by Sara Seale
He hesitated for a moment, then went out into the corridor and knocked on the other door of her room. At first he thought she was not there, for upon getting no reply to his knock, he opened the door to find the curtains were already drawn and the room was in semidarkness. Then he saw her in a huddled little heap on the bed and he switched on the light, revealing her distress as deliberately as he would have exposed a disease in a patient.
She blinked painfully in the strong light and he saw the havoc grief had made, the swollen lids, the strain about the unsteady mouth, the defenseless unhappiness that she was too tired to hide from him.
"You minded his going so much?" he asked.
She was too choked with tears to answer. Indeed, he doubted very much if she had heard what he said, and although he crossed slowly to the bed he did not touch her.
"Poor child," he said compassionately, "I should never have married you, should I?"
She was too tired to place any other construction on his remark save the one that he himself regretted his marriage. She could not tell him that it was for him she wept and the whole sorry failure of her unwanted overtures. She only thought he looked at her with the well-disguised distaste with which he would break the bad news to one of his patients.
"I will go away if you wish it," she said.
His eyes continued to watch her, probing, dissecting.
"Do you want to go away—back to France, perhaps?"
"If you wish," she said, and suddenly he was angry.
"No, I don't wish it," he said in a hard voice. "And I don't think, when you come to your senses, you will wish it, either."
"I heard what Simmy was saying to you," she said. "She is very clever at twisting the truth."
"And what is the truth, Miranda? No, perhaps you had better not tell me. As you yourself said last night, by the terms of our marriage I should not inquire too closely into old friendships. Well, we'll let that pass for the present, but whatever the truth of the matter, the fact remains there has been gossip, and although I realize that I asked for a great deal of it by marrying so— unsuitably—the thing is done and we must make the best of it for the time being."
"You also think I am unsuitable?" she said in a tired voice.
"I was referring, naturally, to the difference in age," he replied smoothly. "Now—for my own shortcomings I apologize in advance. I realize that I'm too old for you, that saddling you with adult problems was hardly fair. But even so, you have a better life now than if you hadn't married me, and until such time as we can think of an alternative solution we must just go on as before. One thing, at least, need no longer trouble you. I will, of course, respect the terms of our contract to the letter. There is no need for you to lock your door in future."
She said nothing, but turned her face away from the light and his own searching regard; and presently he got to his feet.
"I'll have a tray sent up to you," he said more kindly. "I can dine alone tonight."
"Adam…" she said as he prepared to leave her.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry if I have caused gossip."
"We've both caused gossip, if that's any comfort to you," he said. "We are, I fear, in the eyes of our acquaintances, an ill-assorted couple, but don't let that worry you. I rather fancy that I am the one to be censured for marrying a girl nearly young enough to be my daughter. Would you like me to mix you a sedative before you go to sleep?"
"No."
"Well, get to bed early. Good night."
Adam remained in Plymouth for the rest of the week, and she was grateful for the period of readjustment. With honest fortitude she packed away her short-lived hopes and dreams. She knew that even though he could not love her, there would come a day when he would need her, because no normal man of Adam's age, she believed, would choose to be celibate for the rest of his life. And she knew that, when that time came, she would have gathered courage enough to forget her own pride and accept what little he had to offer. In the meantime she was his guest and must make no demands upon his time and privacy. September saw the end of summer. Miranda, staring out of the rain-washed windows day after day, thought of the winter ahead. Winter… Wintersbride… there would be no more sunny days by the river and the garden would have lost its warmth and color. There would only be rain and drifting leaves and the silent, shuttered house.
She no longer used the drawing room, which belonged so indisputably to Melisande. She would, she thought, take over the old nursery for her own use before the winter came.
She mentioned the matter to Mrs. Yeo, who lately had seemed so much more cooperative, but the housekeeper looked doubtful.
"Well, I don't know, madam," she said. "I don't think Miss Simms would like it."
"Miss Simms? What has it got to do with her?" asked Miranda with surprise. "The room is never used."
"Well, I don't rightly know, but it was Miss Simms got Mr. Chantry to change Miss Fay over and get all that ugly modern stuff down from London. I always thought she never could abide the nursery because it used to belong to Nanny."
"Well, she is not going to lock up the nursery as she once locked up the drawing room," said Miranda.
Simmy did not openly object, but she made difficulties over what furniture could be spared from other rooms and finished by saying that she did not wish Fay to use the room.
"If I make it into my sitting room," Miranda said, "she shall certainly use it. It's a much more cheerful room than the schoolroom, which gets no sun."
"I think you already know why the rooms were changed," Simmy said.
Miranda replied quietly, "I know you were jealous of Nanny's influence, and I am not sure now that you were not also anxious to remove the child as far as possible from her father."
Simmy's eyebrows lifted.
"Really, Mrs. Chantry, isn't that a little fanciful?" she said. "It was Mr. Chantry himself who complained of the noise."
