Marry a Stranger

by Susan Barrie

  Her husband looked across at Stacey.

  “Then you’ll be able to see him, Stacey,” he said, his voice very mild, “and have a chat about old times!”

  A little later he suggested that they should leave, although his hostess pressed him to remain and make a fourth at bridge. He excused himself on the grounds that his visit to Fountains was very brief, and that he had business in Beomster the following day, and one or two other urgent matters he wished to attend to, and that he wished to be up early. Stacey thanked her hostess with sincere gratitude in her eyes, and Mr. Aden wrung her hand heartily.

  “Come and see us as often as you can,” he said. “You mustn’t let her be lonely at Fountains, Dr. Guelder. We shall be delighted if she’ll look in upon us whenever she feels like it.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Dr. Guelder replied smoothly, on behalf of his wife. “Very kind of you indeed!” He took Stacey by the arm, for it was very dark outside. “Perhaps I’d better go and get the car?” he suggested.

  “Oh, no,” she said, and clung to his sleeve while she groped in, her thin evening shoes, for the gravel path.

  “You’re sure?” he said. He gave a casual wave of the hand back at the Adens, who were standing in the brightly lighted porch and speeding their departure with warmly called good nights. “Then you’d better hang on to me and not let go, otherwise you’re going to let yourself in for a twisted ankle or something of the sort in this badly rutted lane!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Stacey required no more pressing invitation to avail herself of the support of his arm, but she was a little surprised, during that short journey from the home of the Adens to the more imposing, if less cheerfully illuminated, bulk of Fountains, that he attempted no conversation of any kind—not even a few comments on the evening just ended.

  It was very dark in the lane, and an owl hooted eerily on one side of them, and but for his near presence she might—country-bred though she was—have felt a little nervous because of the sighing wind in the trees, and the sensation of remoteness, and almost exquisite loneliness, emphasized by the glimpses of pale, cold stars through the little gaps in the foliage. And when they reached Fountains, where only the hall light burned dimly, shining out through the staircase window, he stood on the barely illuminated steps and put his key deliberately in the lock, and then stood aside for her to enter—still without saying a word.

  Stacey felt the coldness of the hall strike into her as she entered it. She was glad when he switched on the light in the library, and she could see, that for once, Miss Fountain had had the forethought to leave them a small banked-up fire in the grate, and a tray of sandwiches and a Thermos flask of coffee set down on a little table drawn invitingly close to it. Or maybe it was Hannah who had had the thought for her mistress’s comfort. Hannah was developing quite an attachment for Stacey since she had arrived at the house in the guise of its new chatelaine

  Martin went forward and stirred the fire with the poker, and Stacey drew near to it and held her hands to the warmth. He looked at her keenly for a moment, and he noticed that, although her face had blanched a little as a result of the slight rawness of the night, there was a reminiscent gleam of pleasure in her eyes, which told him that she had enjoyed her evening.

  He saw her, however, shiver slightly, and he removed the cap from the Thermos flask and poured her a cup of steaming coffee, which she sipped gratefully.

  “A pleasant enough evening,” he observed, breaking his silence for the first time; “but it might have been wiser to take the car. However, the distance was short, and there was no danger of your getting your feet wet”—with his eyes on the fragile silver sandals which peeped from the hem of her gown. “But I thought it a good plan to come away early. You’re not very much accustomed to late night dissipations.”

  “I don’t think the Adens are the sort of people who are very much accustomed to late night dissipations, either,” she remarked, with that warm glow in her eyes which told him that she had firmly adopted them as her friends. “I think they’re charming, and Mrs. Aden especially. She paints beautifully.”

  “And she has a nephew whom you also think very nice?”

  Stacey looked up at him, her expression a little wondering because his voice was rather cool, and his expression was watchful and somehow a little discomposing.

  “I’ve told you that Dick and I have known one another for years,” she said quietly, her deep, violet-blue glance unwavering, while the sudden little flush of pink which stole into her cheeks increased her attractiveness enormously.

  “But you never told me anything at all about him until tonight!”

  Stacey felt almost as if she had come up against a quite unexpected brick wall, and had done so so suddenly that she had stumbled up against it and bruised herself on its unyielding brickwork.

  “No; that’s true,” she admitted. “But there was never any reason why I should mention him.”

  “Not even though I received the impression that you were more or less friendless?—and this young man, or so it seems, has been fairly intimately acquainted with you since childhood!”

  Stacey stared at him, unable for the moment to think of the best way in which to answer him, and she was conscious of a sensation almost like shock because for the first time the way he looked at her was slightly hostile, and there was a bleakness in his eyes which actually chilled her a little She stammered, feeling the color increasing in her cheeks in a wild and almost guilty rush: “Not intimately acquainted with me! We—we knew one another ... We were neighbors—or practically neighbors—and when he went away we wrote—for a time—but only for a time! I haven’t heard from him now for weeks—no months...”

  “And he doesn’t even know that you’re married.”

  “No.”

  “Bu you’ll be writing, no doubt quite soon, to let him know that you are.”

