Marry a Stranger

by Susan Barrie

  “You see, Stacey, there doesn’t seem to be anything to wait for”—his boyish face flushing a little—“and Muriel is as keen as I am to get settled down soon. I’ve had a new bungalow built, and when we’ve got the garden started ... well, it’s a bit of a wilderness at present, but Muriel’s very knowledgeable about gardens, and her father’s giving us quite a handsome wedding present—a cheque, you know, which we can sink into the property.”

  “Why, that’s wonderful!” Stacey declared, and really thought that it was.

  He looked pleased.

  “Well, naturally, I think it is. And I also think Muriel—” He colored more deeply than ever. “She’s a wonderful girl, Stacey! I wish you could meet her—perhaps you will one day! We’re getting married in the north of England in about three weeks’ time, and then I’m taking her straight back with me—flying back. Until then I’m going to stay with her people.”

  “I think that’s very nice,, Stacey said, with enthusiasm. “And I’m sure I hope you’ll be very happy, Dick. I’d like to see you married, but I’m afraid that’s not possible, but I can give you a wedding present—something nice!” The idea caused her to beam at him. “You must let me know if there’s anything special you’re wanting—”

  “That’s very kind of you, old girl,” he said gratefully. He got up and went across to her and took her hands, pulling her out of her chair. “Stacey, tell me—you are happy, aren’t you? That petrifying husband of yours doesn’t have the same effect on you that he had on me? Because if I thought that he did ... Stacey, you don’t have to stick it out if you’re unhappy, you know! You can always break away—and if ever you’re up against it you can come out and live with us. You and Muriel’d get on together—or there’s always Aunt Bee, if you were desperate. She’s taken a kind of fancy to you—”

  “Dick, don’t be so silly,” Stacey exclaimed, pulling away her hands, but avoiding meeting his direct gaze nevertheless. “Of course I’m happy. Martin’s been wonderful to me, he really has! Why, when he married me, I—” But she suddenly thought it wisest to say no more about her own marriage, and the reasons which had led up to it and which an outsider—even a well-meaning outsider, such as Dick—might think extremely unsatisfactory reasons. Or, at any rate, not enough to culminate in marriage which, if it was to succeed, should be based on something which was less materialistic. “You’re not to trouble your head about me, anyway, but I’m pleased you wanted to see me to tell me about your marriage. And now, perhaps you’d better come along to the drawing room and meet the others—”

  “No, thank you,” he interrupted quickly. “I met a very glamorous personality this afternoon who assured me you’d be delighted to see me, but I’m not at all sure I ever want to meet her again. I found her a little bit overwhelming. But she’s quite something to look at, isn’t she? And as for your husband— Well, you can say goodbye to your husband for me, and tell him I think he’s jolly lucky to have you for a wife, even if you do look a bit young for the part. Tell him in case he doesn’t know it that loyalty’s your middle name, and he can be thankful for that!”

  With which somewhat obscure observation he started to move towards the door. But once there he turned and looked at her again seriously.

  “Aunt Bee told me to tell you—any time you feel lonely, you’re to go and see her! She means it—any time!”

  And then he gave her hands another squeeze, and she let him out of the front door.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When she returned to the drawing room Vera Hunt was lying back languidly in a chair and smoking a cigarette with a thoughtful air, and Martin was in the middle of a conversation with Bruce Carter and discussing the various beauty spots around Fountains Court. He appeared perfectly composed, and very suave, and almost as affable as usual, and when Stacey entered the room he stood up at once to provide her with a chair.

  “Don’t tell me your friend’s gone already?” he said. “We thought you’d bring him in and introduce him to Bruce. Vera tells me she formed a very good impression of him.”

  “I thought he was quite charming,” Vera remarked, with a sleepy smile under her eyelashes at Stacey. “But I expect you had such a lot to talk about that you preferred to keep him in the library. Is there any chance of his coming back again?”

  “No,” Stacey answered, conscious that she probably sounded a little curt—for she had not been too pleased with Martin’s reception of her childhood friend. He was the only friend she had who had any connection with her past life, and her husband had, she recognized, been almost rude to him. “He’s going north tomorrow, and in three weeks he’s flying back to East Africa.”

  “Tough luck!” Vera exclaimed, still smiling at Stacey, and Bruce Carter decided that his hostess needed someone to come to her rescue, and changed the conversation for her.

  For the remainder of that evening Martin remained exceptionally polite, and quite attentive, to his wife, but she knew that the spirit of warm friendliness and liking which had united them in the afternoon was gone now. His eyes smiled at her, but it was the smile of a stranger, and she felt somehow certain that he would make no further mention of her visiting London and staying at the flat before he left on Sunday morning. And she was right.

