by Sara Seale
"So? Well that at least is good. But your husband—does he love you, chérie—does he make you happy?"
She sighed.
"I am at a disadvantage, you see," she said. "He was deeply in love with his first wife, and he has not yet, I think, got over her death."
"But what," asked Pierre, gently mocking, "has a dead woman got that you have not?"
"She was very beautiful," Miranda said. "Come—I will show you."
She led the way to the drawing room and switched on the lights. Pierre stood for a long time looking up at Melisande's portrait, and Miranda watched him, trying to read the expression in his face.
"Do you not agree she was beautiful!" she asked at last "As you are an artist it is a face that should appeal to you."
"As an artist there is something I do not like," he replied. "She is beautiful, yes, but it is the beauté du diable."
"It is strange you should say that," said Miranda slowly. "For I feel she is hostile to me—she and the house."
He laughed and pinched the lobe of her ear.
"What foolishness is this?" he exclaimed. "She is dead and her ghost cannot harm you."
"It is hard to fight a ghost," she said, and Pierre took her chin between his finger and thumb, tilting her face upward.
"Can it be that you love this strange Englishman who is so much too old for you?" he asked on a note of surprise.
"Yes, Pierre," she said with a sigh, and thought of the evening as it might have been and wished him a thousand miles away.
"That is, of course, different," he said softly, and felt her shiver.
"You are cold? You do not care for this room, naturally. Let us go," he said.
But back in the study the fire could not warm her. The rain had stopped, but mist clung to the windows and the house was silent.
"Will you mind very much, Pierre, if I go to bed?" she said. "Tomorrow we will talk, but tonight—well, I am tired."
It was early yet, and Adam, she knew, would not be up for some time. She undressed slowly, tired now with the sick, flat lassitude that came from disappointment. Before she got into bed, she opened the door between the two rooms, then lay listening to the owls and waiting.
It was late when she heard him come up, and her eyes were heavy with sleep denied. Adam stood for a moment in the doorway, and as he reached out a hand to close the door, she said, "Please come in." She switched on the light by the bed as he slowly crossed the room.
"I thought you were still downstairs with your young man," he said.
"No. I have been waiting for you for a long time," she replied, propping herself on her elbow.
"Waiting?" His voice had a curious ring. "Did you want to see me about anything, Miranda?"
"Only to say that I was so sorry Pierre should have chosen tonight."
"Tonight or any other—where's the difference?"
"Because…" But she could not go on any further, and said instead, "You do not mind that Pierre is here?"
He regarded her with an odd expression. "Is there any reason why I should mind?" he said. "Though, since you ask me, Miranda, it would have been—usual, shall we say, to tell me he was expected."
"But, Adam, I had no idea. Indeed, I thought that when he tapped on the window it was you."
"Have you ever known me tap on windows?"
"N-no—but tonight was different."
"Yes, it was, wasn't it? The Sevres dinner service, the table decorations, and those very French dishes that you bad taken so much trouble over. I've certainly never known you to be interested in cooking before."
"But Adam, that was…" Suddenly she did not finish. If he was so blind that he could not see, if he would listen to Simmy's innuendoes and believe them, then the frail bond between them was too weak for understanding.
"I am sorry that you do not welcome my guest," she said, not looking at him. "But I did not invite him tonight."
"I see. But you didn't tell me your—friendship with this young man was so close."
"You did not ask me," she replied gently. "You have always had very little interest in my life before I met you, Adam."
His mouth tightened.
"And you think that by the terms of our marriage, I should not inquire too much about old friendships?"
She looked at him under her lashes.
"Well, do you think you should?" she said deliberately. "It is your own affair if you choose to think ill of me, Adam, but you should not be illogical. I would not make a scene if you had a chère amie in Plymouth, where you so often spend the night."
"Wouldn't you, Miranda?"
"No. Me, I am logical and do not expect a man to be—to be celibate in all his habits."
"And do you apply that to women, too?"
