by Sara Seale
“And what do you mean by that?” he demanded with an ominous change of tone. “Are you suggesting, for instance, that I’ve bought your affection, if, that is, I can flatter myself that you feel any affection towards me?”
She felt herself coloring under his cynical gaze, aware that she had surprisingly managed to hurt him, that for all his boasting to the contrary, he could still expect something that was not to be bought.
“I wasn’t thinking of us. I—I was speaking generally,” she stammered, aware that she had such little knowledge of men that she was almost bound to say the wrong thing.
“Then you should be thinking of us. You should be thinking very seriously of our future and all it may entail,” he said, and she could see out of the corner of her eye that a page-boy and two waitresses were affording them curious if discreet attention.
“Yes ... yes, I should,” she agreed hurriedly. “Piers, people are listening. Oughtn’t we—oughtn’t we to go up?”
“Perhaps you’d rather sit in the lounge and postpone the evil hour,” he said, and she wondered for a fleeting moment if, after all, he was as nervous as she was, then inwardly laughed at herself for such an absurd notion. The wedding night of a man as experienced in casual love affairs as Piers Merrick was reputed to be would scarcely hold any doubts or fears.
“No,” she said, “let’s go up. You—you ought to have an early night, surely, after that crack on the head?”
She saw the little unamused smile he gave her, but he moved on towards the lift without making any immediate reply. Only when the door of their suite had closed behind them did he return to a subject she had hoped forgotten because it could well have been misunderstood.
“Poor Cinderella,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “Were you hoping to pack your bridegroom off to an early bed and so avoid the consequences? My crack on the head hasn’t incapacitated me, you know.”
She stood between his hands looking uncertainly up into his face. She did not know how to make it any plainer to him that she was neither unwilling nor anxious to avoid the consequences of her hasty marriage; she had no gift for subtlety, she realized, no knowledge to deal with such a situation.
“Piers ...” she began hesitantly, “I just don’t know how to answer you ... I’ve married you, and anything you choose to ask of me I’ll gladly give you. That—that affection you spoke of downstairs—it’s true I—I wouldn’t have married you just to get Cousin Blanche out of a jam, or—or for mercenary reasons. Happiness can’t be bought.”
“A cliché, old as the hills.”
“But true.”
“Perhaps.” He took her face between hands which were gentle and suddenly unsure. “You’re very sweet,” he said, “very sweet, and deserving of a better husband than you’ve got, I’m afraid. We were both a little mad, perhaps.”
“Are you regretting things?”
“I never regret things. If they don’t work out, I just forget them, or throw them away.”
“Oh ... is that a warning?”
“Not, I think, in the sense you mean,” he told her with gentle amusement, but Lou was not so sure. The very rich could afford to ignore their whims and follies. Hadn’t he said that money could buy most things? A handsome settlement, a few costly presents, and even an ill-chosen wife could be discarded. “You’re very tired, aren’t you, Lou?” he said, understanding too late that his approach had been quite wrong. He should have ordered dinner up here, made love to her, wakened her out of the dream they had all forced upon her. He felt suddenly inexplicably humbled by her honesty, her uninformed efforts to please him. Pride and anger had driven him to this outrageous gesture, but he thought as he observed the shadows under her eyes, and felt the weariness in her passive, unresisting young body, that he had not been altogether wrong when he had told her she might be what he needed.
She would not, however, admit she was tired, fearing he would take it as an excuse, but when he pulled her down on to a sofa and drew her head against his shoulder, comforting but quite impersonal, she said impulsively:
“I know so little about you, Piers—tell me things.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about the island,” she said, sensing that the island was in some curious fashion part of himself.
“Rune?”
“That where we’re going, isn’t it? One of the nurses told me.”
“One of the nurses?” There was both puzzlement and displeasure in his voice and she could already feel the familiar withdrawal in him.
“She took it for granted, naturally, that I knew where my honeymoon was to be spent,” she replied demurely, but she could no longer, it appeared, provoke him to amused retaliation, and when he next spoke it was with rather formal politeness.
“I’m sorry if you find my change of plans dull,” he said, “but I didn’t imagine you and Melissa would share the same tastes when it came to—er—honeymoons.”
It was the first time he had deliberately mentioned Melissa, and it seemed to Lou to bring her into the room, pointing, a jeering ghost, at the dim little cousin who wore her clothes and her wedding ring and imagined she could take her place. Piers, of course, must be regretting his hasty act of bravado; no wonder he had decided that it was better to return at once to the island, rather than waste time ... and money on the lavish and protracted honeymoon he had planned for somebody else. And that, too, was an act of defiance, for he and Melissa had quarrelled about the island.
She got to her feet and started to unzip her dress. Someone, after all, had to make the first move to bring this difficult day to its logical climax, and she did not know how to make it clear to Piers that although she could not aspire to Melissa’s skill in handling such matters, she was a willing and ready pupil.
“What a ridiculous word honeymoon is,” she said brightly, struggling rather unsuccessfully with the zip which seemed out of reach after a certain distance.
“Yes, it is rather,” he agreed, and the amusement was back in his voice as he very expertly completed the operation for her.
