The Youngest Bridesmaid

by Sara Seale

  “Where are we going?” she asked at last, because someone must break the uncomfortable silence, but he answered her indirectly.

  “It wasn’t very quick of you to tell that gossiping old tabby that you didn’t know where your honeymoon was to be spent,” he observed, but she surprised him, as before, with an unexpected retort.

  “Very likely, but since no one had seen fit to acquaint me I could hardly be expected to know,” she replied.

  “Yes, you have something there,” he said quite mildly, then braked so violently to avoid a woolgathering cyclist that she caught at and then held to the padded armrest between them.

  “Nervous?” he asked, sounding rather as if he would enjoy frightening her.

  “Yes,” she said, too honest to wish to impress him with false courage, and he immediately reduced their progress to a reasonable cruising speed and gently loosening the grip of her hand on the arm rest, returned it to her lap.

  “Relax,” he said. “Do you drive, Lou?”

  “No.”

  “One day I’ll teach you.”

  “Not in this!”

  “No, possibly not in this. A high-powered car, like a capricious woman, needs handling with understanding.”

  “What a very trite remark,” observed Lou with surprise rather than with any wish to be pert, for she had not thought him obvious, and he brought the car to a sudden standstill by the side of the road with a squeal of tires on the wet tarmac.

  “For the youngest bridesmaid who, until now, has been kept firmly in the background, you have developed a rather disconcerting mind of your own, my dear,” he said, and she realized that he was angry.

  She drew a little away from him, fingering the run in her stocking, aware that her expressions of opinion had possibly been only a form of whistling in the dark.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. You just surprised me.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well—smart sayings like that. I shouldn’t have thought—”

  “Upon my soul, you’ve got a nerve!” he interrupted, frowning down upon her. “Did you think I was trying to impress you?”

  “N-not exactly. I—I don’t really know what to think any more. I still can’t believe any of it.”

  He caught the first suggestion of tears in her voice, and the irritable lines smoothed out in his face.

  “You poor little thing, you’re worn out, aren’t you?” he said. “We’ve asked a lot of you, Blanche and I, but—will it help if I say I didn’t choose at random?”

  “Didn’t you?” Her eyes were suspiciously bright and she sounded now as if she neither believed nor cared. “But you’ve hardly noticed me.”

  “More than you think. For a start, you of all those twittering young women didn’t chatter neither did you fidget, and those are two good assets in a wife.”

  She was conscious of fidgeting now, and instinctively sat on her hands. He was, she supposed, only trying to rally her with not very serious nonsense, but all the same, in implying that the choice had been his with little fear of refusal betrayed the fact that for him conquests had always been too easy. “Piers—” she began.

  “Well?”

  “Nothing,” she retracted lamely. She was too tired and too muddled to put her intimate feelings into words, too confused, she realized now, even to know what they were.

  “Are you, by any chance, getting cold feet about our wedding night?” he asked, the old ironical twist back in his voice.

  “No,” she said. “At least, that wasn’t what I was thinking of.”

  “Weren’t you, indeed? Well, remember what I told you coming back from the church. My plans don’t include a make-believe marriage. I wasn’t I sure if you quite understood.”

  “I understood perfectly,” she replied gravely. “You—you won’t find me ignorant. I’ve been taught the facts of life, you know.”

  For a moment she glimpsed that flash of tenderness in his smile.

  “I’m glad to hear it! I wouldn’t like you to find your Prince Charming had turned into an ogre—Cinderella,” he said, and turned on the ignition.

  The powerful roar of the engine sounded rather like an ogre’s threat to eat you up, Lou thought, wondering for the first time what sort of lover he would make and whether he would be selfish or considerate, then the car leapt forward again. The late afternoon light had already deepened to twilight, and Lou ceased watching the speedometer needle reaching seventy, eighty, ninety and sank into an exhausted doze. She had forgotten to ask Piers again where they were going, if it wasn’t to Paris and Rome, and Vienna as didn’t seem likely, but it no longer mattered ...

