Wintersbride

by Sara Seale

  "I'm sorry," she said, weeping afresh. "I'm so sorry for your—disappointment. It is so lonely with no one to love."

  It was so long since anyone had asked anything of him but his professional skill that he had forgotten the felicity of being needed, and as he held her, weeping against his breast, the unfamiliar thought struck him that perhaps he still had some­thing left to give. He remembered Miranda once saying to him, "Children need affection, Adam, or they get sick."

  "Don't feel lonely, my dear," he said, his fingers gently exploring the hollow at the nape of her neck. "I'm not very good at handling my household, I'm afraid, but I'll always listen and try to understand. Now, we must start being sensible. I want to take that temperature and get you off to bed."

  The storm had broken as Adam finally shook down the thermo­meter and returned it to its case.

  "Nervous of storms?" he had asked. "It's over Ram's Tor way, I think, and will probably pass us by." She shook her head and he observed her with a critical eye. "You've got a pretty high fever, young woman. If you're not better in the morning I'll get Tregellis to come in and have a look at you."

  "I do not want Dr. Tregellis," she said tearfully.

  "Why not?"

  "He doesn't like me."

  He looked surprised but only said evasively, "Well, we'll see."

  He examined her carefully, then sent her up to bed where he firmly kept her for several days. At first she had not been conscious of very much except the ache in her bones and the shivering fits that curiously made her hot instead of cold. She was aware of Adam in and out of the room and of the firmness and coolness of his hands, and she remembered him saying, just before she dropped off to sleep, "I'm leaving the door open. If you want anything in the night you have only to call. I shall probably come and have a look at you, anyway."

  What door, she thought, confused. But much later on she woke to find him standing by her bed in his dressing gown. There was a light in his room and the door between was open.

  "Oh, that door," she said, and smiled at him sleepily. "What is the time?"

  "Nearly half-past three. Are the aches any better? Good. Well, we'll just see what your temperature is doing now, then you can go back to sleep."

  After that first night it was only, Adam said, a matter of rest and care. A bad chill combined with mental shock could pro­duce symptoms quite as alarming as something more serious.

  Simmy brought Fay to see her one afternoon. The child stood just inside the doorway, staring at her with big eyes.

  "Come and sit on the bed, my rabbit," Miranda invited, but Fay only advanced to the middle of the room and continued to stand there silently.

  "It is usual to ask after the invalid's health," Miranda said, smiling at her.

  Miss Simms turned to Fay and said, in her colorless voice, "I think you have an apology to make to Mrs. Chantry. Don't you remember what I told you to say?"

  "I'm sorry I made you ill and I'm sorry for the poor little bird," Fay said glibly.

  Miranda looked at the governess.

  "Simmy, do you mind?" she asked gently. "I think Fay will have more to say for herself if you leave us."

  For a moment Miss Simms made no move to go, and Miranda thought she was preparing one of her quiet refusals to relinquish authority.

  "Mr. Chantry gave orders that I was not to allow you to be upset in any way," Miss Simms said then.

  "Did he? Well, I see no reason why Fay should upset me." Miranda was smiling but firm. "Do not worry, Simmy. I will send her back to you in a little while."

  "Very well, Mrs. Chantry." Simmy's long, sallow face was closed and shuttered again, but before she left the room she gave the silent child a warning glance. "Remember what I told you Fay. Your father will be sure to ask how you behaved when he comes home."

  "What did she tell you?" Miranda asked idly, when they were alone.

  "She said Adam would send me away to something called a reform school if I upset you," Fay said sullenly. "A place where they only have wicked children—like the prison at Princetown."

  Something cold touched Miranda. She remembered that the child invented stories to the point of lying, but there was a ring of troth in this statement that was disturbing. Before she could reply, Fay cried suddenly, "Did I really make you ill, Miranda? Would I have been responsible if you d-died?"

  "No, of course not," Miranda said swiftly. "I got a chill. I was never going to die, my silly cabbage."