"Why not? It is unreasonable to ask of one what one may not of another."
He was suddenly violently angry.
"If you're trying to tell me that you consider yourself free to amuse yourself in that sort of fashion you had better shed some of your French ideas," he said. "It may be illogical, as you like to call it—it may even be damned unfair, but whatever the terms of our marriage, I don't choose that my wife should seek consolation elsewhere. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Adam," she said and lay back on her pillows, very still. "You would not—" her voice was almost a whisper "—you would not think of—altering the terms?"
He stood looking down at her, hands thrust deep in his pockets, but there was no tenderness in his sudden smile.
"That is always possible," he said, "but in the meantime you'd better take to locking your door. Flesh and blood takes little count of contracts or obligations if tried too highly and I don't think you would care for a marriage consummated in that spirit, Miranda."
"No," she said, turning her face away from the light. "I should not care for it at all. Good night, Adam."
He stood for a moment longer, looking down at her. Anger and even jealousy were fighting against an instinct to take her in his arms, but he did not see the tears on her lashes and presently he bade her a brief good-night and went back to his room, shutting the door behind him.
CHAPTER TEN
Miranda was surprised to find, the next morning, that Adam had canceled his appointments for the day.
"You are staying at home?" she said, puzzled by such an unusual procedure.
"Do you object?" he asked a little ironically.
"Of course not, but—"
"This isn't a last-minute decision in order to keep an eye on your guest, you know," he said. "Unfortunately I had already made my arrangements before coming home last night."
The color crept under her pale skin, for she suddenly knew that, just as she had planned the evening as a special occasion, so had he contributed his portion and taken a day off to please her.
"What would you like to do?" she asked a little helplessly, but his smile was bitter.
"You needn't worry about me," he said. "I shall be out. I did understand Morel to say he was leaving for France today, didn't I?"
"Yes."
"And I'm sure you'd like to go and see him off."
"Yes," she said again, and was glad when he shut himself into his study.
Pierre was to sail in the afternoon so there was little time left in which to hear all the news she had longed for. It had stopped raining, but the sky was still overcast, and she and Pierre walked in the grounds, wandering down narrow, sunless alleys shadowed by high banks of rhododendrons.
Once he turned and faced her suddenly, saying with unaccustomed seriousness, "I am not happy about you, petite. This lonely house, these dark, dripping walks—they are not the background for you."
"They do not always drip," she replied with grave consideration. "When there is sun the garden is beautiful."
"But in this country there is not much sun. Mielle—we will not lose touch again, hein? Should you ever want me, I will come."
He touched her cheek with his brown fingers, and presently Miranda suggested that they return to
the house.
Miranda was glad when it was time for Pierre to leave. Now that the first delight at seeing him had passed she realized that for her too much had changed since those carefree days at Ste. Giselle and there seemed nothing more to say. She would always welcome him as a link with her childhood and her father's beloved memory, but her way of life was no longer his.
It was raining again when Bidder brought the car to the door. Miranda, sitting silently beside Pierre, looked out at the sad expanse of moor and wished that she, too, had remained behind. At the pier she stood in the rain, watching the sea gulls while she waited for Pierre to go through the formalities of embarkation. There was, he told her, a delay in sailing and they might as well go on board and have some coffee. She followed him up the gangway, glad, when she got there to feel the cheerful warmth of the saloon.
"I should have married you," he said abruptly just before the last visitors' bell rang.
She tried to laugh.
"Oh, Pierre, it would never have done," she said gently. "We are alike and yet not enough alike, and I—I have found what I want even though to you it may seem strange."
"It seems to me of the strangest," he retorted with a little smile. "Well—goodbye, my little bride of winter. Do not let the frosts nip your blossoming. Goodbye…"
He kissed her gently, then stood by the ship's rail and watched her small figure move out of sight down the gangway.
