Wintersbride

by Sara Seale

  Lying awake in her narrow, hard little bed, she tried to reason as she had so often heard Pierre reason. Security was important, he had argued. One could become fond of anyone, given the right background and a reasonable nature. She thought that life soon taught one to acquire a reasonable nature and that fondness was a matter of temperament. She could not afford doubts in her present position and, as she herself had said to Adam, such an opportunity might never come her way again, and a marriage of convenience, even with a stranger, could be no worse than the terrifying struggle for existence in a world devoid of friends.

  So, from the first doubts Miranda drifted into a dreamlike state of acceptance. She visited Adam's bank, half expecting a polite disclaimer of her existence, but found the friendly man­ager reassuring and incurious. She delivered Adam's note to an expensive-looking shop in Bruton Street and found herself im­mediately taken in hand by the head saleswoman.

  Here, Adam had presumably made his intentions clear, and the saleswoman was flattering, if a little condescending. It soon became evident that the first Mrs. Chantry had spent lavishly and had been regarded as a privileged customer.

  "A very beautiful woman and a real pleasure to dress," Miranda was told. "So sad, her sudden death. We were all desolated here in the salon. We did not think that Mr. Chantry would ever marry again, but then, time heals old wounds."

  Miranda attended numerous fittings, listening politely to the gossip and wondering if Adam had been deeply in love with his wife. She was aware that his second choice was occasioning surprise and veiled curiosity. They were making the best of her, she thought without resentment. She could not, they told her kindly, carry off the creations that had made the first Mrs. Chantry one of the best-dressed women in London, but she could capitalize on her youth.

  Miranda smiled with secret amusement, thinking it was a pity that so much thought and expense were to be wasted on a man who would scarcely appreciate it.

  Miss Evans became increasingly curious as Miranda's trous­seau began to arrive at the nursing home.

  "My! Dubonnet's!" she exclaimed, fingering the labels on the boxes. And her look plainly said that there must be some­thing a little odd about a patient who arrived in a cheap, shabby suit, with no other luggage, and then proceeded to spend a small fortune in Bruton Street. "Are you getting married all of a sudden?"

  "Yes," said Miranda, embarrassed. It was better to tell her that much. "We—my fiancé is buying my trousseau."

  "Dear me! Your fiancé must be a rich young man, or are you just sending him the bills and hoping for the best?"

  "He made the arrangement himself," Miranda said a little stiffly.

  "Well, well," Miss Evans said coyly, "some people have all the luck. Will he be calling for you here when you leave, dear?"

  "I don't know," Miranda replied.

  She had not yet received Adam's letter telling her to meet him outside the registrar's office, to please remember the ring as he did not know the size of her finger.

  She visited a jeweller the day before the wedding, feeling unaccountably depressed. It felt strange and a little lonely to buy your own wedding ring, and she thought the salesman looked at her oddly as he noticed her hands were bare of any other rings.

  "Gold or platinum?" he asked indifferently.

  "I don't know. What is usual?" Miranda said.

  "It's a matter of taste, madam," the man replied, looking pained. "Platinum is more favored these days. Is your en­gagement ring set in platinum?"

  "My engagement ring? Oh, I haven't got one yet," said Miranda, confused.

  The salesman pursed his lips, brought out a tray of plain platinum rings and said firmly, "Madam had better try them for size,"

  She tried them on hastily until she found one that fitted.

  "This will do," she said.

  She paid for the ring quickly and was glad to get out of the shop. She was sure that the man was quite convinced by now that her intentions were not strictly matrimonial.

  She turned with relief into a neighboring café, and as she sat at the marble-topped table, she realized fully for the first time that tomorrow by this time she would be married to a stranger and journeying toward a home of which she did not even know the name.

  She got up early the next morning to do her packing. She had bought as little as possible, but even so she seemed to possess more clothes than she had ever owned before.

