt sorry for that wide-eyed, curious innocence of hers, and her confident belief in her own ability. It was quite likely that Mr. Lestrode would be absolutely furious when he found himself sa
ddled—very likely very temporarily indeed!—with a female chauffeur, and would telephone the agency in a fury, demanding that a substitute be sent along without delay.
But at the moment there was no substitute, and there was always the possibility that the girl would prove satisfactory. But it might be wiser if she refrained from making a precipitate move into the cottage ... at any rate until she had had her first interview with Humphrey Lestrode.
“How soon do I start?” Frederica asked, longing to get home, and break the news to her family. “And is there someone at the other end who can get the cottage ready for us? If there isn’t any furniture that goes with it we have some—”
The other woman spoke to her very gently.
“If I were you, my dear,” she said, “I’d wait until you get there and find out exactly what your duties are before you think about moving into the cottage. There will be plenty of time when you’ve decided whether or not you’re going to like the job, and whether, if it comes to that, you’ll like living in Gloucestershire.”
“Oh, but I will,” Frederica assured her, with an expression on her face that silenced the other woman ... and surprised her at the same time. For Frederica’s chin was resolute, and her light green eyes that sparkled as if sunshine was shining on ice-green water were almost equally intent and determined. “I’ve had a similar job before, and I know what to do. I shall do my best to prove to Mr. Lestrode that you did the right thing when you engaged me!”
CHAPTER TWO
Frederica’s mother and sister were toasting crumpets in front of the electric fire in the dismal sitting-room of their flat when Frederica arrived home to join them.
Frederica’s mother had been out shopping and had bought herself a hat and paid five guineas for it. It was a ridiculous, flowery confection that would suit Electra Wells down to the ground when she appeared in it for Easter, wearing it with one of her slender suits and the accompaniment of trim, expensive shoes and immaculate gloves. She had a heart-shaped face that was so like Frederica’s vivid one that they could have passed for sisters, except that Frederica was fair and her mother had an exquisite Italian darkness—and was the daughter of an equally exquisite Italian mother.
Rosaleen, on the other hand, was like an April day—all sunshine and smiles. Her complexion made ordinary people think of alabaster vases, and when she blushed they thought of rose gardens. Her eyes were darkly blue and beautiful—and she had little teeth that bit into apples with a delightful crunchy sound, the very thing they were doing now as she watched her mother buttering the crumpets.
“Well, darling,” Mrs. Wells enquired, looking up at her younger daughter, “did you get the job?”
“Yes; I got it.”
Frederica explained all that it would mean, and Rosaleen was quick to see the advantages of living in the country almost on top of a large country house. Mrs. Wells, who made a practice of being absolutely forthright and could see no reason why she should ever pretend about anything, immediately seized upon the obvious advantage of her daughter acquiring a bachelor for an employer ... and at least Frederica knew that Humphrey Lestrode was a bachelor.
“Let me see now,” Electra murmured, clasping both hands together beneath her chin, and exercising her excellent memory. “There used to be a Richard Lestrode who hunted with your father, and I believe he had a place in Gloucestershire ... or was it Huntingdonshire?”
“Mr. Lestrode has only just bought Farthing Hall,” Frederica explained patiently.
“Oh, has he, darling? Now, isn’t that interesting?” Electra’s vivid and singularly youthful face acquired an extra vividness. “When an unmarried man takes over a new house and has to furnish it he’s always glad to listen to advice from experts. I flatter myself that I know all there is to know about furnishing and settling down in a new home, and if we’re to live near him I can be of the utmost assistance ... and Rosaleen, too. You know she took that course in modern decor, and I’m sure she’d be delighted to let Mr. Lestrode have the benefit of all the knowledge she acquired on the subject, wouldn’t you, darling?” addressing her eldest daughter.
Rosaleen deposited her apple core in the waste-paper basket and agreed that it would be highly diversionary, especially if Mr. Lestrode was under forty and unmarried.
“I’m willing to teach him everything I know if he’s good-looking,” she remarked, licking the butter off a crumpet. “I’ll even choose his colour-schemes for him, and select his furniture if he likes to give me carte blanche in the way of a blank cheque.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Frederica said curtly, with an upsurge of impatience ... for Rosaleen, she knew, was quite capable of putting some such suggestion to Mr. Lestrode if she ever found herself installed in the cottage. “For one thing, I haven’t the least idea whether he’s married or not, and for another, the furnishing of his house will be nothing to do with us.”