  The child's face crumpled as the tears came, and Miranda held out her arms.

  "Come," she said softly, and Fay ran to her and flung herself weeping across the bed. Miranda held her closely and for the first time she felt that Fay was just a normal little girl beset by the exaggerated fears of childhood and seeking reassurance in a child's natural way. This was not the usual scene to attract attention. The child was genuinely upset, and when her tears subsided into sniffs she looked at Miranda with shy contrition.

  "Now," Miranda said, wiping the wet lashes with a corner of the sheet, "you will tell me truthfully—did Simmy really say that your father would send you away to this place you spoke of?"

  "Oh, yes," said Fay.

  "But Adam never told you so, did he?"

  "N-no." Fay sounded doubtful. "But he must have told Simmy, mustn't he?"

  "No, my little one, never would he suggest such a thing. Reform schools are for criminals, not for little girls who are naughty and sometimes tell lies. Your father would not even let you go to a nice school, where children make friends with other children, for fear you would not be happy."

  "Simmy said I was wicked to kill the bird."

  "Not wicked, Fay—unkind, though I do not think you meant to be."

  "No, no, I didn't." The child's eyes were afraid. "I didn't mean to be unkind to the kitten, either, but Simmy said I was."

  "The kitten?"

  "The kitten Nanny sent me once. Simmy took it away."

  Miranda remembered now.

  "What had you done to the kitten?" she asked gently.

  "Nothing. I loved it. I called it Nanny because she gave it to me and one day I dressed it in my baby doll's bonnet and long clothes and Simmy said I was cruel. She sent it away before Adam could come home and punish me."

  "I see," said Miranda slowly, and at the same moment there was a knock on the door. Without waiting for a reply, the governess slipped quietly into the room.

  "I said I would send Fay back to you in a little while, Simmy," Miranda said a little sharply.

  Miss Simms looked at them, her pale eyes observing Mi­randa's heightened color, the child's tear-stained face, and the huddled little picture they presented in the disarranged bed.

  "I think it's time I took this little girl away," she said smoothly. "You look very flushed, Mrs. Chantry. Has Fay been making up fairy tales for you?"

  "Fairy tales are not true," said Miranda, giving her a level look.

  Simmy replied in her expressionless voice, "Exactly, but we both know what little people are, don't we? You should be resting, Mrs. Chantry. Come along, Fay."

  The child slipped off the bed without a word, but she turned and gave Miranda one quick kiss before joining the governess. For a moment they stood there together, and Miranda looked at Simmy. She was like the house, Miranda thought uneasily. Her face had the same secret, shuttered look of Wintersbride on that gray, misty evening in May, and she remembered that once before she had thought that, like the house, Simmy did not always reveal her true personality.

  "Come and see me tomorrow, chérie," she said, ignoring the governess. "We will plan a little treat for when I am well."

  Fay did not answer, and Miss Simms, smiling politely, shepherded her out of the room.

  When Adam came to see Miranda that evening, he frowned as he laid a hand on her forehead and observed the brightness of her eyes.

  "You're overexcited," he said. "I shall have to tell Simmy to keep Fay away until you're fit again."

  "No, no," she said quickly, catch
ing his hand. "I wish to speak to you about that, Adam. I think it is Simmy who makes trouble between you and Fay. She tells or implies things that are not true."

  "Nonsense," he said, and sat down on the side of the bed. "Simmy has already spoken to me. She gathered that Fay had been upsetting you."

  Miranda gave an angry bounce in the bed.

  "Fay did not upset me," she said. "But Simmy has been putting ideas into her head. She makes you out to be a mon­ster—a bogeyman. Do you know that she told the child you would send her to a reform school? Is it any wonder that she cannot love you?"

  "Miranda, my dear," he said a little wearily. "You should know by now that Fay invents things. I know very well Simmy never said anything of the sort. Is it likely, now?"

  "Fay was not inventing, this time," Miranda said stubborn­ly. "She was just a normal little girl frightened by bogies. And, Adam, that story about the kitten—I do not know what Simmy told you, but it was not true. All children dress their pets up in dolls' clothes—that is not cruel."