  What did one wear at a wedding in a registrar's office on a cold summer's day, she wondered, surveying her new finery doubtfully. In the end she chose a plain linen dress with a childish round collar because the color reminded her of the Mediterranean. She had no idea that it turned her at once into a well-dressed schoolgirl.

  She had spent so long deciding what to wear that she was late for her appointment. Adam, waiting outside the registrar's office, frowned at his watch and wondered again if she had made a fool of him, then he saw her running down the street. He had time to watch her before she saw him and his eyes narrowed in cynical impatience with himself. Why, she was just a child! He should be taking out adoption papers, not signing the mar­riage register.

  "You're late," he said in the same peremptory tones he used to his nurses when he had been kept waiting.

  She stood before him, breathless and a little flushed. She looked up at the dark, unfamiliar face, at the strong lines of self-discipline, at the gray in his hair, and for a moment her resolution faltered.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I could not find a taxi."

  "Well, come along. We're twenty minutes late already. Have you got the ring?"

  Dumbly she fumbled for it in her purse, and he saw her hand tremble as she gave it to him. For a moment he must have understood her panic, for he said, looking down at her with a softening of the dark, probing gaze, "Are you sure you want to go through with this? It's not too late to change your mind."

  She took a deep breath.

  "Yes, I'm sure—as sure as I've been of anything since my father died."

  She felt his hand on her shoulder for an instant.

  "It will be all right," he said. "This next quarter of an hour doesn't mean anything. Just think of it as signing a contract—a contract for a better job than you've had so far. That's all it means to me, you know."

  "Yes, of course."

  It did not seem like a marriage ceremony. The registrar with his professional smile, the two strange witnesses, even the words she spoke, were quite unreal. Very quickly the ring was on her finger and the registrar was raising his eyebrows because the bridegroom showed no signs of kissing the bride. Then they were out in the street again and Adam was on the curb, flagging a taxi.

  "Did you notice his false teeth?" Miranda said as the taxi took them to the nursing home to collect her luggage."

  "I thought they would come unstuck any minute."

  "Never got beyond his temporary set, I expect," Adam replied. It was the only conversation they had before they reached Hampstead.

  Miss Evans greeted Adam effusively, and her eyes bulged when she realized that it was he whom her uncommunicative little patient had been engaged to marry. She followed Miranda up to her room and stood a little grimly in the doorway while the cases were shut and locked.

  "Well!" she remarked. "You are a deep one and no mistake. Why couldn't you have told me it was Adam Chantry you were going to marry? Cradle snatching, that's what I call it, but they're all the same after they've reached a certain age. Not that I'm not pleased he's married again. He's still a comparatively young man, and although he was so passionately in love with his first wife, I always say, time heals old wounds."

  "Mrs. Chantry was a very beautiful woman, so I under­stand," Miranda said, locking the last of the suitcases.

  "Quite the beauty," replied Mrs. Evan promptly. "I only saw her once, but she was like something out of the pictures— and how he worshipped her! I shouldn't have said you'd be his cup of tea, but you never can tell, can you?"

  "I must go," Miranda said, her co
lor high at the woman's expression. "We have a train to catch."

  They had lunch on the train. The waiter was deferential but alluded to Miranda as the young lady, and Adam remarked with a sardonic grin, "You'll have to get used to being taken for my niece, or even my daughter."

  She smiled at him a little uneasily. She had not as yet thought of herself as his wife.

  The journey seemed endless. Adam was considerate, but he was not disposed to talk, and she sat opposite him for hours, looking out the window.

  It was a long time later when, having dropped to sleep, she opened her eyes at a sudden lurch the train gave, and found he was watching her speculatively.

  "You look better," he said approvingly.

  "Better?"

  "Than when we first met, though there's still plenty of improvement we can effect. You're too thin and I should say you still need plenty of rest."

  "I've always been thin," she said. "Does—does your little girl mind about me?"

  His smile was a little crooked.

