Bride by Arrangement (7 page)

“Pierre, I—Pierre!” Her voice was thin and frightened for the first time since he had known her. “Is this a very—crazy thing we’re doing?”

“There’s nothing crazy about what we’re doing,” he told her softly, as he held her hands tightly. “At least, there’s nothing crazy about what we propose to
do
...
But I wish you weren’t here in this house. I wish you were still in Trelas.”

“Tomorrow I shall be in London,” she said.

“Yes.” He uttered something below his breath, and she thought it was an angry sound, a frustrated sound. “Why does your friend Miss Pentland have to be so managing? We could have got along very well without her intervention, and I could have dispensed with her brother altogether. I don’t like the way he looks at you, Chloe; as if you were a little girl he’s cherished for a long time, and has designs on, and doesn’t want to part with!”

“Nonsense,” she answered tremulously. “David isn’t like that. He’s merely kind.”

“And it isn’t necessary for any man to be kind to you!” His voice was suddenly harsh. “Chloe, you won’t allow Eunice to be too clever, will you? You won’t listen to her ... too much!” Chloe’s eyes peeped up at him in the darkness, and he saw she didn’t understand. He released her hands, and his arms went round her, drawing her against him.

“Chloe, I wish we were being married tomorrow!... Oh, Chloe!” he said, softly.

He felt her whole slight body tremble a little.

“I—ought to go in,” she said.

“But I shan’t see you for days! Chloe, don’t stay away too long, or I’ll come and fetch you myself!... In fact, I think I will come and fetch you!”

“That would be silly. A journey for nothing. And I’ll soon be back.”

“And I’ll make all the arrangements—at this end.”

She was silent, still trembling, longing hopelessly to abandon all pretence and cling to him.

“We’ll be married in the village church,” he told her, even more softly. “Is that what you’d like, Chloe, little one?”

Her eyes were suddenly starry and she tried to hide them by dropping her cheek against him. Her whispered “yes” barely reached him, but he put his fingers under her chin and lifted it, forcing her face right out into the open. Wide greenish eyes with fluttering eyelashes, and dark velvet-brown ones gazed at one another in the starshine, while the sea surged softly below them, as if it was a crooning background to the sudden wonder of a moment.

Pierre laughed gently, tenderly, seeing his own reflected image in the wide eyes.

“You funny little thing,” he murmured. “You lovely little
thing!”

And then he kissed her. Her lips trembled beneath his, and he went on kissing them until they grew steady and warm and responsive, and her arms went up around his neck. They held one another very tightly.

“Come back soon, Chloe—darling little Chloe!” he whispered again. “And don’t bother about clothes. They are quite unimportant!”

In London Chloe followed Eunice wherever the other elected they should go, and she stood about in exclusive establishments devoted to
haute couture
and had various alterations made to gowns that miraculously were otherwise exactly right for her, although they had been originally designed for someone else. Eunice explained that people often had dresses made for them and then changed their minds about buying them—more often than not because they found that they couldn’t afford them—and she knew so many people that she knew exactly where to look for these useful dream like things that would curtail their shopping spree, and set Chloe up with a sufficient amount of clothes to get married at short notice.

She acquired shoes and hats and filmy underwear, and Eunice brought a swift blush to her cheeks when she selected an exquisite confection in nylon and lace the colour of a dawn cloud and said it was to be her honeymoon nightdress.

“For the first night, darling, wherever you elect to spend it! I’ve no doubt Pierre has thought all that out!”

Chloe stood clutching the parcels that had been piled up in her arms, and found that she couldn’t say anything at all. But her heart was beating quickly.

“It seems to me that the mating of anyone as innocent and unoffending as you and someone like Pierre is a little like expecting the lion to lie down with the lamb! Experience versus complete inexperience! It’s asking rather a lot of both of you, but so long as you don’t prove demanding, which would be fatal with anyone like Pierre, the marriage may work out. You may even wean him from side issues like Fern de Lisle!”

Chloe followed her from the shop feeling certain all at once that she loathed her, and she wanted to throw her parcels at her and tell her that she would accept nothing at all from her. For some strange reason Eunice was bent on reducing Chloe to size—keeping her where she belonged!—and the only weapon she possessed was Pierre.

Chloe went cold at the thought that if she knew the
truth
...
What, then, would she
s
ay? What use would she make of that as a weapon?

