Headlines stared up at her in horrifying capitals: “Bride Changes Mind on Eve of Wedding," “Broken Society Romance,” “Well-Known Polo Player Loses Bride to Millionaire,” “Bride-To-Be Weds Other Man at Registry Office," “Mayfair Sensation: Ex-Deb’s New Romance.” There were more photographs of Sherry—in uniform, in polo kit, at Ascot, at a fashionable wedding. There were photographs of Zara in all manner of clothes and poses. There were two photographs of Sherry and Zara taken together, one taken at a fashionable restaurant where they were dining, the other as they entered the foyer of a cinema for a film premiere. Every paper told the same story in essentials, with unimportant additions and embroideries: how after “a whirlwind romance” and brief engagement the Honourable Zara Brayton, only daughter of Lord Alderbeck, had been going to marry Major A. K. MacAirlie of the Red Hussars, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Eight hundred guests had been bidden to the wedding. Twelve bridesmaids, each celebrated for her beauty, had been invited to attend the bride in gold brocade. Then, the day before the wedding, the bride had gone out by herself from the hotel where she was staying with her father, saying that she was going for a final fitting of some of her trousseau garments. She had failed to keep a luncheon engagement and another appointment early in the afternoon. In consequence of this, search had been made in her room, and letters were found addressed to her father and fiancé, true to the tradition of elopement. These stated that by the time they were received the writer would have been married at Caxton Hall by special licence to Mr. Solomon Hinterzhagen, whom the press described variously as “the well-known financier,” “the South African diamond king,” and “the South African millionaire.” All the papers with the exception of two Sunday ones were dated June 28th: the day Sherry had first come to Market Blyburgh.
Logie felt physically sick. She dropped on a low chair and sat there for a few minutes, hands clasped to her breast, rocking to and fro as though the movement might soothe her anguish. Gradually the first numbness of the shock wore off. She drew a long, slow, shivering breath, looking vaguely at her locked fingers and thinking in an odd, detached way, “I suppose this is what people mean when they talk about wringing one’s hands.” Then suddenly, as though a dam had burst, a tide of raging anger took possession of her. She sprang up, paused unsteadily a moment, then pulled herself together and ran down to the library.
Sherry was there, sprawled in a deep chair, reading The Times. He looked up, startled by her impetuous entry. “Hullo, darling—anything wrong?”
“Everything!” Logie cried, and flung the cuttings at him. They fluttered to the floor gently, scattering here and there, instead of falling with dramatic finality at his feet, as she had intended. She cried “How dare you do this thing to me!” and to her fury burst into tearless sobbing. Sherry sprang up and took one stride towards her, but she held him off. “Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me!”
Though without seeing them he knew well enough what they must be, he snatched up one of the cuttings, glanced at it, crushed it savagely in his clenched hand. Half to himself he said, “Oh God! If I had only dared to take the risk of telling you! Logie, if you’d known this all along, would you have minded terribly?”
“Would I have minded! What girl wouldn’t mind getting engaged to a man whom she supposed to be in love with her, when he had only asked her—what’s the expression?— ‘on the rebound,’ to save his face, to show his friends there were as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it!”
“You know it wasn’t that. You know I love you—”
“Love me! You have a funny way of showing it! If you had really loved me you’d have told me. You’d have trusted me. That’s what I can’t forgive. If you had only told me in the first place I might have understood or asked for time to learn to understand. But you’ve made such a fool of me before your friends—before Zara! I see now why Elizabeth came to warn you Zara was at Harrawick, why Vee was so amazed that you had asked the Hinterzhagens here. I understand all sorts of things that puzzled me. Gossip I overheard by accident—those people at the Country Club who thought we were on our honeymoon—oh, endless little odds and ends that fit together to make the whole picture like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle!”
“Now listen, Logie—” he was trying to speak quietly.
“I’m not going to listen to a single word you say.”
“But you must, in fairness, hear my side of it—”
“I’m not in the least interested in your side of it. I’ve finished with you! Finished, do you hear?”
Anger got the better of him. “I won’t believe you’re going to be such a little fool as to do just as Zara hoped you would when she sent you those cuttings on the chance I hadn’t told you!”
“I’m certainly not going to be such a fool as to make a wretched marriage simply to annoy Zara!” Her agony was mounting to a torturing climax, blinding her, crazing her, goading her to hurt as she was being hurt, “I must admit that I deserve all this. I’m every bit as bad as you! I’ve never loved you! It was entirely because you’re rich, because there was so much you could give me, that I said I’d marry you. Well, we’ve both been fooled, and serve us right!”
He seized her shoulders. “That’s a lie!”
“It’s not. It’s true!” She wriggled in a brief convulsive movement from his grasp and dived for the door. Sherry plunged after her, skidded on a sliding rug, nearly fell, recovered his balance and ran after her. But the momentary check had given her a start. He reached her door a split second after she had slammed it in his face and locked it.
