Marry a Stranger

by Susan Barrie

  “Of course,” Stacey exclaimed, and felt the tide of color flood into her face under his kindly, twinkling eyes, and the close pressure of his hand which was more or less what she had expected.

  And then the astounding thing happened which very nearly rendered her speechless, and did nothing to abate that crimson tide of color in her cheeks. Martin, carrying one of Vera’s light, specially constructed snakeskin-covered suitcases, came up the steps behind them and dumped the suitcase in the hall, and then turned to his wife and caught her by the shoulders and drew her right into his arms. Before she could make even a wild guess at his intention he had stooped his dark head and kissed her deliberately full upon her mouth, and as if not content with that, bestowed a second, lighter kiss upon the top of her carefully dressed hair.

  “How are you, darling?” he asked, allowing an expression of tenderness to dwell in his eyes as he looked at her. “I hope you haven’t been too lonely, or too bored, while I’ve been away?”

  Stacey made a determined effort not to allow the utter stupefaction she felt to show in her face, and summoning her voice to her aid with an even more supreme effort, answered him as casually as she could: “Oh, no—it hasn’t been too bad. But I expect you’re all tired after your journey? Would you like me to take you straight upstairs to your room, Miss Hunt? Or would you prefer to come into the drawing room and have a drink first—?”

  “I’d rather go upstairs to my room, if you don t mind,” Miss Hunt answered, and although her eyes were inscrutable as she looked at her hostess, she smiled quite charmingly with her beautifully made-up lips.

  When they reached the Yellow Bedroom she looked about it at first with obvious astonishment, and then looked at Stacey with a more appreciate smile.

  “This is really nice,” she said, “really nice! Are all your other bedrooms as nice as this one?”

  “Well—” Stacey hesitated. “Perhaps not quite as nice—”

  “Not even your own?”

  “I like it as it is,” Stacey told her, wondering why the other’s cold blue eyes were watching her with the glimmerings of a faintly amused smile in their depths. Vera put down her handbag on the dressing table, and then removed her hat and looked at herself in the Cupid-entwined, solid silver Venetian mirror, which was one of the most striking features of the dressing table.

  “This used to be Fenella Guelder’s room, didn’t it?” she said.

  Stacey could see now that her eyes were mocking her in the mirror, and the corners of her scarlet mouth had a kind of oddly satisfied, upward twist. She ran a comb through her hair, and patted the deep, soft waves back into place, and then drew forth her lipstick from her handbag and made a few skilful repairs to her mouth.

  “But perhaps you felt you would rather not have it for your own?” she suggested, smiling this time with a kind of brilliant sweetness at the girl who stood quietly watching her in her cloudy dark dress.

  When she left her and went away along the corridor to her own room, Stacey caught sight of the tall figure of her husband just about to disappear into his bedroom, which adjoined her own. She went to her dressing table and automatically started to retouch her own make-up, when she heard his knock upon the communicating door. Without giving him permission to enter she stood and waited for him to do so, and as he quietly closed the door behind him she could see that his face was no longer transfigured by that amazing look of tenderness which had looked at her out of his eyes downstairs in the hall, when he had followed it up by sweeping her into his arms and kissing her. His face now wore an expression which it would have been difficult to describe, for although he smiled at her faintly there was a touch of formality in the way he did so, and his voice sounded formal, and a little curt, too, as he spoke.

  “I saw you come in here just now, and I wanted to have a word with you,” he said.

  “Yes?” Stacey could feel the blood charging along her veins, and she wondered whether he could hear the nervous beating of her heart.

  “I hope you’ll overlook the slight exuberance of my greeting just now in the hall, but I thought it better, in view of the fact that we are entertaining our first guests, to make it appear as if our marriage is altogether normal, at least.”

  “I—I rather gathered that that was the reason why you—” She broke off, biting her lip, and pressing her hands down hard over the bosom of her dress to still that disturbing tumult within her.

  “Why I saluted you quite so heartily?” His smile had a queer tinge of something almost derisive about it, and he was watching her closely. “But a mere peck on the cheek might have looked a little suspicious. And I must say you played up very well. You didn’t look as horrified as I was afraid you might look, and as you might have been excused for looking. However, I’ll try not to embarrass you with too much of that sort of thing in future.”

  He moved into the circle of light cast by the pendant chandelier, and putting his hand into his pocket produced a small jeweller's box. She could see at once that it was a ring case, and when he snapped it open and held it out to her the sight of the superb stone nestling in a bed of white velvet made her eyes automatically open wider, and although she didn’t realize it a sparkle of appreciation lit them like a sudden ray of sunlight dissipating shadows.

  It was a large, square-cut sapphire surrounded by tiny diamonds, mounted in platinum. When he ordered her quietly to hold out her hand she obeyed him meekly enough, and he slipped it on the appropriate finger, above the plain gold wedding ring, where its beauty was emphasized by the loveliness of her hand.

  “Do you like it?” he asked. “You didn’t provide me with one of your gloves, so I had to guess at the size, but it seems to fit very well.”