As she accompanied Eunice in a taxi to the latter’s club for lunch, she knew that there was no real reason why she should allow Eunice the opportunity to poison her mind against Pierre; to try in advance to wreck their marriage! She had only to tell Eunice that she preferred to buy her own wedding outfit, and she preferred to be married without the assistance of anyone at all.

But that would hurt David, who was really kind. There had been moments in her past when she had been grateful for David’s friendship, and she would not willingly hurt him now. David was possibly the only disinterested friend she had in the world, and it never even occurred to her that he was not really disinterested. That his interest was growing
...

That night a friend of Eunice’s took them out to dinner, and Chloe wore one of her smart new frocks, and tried to pretend that she enjoyed the meal, and the night club that followed, and wasn’t dreaming of Cornwall, and in particular Trelas, and one man who might be walking beside the sea.

One slightly built man with dark velvet eyes, and a voice with a trace of French accent at times that throbbed along all her nerves
...
Darling little Chloe! Don't bother about clothes. They are quite unimportant!

When they returned to their hotel, in the early hours of the morning, David was waiting for them in one of the big public lounges. His eyes lighted up at sight of Chloe, looking somewhat heavy-eyed and tired, but unusually attractive in a soft green dress and leaf-green sandals that lent her the appearance of a tired nymph or dryad.

“I decided I couldn’t stick it any longer alone at High Cross,” he announced, as his sister stood looking at him with a vague suspicion of triumph in her eyes. “You and Chloe having a gay old time, and with no one really suitable to escort you!” He took Chloe’s hands, and held them gently. “I know Eunice has heaps of friends, but they’re not your sort, Chloe, and I thought you needed someone like myself to protect you from them.”

“What about Pierre?” Eunice enquired drily, as she pressed the bell for drinks. “Isn’t it his place to protect Chloe? Couldn’t you persuade him to come with you?”

“As a matter of fact I didn’t try,” David admitted, still looking down at Chloe with his vivid blue eyes that were so like his sister’s and caressing her with them. “I haven’t seen much of him for the past few days, but I believe he divides his time between Trelas and the King’s Arms, as usual. It’s probably dull for him at Trelas, but I loathe poky little pubs myself, and I can’t imagine the attraction one like the King’s Arms has for him.”

“Particularly now that Fern has gone,” Eunice murmured. David lifted his head and gazed hard at her.

“Of course she’s gone!” he exclaimed rather sharply. “You know she’s gone. She left before you and Chloe came up to town, didn’t she?”

“So far as I know, darling,” Eunice answered him very softly, looking like a silvery dream in her silvery dress. “What I really mean is, I have absolutely no reason to think she hasn’t gone, but I’m surprised you didn’t invite Pierre to stay at High Cross and keep you company until our return—if you couldn’t entice him to London!”

“I did invite him to High Cross,” David admitted, rather shortly, “but he didn’t seem keen. And I didn’t press him to come to London.”

“Does he
know
you’re in London?” Eunice asked, as if she was interested.

David shrugged impatiently.

“I didn’t get him on the telephone and inform him of my movements, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “After all, I don’t have to inform anyone of my movements, and if Pierre wants to come to London he’ll come. And, in the meantime,
I
shall squire Chloe when she isn’t actually in the hands of the dressmaker!” smiling very gently at Chloe.

“We’ve bought so many things that there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go back home tomorrow,” she said with sudden hopefulness, although she knew at the same time that they wouldn’t agree with her. They were neither of them in the mood to agree with her just then, and the knowledge that she was up against two implacable wills that would not yield to any entreaties of her own depressed her unbearably at that wrong hour of the day.

Eunice smiled at her as if she was humouring a child. “Don’t be silly, darling! You’ve two more fittings for your going-away outfit, and we’ve done nothing at all about a wedding dress. I know you’ve decided against conventional white, but I don’t agree with you that the going-away outfit will do for the actual ceremony. We’ll have to get Madame Sasha to work on something at top speed for you, but even she can’t perform miracles. You’ll have to be reasonable, darling!”

So Chloe was forced to be reasonable, and they spent three more days in London. During those three days David escorted them everywhere, waiting for them in salons that were all spindly gilt chairs and pastel-tinted decor, tiny, exclusive hat shops, and even hairdressing establishments. He took them to lunch at places like the Savoy and the Ritz, wined and dined them in an atmosphere of soft lights and exclusive service,
obtained tickets for the most worthwhile shows in town, and drove them out into the country after late-night supper parties and dancing sessions that left Chloe feeling a little limp, to say the least, unaccustomed as she was to so much physical enjoyment.