  She must have slept, for when she next opened her eyes it was quite dark. The rain, she thought, must have stopped, for the twin wipers were at rest; she imagined she saw the first stars pricking through the sky, but it might only have been the lights of some distant village, or even the imaginings of her own desire for the breaking up of the darkness.

  She slept again, this time leaning unconsciously against Piers’ shoulder, then the piercing squeal of tires woke her, she was conscious of being flung across the car as the brakes bit and threw them into a skid, and in the sudden ensuing silence, broken only by a sinister hiss of steam, she became aware of Piers beside her slumped across the steering wheel.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lou, for all her emotional timidity, was, curiously enough, undismayed by purely physical shock. Having assured herself that Piers was not dead but merely unconscious she set about determining his injuries. From a nasty-looking cut on his forehead and blood on the splintered” driving mirror she deduced that he had been thrown forward and knocked himself out. She began staunching the wound with a handkerchief she found in his breast pocket, relieved that he did not appear to be unduly crushed against the steering wheel, and for the first time that day life took on some sort of reality. Here beside her was no longer the notorious Piers Merrick who gave the orders, but a helpless stranger whose face in oblivion looked oddly defenceless.

  As she gently dabbed and mopped, Lou found herself memorizing with tender surprise this unfamiliar aspect of the man she had just married. He looked younger and rather touchingly vulnerable, and with the temporary lifting of the habitual mask which he showed to polite society, he was, she thought, a man it would not be difficult to love, for the face now matched the voice. She had, very strangely, an instant’s sharp impression of the little boy who long ago had trustingly placed his life and his love in the careless hands of a beautiful woman and found his security shattered.

  “Poor Piers...”she murmured compassionately, stroking the lines of his unaware face. “Poor little boy, hitting back at life with your fabulous possessions ... probably not caring very much about any of them ... She did not know why she should think this last, except that she supposed if there was money enough to indulge every whim, values would cease to have importance.

  She began to be aware that she must be suffering some measure of delayed shock herself, sitting here pondering on unlikely subjects when she should be going to seek help. She made Piers as comfortable as she could, then got out of the car and went to stand in the road to stop the first passing vehicle. Nothing, she realized, had gone by since the accident, and it seemed to be a lonely stretch of road, not even a highway, but probably one of the many short cuts on which Piers prided himself. A short cut to where, though? She had fallen asleep before asking him again where they were going, and now she did not know in which direction to walk to find the nearest town or village. It had started to spatter with rain again and she stood irresolutely in the cold and darkness, glad of the comfort of Melissa’s mink, but reminded anew of her borrowed identity.

  While she was still trying to decide which way to take, she saw with relief approaching lights in the distance, and ran into the centre of the road, waving frantically.

  The car slowed down and an irritable face peered from the window.

  “Can’t stop for lifts, I�
�m in a hurry,” an equally irritable masculine voice exclaimed. “Run out of juice, I suppose—just like a woman. I’ll notify a garage for you.”

  “No!” she shouted as he seemed about to drive on. “There’s been an accident. My—my husband’s hurt.”

  “Oh, that’s different,” he said, and backed his car into the side of the road. When he got out he revealed himself as a stocky, middle-aged man with a bustling professional manner that was vaguely familiar, and Lou was not at all surprised when he said: “You’re in luck, young lady. I happen to be a doctor.”

  Lou, who in the past had seldom found luck to be so accommodating, accepted with composure the fact that the spoilt Piers Merrick would never be seriously incommoded, even by an accident.

  “What a blessing,” she said. “I—I think he’s just knocked himself out on the driving mirror, but he’s got a nasty cut.”

  The doctor shot her a quick and slightly puzzled glance. She appeared to him to be very young and, in the circumstances, unnaturally calm.

  “H’m ...” he grunted. “Let’s have a look.”

  She stood watching while he bent over Piers, probing and examining, fetched his bag from the car when he called for it, catching the smell of antiseptic as he cleaned and dressed the wound.