He said, trying to control his anger and despair, “Logie, open that door. You’ve got to let me talk to you—to tell you why—”
Silence.
“Logie, darling, I beg you—for heaven’s sake at least give me a chance!”
Still silence behind the locked door, but below he heard the opening of the baize door between the back premises and the front of the house. Mary, probably, coming through to lay the table for dinner. He couldn’t stand this any longer. Logie could keep it up for hours, and probably would. He must get a ladder and be dammed to what the servants made of it. There was one in the tool-shed by the garden gate, and he was pretty certain it was long enough. He rushed downstairs, across the hall, and out, nearly knocking over Mary, who was carrying a tray of glasses, in his headlong progress, and paying no heed to her startled exclamation, “Is there anything the matter, Mr. Sherry?”
Logie, hearing him go downstairs, thought he was going to get some tool with which to force the door. Then when she heard him run beneath her window she knew he must have gone to get a ladder. Now was her opportunity to escape—it was bound to take him quite five minutes, possibly ten, to bring a ladder from the garden, unless luck was against her and there was one in the outhouses by the back-door. She’d risk it. There was no need to change her clothes; the tweed suit she was wearing was ideal for travelling, and she would wear her camel-hair coat and take a pair of woollen gloves, for it would probably be cold during the night. Luckily she had plenty of money, having cashed a cheque yesterday. No time to pack—Elsie would have to pack her things and send them after her. Not that she would care if she should never set eyes on any of them again. She gave one last look round the room where she had been so happy, then unlocked the door and opened it cautiously, wondering if Sherry’s departure had been a ruse and he had come in quietly by a side door, crept upstairs, and was now waiting for her to come out. But there was no sign nor sound of him. Downstairs there was a clink of silver in the dining-room, where Mary was laying the table for two people who would never eat another meal together. A lump rose in her throat. Swallowing, she crept softly down the wide staircase. One step creaked loudly and she paused in panic, afraid that Mary must have heard and would come out, but nothing happened. On tiptoe she crept across the hall, then along a passage behind the library to a side door seldom used. Outside, gravel crunched beneath her feet; quickly she sought the silence of the grass beyond it, and began to ru
n with muffled footfalls towards an outhouse that adjoined the coal-cellar, where she knew the maids kept their bicycles. With them was one belonging to Vee, who had bought it dining the war with the idea of eking out her scanty petrol allowance, but had scarcely used it.
She found the door unlocked. Vee’s bicycle was easily identified, since she had had it painted deep blue so as to be able to recognise it quickly from a number of others. One tyre was flat. With shaking hands, she pumped it up, terrified that at any moment someone might hear and come to investigate. At last it was in order and she set off, not taking the way along the drive and through the village, where Sherry, when he found that she had gone, would almost certainly follow in pursuit, but going instead along a little-used back avenue in the opposite direction. She had no definite plan beyond getting to a station, preferably one where Sherry would not think of looking for her. Unfortunately she was now heading away from the main line and had no idea whether this road would take her to some branch line. Hoping for the best, she rode fast, feeling that the main thing was to put as many miles as possible as quickly as might be between herself and Crail.
She thought she must have gone about eight miles when by the post office in a tiny hamlet she saw a little group of people. Most of them carried flowers or a basket of vegetables; they looked like townspeople waiting for a bus to take them home after an outing in the country. Logie stopped and asked them whether a bus would pass this way soon. They told her that a bus to Darlington would be coming at any moment. She was surprised, having had no idea that any Darlington bus came so far afield; they explained that it ran once a week, on Darlington’s early-closing day. This was a marvellous bit of luck! Quickly she pushed the bicycle up a garden path to the open door of a cottage. A pleasant young woman came at once in answer to her knock. Logie said, “This bike belongs to Mrs. MacAirlie of Crail. I have to catch the bus here. May I leave it with you? They’ll arrange to have it collected in a few days, I expect.” The woman said the bike could stand in her shed and would be in no one’s way. Logie was writing down her name and address when a red bus came roaring through the twilight. She was the last to enter it, but there were several empty seats and with a sigh of relief she sank into one, thankful to have got so far on her journey. Sherry would never dream of going to Darlington to look for her; almost certainly by now he must be speeding in the direction of Catterick.
Nature is often merciful in time of crisis. Exhaustion and reaction played a kindly part in numbing Logie’s feelings. Throughout the journey to Darlington she was in a condition of dazed apathy, only vaguely conscious of the misery that waited to attack once more when she should have recovered from her weariness. Her luck still held, for the bus terminus was near the station. She could not eat, but had a cup of tea in the buffet on the main platform, and after waiting only half an hour got on a train from which, in the small hours of the morning, she would alight at Peterborough, from whence another train would take her in the direction of home.