  "I haven't the slightest idea. I left her governess to tell her."

  "Oh…" She looked at him under her lashes. Did he think, she wondered, the child would resent her? "How old was she when her mother died?"

  "Five."

  "Then she remembers her?"

  "Hardly. Her mother was ill for some time. The child was sent away." His lips still had that bitter little quirk, but his eyes were hard and guarded. He clearly did not want to be ques­tioned, and presently he picked up a book and began to read.

  Seven years, Miranda thought, watching his square, surgeon's hands as they turned the pages; seven years in which to grieve for a beautiful woman. But the lines in his face spelled bitterness and self-discipline rather than grief, and he had not, she thought, learned tolerance from the past.

  She was tired by the time they reached Plymouth, and was glad she had not packed her coat as she followed Adam into the station yard and stood shivering beside the luggage while he went to look for his chauffeur.

  She thought the man looked at her with surprise as he touched his cap, but she was becoming used to that, and to Adam's long silences. He sat beside her in the car without speaking as they were driven out of the town and through the dim, misty drizzle to the edge of Dartmoor. Every so often the mist lifted suffi­ciently for her to catch a glimpse of the rough, desolate country that seemed to stretch in unbroken solitude as far as the darken­ing horizon.

  Once, as she shivered, he asked her if she was cold, and when she shook her head he remarked casually, "You'll get used to Dartmoor. You're not seeing it at its best this evening."

  "Does anyone live here?" she asked, and he smiled at the doubt in her voice.

  "Oh, yes. There are farms and little villages, and there's Wintersbride."

  "Wintersbride?" She lingered over the curious name.

  "Your home."

  "Oh," she said, and withdrew farther into her corner.

  It was too misty to see much by the time they arrived at the house, but she had an impression of well-kept lawns and ter­races. The house itself was big and sprawling and built of the harsh west-country stone, a silent forbidding house with shut­tered windows that revealed no lights.

  "Welcome to Wintersbride," Adam said a little sardonically as the car stopped, and she shivered. His touch was light and impersonal as he helped her out of the car. He looked at her for a moment with a quizzical expression. "You don't like it?" he asked politely.

  "It has a—a secret look" she said, staring at the blind windows.

  "I hope you're not fanciful, Miranda," he replied a little shortly, and even as he spoke the front door was opened from within and light flooded out, dispelling the illusion.

  She followed Adam up the short flight of steps and stood blinking in the light while she listened to him greeting the tall, thin woman who had opened the door.

  "Well, here we are, Simmy, right on schedule. All well?"

  "Yes, Mr. Chantry. Fay will be down in a moment. It's very late, I know, but we made an exception this evening."

  "Miranda, this is Miss Simms, Fay's governess, and the mainstay of this house. Simmy, this is my wife."

  For the first time, Miss Simms looked at Miranda thoroughly, observing the immature figure, the young, transparent face, and the pale soft hair that curled so childishly. Miss Simms's eyes, which at first had held a shock of dismay, changed to a look of condescension before they were veiled again with her habitual reserve.

  "How do you do?" said Miranda, holding out her hand.

  "Forgive me," the governess replied, shaking hands after a barely perceptible pause. "You are so much younger than we had expected, Mrs. Chantry. I'm happy to welcome you to Wintersbride."

  Her touch was cold, and Miranda thought there was hostility in the quiet voice, or was it only polite surprise? She was aware of Adam's frown as he watched them both. He turned to the foot of the staircase and called in peremptory tones, "Fay! Come down at once!"

  There was a movement on the landing above and Miranda realized that someone had been there listening all the time. Slowly a figure began to descend the stairs, and as the light fell on a child's face, so strange, so darkly beautiful, she caught her breath.

  "Come along and get acquainted," Adam said. "You should have been down here with Simmy to welcome your stepmother, you know."

