by Sara Seale
"Enjoyed it?" he sounded skeptical.
She frowned.
"Well, no, perhaps not. I hate being stared at. But if I had not been hungry and the tent so stuffy, I wouldn't have fainted and spoiled the act and I might have got around Mr. Mesmero to let me stay with them when the fair moved on."
'I've no doubt you would," remarked Adam dryly. "And duly regretted it, I fear, when the Mighty Mesmero began to get fresh."
She lowered her heavy lashes.
"Yes, well—as I said, I did not think of that at the time. The sort of men I've run across were fond of curves—" she sketched a vague outline with her lively hands "—and people are apt to think me much younger than I am. It's an advantage, you know, except when you're dealing with prospective employers."
She carefully scraped the last vestige of food from her plate, then leaned back in her chair with a sigh of repletion.
"That was the most wonderful meal I've ever eaten," she said. She closed her eyes, and Adam saw the blue transparency of her eyelids and the deep smudges that lay below.
For a moment he experienced a tenderness toward her that he had not known for any human being for many years, the tenderness he could perhaps have felt for his daughter, had she ever wanted it.
"Come along before you drop off to sleep," he said, getting to his feet abruptly. "We'll go and find out what room they've given you, and tomorrow we must decide what's to be done with you."
He himself did not sleep well and by the time he was called he was already regretting his impulse of the night before. What on earth was he going to do with this unexpected scrap of humanity? He could hardly go back to Devonshire and leave her stranded in this strange town without even the price of her next night's lodging.
He went down to breakfast in a bad mood and was relieved to find that Miranda did not join him. There was a letter for him from Grace and he frowned at it, wondering irritably why she always found it necessary to write to him the minute he was away from home. There was already more than a proprietary hint in the flowing, well-turned sentences, and Adam realized with a small sense of shock that not only Grace and her mother, but most of their friends, were expecting him to marry her. He thrust the letter into his pocket and told himself angrily that he had never given her the slightest encouragement. She had been Melisande's friend and later it had seemed only natural that she should take an interest in Melisande's motherless child. He had been grateful to her and had valued her help in the difficult months after his wife's tragic death, and later when friends began to hint that he should marry again, he had found her a protection against the obvious machinations of other mothers of eligible daughters. He had supposed, a little wryly, that even a not-so-young widower with a difficult daughter was made attractive by wealth and a brilliant reputation, for he ranked high in his profession and made a great deal of money.
He did not believe that Grace was in love with him, but she was over thirty and wanted marriage and a position.
With a quick, irritable stride, he left the dining room and went upstairs to see Miranda.
She was sitting up in bed, a breakfast tray across her knees. Already, he thought, she looked better, although he now saw that she was painfully thin.
"Good morning," she said with her mouth full, "I hope you did not mind, but breakfast in bed is such a luxury. Besides, it is better for your reputation, do you not think?"
He frowned.
"What's my reputation got to do with it?"
"Well, suddenly appearing at breakfast in public with a strange girl—people might think things."
This aspect of the affair had not occurred to him, but seeing her wide eyes fixed on him unblinkingly, he was not altogether sure that regard for his reputation would greatly worry her.
"Well, now, what are we going to do with you?" he said briskly. "You need rest, you know, and a certain amount of building up before you tackle any more jobs. I could send you to a nursing home for a week or so, or alternatively you could come back with me."
"To your home?" She sounded very polite but her eyes were suddenly guarded.
"Yes, why not? The moorland air would soon put you right and you'd be a companion for Fay, my daughter."
Her face cleared.
"Oh, you're married. Perhaps your wife would like a governess for the little girl, or—or a companion or something."
"My wife's dead," he said briefly, and she looked embarrassed.
"Oh—oh, I see. Then I could hardly stay in your house with you and just the little girl, could I?"
He smiled reluctantly.
"Well, perhaps it wouldn't do, though Simmy, Fay's governess, would be a most excellent chaperon. However…" He began to pace up and down the room, his hands in his pockets.
Miranda watched him under her lashes, revising her first opinion of him. He looked older in the morning light, considerably older than his thirty-eight years, and he was going a little gray. His patients would like that, she thought, and would also like the suggestion of autocracy in his rather brusque manner. Yes, a great many women would find him attractive.
"You're a bit of a problem, aren't you?" he said, pausing at the foot of the bed where he stood looking down at her. "Can't you get in touch with this Pierre, who seems to be the only friend you have?"
"My letters to Pierre were returned," she said. "His present address is unknown. I think, perhaps, if he is married to Marguerite, she does not wish him to remember his old friends."
"I see. Well, that seems to leave me, and I really cannot have it on my conscience that I turned a child of your tender years and inexperience adrift in the world."
"I do not see why I need be on your conscience," she said. "After all, it was only a chance meeting."
"Still, sometimes chance meetings have their significance," he said slowly, and his hand closed on Grace's letter. "Miranda, did you mean what you said last night about putting security above the independence—above, shall we say, romance?"
"Of course," she said, looking surprised. "But, for someone like me, that can only come through a desirable marriage."
