by M. C. Beaton
“Oh, go away,” said Giles wearily. “I’m going to get drunk.”
Susie stalked from the room, her head held high, and Giles sat and nursed his port and a guilty conscience. He had not meant to be so cruel, but that untouchable air about her drove him mad.
The unhappy couple settled in for the long winter at Blackhall Castle.
They exchanged chilly presents at Christmas and a chilly kiss, and apart from that, they did not have much to do with each other.
Their bitter atmosphere affected even the servants, who became quarrelsome and split up into two camps, one led by Mrs. Wight, favoring Giles, and the other led by Thomson, favoring Susie.
As far as Susie was concerned, she had had her taste of reality. Better to retreat to the safe world of her dreams, where that tan and handsome and kindly man was always waiting for her.
Giles bitterly noticed her vague and dreaming air of abstraction, and it infuriated him more than her cold snubs had done.
It was when he was glancing through the social columns that he hit upon an idea.
Winter had at last fled, and the days were growing warmer and longer. Thoughts of old romances and old conquests began to burn in his blood. He was determined to show Susie somehow that he was still considered a highly attractive and desirable young man. And Mary Bartlett had returned to London. Mrs. Bartlett, an old amour of Giles’s, had long been called The Merry Widow. She was a voluptuous redhead with a large fortune and a roving eye. He would hold a house party, nothing too elaborate, just a few couples and the intriguing Mrs. Bartlett.
Susie accepted the news of the house party with infuriating calm. She ordered flowers to be arranged, wrote menus for the dining room and cards for the doors of the guest rooms, and dreamed of that handsome, square, solid man who would arrive and rescue her from Giles’s icy scorn.
The Earl and the Countess of Blackhall were standing on the castle steps, arm in arm and with fixed social smiles pinned on their faces, to greet the first guests.
Giles searched the arriving carriages and motorcars anxiously for Mrs. Bartlett, and Susie searched for her dream lover.
They both arrived at once.
A smart, brand-new Lanchester painted a dazzling shade of pink rolled up after the other guests had arrived. Clashing magnificently with the paintwork of her automobile was the flaming red hair of Mrs. Bartlett. Only she wasn’t Mrs. Bartlett anymore.
“I’ve just got married, darling,” she cried, pressing Giles to her ample bosom. “Isn’t he a poppet? I’m Lady Mary Glassop now. This is my husband, Jimmy.”
Sir Jimmy Glassop was a wealthy financier, one of the new kind of aristocracy who had turned from their lands to make their fortune in trade. He was tall and handsome with a square, tanned face, and honest brown eyes. He had walked straight out of Susie’s dreams, and she could not take her eyes off him.
Giles watched her over Lady Mary’s lace shoulder and felt that his superb plan was backfiring.
Lady Mary linked her arm familiarly in Giles’s and called over her shoulder to her husband, “See that the servants know where to put my bags, darling.” She went into the castle, talking animatedly to Giles. She had not even looked at Susie.
Susie turned to Sir Jimmy and gave him a radiant smile. “If you will come with me,” she said, “I will show you to your rooms.”
“I say,” said Sir Jimmy. “We haven’t been introduced.”
“I’m Susie, Giles’s wife,” said Susie, leading the way.
“He’s married!” exclaimed Jimmy, lumbering after her. “There was nothing about it in the social columns. Giles married! Well, well, well.”
Susie conducted him up to the top of the keep and into a guest suite of rooms, which was in fact Giles’s former quarters. He had moved into the earl’s rooms, and Susie had taken up the adjoining suite, which had been redecorated in her honor. Jimmy thanked her heartily and said he would go straight back downstairs again and join his wife, since the trunks and all been safely bestowed.
Susie trotted along happily beside him. When they reached downstairs again, it was to be informed by a disapproving Thomson that my lord and my lady had gone walking down by the lake.
“Do you want to join them?” asked Susie.
“No, my dear,” said Jimmy. “I simply want to sit down and stretch my legs and have something to drink.”
She led him into the rose chamber and ordered Thomson to supply the necessary refreshment.