  The next day, which was Saturday, he went for a walk with Bruce in the morning, and in the afternoon he shut himself up in the library while Stacey took Tessa for a long walk through the country lanes. When she returned it was tea time, and Bruce joined her and Vera in the drawing room, while Hannah carried tea to the master of the house in the library. He joined them for a drink before dinner, but after dinner he made sorting papers in the library an excuse to absent himself again, and even Vera began to look a little peevish as the result of her host’s neglect of her. It was dull, she found, spending an evening alone with an almost silent Stacey, while Bruce Carter laid out patience cards and was apparently quite content to do so. At ten o’clock, therefore, she announced that she was going to bed, and after the briefest good nights she went upstairs to her room. Stacey also was feeling tired and completely dispirited, and she said good night to Bruce and went up also. She was looking at herself in her mirror, staring at her own reflection blankly, when the tap came at her door, and in response to her hurried “Come in” Martin entered.

  He looked very debonair in his dinner jacket, and he was actually smiling slightly. He walked to the dressing table and picked up a doll in satin petticoats which served the purpose of a pin cushion and examined it intently for a moment, and then he set it down and turned to her, the smile quite gone from his face.

  “We shall be leaving early in the morning,” he said, “and as there’s no reason why you should get up early just to say goodbye, I thought I’d come and get our farewells done with tonight.”

  Stacey remained silent. She just looked at him, and something in the expression of her face made him smile again, crookedly.

  “Poor Stacey!” he observed. “It seems such a pity that you married me when, if only you’d waited a few months, you could have married a man who might have been able to teach you what marriage really means! However—”

  Stacey’s eyes widened as if he had struck her across the face. Somehow, although the words rushed up in her throat, she could not tell him that Dick was the last person in the world she would have married, and that in any case he was engaged to another girl with whom he was very deeply in love, and that they were to be married in a little over three weeks. In after days she often wondered what his reaction would have been if she had told him that, and if she had also told him that for Dick she entertained an affection that was almost exactly similar to the affection a sister entertains for a brother. But she did not do so—and why she did not do so she could never be quite certain.

  Unless it was because of the coldly arrogant expression on his face, and the faintly sneering note in his voice. He believed what he wanted to believe, and she saw no reason why she should correct the impression. His very antagonism antag
onized her, and she felt herself stiffening in a resolve to say nothing that would change his opinion of her, or alter his ideas.

  “However,” he repeated, “there’s nothing very much we can do about it, I’m afraid. You’ll just have to put up with the bargain you made, Stacey, and remember that you took me for better or worse—and there it is!”

  He moved over to the door, and when he reached it he looked back at her with an inscrutable expression on his face.

  “You’ve got Mrs. Elbe to keep you company here now, and the Adens are only a quarter of a mile away. Mrs. Aden has invited you to visit them as often as you like, so I should do so. I may manage to get away from London in a week or two’s time, but I’m not certain. However, if you want anything, you can always ring me up—or ring my secretary! She will always see to it that I get a message.”

  Still Stacey said nothing—absolutely nothing. She felt as if she had been temporarily petrified.

  “Goodnight, my dear—and goodbye until we meet again!”

  As he closed the door she came to life—became as if galvanized into action—and simply sped across the floor and dragged it open, but his long strides were already carrying him away down the corridor, and he had reached the head of the stairs before she could even call out.

  Vera Hunt, in a glamorous dressing gown, appeared from the direction of the bathroom, with a bath towel draped over her arm, and an aroma of expensive bath essence and dusting powder clinging about her.

  “A lovers’ quarrel?” she exclaimed, mockingly. “Dear me! But I expect you’ll make it up before morning!”

  But in the morning, listening to the car gliding away down the drive, Stacey could only sit up in bed and feel as if from now on her world would be barren indeed.

  And then she caught sight of the envelope pushed underneath her door. She fairly sprang out of bed, darting upon it with her heart in her mouth because for a few moments she felt certain—absolutely certain—that it was a message from Martin. And then a disappointment that was almost agonizing caught her up in its grip as she noticed that the envelope was of a type Martin would never use—a thick, expensive, crackly kind of the palest shade of mauve imaginable. And, moreover, it smelt of perfume—Vera Hunt’s perfume.

  Stacey picked it up gingerly and opened it. Vera had scrawled only a few lines, but they were enough to send every shred of color receding from Stacey’s face.

  Such a pity you didn’t make it up last night (Vera had written). Martin isn’t always easy to handle. Did you know that Fenella, his first wife, ran away with someone she fancied more than Martin and they were both killed in a car crash? So Martin doesn’t take everything for granted these days. But then, would you?

  Stacey sank down on a chair beside the door. She felt herself shaking a little. And she had let him go— without even saying goodbye! She had let him go thinking that she and Dick Hatherleigh...

  She crumpled Vera’s letter in her hand. She knew that there was something almost Machiavellian about the timing of that letter. Timed to be received after Martin had gone! Vera was certainly rather clever!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The days dragged by. November gave place to December, and still Martin found himself too busy to spare time for a visit to Fountains Court. He wrote quite a friendly little note to Stacey, telling her that if possible he would spend Christmas at Fountains, but he couldn’t be absolutely certain that he would be able to get away. He hoped she was availing herself of the nearness of the Adens, and he thought it would be a good plan to let Beatrice Aden get on with the portrait she wanted to paint of her, Stacey. He sent his warm regards to Mrs. Elbe. To Stacey he sent nothing more than a recommendation to get out as often as possible when the weather was suitable, and to take care of her health.