"A desirable marriage," he repeated with a little quirk of the lips. "I wonder if marriage to me would come into that category."
"To you?" For the first time she seemed at a loss for speech while conflicting expressions chased each other across her astonished face.
"You mean… you mean… but you're not serious!"
"Strangely enough, I think I'm perfectly serious," he replied on a faint note of surprise, and removing the breakfast tray from her knees, he came and sat down on the edge of the bed.
CHAPTER TWO
"First of all," he began in his lecture-room manner, "let's get the position quite clear. You need a home and someone to provide for you, I need a mistress for my house and a companion for my child. I also need—especially now—the… social protection of a wife."
"Some woman is trying to marry you?" she asked calmly.
He smiled. She had an admirable directness.
"Something like that, though rather more nebulous. Rather, shall we say, a situation has arisen that might become awkward. At the same time I ought to marry again for Fay's sake."
"But I do not think," she said sedately, "that I would make a good mother to a strange little girl."
He regarded her quizzically.
"Perhaps not, but Fay doesn't need a mother. She needs a companion nearer her own age—twelve."
"Seven years difference. Not enough for a stepmother."
"It depends on the point of view," he retorted. "You don't know my daughter yet. Now, there's not much I can tell you about myself. I'm reasonably well-to-do as things go today, and you would find me quite generous."
"But not, perhaps, an easy man to live with," she said gently.
His eyebrows lifted.
"I don't think you'd find me unreasonable. In any case you wouldn't see a great deal of me. I'm an extremely busy man and when there's a rush of work I frequently don't come home at all,
and I have an apartment over my consulting rooms for those occasions. Far from finding me under your feet, you might feel a little lonely. The house is very isolated."
"But one would be unreasonable to expect perfection from such an arrangement," she said.
"A very sensible point of view," he said a little dryly. "Well, what do you say?"
She lay back on the pillows and looked at the ceiling.
"Have you thought, perhaps, that I might not suit you as a wife?" she asked sedately. "Me, I have my own personality. I would not care to be a little dog to do your bidding."
For the first time, he laughed.
"I hope I shouldn't order you to do anything, but if I so far forgot myself then you would have to resemble the little dog still further and snap at my heels."
Her mouth curled up in a grin.
"You're nice when you laugh," she said, and stretched out a hand to him. "I could like you."
He remembered her saying, the night before, that it should not be difficult to make yourself love anyone who was reasonably decent, and moved uneasily.
"I hope you will," he said a little brusquely. "I could like you, too—very much. But don't be under any misapprehension, Miranda. This would be purely a business arrangement."
She withdrew her hand and regarded him gravely.
"Of course. You have made your needs quite clear."
"Well, I'll leave you to think it over. My train leaves at one o'clock, so give me your answer as soon as you're dressed as I'll have to make some sort of arrangement for you."
He got up and she stretched herself slowly.
"There's nothing to think over," she said. "You can have your answer now."
"You mean you've decided against the idea?" For a moment he felt an irrational sense of disappointment.
"Oh, no," she said, and sighed. "I really have no choice, for such an opportunity would never come my way again. Yes, Mr. Chantry, I will marry you. What, please, is your first name?"
"Adam."
"Adam…" she repeated slowly. " 'And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate for him…' "
"You're a strange child," he said, smiling. "Now hurry up and get dressed. There are matters to be discussed before I go."
He was writing in the smoking room, a small pile of neatly addressed envelopes on the desk beside him, when she came down. He looked up with a brief smile and waved her to a chair.
"I won't keep you long," he said briskly. "Order some coffee—I've just half an hour before I must leave."
He turned back to his letters. By the time he had finished a waiter had brought the coffee and Miranda was already drinking hers.
"Well, that should take care of everything for the time being," he said, sitting down beside her, the letters in his hand. "Now listen carefully. This is a note to a Miss Evans. She is a retired nurse and runs a very small convalescent home in Hampstead. I've explained the circumstances and she will look after you until I can make other arrangements. Here is a note for my bank. Go and see them. They will have instructions from the Plymouth branch for you to draw on a specified amount. In this envelope you will find my professional address and telephone number and enough money to settle your bill here and cover your fare to London. I have to return here in a week or so to operate, after which I'll meet you in London where we'll get married at once—it'll mean a special license, but the less fuss and publicity we have the better. By the way, I've simply told Miss Evans you are a patient, so I don't advise you to enlighten her in any way. She's a bit of an old gossip. Now, is all this quite clear?"
She sat looking at the letters, her forehead wrinkling a little.
"Yes," she said. "But the bank—I will not need money if I am staying with this Miss Evans."
He regarded her with a certain dry amusement.
"You'll need clothes, my dear child," he said. "If, as you say, what you have on is all you possess, I hardly think it's an adequate wardrobe to bring with you as a bride."
"I see," she said, and sat silently turning the letters over in her hands. Then she looked up at him. "You are very trusting, aren't you? I could—make use of these, and then quietly vanish before you returned."
"That's a chance I have to take," he said with a certain severity, "but I think I'll back my fancy all the same. Now, I must go up and pack and settle my bill. Is there anything else you want to ask me before I go?"