“Do you mind if I smoke my pipe?” asked Jimmy, taking a venerable meerschaum from his pocket.
“Oh, no!” sighed Susie adoringly. “I adore men who smoke pipes.”
Jimmy looked at her in surprise. “Giles smoke a pipe?”
“No.”
“Oh,” said Jimmy, looking startled and then looking closely at Susie for the first time.
She was wearing a white lace tea gown threaded with gold silk ribbons. Her hair was dressed low on her forehead in the latest fashion, and the style accentuated the size of her large eyes. He watched the play of her heavy lashes against her cheek and felt a little quiver of surprise. By George! he thought. I’ve charmed this little lady.
“Do you come up to town often?” he asked.
“No,” said Susie. “I have a house there, you know, but I haven’t visited it since I was married. Giles’s Aunt Matilda lives there at the moment.”
“Season’ll soon be starting,” he commented, puffing on his pipe and looking at her admiringly through the clouds of aromatic smoke. “Young thing like you should be going to all the balls and parties.”
“I don’t really like balls and parties,” said Susie. “I like a quiet country life.”
“So do I,” said Jimmy, “but I can’t talk my wife into it. She likes the social round. Before I had any money, I lived in my parents’ old home down in the country. It was very small and quiet, but I rather liked it. Good hunting.”
“I sometimes think I would like a small house,” said Susie, thinking of that thatched cottage. “Do you have a dog?”
“Whole pack,” he said amiably.
“I mean a pet dog,” urged Susie, thinking of the dog called Rover who would gambol about the garden.
“No,” he said. “I like dogs in the kennels, where they belong. Nasty, smelly things to have about the house, you know. Hair all over the cushions and bones under the carpets.”
Susie sighed. Nobody was perfect.
She heard a trill of laughter and turned her head. Mary was entering, hanging onto Giles’s arm. She was rather on the heavy side, but she had magnificent skin and eyes as blue as Giles’s own. She was wearing a silk chiffon dress, which Susie noticed was cut so tightly to her voluptuous figure that it was almost possible to read the name of her corsetiere.
“Giles has been telling me he’s married. Fancy that. Our gay bachelor tied down at last! Lucky girl,” she cooed at Susie and then raised her penciled eyebrows as she intercepted the cold look that passed between Susie and her husband.
In the days that followed, Susie was quite happy, however, to see Giles’s attention so much taken up with Lady Mary. It left Jimmy plenty of time to pay attention to her.
The members of the house party—who were a surprisingly middle-aged lot, Giles not wanting any masculine competition—passed the time pleasantly enough, walking and picnicking, gossiping, and playing parlor games and practical jokes. Finally, one by one, they left, but Lady Mary and her husband stayed on.
Susie received an anxious letter from her parents, which had been forwarded from her London address. They had heard rumors that Susie was married again. Surely that could not be the case, since she would have asked her beloved parents to the wedding. Lady Matilda had been quite furtive and had said that Susie was traveling abroad. Now, didn’t Susie ever stop to think of how her parents longed to travel? And so on.
Susie felt a pang of guilt. She did not want her parents to know she was married, for they might then be spared the horror of ever finding out that she had b
ecome divorced. For the more Giles flirted with the all-too-willing Lady Mary, the more Susie wound Jimmy into her dreams and thought her life would be perfect if only she could be married to him.
Susie and Jimmy went for long companionable walks together, Susie for once in her life doing most of the talking while Jimmy puffed amiably on his pipe and put in an odd word or two.
Giles kept a cynical eye on Susie. He was shrewd enough to know that Jimmy was too much of a gentleman to contemplate even flirting with Susie, but he could not help feeling fiercely jealous. She was his property, after all.
Susie would not even admit to herself that she was bitterly hurt by Giles’s light flirtation with the gorgeous Lady Mary. Every time Lady Mary would lay a caressing hand on Giles’s arm, Susie would wince and burrow deeper into her dreams, until she saw the outside world through a vague haze.