  Stacey thought the recommendation was a little ironical, since it could scarcely matter to him—apart from the fact that he might take a kind of professional interest in her—if she was ill or well.

  In point of fact, she felt a great deal better in health than she had felt for a long time, but her spirits were in a state of eclipse. She went often to the Adens. Beatrice had already begun her portrait, and to Stacey’s eyes it looked very promising, although she was quite certain it flattered her. She did not see herself with Beatrice’s eyes, otherwise she might have recognized the fact that there was something both enchanting and appealing about her wide eyes and her slightly wistful mouth, and the exquisite delicacy of her coloring.

  With the approach of Christmas she began to want to make preparations, and to be certain that Martin would come for the festive season, at least. He couldn’t stay away all over Christmas. And when he came she would tell him the truth about Dick, and apologize to him because she had let him go away thinking the worst about her, and after that they would be friends once more. Her heart always leapt pathetically at the thought that, once she had cleared herself in his eyes, they would be friends again.

  Mrs. Elbe entered quite wholeheartedly into the preparations for Christmas, but she felt secretly highly censorious where her employer was concerned, because she thought indignantly that he was neglecting his wife. Miss Fountain had no time at all for festivities of any kind, she regarded holly and mistletoe and evergreens from the garden as a sure means of making an untidy mess of the house. Fenella had always seemed to be away for Christmas, either enjoying winter sports in Switzerland or Austria, or following the sun somewhere on the Riviera. And, therefore, Fountains was not famous for its Christmases—not since she was a child, anyway.

  Stacey found Jane Fountain more and more difficult to get on with, and practically all the older woman’s evenings were passed upstairs in her own room, where she crouched over a small fire she always lighted and attended to herself, and burned candles instead of electric light. They were tall candles which she placed in old-fashioned, branching candelabra, and they cast strange shadows on the ceiling. But Miss Fountain seemed to prefer her evenings passed in this fashion, and when Stacey ventured to suggest to her that there was no real reason why she should isolate herself, and that it would be more normal for the two of them to bear one another company, Miss Fountain turned on her with almost a gleam of triumph in her eyes, and exclaimed delightedly: “Ah, so you do feel lonely in the evenings! And your precious husband doesn’t seem to mind very much, does he?”

  Stacey caught her underlip between her teeth and said nothing. She wished that she had not been so unwise as to risk incurring Miss Fountain’s spiteful wrath, and she made up her mind that whatever happened she would leave her to her own resources in future.

  Two days before Christmas Eve the gardener brought in a load of holly, and Hannah held the stepladder while Stacey stood on top of it and decked pictures and portraits with the brilliant green and bright scarlet berries. Mrs. Elbe, in the kitchen, supervised the making of mince pies and plum puddings, and the larder was stocked with seasonable fare. If Martin arrived suddenly, Stacey thought, at least he should find everything in readiness for him, and she was even prepared for his suddenly ringing up and saying that he was bringing Vera, and possibly Dr. Carter or some other of his friends with him, and had the guest rooms aired and the beds made up in readiness.

  But Christmas Eve arrived, and the telephone message had not been received. One or two stray parcels and Christmas cards had arrived, and she placed the latter on the mantelpiece in the library, and thought that the room really did begin to appear transformed. When she first saw it the room had struck her as chill and comfortless, but by her efforts it had gradually assumed a more lived-in air, and now it positively glowed with warmth and comfort. It was one little corner of Fountains Court that did not, she felt, any longer resent her. She could even sit in it quietly in the evening and watch the flames from the huge logs blazing up the chimney, and the shadows dancing on the walls, and think that after all it was her home, and as her home she must give it some portion of her heart. Even an inanimate thing, such as a house or a room, could not return affection if none wa
s poured out over it.

  Yes; she supposed that in time she might even come to be really fond of the whole of Fountains, but that day would only dawn when there was no longer any Miss Fountain—and when she and Martin were friends again!

  By evening it was snowing outside, and she could see the flakes whirling down, large and white and utterly silent, when she parted the curtains to look out. A feeling as cold as the snow touched at her heart, for if Martin was on his way the car might get stuck in a drift, or something equally fatal. And what would happen to him then? How would he get to Fountains if he found himself isolated in some strange countryside, miles from anywhere, and with no one to assist him?

  The thought shook her considerably, and when Mrs. Elbe came in to know whether she would start dinner, she looked at the housekeeper with such large, shadow-haunted eyes that Mrs. Elbe made up her mind for her, and insisted also that she had a glass of sherry before the meal.

  “It’s no use you worrying about the master,” she said, in her comfortable, practical voice. “He’s bound to be on his way here, and he’s quite capable of looking after himself. You’ve had no letter from him, have you, to say that he’s not coming? And he hasn’t rung up? Well, then, of course he’s on his way!”