  “No very serious damage, I think, but we’d better get him to the hospital. That cut must be stitched,” he said straightening up. “There may be a bit of concussion. I’ll go on ahead and send back an ambulance. You’re not hurt yourself?”

  “No—no, I don’t think so. What is the nearest town? I mean I—I haven’t an idea where we are.”

  “Lexiter’s only five miles on.”

  “Lexiter?”

  “Lexiter in Wiltshire. Where were you making for?” he asked impatiently.

  “I—I don’t know,” she answered, and as he saw the sudden blankness in her eyes, his scrutiny became professional again.

  “Can’t remember, eh? Sure you didn’t get a crack on the head?”

  “Quite sure—and it isn’t that I can’t remember. I just never knew.”

  “H’m ...” he grunted again, a suspicion beginning to form at the back of his mind that this was a rather odd set-up. The girl was years younger than her husband, if indeed he was her husband, she kept tugging at her mink coat as if the feel of it was unfamiliar, and his trained eye noticed the newness of her handbag and the luggage piled in the back of the car. At that moment, however, there was a movement from his patient, and he turned back quickly.

  “He’s coming round,” he said. “Hand me that bottle of sal volatile, please.”

  “Damn cats!” said Piers distinctly, and opened his eyes.

  “Here, drink this,” the doctor said, and smiled a trifle grimly when his patient grimaced with distaste and demanded something stronger.

  “Not if there’s any chance of concussion,” he replied, puzzled by something familiar about the man’s face. “There’s been a slight accident and you knocked yourself out. How do you feel?”

  “Damn silly! I remember now. A cat streaked out of the hedge and I tried to avoid it.”

  “Never avoid animals when you’re driving,” the doctor said automatically. “You might have killed your—er—wife.”

  Piers did not seem to notice the hesitation, but his eyes became alarmed.

  “Lou—where is she? Is she all right?” he exclaimed, and Lou, leaning in from the open nearside door said rather tremulously:

  “I’m here, Piers. I’m not hurt.”

  He put out a hand to touch her, feeling the dampness of rain on the soft fur of the coat.

  “Poor Cinderella ...” he murmured. “What a typical ending to the day for you.”

  The doctor cleared his throat, more certain than ever that something odd was going on, then memory , suddenly clicked into place. Piers ... ah, the recent build-up in the gutter press ...

  “Aren’t you Piers Merrick?” he asked sharply, and Piers grinned.

  “Right first time, and I don’t doubt you’re also aware that I was married today. It only takes a blasted cat to upset one’s arrangements, doesn’t it?” he said, but the doctor frowned. There had been photographs in plenty of the future Mrs. Merrick, and she bore little resemblance to this uneasy-looking young girl who was now demanding anxiously whether or not the cat had been black.

  “How the devil should I know?” Piers retorted irritably. “Everything looks black in the dark. The main thing is to find out how much damage has been done to the car and get going again if we’re able.”

  He began to struggle out of the driving seat and the doctor said with crisp authority:

  “You’ll come straight to Lexiter Hospital with me, young man. That wound must be stitched, and until you’ve been X-rayed and okayed, you won’t be going anywhere, so let that be clearly understood.”

  “What in hades has it got to do with you?” The old arrogance was back in Piers’ voice, even though he reached a little unsteadily for-support on the car door as he stood up.

  “I happen to be a doctor, which, if I may say so, was your good fortune,” the other man said. “Now you can walk as far as my car, I think. When I’ve settled you in safe hands I’ll instruct a garage to send out for your car. Mrs.—er—Merrick will of course accompany us.”

  This time Piers noticed the hesitation and his grin returned.

  “Oh, she’s my wife all right, but I can understand your confusion, Doctor. All will be revealed to you in the Sunday press, I don’t doubt,” he said ambiguously, but he allowed himself to be helped into the doctor’s car without further protest, and lay back with closed eyes.

  “You’re remarkably calm, Cinderella,” he observed to Lou sitting silently beside him. “No feminine tears? No expressions of thankfulness that you’re not so soon a widow?”