  “I don’t think so,” she answered, her voice so quiet now that it was like a thin whisper in the sombre room. “I don’t think it’s at all necessary, especially as his aunt will probably write to him in any case and she may possibly mention that I’m living near to her, and that I’m married”—with a sudden quiver in the carefully controlled quietness—

  “Well of course, I suppose it’s almost certain that she’ll do that.” He turned away from her for a moment to cast his cigarette end into the fire, and when he turned back he concentrated on lighting a fresh one, so that for a few moments it was difficult to gather what his expression was like; and when the cigarette was glowing comfortably, and he had tossed away the match into the fire, he leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece and stared down into the heart of the coals which were now sending tongues of flame leaping high into the chimney, and cast strange shadows across his face.

  “By the way,” he remarked suddenly, almost casually—as if he had dismissed the subject of Dick Hatherleigh from his mind, at least temporarily—“I think I ought to tell you before I forget that I’m expecting a few friends to arrive here for next weekend, and one of them at least may stay for a little longer than a weekend. She’s recovering from a nasty bout of influenza, and I suggested that a breath of country air would probably do her good.”

  “Oh, yes?” said Stacey, waiting with her hands clasped in a rather curious attitude over her breast, as if she was expecting a blow to fall—and was preparing herself to meet it.

  “I'm referring to Vera—Miss Hunt, as you know her,” he told her, glancing at her swiftly, and then away again. “I shall probably bring her with me when I return next Friday. And Dr. Carter you have already met. He was one of our witnesses when we were married.”

  Stacey could recall him—Bruce Carter, with the kindly, slightly humorous eyes, and the understanding smile. Though whether he had understood—or even partly understood!—how she had felt that day when so brief a ceremony united her to the man who was now leaning negligently against the old-fashioned marble mantelshelf in the somewhat oppressive, book-lined library, she h
ad often wondered, but his handclasp had certainly done its best to give her confidence, and his farewell words had warmed her even at a time when she was in such a state of bewilderment and cold, uneasy dread lest she had done something which would recoil upon her at some distant future date with the inevitable return of a boomerang, and leave a trail of useless and perhaps bitter regrets in its wake.

  “Martin’s a good chap!” he had told her. “A very good chap! And I think you’re lucky to be married to him. But I think he’s lucky too!”

  Yes; she remembered Dr. Carter quite vividly.

  “Perhaps you’ll see to it that two rooms are got ready for them?” Martin suggested, beginning to take a restless turn or two up and down the room.

  “Yes, of course I’ll see that their rooms are prepared,” Stacey answered, without any apparent emotion in her voice.

  “Good!” he exclaimed. He paused and, without apparently thinking what he was doing, tossed his half-smoked cigarette after the end of his old one into the grate, and then turned and faced her with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his dinner jacket, and his shoulders slightly squared. “I’ve been considering the advisability of asking Mrs. Elbe to come here and take charge,” he told her. “With people to be entertained, and so forth—well, it’s asking rather a lot of you, with practically no—”

  “I can manage,” she assured him, in her youthfully dignified voice. “And if necessary I might be able to get someone else to live in the house. Hannah might know of someone.”

  “Hannah is not much more than a schoolgirl.”

  “But she’s very capable—and willing to learn.”

  “From whom?” he enquired, with a faintly lifted eyebrow, and the merest suspicion of his old smile stealing to the corners of his lips. “Don’t tell me you pass your time instructing Hannah? Or has Jane decided to make a more polished job of her?”

  “No, I don’t think Miss Fountain is interested in housework, and certainly not in Hannah. But as this happens to be my home I do take a certain amount of interest in it—” pausing to let this sink in—“and I’ve found Hannah very willing. And it’s quite possible she has friends, or even relatives, in the village, who might be willing to help.”

  “It is,” he agreed, “and you can find out, if you like. But I think it would be a good thing to install Mrs. Elbe at the head of things here, and it would be someone you know to have about the house.” He did not add, as he looked at her and saw that all the pleasure of her evening had been wiped from her face, and that she was now facing him as if she was on the defensive—a pale-faced, inscrutable-eyed defensive which was a new aspect of her to him—that he realized that she must sometimes be rather appallingly lonely, with only Miss Fountain for company, and that it concerned him a little. “After all, you like Mrs. Elbe, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes,” she admitted. “I like her very much indeed. But what will you do without her?”

  “Find someone else to look after my simple wants. And that shouldn’t be so difficult.”

  No, thought Stacey, the pulse in her throat beating with such wild rapidity that she felt certain he must see it, it shouldn’t be in the least difficult to find someone who would regard it as a pleasure to look after him! This man who was her husband!

  “If you think you can manage without her...” she murmured, and knew that it would be good to see Mrs. Elbe again, who was so kindly and human, and inspired her with a confidence in herself she sometimes was far from feeling.

  “Then that’s settled,” he said. He looked at the tray of coffee. “Would you like anything more to drink before you go up to bed?”

  “No, thank you,” she answered immediately, feeling herself dismissed, and moved towards the door. “Good night,” she said, rather stiffly.