Adam had lunched with the Lathams, but he had known long before he left that it was a mistake. He should have realized that news travels fast in a village, and Grace and her mother already knew that Miranda was entertaining an attractive visitor from France. Mrs. Latham plied him with curious questions and, never noted for her tact, remarked that she had heard before there had been some young man abroad for whom the child had formed an early attachment. Did Adam think it wise to encourage these romantic friendships?
"You mustn't mind mother," Grace said when she got him alone. "She likes to believe the worst of people in the nicest possible way. Still, for all that, it's probably a good thing the young man is returning to France today. People can't help gossiping and—well, little Miranda is such a child, isn't she?"
"What you're really trying to say is that I'm far too old for her and shouldn't be surprised if she finds youth more attractive," he said bluntly.
"Well," she replied gently, "there is a big difference, isn't there? And then you are so little at home."
"So people have been talking anyhow, have they?"
She made a little deprecating gesture with her hands.
"But surely you must have been prepared for that," she said. "Your sudden marriage, no preparation, no honeymoon and a child you treat more as a daughter than a wife."
"Yes, I see. I suppose I must be rather blind."
She looked at him and he saw again in her eyes the stirring of that old emotion that had mainly precipitated his second marriage.
"Adam—we're such old friends. I've never understood this marriage of yours. Why did you do it?"
His answering regard was steady.
"It doesn't occur to you that I might be fond of Miranda?" he asked, and she moved impatiently.
"Oh, fond—of course you've grown fond of her, but you didn't love her. And why, if you wanted a stepmother for Fay, did you have to choose—so unwisely? She married you for a home, Adam, not out of any sense of affection. Do you really imagine that if someone younger and more attractive comes along she won't leave you as easily as she married you?"
"Grace, please—" he said quietly, and got up. "I know you're only talking like this out of a sense of friendship, but don't, my dear. Even with you I'm not prepared to discuss all the circumstances of my marriage. I shouldn't have come here in my present mood. Forgive me and please forget such gossip as you may have heard. Rumor, you know, is very seldom true."
He got away as soon as he could, afraid for one moment that she would be betrayed into declaring her own feelings for him. But as he drove back to Wintersbride through the rain, his thoughts were clouded with bitterness. For the gossip about his marriage he knew he had only himself to blame, but about the truth of Miranda's old attachment for Pierre he was only just beginning to wonder. By marrying her had he cheated her out of her natural right to happiness? Did she really think, as she had said last night, that it was unreasonable to demand fidelity in a marriage such as theirs?
They had been so near to fulfillment, and even if she did not love him, he thought that she had wanted him. But, watching her with Pierre and remembering that framed picture they had made in the lighted and uncurtained room, he was bitterly conscious of his own failure.
He went up to the schoolroom when he got home to see Fay. Here, too, he had failed, he thought wearily, observing the nervous, half-frightened glance the child gave him before she returned to her occupation of building a house with cards.
The child went on stacking the cards with great care and exactitude and Adam watched her. Presently Fay looked up and said with a little rush of words, "Miranda says you can stop her doing things she wants the same as you can stop me. Stop her going to France, Adam—please stop her going to France."
"What are you talking about, my dear? Miranda isn't going to France," he said.
"Truly?" There was doubt in the child's voice.
"Truly. When she comes home I'll tell her to come up and say good-night to you, shall I?"
"Yes, please."
He left the schoolroom with growing uneasiness and knocked on Simmy's door and asked her if she would come down to his study for a few minutes.
"Sit down, I want to talk to you," he said when she arrived. "I'm a little worried about Fay, Simmy. She seems to have a notion that Mrs. Chantry is going away. Was anything said in your hearing that could have given her that idea?"
"Oh, I think she had planned to visit her old home later on," Simmy replied lightly. "She and Mr. Morel spoke of it in front of Fay after lunch."
"I see. Do you like Mr. Morel, Simmy?"
Miss Simms hesitated. "Do you want me to be frank?" she asked.
"Naturally."