  The child continued her slow descent. On the bottom step she paused and her dark, brilliant gaze fastened on Miranda, who was standing alone, a little forlornly, in the center of the hall.

  "You—my stepmother!" she said, and began to laugh.

  "Fay, remember your manners, please," Miss Simms said sharply, but the child turned and fled back up the stairs and the peals of her derisive laughter came echoing down to them until a door slammed somewhere and there was silence.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Miranda, getting ready for bed in the strange bedroom that seemed so uncomfortably large, gazed into her own eyes, which, wide and apprehensive, looked back at her from the mirror.

  Her nerve had been shaken by that wild laughter, and there had been something hostile about all three of them at that moment—the child running away, the governess displeased but unsurprised, and Adam, his dark face cold and taut as his brooding gaze rested critically on Miranda's motionless figure.

  "Fay is a precocious child," he had said then." She probably thinks you're not much older than she is. Simmy will show you your room. You'd like a bath before dinner, I daresay."

  She had wondered if Miss Simms thought it strange that Adam should not himself perform that small courtesy for his bride, but following the governess up the wide, polished stair­case, she received the unwelcome impression that Simmy knew all that went on in the house.

  A maid was already in the bedroom unpacking, and Miss Simms said, "This is Nancy. She looks after Fay's needs and yours, too, of course, from now on. You have only to ring. Nancy, I'm sure you'll make Mrs. Chantry comfortable."

  The girl stared with ill-concealed curiosity. She had bold eyes, but she looked friendly and Miranda smiled at her and received a knowing grin in return before she was left alone with the governess. Miranda wandered over to the dressing table and her eyes fell on the monogrammed brushes gleaming with polished elegance in the lamplight.

  "Oh," she cried, "how lovely," and felt surprise that Adam should have taken thought or time to prepare for her coming.

  In the mirror she saw the governess's mouth tighten, and on an impulse she turned and said shyly, "I do hope you will like me, Miss Simms—you and the little girl."

  Miss Simms did not answer directly, but replied with a faint air of reproof, "You must excuse Fay tonight, Mrs. Chantry. She was not prepared. It would have been better if her father had explained the circumstances to her himself."

  "The circumstances?"

  "The fact that you were so young. I'm afraid the child has been building up the wrong sort of picture of you."

  "Oh, I see. Well, I do not think I was
prepared, either. She's lovely, isn't she?"

  "She's very like her mother," Miss Simms replied colorless­ly. "Now, you have your own bathroom—this door here; the other leads to Mr. Chantry's room. Dinner is usually at eight o'clock, but tonight it is put back until nine."

  Miranda stood in the middle of the room when the governess had gone and looked at the door that led to the other room. There was a key in the lock, but the door was not locked. So this had been the first Mrs. Chantry's room, she thought. Did he not mind turning it over to a stranger? There must be so many other rooms in the house that one would have thought… She went into the bathroom and turned on the taps with impatience at her own reflections. She or another? What could it matter to Adam Chantry in such circumstances?

  No one came to fetch her, and when she heard the gong ring she started down the silent staircase, wondering which room she should try to find first. But Adam was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs and she thought he watched her descent with a quizzical expression.

  "We can spare five minutes for a cocktail," he said, and took her into a small paneled room that he said he preferred to use when he was alone.

  He gave her a dry martini, then stood appraising her over the rim of his own glass.

  "Yes," he said with a little twist to his lips. "I can quite understand how you must strike Simmy."

  She looked at him inquiringly, then her wide mouth turned up in an uncertain smile. She had put on a gray chiffon dress with a cherry sash, and at the last moment she had tied a narrow cherry ribbon around her head because it gave her confidence.

  "Clothes do make a difference, don't they?" she said a little nervously.

  "Dubonnet's have excellent taste," he replied. "Unfortun­ately you look more like my daughter than my wife."

  She could not decide whether he was annoyed or merely amused, so she ventured a little timidly, "Well, it does not much matter either way, does it?"