"What caused those screaming fits in the first place?" asked Miranda shrewdly. But the governess only smiled a little mockingly.
"I did not frighten her into them if that is what you mean to imply," she said. "By all means use the nursery if you wish, Mrs. Chantry, but please allow Fay to remain where she's best off—in her own wing of the house."
It was difficult now, Miranda found, to get Fay to herself for any length of time. The wet weather kept them all so much indoors that it was not possible to avoid Simmy's watchful eye for long.
Miranda knew now that the governess was trying to break the child's affection for her, just as she was convinced that the same thing had somehow happened in Adam's case. Looking back on the varying incidents that had involved the little girl in dispute, Miranda began to receive a clearer and clearer impression of distortion. Although Adam always insisted that Fay could not be treated entirely as other children, was it not actually Simmy who had suggested in the first place that she was not normal? Simmy had somehow got rid of Nanny and afterward made her own rules, and it was Simmy who for so many years had fostered the child's dislike for her father by advising him not to force her affections, and by using his authority as a threat for punishment.
She tried on one occasion to talk the matter out with Adam, but he gave her rather an odd look and said, "You shouldn't try to get your own back on Simmy, Miranda. You probably misconstrued the conversation you so unfortunately overheard. She was only doing her duty, you know."
"To suggest what was not true?" she said, surprised that he had reopened the subject after so long.
"Well," he replied mildly, "true or not, I don't know that she was implying anything very wrong. I'm afraid, as she says herself, you don't care for her very much, but though she makes allowances for you, you are not so generous toward her, are you?"
Yes, thought Miranda bitterly, Simmy was expert at administering her own particular brand of poison. It was useless to try to enlist Adam's sympathy without tangible proof of guilt. Even when she quoted things that Fay had told her, he would merely raise his e
yebrows and reply, as if weary of the whole subject, "My dear child, as I've told you so many times, Fay invents, but I must ask you not to encourage her by letting her think you believe her."
"I do believe her," Miranda said gravely. "I think, Adam, she is a very truthful little girl and what you have often thought were lies were not so at all."
For a moment he looked as if the idea was worthy of more careful consideration than he had given it before, then he sighed and said more patiently, "I would like to believe you, Miranda, but Simmy has known the child all her life. I must respect her experience and the evidence of my own eyes, mustn't I?"
"The evidence of your own eyes is only what Simmy has shown you, and Fay's own dislike—which, you know, Adam, is really fear, I think."
"But why should she be afraid of me? I've always tried to be patient and gentle with her."
"Yes, why should she be afraid? Because someone encourages her—because—"
"Oh, Miranda, please!" He sounded impatient again. "I hope you aren't silly enough to suggest such things to the child herself or I shall have to agree with Simmy that you aren't very good for her."
"Is that what Simmy says?" asked Miranda.
But he did not answer directly, and said instead, "Believe me, Miranda, I am not ungrateful for your interest in Fay, and I am delighted and, I admit, a little surprised that her affection for you has lasted so long. But don't, as a result, disregard Simmy. She really does know what's best."
No, thought Miranda, she would never disregard Simmy; rather, she would watch more carefully. It was plain to her that the governess was up to her old tricks of trying to wean the child away, but this time she should not succeed. Miranda's judgment was not, as Adam's had been at a critical time in his life, clouded with doubts, and she no longer believed for one moment that Fay was anything more than a perfectly normal little girl who had been the victim of too much care and supervision and the predatory instincts of a possessive woman.
As she began the first preparations for turning the old nursery into a sitting room for herself, she thought more and more about Nanny. What, wondered Miranda with increasing curiosity, had Nanny done that Adam should dismiss her so summarily a year after Melisande died?
But she did not try to talk to Adam again, and indeed there was little opportunity, for he was away a great deal. He seemed like a machine these days, unsparing of himself or his subordinates, and it was not surprising that when he came home it was simply to eat and sleep. Sometimes she watched him a little wistfully as he sat opposite her in the evenings reading or just relaxed in a chair with his eyes closed. Then he would look tired and disillusioned and rather older than his age, and she had to restrain an impulse to put out a hand and touch the graying hair with loving tenderness.
Arthur Benyon, on one of his rare visits, had told her that if Adam did not relax he would break down. Then Benyon had looked at her rather hard, as if he thought that she herself might be the cause of such preoccupation with work.
"He's taking on more and more and it's not necessary," he said gruffly. "You should get him to go for a holiday, Miranda. I can't persuade him."
"Can anyone persuade Adam to something he does not agree with?" she asked a little sadly.
"Well, you should be able to, young woman, if no one else," he replied.
He shot her a puzzled glance when she said, "I least of all."
He tackled Adam before he left.
"No man's indispensable, not even you, Adam," he said. "Miranda's beginning to look peaked, too. Take her abroad where there's some sun. Do you both good."
"A joint holiday was hardly in our itinerary," Adam said with a quirk of the lips, and was not prepared for the old man's explosive retort.