  “It fits—perfectly!” she replied, with a catch in the words. She stared down at the depth of blueness which might have belonged to a sapphire-blue sea, and she was slightly dazzled by the brilliance and sparkle of her new possession. “But you need not have bought anything quite so perfect. I mean”—conscious of sounding a little ungrateful—“this was obviously expensive, and it was not really necessary—not—not under the circumstances—”

  “Whatever the circumstances,” he told her, almost grimly, “you are my wife, and I do not wish my friends to gather the impression that anything second-best is good enough for you. And I hope also that you really do like it,” he added, even more shortly.

  “Oh, I do—I do!” She looked up at him almost eagerly, her wide eyes limpid violet pools anxious to convince him. “I think it’s absolutely lovely—absolutely perfect! And it’s the first piece of really expensive jewellery I’ve ever had given to me in my life!” She caught her breath and studied the ring again, her face suffused with color. “You’d like me to wear it this evening, of course?”

  “Of course,” he echoed her. “That’s one reason why I couldn’t wait to get hold of one of your gloves. I didn’t want Carter and Miss Hunt to see you with only a wedding ring on your finger.”

  “No; I suppose it would have looked rather odd.” But after that little uprush of gratitude, which had caused her to forget her shyness and pay tribute to his gift, she felt her heart sink like a stone at the realization that the only reason why he had bought the ring—and bought it in time for tonight!—was because it would have affected his pride if she had not appeared as the wife of a man in his position should appear, correctly attired and wearing the badge of their relationship for all to see above the less ostentatious wedding ring which was merely the religious symbol of their union. Except, of course, that it was not really a union at all!...

  It had not been merely to please her that he had bought the ring, and somehow that made it easier to accept it. She stood looking down at it with her eyes determinedly lowered because she could feel his studying her, and what the expression was in those eyes at that moment she could only guess. But she wished suddenly that he would cease looking at her—that he would go away—or say something!...

  “Well, I suppose I’d better go and
dress,” he exclaimed suddenly, in a quiet voice. Still, she could not bring herself to look up at him, but a painful little flush was rising even on her neck, and she twisted and turned the ring nervously on her finger. “There isn’t a great deal of time.”

  He turned away from her, paused, and then looked back at her.

  “I meant it when I said I hoped you hadn’t been dull or bored while I was away,” he told her. “But Mrs. Elbe is joining us in a few days, so you’ll probably feel you’ve got a little more moral support, if nothing else. She’s coming by rail as soon as she’s handed over the flat to the care of some relative of hers who is going to look after me in future while I’m in London.”

  “Oh!” Stacey exclaimed. And added: “I shall be pleased to see her.”

  “I thought you would be.” He glanced at his wrist watch, and then moved over to the door. “Mrs. Elbe has expressed the hope that we’re as happy as we deserve to be, which might mean anything!”

  Stacey lifted her eyes to him then, and as sudden mockery had filled his eyes it was all that looked back at her.

  “Well, we mustn’t keep our guests waiting!” And he turned the handle and passed out of her room swiftly.

  THIRTEEN

  The dinner that night passed off in an entirely satisfactory manner, with Miss Fountain preferring to dine alone in her room, and therefore leaving the company an even number. There was Vera Hunt, in something sinuous and glittering with golden thread, seated on the right of her host at the polished table, and Stacey facing her husband with Dr. Bruce Carter on her right hand. Hannah waited at table without once making any serious mistake, and the menu devised by Stacey seemed exactly the right one for such an occasion.

  Afterwards they drank their coffee in the drawing room, and Vera admired the piano, and asked Stacey whether she ever played. Martin instantly suggested that Stacey should play to them, and after a few moments of hesitation she went to the piano stool and took her place, and Dr. Carter offered to turn over the pages of her music for her. But as she played mostly by ear this was unnecessary, and she thanked him with a smile, and sought to gain confidence by drawing her fingers in musical ripples across the keys.

  When she finally ceased playing, even Vera applauded as if she meant it, and Dr. Carter complimented her warmly. Martin sat quietly beneath the portrait of his former wife and looked at the slim form of Stacey with rather a curious expression in his eyes, and when Stacey looked up and met it a sudden uncontrollable blush started spreading rather wildly over her face and neck. Vera Hunt, who had never had the slightest difficulty at putting two and two together and making four, observed the blush—and the look—with faintly arching eyebrows, and then lay back in her chair and demanded a cigarette of her host, who promptly provided her with one and came across the floor to bend over her and light it for her with his own gold lighter.

  Vera expelled a puff of smoke and looked up at him with her serene blue eyes a little languid, for once. There was also a tiny smile in the eyes. Then she turned her head a little and looked again at Stacey.

  “What do you do with yourself when you’re here alone?” she asked. “Don’t you find it a bit depressing, with so little society?”

  Stacey often found it depressing, but she was not going to let Vera know that she did, and she shook her head.

  “No,” she said, feeling that the eyes of the other two were on her as well. “We have some very pleasant neighbors, and then there are plenty of walks to be had. I like walking.”

  “And riding? I expect you ride, don’t you?”

  But riding was not one of the forms of exercise which attracted Stacey, for the simple reason that she had had from her earliest days an odd fear of horses, and although she had striven to overcome it, she was not happy in the saddle. But Vera was amazed that anyone who was admittedly country born and country bred should not take the keenest delight in finding themselves astride a mettlesome piece of horseflesh, and she did not hesitate to voice her astonishment.