Sherry, frantically searching Catterick station for her, had no notion that Logie was in the express that thundered through as he stood impatiently on the platform waiting for a friendly woman porter who had gone to see if she could find “a fair young lady, not very tall, with curly hair the colour of honey” in the ladies’ waiting-room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was a brilliant morning, crisp and gay. The bitter odour of chrysanthemums had ousted summer’s sweeter fragrances. The garden of Swan House was emblazoned with their gold and bronze and amber and the flame and ruby of the dahlias. Peacock butterflies and red admirals were flirting with the michaelmas daisies, and through the windows of the room where Alison and Jane and John were sitting down to breakfast sunshine streamed in cheerfully.
Alison spooned porridge from a blue bowl into John’s plate. The bowl was rimmed with white, and a verse was written round it in white lettering. “Read it to me, please,” said John, as he had said every morning since he came to stay here.
Jane recited it:
“Some ha’e meat but canna eat,
And some wad eat, but want it;
But we ha’e meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit!”
“It seems a queer thing to put poetry about meat upon a bowl that’s meant for porridge,” John said pensively. “We haven’t got meat in it at all. It’s porridge we’ve got. Or maybe stewed fruit if it’s lunch-time.”
“It’s a Scotch bowl,” Alison explained. “The Scots call any sort of food meat.”
“Why? Don’t they know any better?”
“I expect they think it’s the other way about, and we don’t know any better!”
John considered this, then smiled tolerantly. “Pore things! But it’s a nice bowl, anyway.”
There was a knock on the door. Jane went to answer it. MacNeish was there, wanting to speak to Alison. “The Doctor telephoned last night, but it was late and there were no lights showing over here, and so I thought I’d best wait till the morning. He bade me tell you he’ll be back some time to-day. Miss Liskard has arranged with Dr. Wales of Bungles to see any urgent cases for him in the meantime ... Sir Howard died last night an hour or two after the Doctor got there. It’s a terrible pity—he was a real nice gentleman. He’ll be a great miss to the Doctor.”
“It was Sir H’ard that gave me my Meccano,” John said. “He had an eyeglass. Will he have it still in heaven?”
“He’ll have it if he needs it,” Alison said diplomatically.
“It was spectacles he wore to work in. The eyeglass was more for social wear, as you might say,” MacNeish said.
“He won’t be working up in heaven, so it’ll be his eyeglass that he’ll wear up there,” John decided; and with this point happily settled they began their breakfast. Barely had they finished it when Barbara and her small brother David appeared. David had become a great crony of John’s. They wanted Jane and John to go with them to gather blackberries on the common.
“A very good idea,” said Alison. “Never mind about your chores, Jane. I’ll see to them for once. You don t want to waste a minute of such a lovely morning. I’ve got some rock cakes you can take with you for elevenses. Picking blackberries is hungry work!”
She had washed up the breakfast things and was putting out sheets to air for Logie’s bed when the wicket door of the coach-house banged. Someone came bounding up the stairs, and Sherry burst in. “Is Logie here?” he cried.
“Logie? No! I thought she was with you at Crail and that you were both coming back to-morrow. What’s happened?”
“She left Crail last night. We had a—a quarrel. I was so sure I’d find her here!” He looked so exhausted and distraught that Alison hid her own concern and said soothingly, “Probably she’s on her way here now. Did you come by road?”
“Yes, after I’d searched every station within miles of Crail, trying to get news of her.”
“Then she would have had to come by train?”
“I imagine so. She must have gone off on my mother’s bicycle—it’s missing. But I couldn’t find a soul who’d seen her.”
“She’d have to change at Peterborough and at least once after that. I don’t know much about the trains from there, but it takes ages. Probably she won’t get here before this afternoon. Have you had breakfast?”
He shook his head. “No, but I’m not hungry. How can I find Logie? She may be sitting tired out at some miserable little station waiting for a train that isn’t due for hours. What the deuce am I to do about it?”
“Nothing. Sit down and have some coffee; then when she does come you’ll feel far fitter to put things right. You must be worn out, coming all that way with no sleep and nothing to eat. I’ll go and put the kettle on.”
She heard him pacing restlessly about the room while she was in the kitchen, and wished he would sit down and rest. What could have happened between him and Logie? Logie’s last letter—all her letters, for that matter—had sounded utterly happy.
I
n a few minutes she took him a pot of steaming coffee and a plate of hot buttered toast spread with anchovy paste, a favourite of his. “Eat that up,” she commanded him, “and you’ll feel quite different.”
He said again he wasn’t hungry, but she poured him out a cup of coffee, and when he had sipped it he began to eat. Alison knew she ought to be preparing the stew for lunch, making the beds, mopping and dusting, but all that would have to wait. They could have eggs for lunch. Taking up a jumper Jane was knitting, she sat down on the window-seat as though she had nothing in the world to do but keep him company. Presently he said, “I want to tell you something of what’s happened.”
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