Dorothy Eden (6 page)

She looked at him anxiously. Was he bored?

“But even if you never love me, I’ll love enough for both of us and our marriage will be all right. I should think lots of people start less happily than this. What I’m really trying to say is that you don’t have to pretend. I always want us to be honest with each other.”

She stopped when she saw that he was laughing.

“But Beatrice, my absurd little wife, of course I love you. Only not tonight. Tonight isn’t for either love or long speeches.” He yawned. So he
was
bored. “And don’t you dare make a speech when I’m in bed with you.” He bent to give her another brief kiss. “Sleep well. Tomorrow Paris, heigh ho!”

He was gone. Like one of his butterflies, light and exquisite of touch. Not wanting deep thoughts or emotions. Not wanting to search his heart, or hers. She knew she had learnt her first lesson. He didn’t care for intensity or plain-speaking. He preferred to gloss over uneasy matters, pretending they didn’t exist.

Perhaps he was right and she wrong. She had to be thankful that he had this ebullient nature, for if he hadn’t he would surely never have married her, even for the sum of two thousand pounds a year and the knowledge that his family home was secure for the next generation.

All the same Beatrice wept a little into her lacy wedding handkerchief. She suspected that he had been relieved to have an excuse to escape her bed that night.

But perhaps it was merely that he, too, was tired from the long long day.

T
HE NEXT DAY THE
weather was cloudy and damp, and William was catching a cold.

He apologised, saying that he caught cold with ridiculous ease. He hoped Beatrice didn’t mind too much.

Their roles were reversed, for she had woken feeling completely recovered, with all her healthy optimism back.

However, she found her husband, flushed and bright-eyed and undoubtedly miserable, infinitely appealing. She wanted to smother him with love and care. She had enough sense not to do this, but after the long train journey and their arrival at their Paris hotel, she insisted on his retiring at once.

“Tonight, we will both eat upstairs,” she said. “Can we ring for a menu?”

“You’re the experienced traveller already,” William said, and she flushed with pleasure.

“But you must order the meal. I haven’t the courage to do that. My French is too awful.”

“Then let us send for the maître d’hôtel.”

They ate delightfully in the privacy of their room. Even Hawkins was not permitted in to unpack Beatrice’s clothes. Tomorrow would do for that, when Mr Overton was feeling better, Beatrice said.

It was fortunate that the room was equipped with another bed, for William refused to allow her to sleep beside him and catch his germs. In spite of his good spirits over their dinner, his cold was worsening.

It was the exasperating weakness in his family, he told Beatrice, only repeating something that Beatrice had always known. The Indian climate which was so cruel to children had left him with permanently delicate health. It had also left a more subtle legacy, as Beatrice discovered that night, when William moaned and cried in the grip of a nightmare.

She leaned over him, holding a nightlight, and calling to him to wake up.

“What is it, my darling? Are you in pain?”

His fever-bright eyes opened and stared at her as if she were part of a remembered horror. Then slowly he came out of the dream that had made him cry out and toss the blankets into a tumbled heap.

He smiled weakly with relief.

“Oh, Bea! It’s good to have you here.” He gripped her hand hard and pleadingly, as if asking her to keep these familiar dragons, whatever they were, away.

She would do so, too. If this role were more maternal than wifely she didn’t mind at present. It was so wonderful to find that he needed her.

“Was it a nightmare?” she asked.

“Yes. It usually comes when I’m ill. I’ve had this particular one since I was a child, since that day—”

His face tightened and she sat on the edge of the bed, saying, “Tell me, my darling.” Endearments, of which she was a little shy in the daytime, came so easily in the night, in these circumstances.

“It was a quite horrible experience,” he said. “It happened in India when I was only seven years old. I was being taken for my usual morning’s drive in a gharry with my amah. The driver had taken us to the outskirts of the town, where we shouldn’t have been, anyway, and we came without any warning on the scene of a massacre.”

“You mean—dead people?”

“Yes. Several Indians, and someone I knew, Sergeant Major Edwards. He was a jolly good friend of mine. He’d taught me to shoulder arms and play cricket. He was a big broad-shouldered fellow with blond hair and an enormous drooping blond moustache. Actually, it was only his moustache that made me recognise him. There was a great deal of blood, and his eyes had already been pecked out by kites.”

“How dreadful! How appalling for a child!”

William smiled wanly.

“I see you understand. I think my mother did, too, but my father didn’t. He said that if I were joining the army I was never too young to get accustomed to sights like that. Actually, that was when I decided that nothing on earth would make me join the army.”

“But it was mainly because of your bad health, dearest.”