  “Good night,” he called after her. He watched her struggling for a moment with the heavy handle of the stout oaken door, and then before she could succeed in turning it he was across the floor and behind her and had encircled her slim fingers with his lean and virile ones. The handle turned smoothly, and the door opened. “Good night,” he repeated, looking down at her.

  Stacey did not venture to look up at him again. She crossed the hall in her filmy grey dress, as light and insubstantial as the gauzy grey wings of a moth, and with her head of dark, soft hair held rather stiffly erect began to ascend the stairs. The light from the old-fashioned chandelier shone down upon her bare white arms and shoulders, and if they were just a little immature as yet the gentle radiance did nothing to call attention to the fact. She was as graceful as a willow-wand, and there was something dignified about her straight, slim back.

  But under the flimsy material of her dress her heart was laboring heavily. She thought: “Vera Hunt! ... And coming here!...”

  What did that mean? What kind of interpretation would Jane Fountain, for instance, place upon her coming...?

  Nevertheless, during the next few days Stacey threw herself almost heart and soul into the preparations for the visitors. She antagonized Miss Fountain by insisting on something resembling an annual spring-clean of the entire house, which Miss Fountain chose to regard as an affront to her own house-keeperly instincts, and decided to allot the Yellow Bedroom to Miss Hunt, as the one room in the house which would almost certainly please her. Miss Hunt’s aesthetic instincts would be more than gratified by the white carpet and the satiny sheen of the walls, and the ample wardrobe space for her choice collection of garments would probably please her still more. For it was unlikely that she would arrive without something new and striking in her suitcase, or so Stacey decided, after knowing her for only a very short while.

  The new dining room curtains were got up in good time, and new rugs laid on the polished floor. Stacey undertook the filling of all the vases herself with the best that the garden offered at that late season, and as these were mostly chrysanthemums and some wonderful spiky dahlias which had so far escaped the frosts, they looked well against the background of ancient oak.

  In the kitchen, too, she supervised the preparation of appetizing foodstuffs. As she had told Miss Fountain, she was really interested in cookery, and with the aid of an old French cookery book which she found in one of the shelves of the library, and Hannah’s willing assistance, she concocted some tempting-looking confectionery and feathery light pastries which Miss Fountain viewed with a jaundiced eye, and refused to sample. But not so Stacey and Hannah. They sampled them with appreciative looks, and then smiled their satisfaction at one another. Hannah giggled delightedly.

  “And such fancy names, too!” she declared, consulting the cookery book. “Even if I’d been taught French at school, which I wasn’t, I couldn’t make out these names, but they do look exciting, don’t they?”

  Stacey agreed with her. The only time she laughed, or felt any sense of amusement or enjoyment in Fountains, was during those moments in the kitchen, when Hannah shared them with her, and when they also shared what Hannah called “elevenses,” and frequently afternoon tea, too, if Miss Fountain decided to absent herself from it, and shut herself up in her room as she sometimes did until very nearly dinner time. It saved carrying a tray to the library, and in any case the library was not the most cheerful corner of the house when one was alone, as Stacey was on those occasions. It was a room which brooded, or seemed to brood, upon its past, and required an enormous fire, and voices—and, if possible, laughter—to dispel the gloom. Even the drawing room, with its portrait of Fenella hanging above the fireplace, was a happier room than the library.

  Stacey spent a lot of time thinking out her dinner menu for the evening of the guests’ arrival, and when once she had decided upon it she spent even more time making absolutely certain that no possible failures would be brought to table. That would have been too humiliating, with Vera Hunt’s smiling, cold blue eyes watching her from the seat of honor beside her host.

  About an hour before they were due to arrive Stacey went up to dress, taking as long as possible over her bath, and attendin
g to the careful setting of her hair. She had decided to wear her black evening dress, as it was a trifle more sophisticated than anything else she possessed, and made her look rather older—and, perhaps, what was more important, made her feel older. She knew, too, that she suited black—or black suited her—and it certainly provided an excellent foil for the purity of her complexion. She wore her pearls, and the plain gold wedding ring on the third finger of her left hand was her only other adornment.

  Just before the car drew up outside she returned to the hall. She heard the noise of car wheels on the drive, and a moment later there was the sudden slowing down of fat tires which had travelled all the way from London, and then the opening and shutting of the car doors, and the sound of voices in the deepening dusk. Vera’s light and rather empty laugh came clearly to her, and a man’s laugh echoed it. Then she realized that it was her duty to get the front door open, before Martin found it necessary to pull the bell chain, and she stood in the opening looking forth into the night, with a background of brightly lighted hall behind her.

  Vera Hunt came tripping lightly up the steps, swathed in a coat which was soon seen to be mink, and she had a tiny hat like a blown leaf constructed of emerald velvet on her striking, colorless hair, with a glittering diamond pin struck through it. She put out hands encased in gloves of emerald suede and took Stacey’s extended one, and stood looking down at her with a curious expression on her face.

  “Well, well!” she exclaimed. “So here you are in your own home at last, and here am I your first visitor!”

  Dr. Carter’s voice behind her broke in heartily: “And I’m your second visitor, Mrs. Guelder, and if not quite as important, at least, I hope, just as welcome?”