"I don't think so," she said sedately. "Would you like me to come to the station with you?"
"Not in the least," he replied. "I hate being seen off. Have a good lunch here, then go up to London and get settled with Miss Evans."
She was still sitting in the smoking room, looking a little lost, when he came down ready for his journey.
"Goodbye," he said, holding out his hand. "I'll let you know as soon as all the arrangements have been made. In the meantime, rest as much as you can and make up for all those missed meals, please. I must go now. My taxi's waiting."
"Goodbye," she said, shaking hands formally. "I hope you have a pleasant journey."
She did not thank him for his kindness of the night before and he did not seem to expect it. He gave her a brief nod and a smile, and she remained where she was in the smoking room and watched his tall figure cross the lounge and disappear through the swinging doors.
The life of the little hotel went on, ignoring her. It was just on one o'clock. Miranda pinched herself hard and went in to lunch.
To Adam the ensuing days were too full for him to give much thought to his approaching marriage. There was pressing work awaiting him on his return, and every hour in his appointment book was filled for the next fortnight so that he was rarely at home and slept, as usual at such times, in the apartment above his consulting rooms. Indeed, when he thought of Miranda at all it was with a mixture of amusement and approval that at nineteen she should take such a practical view of the future. He saw no strangeness in the situation. He was not an impulsive man, but he believed in snap decisions. He had decided on marriage just as he would have decided to operate, and the decision being made, the sooner the thing was accomplished the better for everyone.
The weekend he spent at home only strengthened his purpose. Fay was difficult and demanding, and he saw with sharper clarity that the years of isolation at Wintersbride had made her far too precocious. Grace was not good for her, unconsciously ingratiating herself with the child to establish a footing with the father. Watching Grace among his roses, touching this bloom and that with proprietary fingers, he compared her with Miranda and smiled a little grimly. Miranda was a child. She would never, as the older woman would, remind him of Melisande, gracious, elegant, the perfect chatelaine of his home.
He did not tell them then of his intention to marry, but the evening before he was to return to Maybury-on-sea to operate, he drove out to Wintersbride to pack a few additional things. Fay had gone to bed and, when Miss Simms asked him if he were returning straight home from Maybury, he replied casually, "No, I'm going on to London for a night. I'm getting married."
"Married!" For a moment Simmy looked as taken aback as she felt, and her long sallow face dropped its habitual mask. She admired Grace, but she had not shared the general opinion that Mr. Chantry should marry again.
"It's very sudden, isn't it?" she said, but the colorless lashes hid her eyes.
"Shocks are better sprung suddenly or not at all," he replied enigmatically. "You evidently don't feel it's a matter for congratulations, Simmy."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Chantry," she said quickly. "You took me by surprise. I hope you'll be…very happy. Have you told Fay?"
His smile was a little cryptic.
"No. You can do that tomorrow. She'll take it better from you."
Simmy smiled.
"I don't think you need worry. You're here so seldom and Fay is quite fond of Miss Latham."
Adam gave her a level look.
"It's not Miss Latham I'm marrying,"-he said briefly.
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"Not Miss Latham? But I thought…" She looked bewildered.
"Too many people suffer from wishful thinking without any real grounds for it," he said. "None of you knows the lady I'm bringing here, and that, perhaps, is all to the good."
He picked up his suitcase and started to go. He was clearly not going to elaborate further and Miss Simms knew him too well to ask questions.
"Then you won't be returning at once," she said, and he frowned.
"Why not? If you're thinking of honeymoons, Simmy, I'm much too busy for that. We shall be coming straight back. I'll wire you, and in the meantime tell Mrs. Yeo to get the south room ready."
"Very well. Is she to—leave it as it is?"
The south room had been Melisande's. It had not been used since she died, but the books, the expensive trifles and the monogrammed toilet set were still there as she had left them.
For a moment his eyes narrowed, and he looked at Miss Simms with passing speculation. What was she going to think of the second Mrs. Chantry?
"Why not?" he said then, and his smile was a little ironical. "Now I come to think of it, the initials are the same. Goodbye, Simmy. I can safely leave everything to you."
As he drove back to Plymouth he remembered Miranda saying, "You're very trusting, aren't you?… I could quietly vanish before you return," and it crossed his mind for a moment mat he might be making a fool of himself. What did he know of her save that she was a little waif with an unusual philosophy of life? However, there was a letter awaiting him at his apartment, acknowledging his arrangements for their marriage and assuring him that she would be ready for him at the appointed time, and he promptly forgot her as he ran through his secretary's rearrangement of his future appointments.
If Adam had been too preoccupied to give much thought to the situation, for Miranda the days were very different. As she grew stronger under Miss Evans's watchful care, she had plenty of time to reflect. What had seemed practical and possible on an empty stomach appeared, after a course of good food and rest, to be a momentous step to take in such a hurry. What did she know of this stranger, so much older than herself, who could contemplate taking a wife with no more thought than he might give to the choosing of a puppy? She had liked him, and instinctively she had trusted him, but she knew she would have felt the same toward anyone who had come to her rescue at that particular moment.