I wonder how many women ... she began thinking to herself, and blushed as she read in his eyes that he was quite aware of her thoughts. He wandered into the bedroom, flicked the elaborate nightgown laid out on the bed with an inquisitive finger, then gathered up his own pyjamas and disappeared into the dressing room.
Lou undressed with speed, spending little time with Melissa’s creams and lotions because she had never acquired the habit of expensive cosmetics. Every so often her wedding ring fell off as it had done throughout the evening; it would be safer, she thought, to leave it on the dressing table than lose it in the bed. She pulled on Melissa’s nightdress, the last reminder of the day of her lost identity, and got into bed.
She seemed to wait a long time for Piers. He was, she supposed uneasily, used to women who took hours making themselves alluring for him; whereas she had not thought to follow other than her nightly routine of soap and water and a good hair brushing. But even as she was preparing to make a hurried dart for her lipstick and a dab of scent, he came into the room and stood there looking down at her.
“I was—I was just going to put on some scent,” she said rather idiotically, and his smile had the old touch of tenderness as he observed her anxious face. She was looking like a good little girl, he thought, clean and brushed for the night, waiting to be kissed and tucked up.
“Were you, indeed?” he said. “Well, there’s always tomorrow.”
“T—tomorrow?”
“To try out the scent. What are you staring at? Does the not very glamorous sticking plaster spoil your romantic illusions?”
“No. It makes you look rather like a pirate, as a matter of fact—that very gorgeous dressing gown and the crimson scarf tucked in.”
“A shade ostentatious, you think?”
“Oh, no, not at all. A little flamboyance suits your raffish air.”
“Have I a raffish air?”
“You know quite we
ll you have. I think you rather trade on it.”
“This,” he remarked, sitting down on the bed, “is rather a curious turn for the conversation to take, don’t you think? One doesn’t expect one’s newly wedded wife to take one to task so soon.”
Didn’t he understand, she thought, that she was talking nonsense to cover her nervousness? Piers understood very well, but he was hiding more than nervousness himself; he was trying to smother an unaccountable sense of guilt that by involving this untried child in his own affairs he was taking a mean advantage.
“I’m sorry,” she said, twisting the sheet unhappily in her thin, ringless fingers, and in spite of himself his irritation returned, together with a renewed throbbing in his head.
“Don’t be so naive, I was only joking,” he said sharply. “Where’s your wedding ring?”
“It kept dropping off, so I left it on the dressing table,” she said. “It was Melissa’s, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was Melissa’s. I must get you another.” He spoke with indifference, and she knew she had been wrong to remind him of Melissa. For all Cousin Blanche’s assertion that the engagement had been one of mutual convenience rather than something deeper, it could not be pleasant, she thought, to picture the bride of your choice enjoying your privileges with another man. She could not tell him this but, mistakenly, she tried to make him understand, her own difficulties.
“You see,” she said, “everything I have with me is Melissa’s. I—I feel like a—an understudy. I’m not what you wanted and I’m not me any more ... can’t you understand, Piers?”
“I understand perfectly,” he replied, getting to his feet. “It wasn’t a fair exchange, was it—the dross for the gold, the lioness for the lamb?”
“I don’t understand you,” she faltered. “I wanted ... I was willing ... I am willing ...”
“Of course you are, my poor innocent, but if you will excuse my lack of ardour on such an occasion, I’ll go to my bed,” he said, adding as her eyes slid to the empty place beside her. “Next door. That crack on the head was convenient for you, after all, wasn’t it, my sweet? Goodnight. God bless.”
“Take care of yourself,” Lou answered as he bent and kissed her, because it was the familiar tag which sped any departing guest, then as their dividing door closed behind her, she turned her lace into the pillow and wept for her own inadequacy.
CHAPTER FOUR
They arrived at their destination on the following evening. Piers had kept his appointment with the hospital in the morning, but since he had been pronounced fit to drive, he had seen no reason to linger for another day in Lexiter.
Lou, who had slept badly, found him a morose travelling companion. Only when they reached the ragged beginnings of the Cornish coast did he seem to become aware of her, pointing out this and that landmark in the gathering dusk, manoeuvring the car with skill but alarming speed through high-banked lanes which, to her unaccustomed eyes, looked too narrow to accommodate one vehicle, let alone another coming from the opposite direction.
“What happens if we meet something?” she asked.
“Someone has to back up. Haven’t you noticed the bays cut in the banks?”
“No, I hadn’t. Oh, yes, I see—there’s one. How twisty the road is. When will we see the sea?”
“In a little while. Haven’t you been to Cornwall before?”
He seemed pleased when she told him she hadn’t, and she thought there was altogether a new warmth in his voice as he answered her questions, as if he were approaching a secret treasure of his own, and she remembered her old impression that the island was, for him, both an escape and a refuge.
“Tell me about Rune,” she said, but his answer lacked encouragement, or perhaps he was simply reluctant to share his own delight in the island. “You probably won’t care for Rune,” he replied with a certain austerity. “It’s a very small island, offering no amusements one can’t make for oneself.”
“Such as?”