  "Is that what Fay told you?"

  "Yes, and I believe it. You were not there, so how do you know what was the truth?"

  "My dear child, what reason would Simmy have for lying?"

  "I don't know. But I do know she is keeping Fay from you. She uses you as a threat—a bogeyman, as I told you. She would not even leave us alone together this afternoon because she was afraid I might learn something."

  His fingers went automatically to her pulse.

  "This won't do," he told her severely. "If you're going to react like this to Fay's visits then I must forbid her this room until you're well again."

  "No," she said.

  He looked at her flushed face and began to speak reasonably and patiently as if she was a stubborn child.

  "Miranda, dear, believe me, this isn't the first time Fay has invented stories for gullible listeners. She's tried it on Grace, who was too sensible to pay much attention. You are young and more easily swayed, but Simmy hasn't been with me all these years for nothing. I rely on her implicitly and if it hadn't been for her my poor little daughter would have been more of a problem than she is. Now, I'm going to give you something to make you sleep, and in the morning you'll see things in their right pro­portions again."

  The days drifted by lazily, and Miranda enjoyed her rest in bed, for here she was safe from Wintersbride and that other secret life the house would not reveal.

  "I've been thinking," Adam said the evening before she was to get up for the first time, "would you like me to take you away somewhere for a bit?"

  She looked surprised.

  "Mr. Benyon has been talking to you?" she asked.

  "He thinks we both need a holiday. How does the idea appeal to you? We might try the south of France."

  "Of course, if you would like," she said politely.

  He observed her thoughtfully. He respected her uncharacter­istically guarded reticence, for had not he himself dealt in the same commodity for years? It was his own fault if she adhered so literally to the terms of their marriage, and he was beginning to suspect that only a fool would have imagined that such an arrangement was feasible—a fool such as himself, and a very young girl like Miranda persuading herself and him that she was not romantic.

  "What are you smiling at?" she asked him.

  "You. You are rather absurd, aren't you?"

  "I do not think so," she replied with dignity. "I cannot help it that I am not very tall and wearing no shoes and—"

  "No, but that isn't quite what I meant. However—shall we have our holiday, or shall I do as I had originally intended and run up to Scotland by myself when I can spare the time?"

  "I would like very much to come away with you," she said a little shyly, and wondered whether, should they both be free of Wintersbride and all it signified for a while, he might, perhaps, find a natural need for her. "When could we go?"

  "It depends how I'm fixed," he said vaguely. "In the mean­time you must build yourself up and not take too much out of yourself."

  She looked at him sitting in the circle of lamplight by her bed—at his graying hair, the strong lines of self-discipline, and the dark eyes that could dwell on her with an interest that was coldly professional but could also be tender—and it seemed a long time since he, a stranger, had brought her to his home with such little thought as to the consequences.

  "Why did you marry me?" she asked, and he raised his eyebrows.

  "Is this your famous habit of speaking your thoughts aloud or is it a serious question?" he asked.

  She looked at him "under her lashes.

  "A little of both, I suppose. I think what I really meant was why did you choose me when you did not know anything about me and only thought of me as a child?"

  He considered, wondering a little himself. He supposed that the piquancy of that first meeting must have unconsciously influenced him. At the time she had seemed a child, a little waif who could not be abandoned to a world in which she had no place. But was this, along with the fact that he himself needed a wife, the only reason he had married her?

  "It's hard to say now, Miranda," he replied slowly. "An impulse, shall we say? A way out of both our difficulties? But now I think you should settle down for the night. In a day or two, when I see how much I'm committed to in my professional engagements, "we'll make plans for going away. Good night."

  He stood for a moment, looking down at her, then unex­pectedly stooped and kissed her on the forehead.

  But the plans were never made. Adam was apologetic but said it was impossible for him to getaway that month or even the next. Miranda was disappointed but unsurprised. She had not really expected that he would take her away. The next morning, however, there was a package on her breakfast tray and Nancy was greatly impressed by the large cut-glass bottle of perfume that Miranda unwrapped.