She desperately wanted security. She wanted a strong man to look after her. As the seductive, warm spring days slipped by, she became more than ever convinced that that man was Jimmy.
The two couples dined and played cards together, Lady Mary and her husband joking and laughing, and Giles and Susie subdued and quiet.
Lady Mary was quick to notice that Giles only flirted with her when Susie was around, and settled down to enjoy the game. The fact that Susie might be getting hurt by this byplay did not trouble Mary in the least. Although she was not a cruel woman, she was shallow and thrived on the jealousy of other women.
There is nothing like long, drawn-out adolescence for causing mild insanity—the type of insanity where one thinks one is terribly sane.
And so Susie decided that Jimmy loved her. He needed encouragement. He was only waiting for a word from her.
She started to plan to get him to herself for the day.
She knew he was in the habit of riding early and strolling about the garden. She went in search of him one dazzling morning while the dew was still heavy on the grass.
Jimmy was strolling down by the lake. He paused to admire the heavy purple blossoms on the lilac tree and noticed the stone bench next to it. He sat down and was just beginning to light his pipe when he heard the patter of footsteps on the path and looked up in surprise.
Susie came tripping toward him, looking very much part of the spring morning in a pale-green organza dress, which fluttered around her ankles as she walked.
“Hey, Susie,” said Jimmy amiably, getting to his feet. “Early riser, just like me.”
“Yes,” said Susie. “We have a lot in common.”
She peeped up at Jimmy through her lashes to see if the point had struck home, but he was gazing placidly at a family of ducks paddling across the smooth surface of the lake.
He searched in his pocket, took out a tin of tobacco, and rattled it ruefully. “Empty,” he said. “Better drive into Barminster and get myself some more.”
“I thought of going into town myself,” said Susie casually and waited for him to invite her to come along.
“Good,” he said, “that’ll save me a trip. That is, if you wouldn’t mind picking up a quarter pound of Embassy for me. It costs two shillings, and you should be able to get it at Hadden’s in the High Street.”
Susie’s face fell. “I thought perhaps you might drive me into town.”
“Glad to.” He looked at her in some surprise. “Tell you what, you fetch Giles, and I’ll get Mary, and we’ll make an outing of it. I’ll stand you all lunch at the Crown.”
Emboldened by her dreams, Susie plunged in. “Couldn’t we just go together?” she asked. “I think Giles is still asleep, and Mary doesn’t ever get up before noon, as you know.”
“All right,” said Jimmy equably. “We’ll take the motor, and that way we’ll be back before they even wake up.”
Susie turned her head to hide a frown. Once Jimmy found out she loved him, then he would surely be in no mood to hurry back.
They pottered amicably enough down the High Street under the flapping blinds of the little shops. Susie was thinking of some way she could get Jimmy to herself and away from the crowds for a little bit. She wished she knew something about motor engines, so that she could sabotage the motor, but even if she could, Jimmy would probably go in search of a mechanic.
Jimmy bought his tobacco, and Susie bought ribbons and laces and a length of material she did not really want.
While the shopkeeper was wrapping up her purchases, Susie sat on a hard wooden chair beside the counter and racked her brains for somewhere quiet to take Jimmy.
“There you are, my lady,” said the shopkeeper breezily. “Gorgeous day. I’ll be taking the missus out in the carriage for a bit of air like this evening, if the weather stays fine. There’s a lovely little spot down by the River Bar near an old ruined folly. Used to be part of Lord Humfry’s estate, but now it belongs to Farmer Briggs, and he don’t mind people strolling around. Really lovely it is this time of year, my lady.”
“I would like to see it,” said Susie with such urgency that the shopkeeper stared at her in surprise. “We have a motor. Which route do we take?”
“Well, my lady, you go to the end of the High Street and turn along Minster Road till you gets to Hackett’s Crossing. Take Parson’s Lane about a mile or so and you’ll come to a big pair of stone gateposts with sort of eagles on top. There’s a track through there, broad enough for a motor, which’ll take you down to the river.”
“What do you say?” asked Susie, looking up at Jimmy with shining eyes.