  “But, my dear, I can hardly believe you, for so far as I’m concerned riding is one of the few unadulterated pleasures of life in the country, and as a matter of fact I was rather hoping to get a little of that sort of exercise myself. I’ve even provided myself with some jodhpurs—”

  “Then perhaps we can do something about it,” Martin said. He had not returned to his old chair, but was seated on a kind of stool close to her knee, and his dark sleek head was on a level with her bare, while shoulder. Every time she made the smallest movement a wave of her expensive Paris perfume was wafted in his direction, and whenever she looked at him that little smile was back in her eyes, and they no longer had any connection with cold northern seas. They were warm, and even slightly caressing. “Old Colonel Barstoke at the Manor used to provide me with a mount whenever I wanted one, and I’ve no doubt he would be willing to see you similarly equipped. I’ll ring him up about it tonight, if you like, and if you’re perfectly serious? But it will mean getting up early in the morning—no time like the early morning for a good gallop across country.”

  “Oh, that would be absolutely heavenly!” she declared, leaning a little towards him. “And I’d simply love it. Do please ring him up—”

  “And what about you, Carter?” he enquired, turning to look over his shoulder at his male guest. “Do you ride?”

  “Oh, no, you can count me out!” Carter answered, with a grin to soften his hasty disclaimer. “I’ve a gammy leg, as you very well know, and in any case I’m a townsman. I’d prefer to follow the good example of your wife and remain comfortably in bed while you two test the early morning temperature.” Martin smiled. He looked towards Stacey.

  “And you’re quite sure we can’t tempt you?”

  She shook her head rather hastily.

  “Oh, no, thank you. I’d really rather not.”

  “Very well.” But she noticed that he turned back to Vera with a kind of anticipatory pleasure in his face, and they carried on a conversation which lasted for some time connected with horseflesh and the delights of point-to-points, and the last Boxing Day Meet they had both attended at a country house in Sussex, and similar reminiscences. Until Dr. Carter came across to Stacey and began to talk to her about the house, and other old houses which apparently interested him passionately, and the ambition which he nursed to purchase one day when his retirement drew nearer. And then the conversation became general for a while, after which they played an informal game of bridge, and Miss Fountain looked in to apologize for her non-appearance at dinner—she pleaded, with her colorless eyes expressionless, and her thin lips slightly more blue and compressed-looking than usual, a headache, which had since yielded to treatment—and then Hannah followed her in with a tray of sandwiches and drinks and coffee.

  And by the time she went to bed Stacey was feeling more tired than she had felt for a long time, because she had been called upon to play a part under the eyes of two people who were both shrewd and discerning, and she was not altogether certain that she had played it very competently. Once or twice, during the evening, she had thought that Bruce Carter had looked at her a little oddly—although with a very kindly expression—and Vera Hunt had seemed to watch her sometimes with a glimmer of secret amusement in her eyes. And she had looked up at that portrait on the end wall of the drawing room, too—and then looked again at Stacey, and the amusement had seemed to increase.

  “My dear,” she had whispered, when Stacey handed her a cup of coffee, “do you have to keep that portrait where it is?”

  Stacey had not answered, but as she went upstairs to bed she thought about the question, and wondered what any normal bride in her position would have done about the portrait.

  Then she heard Martin speaking on the telephone in the hall to Colonel Barstoke at the Manor, and she guessed that he was making arrangements for the early morning ride. Apparently it was all right, for he laughed and thanked the Colonel, and when he had replaced the receiver she heard him call out to Vera, who had lingered for so
me reason in the drawing room, to be up early in the morning, and promising to give her a knock upon her door. Stacey closed her own door with a feeling of deflation, and the conviction that she had acted unwisely. Any wise young woman who thought as much of the man she had married as she did would have overcome her unexplainable dislike of horses and agreed to go with them when they set out in the morning, instead of lying meekly and unhappily crouched in her bed and listening to the sound of their horses’ hooves as they cantered away down the drive.

  But that was precisely what she did do, and as it was a glorious morning, promising to be an almost perfect November day, it seemed to make it all the harder.

  Dr. Carter was breakfasting alone in the dining room when she entered it. The other two were not back yet.

  Dr. Carter quite plainly enjoyed a hearty breakfast, and Hannah had provided sausages and bacon and eggs, as well as porridge and cereals. The sideboard was so well loaded that it made the room seem much more cheerful than usual, and as the sunlight was pouring into it, and Bruce Carter was looking very unprofessional in a loudly speckled tweed suit, and beaming over toast and marmalade, Stacey wished she had come down earlier and joined him at the beginning of his meal.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, rather shyly, as she closed the door behind her. She was wearing a mist-blue high-necked pullover, with a finely pleated skirt, and she looked to his eyes a most satisfying vision to encounter at that early hour of the day.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “I’m surprised you don’t breakfast in bed. Surely you don’t come down here and breakfast alone and in state during the week when Martin’s in London? Although of course, I forgot, you have Miss Fountain to keep you company.”