“Fishing, sailing, bird-watching for anyone interested. At this time of the year, the weather becomes rough, and Rune can be cut off from the mainland by storms. The winter can be long and harsh.”
“Are we going to spend the winter there?” She asked the question in all good faith, but he shot her a swift look as if he detected a demure amusement in her.
“How would you react if I answered yes?” he replied. “You don’t, perhaps, take my island kingdom very seriously.”
“I haven’t,” she returned politely, “had time to think about it. I didn’t, after all, know where we were going when we started out.”
“Neither you did. Are you feeling I’ve cheated you out of the conventional honeymoon—Paris, bright lights, luxury hotels?” There was a cynical bite to his voice as if he rather enjoyed the implication that his change of bride had automatically brought about a change in his plans. Melissa would never have consented to spend one night of her honeymoon on an island cut off from civilization, thought Lou, but Melissa, of course, had been consulted in the proper manner.
“Well, are you?” Piers asked impatiently, as occupied with her own thoughts, she made no reply.
“You can’t feel cheated out of something you never expected,” she said then, and he gave a slight smile.
“True,” he replied rather dryly, and she reflected that he might well be thinking that this also could apply to himself.
The road which had been winding uphill for some time now suddenly converged into open country, banks gave way to low stone walls and quite suddenly Lou seemed to be on the edge of the world.
“There’s the sea for you,” Piers said, stopping the car.
They were at the top of a great chain of cliffs, stretching jaggedly into the distance, with the road like a torn thread running ahead through the falling darkness. The sound of the breakers far below and the wind whining across miles of desolate country sent a momentary shiver of apprehension through Lou. Such complete isolation with a stranger whose moods, she felt, could well match this savage territory brought the first doubts to her mind.
“Cold?” he asked, aware that very much earlier he had put down the hood of the car without reference to her comfort.
“No.”
“Scared, then?”
She answered, as before, quite simply: “Yes, I am a little scared. This country is as strange to me, as you are. I—I may not measure up.”
“So you’ve said before. And you think Melissa would?”
She could not picture her pleasure-seeking cousin putting up for very long with nature in the raw, but she only replied gently:
“Melissa can measure up to most things, I should think. You didn’t anyway, I imagine, suggest bringing her here for a honeymoon.”
He gave her another of those quick little glances, as if those apparently innocent observations puzzled him.
“That,” he said, “would have been asking a little much of both of us.”
“What an odd thing to say.”
“Is it? I had no illusions about the fair Melissa. She had it all nicely worked out that she would, in due course, persuade me to sell Rune, so the longer I kept her away from the island the longer the inevitable clash would be postponed. Rune would have bored her to tears.”
He sounded so bitter when Melissa’s name was mentioned that Lou thought Cousin Blanche must be mistaken when she had declared this to be no love match on Piers’ side. It was not pleasant, the youngest bridesmaid thought uneasily, to be married out of pique and share the bridegroom with the ghost of his rightful bride. Lou pulled the borrowed mink more closely about her, shivering again, and in one of those strange moments of perception, he cupped her chin in his hand and turned her face up to his.
“You feel I’ve taken an unfair advantage, don’t you?” he said. “You think because I’m bringing you straight to Rune I don’t consider you worth spending money or trouble on. You couldn’t be more wrong. When you know me better you’ll understand I’m paying you a compliment.”
She experienced a rush of warmth towards him, for there was the promise of comfort in his suddenly intent regard, tenderness in the light touch of his fingers.
“Because you’re willing to share your island with me?” she asked shyly. He was, everyone said, absurdly jealous of his rights over his small kingdom.
“Perhaps,” he replied with an enigmatic little smile, “but that will be up to you, my dear.”
So it was to be a testing time for her, she thought, feeling unexpectedly angry, and when she spoke he heard with surprise the change in her voice.
“It will be up to you too, Piers. You married me,” she said, and he turned the ignition key with a click of finality as if anxious to end a conversation that was becoming-too personal.
“So I did. You must remind me of that from time to time,” he said, and drove on.
It was quite dark when they reached the tiny hamlet of St. Bede from where Piers said a launch would take them to the island. A boatsman was waiting at the jetty, but there was no one else about. Lou stood on the little stone pier straining her eyes to see if she could make out the shape of the island in the darkness while the luggage was unloaded from the car. The broad, silent Cornishman had greeted Piers monosyllabically, glanced incuriously at his bride, then, steadied the launch as Piers picked Lou up and swung her over the side. She sat where she was told, feeling the spray on her face and the wind in her hair, wondering how far they had to go. Piers took the helm himself while the boatman got a pipe going, then settled from habit into the role of passenger. Nobody spoke at all.
Their passage took little time, for the island was not much more than a mile out from the mainland, and presently Lou could see lights and a dark mass lying like some strange monster in the water, and a sense of excitement gripped her. Was it not a perfectly natural sequence in the fairy tale to be brought by boat to an island and the unknown vastness of the Prince’s castle?
She disembarked clumsily, not waiting for a steadying hand, in her eagerness to set foot on Rune, and fell awkwardly on the slippery cobbles.