“I suppose it wouldn’t take too long. Perhaps I’d better telephone Mary and—”
“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary,” said Susie hurriedly. “We’ll just take a quick look.”
“Righty-ho,” replied Jimmy with his usual amiability.
Outside, Susie sat back in the shocking pink car while Jimmy took the wheel and steeled herself for the scene to come. Of course, at first he would probably feel he had to say he was fond of Mary, but after that—well, love would conquer all. Then all they had to do was escape to that cottage where the birds always sang in the thatch and the dog, Rover, was waiting at the gate.
They found the road to the River Bar easily enough, turning in through the stone gateposts and bumping along a rutted track to the folly by the river. Jimmy switched off the engine.
It was indeed a beautiful spot.
A moss-covered ruin of a folly stood on a little knoll above the river, which foamed and sparkled over its bed of silver pebbles. The sun slanted in great shafts through the translucent spring leaves of the trees, and the warm air was heavy with the smells of flowers and grass.
Susie was content to sit drinking in the silence and the nearness of Jimmy, warm, friendly, and reassuring from the homely smell of his tobacco to the rough hair of his tweeds.
“There’s your river,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “Now you’ve seen it, and very pretty it looks. Better be getting back.”
He made a move as if to start the car, but Susie put her little gloved hand over his.
“Please, Jimmy,” she said softly. “Walk with me for a little. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Righty-ho,” said Jimmy. “But better make it quick.”
They climbed down from the car. Susie walked around and linked her arm in Jimmy’s, and they strolled down to the edge of the river. She was wearing a dashing white straw bonnet lined with green silk, which she knew became her.
“Now,” said Jimmy questioningly, turning to look down at her.
Susie took a deep breath. “Jimmy, I feel that the regard I have for you is deepening into something stronger.”
“Oh, I say,” bleated Jimmy, but Susie had the bit between her teeth and could not be checked. She went on in a rush, looking up into his bewildered brown eyes and hanging onto his arm.
“We both want to live in the country. We’re not socialites like Giles and Mary. We could easily get divorces. People do quite a lot these days. We could buy a cottage like the one I told you about. Oh, Jimmy darling, I can see it
now! You can smoke your pipe in the evenings in the garden, and I will lean on the back of your chair. I saw some lovely chintz for curtains just the other day. And I could have a dog, a dog called Rover. I know you said you didn’t like dogs, but I feel you were only chaffing me. We were made for each other, Jimmy. Jimmy?”
Jimmy stared down at her with his mouth open. Then he gently disengaged himself from her grasp and, taking out a large handkerchief from his cuff, proceeded to mop his face.
Suddenly a look of comprehension dawned on his pleasant face. “I say, old girl, it’s the damned sun plus an open motorcar. Hat’s not enough in this weather. Same thing happened to Mary once at Antibes. Got very tetchy, she did, and started babbling the most awful nonsense. Now, not another word until I get you back home.”
“But, J-Jimmy—”
“Sun, that’s what it is,” he said soothingly, leading her firmly back to the Lanchester and all but shoving her into the seat. “Sun’s very strong this time of year. Dear me.”
He set the motor in motion, and they lurched off back down the path.
Susie sat as far away from him as she could, hunched up and miserable. He hadn’t understood her! He must.
The noise of the engine made conversation impossible. Jimmy broke the speed record all the way back to the castle, hurtling round the bends at a dizzying forty miles an hour.
He pulled up at the entrance to the keep and, before Susie could open her mouth, he had sent a footman to fetch Carter, and in the next breath had gone bounding upstairs, calling for his wife.
Susie dismissed Carter as soon as she got to her sitting room and sat down by the window and put her head in her hands.
What had gone wrong?
Suddenly through the open window she could hear the chatter of voices coming from Jimmy’s rooms.
Susie was a well-brought-up girl. She knew that to eavesdrop was wrong. But perhaps, just perhaps what she had said to Jimmy had finally struck him and he was, even now, asking his wife for a divorce.
She crept out into the corridor and along toward their rooms, the voices becoming louder as she turned the bend in the stone corridor.