  “Your wife has an admirable control of her feelings,” the doctor snapped from the driving seat. He did not understand the reactions of this uncomfortable pair, presumably on the first stage of their honeymoon, and was anxious to be rid of them.

  “Yes, hasn’t she?” Piers rejoined, adding in a soft aside that only Lou could hear: “Or perhaps she just doesn’t care. That could be it, couldn’t it, Cinderella?”

  “I wish,” said Lou, beginning to feel very tired and inclined to be tearful after all, “you wouldn’t go on calling me that. It isn’t true any longer, anyway.”

  “No, I suppose it isn’t. The slipper having fitted, the kitchenmaid becomes a princess.”

  “I was never a kitchenmaid,” Lou protested with the unthinking absurdity of someone too exhausted to be rational any longer.

  “Don’t be so literal—or so sharp, my poor child,” he retorted, but she found her hand suddenly taken in a clasp of assurance. “Our good Samaritan will think we’re quarrelling.”

  The doctor did, although, he could not hear what they said above the noise of the engine. His first suspicions of Lou were, perforce, laid to rest, but he found himself taking a profound dislike to this dark, bitter-tongued fellow who claimed to be her husband. He was not at all sure that the girl hadn’t been suffering from shock, after all, declaring half-wittedly that she didn’t know where they were going to, and apparently more concerned about a cat’s color than her bridegroom’s lucky escape. He wished the hospital staff joy of them; young Merrick, he shrewdly suspected, was too accustomed to getting his own way to be detained against his will without creating a scene.

  II

  Piers was, with the one exception that he seldom found it necessary to create scenes. He found no necessity now, when, having submitted gracefully to medical attention, he was pronounced reasonably whole but advised to stay the night for observation and a further check-up in the morning.

  “Not on your nelly!” he said. “We’ve a long drive ahead of us yet, and I don’t fancy spending the first night of my honeymoon in a hospital ward—besides, where could you put my wife?”

  “Your honeymoon?” frowned the young doctor, probably used to any e
xcuse that would break hospital rules. No one had thought to mention Lou, sitting in the empty waiting room.

  “I was married only today. You quite rightly refrain from reading the gossip columns of your daily paper, I must infer, but a bell is beginning to ring for the nurse here, I think,” Piers said. The young nurse’s eyes had certainly begun to widen in puzzled speculation, but the doctor, who despised the gossip columns and had no intention of being put in his place by a chance casualty, inclined to give himself airs, merely replied coldly:

  “You’re talking too much as it is, and you’re certainly not fit to drive any distance, even if you find your car in running order. How far have you got to go?”

  “Cornwall. To a little island called Rune,” Piers said with a quick glance at the nurse, who obliged this time with an excited little squeak of recognition.

  “You’re the Mr. Merrick, then!” she exclaimed. “The one all the fuss has been about. It was on the six o’clock news—the wedding, I mean, and how you married the bride’s cousin when everyone thought—”

  “Nurse!” The doctor sharply interrupted such unprofessional behaviour in a subordinate, but his eyes travelled over his patient with fresh interest. Despite his contempt for the gossip writers and their usually willing victims, the name of Merrick cropping up from time to time had held a passing interest for him, but for different reasons. A chap who spent mints on yachts, fine cars, financing expeditions, an island on which guests were seldom bidden, rather than on night clubs and vulgarly lavish parties, at least got a kick out of living. It was said, too, though never by the gossip writers, that Piers Merrick did a great amount of charitable good with his money and never claimed notoriety for it.

  “Well, Mr. Merrick,” he said more pleasantly, “I can’t force you to remain here, but I must insist that you stay in Lexiter at least for the night. There may be some delayed concussion, though I personally don’t think that will arise, but one can’t be too careful, and I would like you to come back here in the morning for a final check-up.”

  “And where would you suggest I start my honeymoon?” Piers asked with his little twisted smile. He had realized before this that he was in no fit state to drive on, that his head was beginning to ache abominably, and the thought of bed—any bed—was becoming an increasing desire, but he could not resist the temptation to needle this efficient but rather pompous young man.