"Damn it all, man, what do you mean? You didn't have a honeymoon—well, take one now. You owe Miranda that, you know."
A honeymoon… what a strange, incongruous thing to owe to Miranda. His eyes were sardonic as he replied, "Do you think so?"
Benyon asked, with the bluntness of a privileged friend, "What sort of silly mess are you making of your marriage this time?"
Adam was startled. Was the strangeness of the situation so apparent to others?
"I hardly know how to answer that one, Arthur," he said a little awkwardly.
The specialist retorted, "Well, I'll answer it for you. For some reason best known to yourself, I think you've embarked on one of these highfalutin business arrangements with your wife. What's the matter with you, man? I used to think you'd fall in love with that charming little girl despite yourself. Haven't you got Melisande's poison out of your system yet?"
"Good God, long ago!"
"Well, then, what's wrong with you? And what do you imagine you're doing to Miranda?"
"You don't understand, Arthur," said Adam wearily. "And it's too long a story to go into now."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At the beginning of October, gales began to sweep across the Atlantic and Miranda had her first taste of what rough weather at Wintersbride could be like. All day and all night the wind lashed against the house and rain drove in angry squalls across the moor.
"Is it often like this?" asked Miranda, who was helping Simmy to stuff up a hole in a pane of glass that had blown in at the end of the north corridor.
"Most of the winter," Simmy replied. "We're high up here and get the full force of all the bad weather."
"It is rather eerie," Miranda said, and the governess smiled.
"You'll get used to it," she said, adding obliquely, "And if not, there's always the late Mrs. Chantry's remedy."
"Her remedy? But she was ill—she died here."
"Yes, she died here, and perhaps that's a remedy, too," said Simmy, and there was something a little frightening about the long, sallow face turned toward her in the gloom.
Miranda experienced a superstitious sense of dread. The governess, she knew, was only trying to frighten her, but what was the mysterious complaint which had kept the lovely Melisande a prisoner and finally killed her?
"Simmy—was she—was she perhaps a little mad?" she asked, her eyes wide.
Miss Simms began to sweep pieces of glass neatly into a dustpan.
"What is madness?" she said with a little smile. "Only a brain less stable than others—like little Fay's, for instance."
"You are wicked!" exclaimed Miranda, horror touching her for a moment. "If her mother was—deranged, it does not mean that the child—"
"Doesn't it?" said Simmy, and as a gust of wind came howling down the corridor and all the lights in the house went out, Miranda turned and fled.
She sat alone in the dim library, listening to the wind, and some of her fears returned.
What had the governess been suggesting up there in the dark north corridor? Had it not been plain that she was warning Miranda of some unsuspected secret that could effect them all? So lost was she in confused reflection that she did not hear Adam come in and jumped when he suddenly spoke to her.
"Hello! Have the lights gone again?" he said, and as he saw her involuntary movement and the color drain from her face, he apologized for startling her and came to warm his hands at the fire.
"Can Bidder fix the plant tonight?" she asked.
"I should hardly think so." He glanced down at her quickly, then stooped and took her wrist between his fingers.
"Your pulse is racing," he said, looking at her more closely. "Has something upset you—or frightened you?"
Yes, she had been frightened—so frightened, she now knew, that before she could stop herself she had said, "Adam, I have never asked, but now you must please tell me—was your first wife mad?"
"Good God! What makes you ask a thing like that?" he exclaimed.
"It was Simmy," Miranda said. "She hinted that Fay— Adam, is it true? I think I have a right to know."
For a moment he did not speak and the terrible bitterness in his face made her afraid.
"No, it's not true," he said at last. "But you have, as you say, a r
ight to he truth, Miranda. I didn't think an old, rather sad story concerned the present, but perhaps I should have explained after our dinner party, when my behavior must have seemed so strange to you."
Her mind went back to that night and she saw again the child in her long blue dressing gown, Adam, white and angry, snatching the glass of wine from her hand, and old Arthur Benyon looking on and saying, "I think you should explain your attitude, Adam."
"Oh!" she said, suddenly understanding.
"Melisande drank," he said harshly. "I brought her here, hoping to cure her, but after the first few months, we had to give out that she was ill and confine her to the house and grounds. We took every precaution, but somehow she managed to get hold of the stuff, and in the end—I don't suppose you've ever known an incurable dipsomaniac, Miranda, and I hope you never will. It's the most soul-destroying thing I know of—to have to watch, month after month, such beauty as was Melisande's disintegrate into total ruin, to see mind and willpower weaken so much that only one pitiable craving remains, and be able to do nothing."
"Oh… my poor Adam…" she said very softly, and had a poignantly vivid comprehension of what those months must have done to Adam, helpless, despite all his skill for others, to save the one woman he loved.
"Fay was sent away, of course, with Nanny, and Simmy looked after Melisande—she was used to these cases and she was fond of her. Even when she—turned against me, Simmy could always manage her."
"She, too, turned against you?"