"Well, he's very charming, of course, like so many Frenchmen, but—I don't think I would altogether trust him and—I thought him a little familiar, even for an old friend."
His eyes regarded her gravely.
"Did you, Simmy?" Adam's hands, clasped before him on the desk, tightened suddenly. "People get strange notions, sometimes," he said expressionlessly. "Mr. Morel is an old friend—almost like a brother. It's perhaps natural that—strangers might get the wrong impression. I hope you'll make that clear if there should be any talk in the servants' hall, Simmy."
"But of course. Poor little Mrs. Chantry—she's been lonely. It did one good to see her pleasure. All the preparations and excitement—it was like watching a young girl getting ready to welcome her first suitor. We all noticed it, and I wish now I had not been a little sharp with her over the childish little accusation and spoiled her pleasure."
"What accusation?" Adam asked, his face hard and grim.
"Oh, just a foolish idea she had that I listened in to her telephone conversations. I would not have paid any attention, of course, if I had not been accused in front of the servants."
"What telephone conversation is this supposed to have been? I rang her myself in the morning."
"She didn't say, but later, when Mr. Morel arrived and I realized how—well—they knew each other, I had an idea she might have been talking to him and was, perhaps, a little embarrassed by the possibility of being overheard."
He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes as if he was suddenly very tired.
"Yes, well, keep that idea to yourself, Simmy. We don't know that it's even true," he said. "Mrs. Chantry said, if you remember, that she had not expected Mr. Morel."
Simmy's pale eyes regarded him thoughtfully.
"Of course, it's possible," she conceded. "But then why all the preparations, the special dinner? I think, myself, th
at Mrs. Chantry expected the young man to dinner only and that is why no mention was made of his staying overnight. She may have thought—forgive me—that you would not approve, since it seems clear that she was fond of him in the past. They are both so very young, are they not?"
"Yes, they are very young," said Adam wearily, and looked at his watch. "Is the car not back yet? The boat should have sailed two hours ago."
"Shall I see for you?"
"No, don't bother. If they're not back in half an hour I'll call Bidder's quarters and see if there's any news. The sailings may have been delayed."
But Miranda had returned. She had slipped in quietly by the garden door and had been in time to overhear most of the end of the conversation. The door of Adam's study was ajar and it was easy to distinguish their voices. She stood, unconscious of deliberate eavesdropping, aware only of the clever plausibility of the governess's suggestions, and the bitter weariness in Adam's voice as he answered. For a moment she was tempted to confront them both and accuse Simmy to her face of mischief making, but what real explanation could she give? Simmy had admitted her remarks were based on supposition. She had only to withdraw them, leaving behind the inevitable harm she had done, and under those watchful, calculating eyes she did not care to plead for Adam's understanding. She turned instead and, fleeing silently up the stairs to her own room, flung herself on the bed and wept.
Adam was for the most part a rational man, as his calling demanded, and he did not really believe that Miranda had run away, but he admitted to relief when Bidder informed him that the car had returned nearly an hour ago, and went up to his room to change for dinner.
He stood for a moment before his dressing table, looking at the little snapshot with the curling edges, and his eye fell on Miranda's posy. It had, he supposed, been there yesterday, but in the shock of other happenings he had not noticed it. This unfamiliar attention, then, had at least been for him and not the guest, and the thought crossed his mind that Simmy could have been mistaken. He remembered his own words to Miranda on the telephone that morning. "Shall we make it a celebration tonight?" he had said. Miranda's preparations could well have been for him, a shy way of bidding him welcome, a wish to mark the occasion as different. He remembered his promise to bring her a present. Well, he had brought the present but had never given it to her, and on a sudden impulse he slipped the leather case containing the charming little jeweled watch he had found for her into his pocket and tried the door between their rooms. It was locked for the first and only time since he had brought her to Wintersbride, and with a chill at his heart he remembered his words of the night before, "You'd better take to locking your door… flesh and blood takes little count of contracts if tried too highly…"and the rest of that hard, bitter sentence.