Pierre had made no attempt to contact her during the few days of her stay in London, and each morning she had looked for a note from him. Just a few lines, saying, perhaps, that he missed her
...
And he
could
have accompanied David to London! If he was really missing her, surely that was what he would have done? There was nothing to keep him at Trelas, which, in any case, was not yet his home.

Possession of Trelas depended upon his marriage to Chloe, and the fact that he wasn’t missing her—and yet why should he?—depressed her so unbearably that she lived through the days of shopping and unnatural dissipation as if she was being merely kept alive by the hope of something in the future. The vague promise of something!... And yet when David took pity on the look of desolation in her face, the taut look of preoccupation, and wanted to provide her with distraction, she could have screamed at him for declining to permit her to return to the loneliness of her own room in the hotel, where she could at least learn whether the telephone had rung for her, and toy with the idea of ringing Trelas.

But if she rang Trelas after midnight what would Pierre think? That she couldn’t clear her head of him, and was longing to hear his voice? The voice of a man she had once pretended to despise!

David had no intention of being deprived of the pleasure of driving her through the quiet of a moonlit countryside, however, and he was also a little concerned by the tenseness in her face, and the way her hands clasped one another in an unrelaxed fashion in her lap.

If she was thinking of that French fellow, and longing to be with him, he would at least divert her for a short while. And there was something he wished to be certain about.

“Chloe.” He stopped the car in a quiet by-lane, and reached out and took her hand. “You’ve known me quite a long time, haven’t you? Your father would have trusted me, I think. And since you haven’t got a father, will you tell me one thing?”

Chloe let her hand lie limply in his, but she stared at him as if he had put her, all at once, on the defensive.

“Why are you rushing into marriage?”

Chloe was silent. Did he know? she wondered. Did he guess?

She felt a gentle tug at her hand.

“Do you love this fellow Pierre, Chloe? Are you marrying him
because he’s important to your happiness, and for no other reason?”

“Yes—yes, I do!”

David let out a slow sigh, and then he gently released her hand.

“To me it’s incredible, but then I don’t know much about women
... Your sort, Chloe! Eunice is different. She’s always had what she wanted, and she’s not the type to confuse the issues. She knows not only what she wants, but what is good for her
... But you! You still seem to me a child
... The nervous child at vicarage tea-parties, anxious to help out and do nothing that could earn anyone’s displeasure, and yet not precisely putty in anyone’s hands. You’ve a will of your own, Chloe. And now you say you're in love ... after knowing a fellow a matter of weeks! I waited too long!”

“I don’t understand you,” Chloe said, speaking with a gentleness that matched his own.

“No? Well, we’ll forget it now. You say you’re in love with Albertin, and you’re marrying him. At least, that’s the programme at present, but if anything should go wrong, Chloe
...
If, for instance, you found out that you were not as much in love as you thought, or Pierre should—no; I mustn’t talk to you like this. It’s not fair. But I thought I had all the time in the world, and apparently you were growing up fast! I thought I only had to be patient
...
”

Chloe looked at him, suddenly intensely concerned.

“Oh, but I never dreamed
...
Oh, David, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed. “There are so many girls in the world, and I simply can’t understand why you even thought about me. There’s—there’s just nothing about me to appeal to a man like you, who can pick and choose!”

David smiled crookedly.

“Whatever it is about you that appeals to me has obviously made its appeal to de Ramballe,” he commented. “Perhaps you’re a little blind where your own charms are concerned, Chloe! Or perhaps we’re both looking for something slightly different from other men! Whatever it is about you, you’ll be a vicomtesse before long, and you shouldn’t have any more financial problems. Madame Albertin has seen to that in a way. She brought you together, and she has made it possible for Pierre to begin afresh, without any debts and that sort of thing. I hope he realises how lucky he is.”

Once again Chloe looked down at her hands, but this time she clasped them so tightly in her lap that the nails bit into the soft flesh of her palms. Why was everyone so certain that Pierre had debts? she wondered. And why did they think it necessary
for him to begin afresh, and doubt his capacity for appreciating her, or any woman like her?