Rosaleen smiled at her impishly.
“You think not? But then you don’t think along the same lines as I do, do you?”
Electra talked animatedly over tea, painting pictures of their life in the country, on the Farthing Hall estate, and reminding them that she had lived the better part of her life amidst rural surroundings.
“I loathe town life,” she declared, “and my complexion is always several degrees fairer in a good clean atmosphere. I shall go out tomorrow and buy curtain materials for the cottage, and when you find out just how much furniture there is there already we’ll move in. Of course, if there isn’t any furniture we’ll have to go to sales and see what we can pick up... And we might have a few nice pieces on hire-purchase. Oh, we’ll manage!” she declared, with airy optimism. “Fortunately, we’ve got all that silver Uncle Joe left us ... We can get that out of store.”
“I wouldn’t do anything at all, Mother,” Frederica advised her, “until I’ve actually met Mr. Lestrode, and we know what the position is.”
But Mrs. Wells could see no reason for cautious behaviour, and she spent the evening discussing their future plans. Frederica went to bed early, and the next morning she devoted to pressing her clothes and packing some of them in a suitcase. The bulk of her possessions she determined to leave behind in the Notting Hill flat, despite constant urgings from her mother to have confidence in her own abilities and take everything with her on her first trip to Farthing Hall.
“If you arrive with a lot of luggage Mr. Lestrode won’t dare to send you packing, however unsuitable he might think you,” she predicted. “In any case, he’ll think twice about deciding you really won’t do, especially if you come over all feminine and appeal to him nicely. Tell him you’re much stronger than you look, and that, above all, you’re willing! So many people nowadays are not at all willing.”
It might have been by accident that Frederica’s glance alighted on her mother’s beautifully kept hands, and she wondered whether willingness, according to her lights, included ruining one’s nails with a tool-kit, and risking one’s hair-do beneath the bonnet of a car.
In connection with her own hair she took a resolution. It had to be neater, less obvious, as it were ... And before she left London she had it cut short and styled in a manner that made her look more sophisticated and deprived her of a little of her youth, but was very becoming all the same. She also bought herself a couple of dresses that were rather like uniform dresses, with neat collars and cuffs, and a slim coat to wear over them when the weather was cold.
At the moment it was spring ... very early spring, and a coat was still necessary. The one she bought prevented her having a bulky appearance at the wheel of a car, and was commendably serviceable and trim.
It had been arranged that she should leave London by the afternoon train, and she arrived in Gloucestershire shortly after darkness clamped down over a rolling countryside. A car driven by a local taxi-man took her to Farthing Hall, and through the open windows of the taxi she could smell the sweetness of the coming of spring ... exciting whiffs of daffodil-starred hedgerows, early primro
ses hidden in the dusk, and violets. She thought of some lines about the West Country that she had learned as a child: “Apple orchards blossom there, and the air’s like wine...”
The air was certainly like wine, despite the fact that it was also cold. She missed her comfortable old windcheater that she had been wearing for some time, and found the brief collar of her tailored coat a little inadequate.
They turned in at a pair of gates that could only be vaguely seen in the star-pricked gloom, and moved swiftly up a winding drive. Only one or two lights streamed from the house, and the main bulk of it looked very dark.
She paid the taxi-man, and he carried her cases to the foot of the short flight of steps that led up to the front door. The latter was opened suddenly, and the housekeeper stood there, young and unusually smart in a tailored silk dress, and with beautifully managed hair coiled elegantly about her head.
She was unexpectedly friendly, however.
“Oh, come in,” she said. “You’re the new chauffeur, aren’t you? I heard from the agency that you’re the wrong sex, but apparently your qualifications are so exceptional that we can only hope Mr. Lestrode won’t mind your not being a man.”
Frederica, who was feeling lost and a little uncertain after her journey, followed her into a hall with beautiful dimensions and uttered a faint sound like alarm.
“You don’t think he—he really will mind, do you?” she enquired with travel-weary huskiness.
The housekeeper—who in addition to being slim and elegant had an amused pair of brown eyes—turned and surveyed her with rather more interest now that they were trader the blaze of a splendid chandelier, and tried not to allow anything like concern to show in her face.