  "Oh, my!" she exclaimed, touching it with reverence. "'Tis a proper job and no mistake. Is it from the master, ma'am?"

  "Yes," Miranda said, fingering Adam's card.

  Nancy went back to the servants' hall, warm with approval. That was more like it, she told Bessie, thinking of those pillows on the other half of the big bed whose spotless covers she changed each week because Mrs. Yeo would have been after her if she hadn't. She liked Miranda, who treated her as an equal and did not put on airs.

  Miranda let her breakfast get cold as she admired her present. No one had ever given her perfume before, and it was a luxury she had not been able to afford for herself prior to her marriage. And although Adam was now giving her a generous allowance, it had never occurred to-her to be so extravagant.

  She picked up the card again. On the back of it he had written in evident haste, "For a charming young lady, whom I hate to disappoint."

  Had he minded the postponement of his plans after all? Did he perhaps lack sufficient encouragement to break down such reserves as he might feel in view of their mutual bargain?

  "How," she demanded aloud, "does one encourage a man whose only interest in bodies is how to carve them up!" And she began recklessly to splash perfume all over her person: behind her ears, in the thin hollow of her throat, in the curve of her elbows and between her slight breasts.

  "There!" she said, flinging herself back in the bed and stretching luxuriously. "Now I smell like a demimondaine."

  When Adam came home that evening she ran across the hall to meet him and stood on tiptoe, offering him the top of her head to smell.

  "Am I not a fine lady now?" she laughed. "See, I have it behind the ears, on the crown of the head and—oh, everywhere possible. Can you smell it, Adam?"

  "I should think they could smell it in the servant's hall," he observed, liking the feel of her soft curls under his chin.

  "There is too much?" she asked anxiously. "It has, perhaps, gone to my head a little. You see, I have never had perfume before."

  "It has certainly gone to your head in more senses than one," he replied, but his voice was indulgent and he unexpectedly dr
opped a light kiss on the top of her curls "I'm glad you're pleased, Miranda. I'm rather a neglectful husband, I'm afraid."

  "Oh, no," she protested, shocked. "You have given me a ring, a string of pearls, a new toilet set, and all my expensive clothes. How can you say you are neglectful?"

  He touched her eager face with tender fingers.

  "You are a very delightful recipient. I must do it more often," he said gently, and thought of Melisande, who had taken gifts for granted and assessed them only for their worth.

  To Miranda it was an evening different from any other. Adam for once had forgotten his work, or perhaps he was making a special effort to please her. He was, she knew, atoning graceful­ly for the promise he could not fulfil, and she was content to forget the hints of Simmy and Arthur Benyon in the pleasure of such unusual intimacy.

  How charming he could be when he took the trouble, she thought, her eyes watching him lovingly across the dinner table; how attractive his hair was, shining like frost in the candlelight.

  "Did you go gray very young?" she inquired, desiring to know all the small, unimportant things he never told her about himself.

  "Pretty young," he replied with a smile. "It runs in my family. Do my gray hairs dismay you, Miranda?"

  "Oh, no," she said. "It is very becoming, and also most distinguished in your profession. Tell me of when you were a boy, Adam. Where did you live? Had you brothers or sisters?"

  He glanced across at her a little wryly. Married for two months and she had still to ask him for the simple information of first acquaintance! He told her a little about his boyhood in Cumberland. His father had been a doctor, practicing until the day he died because he loved medicine, although there had Been no need for such selfless hard work since he had married a rich woman. There were no other children, and later, when Adam had finished his training and wished to specialize, his mother's death had made it both possible and easy to build a reputation without the customary pinching and slogging.

  "I was one of the lucky ones," he told Miranda with a rather bitter little smile. "By the time I was twenty-eight I was well on my way to being established in my profession and had a wife and a child and a rosy future predicted by the high-ups. It just goes to show that you should never tempt providence."