“No, it was my cowardice. I’ve been a coward ever since that day. I have an absolute aversion to any kind of violence or ugliness. My father, poor old boy, was pretty disappointed. He thought his only son was a namby pamby. Which was true. Is still true.” The hot fingers clutched Beatrice’s. “I also have a fear of death and dying. I run away from it, if I can. I went to Italy when Caroline was dying. And I kept out of Father’s room as much as I could when he was near the end. Are you going to despise me, Bea?”

“Never! If you ask me, your father was enough to scare any child.”

“You weren’t scared of him.”

“I was a bit.”

“No, you weren’t, or he’d have known. He always knew.”

“Well, he wasn’t my father. That made a difference.”

“Perhaps it did. How comfortable you are.”

“I always want to be.”

“Thank you, dearest.”

“Will you be better tomorrow?”

“I think so.”

“I’m so glad. We can start doing things, shopping, sightseeing. I keep reminding myself that we’re in Paris. Do please remember that there are more beautiful than ugly things in the world.”

“I do. That’s why I spend my life seeking them out. Bless you, Bea.” His lips touched her fingers gratefully.” I believe you do understand.”

The next morning William felt a great deal better, almost recovered, in fact. His spirits were improved, as if relating that nightmare had lifted a weight from his mind. He called out to Beatrice as she came in, rosy-cheeked, from an early morning walk.

“Where the devil have you been?”

“Just out for an early morning walk. You were sleeping so soundly I thought I would take a quick look at the shops.”

“The shops!”

“That big store, Bon Marché. It’s quite good, but not as good as Bonnington’s. Papa will be delighted to hear that.” She was pulling off her gloves, and laughing at his indignation. Had she found a department store so much more interesting than her ailing husband?

“It’s my first trip to Paris. I couldn’t resist going out. Now I’m starving. Can we have breakfast? You look so much better. If you tell me you have an appetite, I’ll be completely happy.”

William allowed himself to be coaxed into amiability, and an admission, that he felt much recovered.

“All the same, Bea, you must develop an interest in art galleries as well as department stores.”

“Oh, I will! There’ll be time for everything, won’t there?”

“Certainly. Let’s attend to your wardrobe first. I suggest a visit later this morning to M’sieu Worth’s salon. Then, if we’re both strong enough after luncheon we might take a drive and see the sights.”

Sadly, it was all too good to last. For when they returned to their hotel that afternoon, with William still a little invalidish and ready to rest until dinner, the telegram addressed to Mrs William Overton was awaiting them.

Beatrice tore open the yellow envelope (although not without taking a moment to reflect on how pleasing her new name looked), then exclaimed in shocked dismay, “Oh, how terrible!”

“What is it?”

“Papa! He’s dangerously ill.”

“Let me see!” William snatched the ominous yellow form from her and read, “Your father had apoplectic seizure. Return at once. Mamma.”

They looked at each other in dismay, Beatrice suddenly painfully aware of how much Papa, impatient, hot-tempered, noisy, exasperating, vital and virile, a great storm always blowing through her life, meant to her, William looking uncertain, as if he were wondering whether his marriage of convenience had been unnecessary, after all.

Beatrice was already too clever at reading his thoughts.

“Bonnington’s will go on, of course, whether Papa is there or not. We’ll never need to be poor. But one can’t imagine—oh, William forgive me, we’ll have to go home.”

“Of course, my dearest.”

“If Papa is going to die—But he won’t. He’s so alive. God wouldn’t dare. Where’s Hawkins? She must be told to pack. What time does a train go?”

“I’ll attend to all that. There’ll be one later this evening, but we may have to spend some chilly hours waiting for the morning ferry.”

“I ought to go alone,” Beatrice said distractedly. “You’re scarcely over your fever. And what about those dress fittings? They’ll have to be cancelled.” Her lips trembled. “I may have to wear mourning.”

She found, however, that for one private reason she was glad to be going home. She had always wanted the consummation of her marriage to take place in the old General’s bedroom at Overton House, where many other consummations happy or unhappy, must have taken place, as well as numerous births and deaths.

Hotel bedrooms carried only the most superficial memories, the dimmest ghosts.

She could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw Papa propped against pillows looking almost as well as he had been when she had kissed him goodbye three days ago. A closer look, however, showed a certain dullness in his eyes, and one end of his luxuriant moustache seemed curiously tilted downwards. Also, he put out his left hand in welcome.

“I’m glad to see you, Bea.”

“Mamma said you were dangerously ill.”

“I told her to say that. Wanted to be sure you’d come.”

There was a hint of pathos in those last words, and Papa’s voice had trembled slightly. Beatrice knew that he would be fiercely ashamed of that tremor. He and the old General—really, what had she done to be caught between two such men?

“Papa, tell me truthfully how ill you are.”

Papa subsided against his pillows, and allowed the animation to leave his face. Then he did look ill and disturbingly old.

“Doctors never tell you anything,” he grumbled. “You hand your damn body over to them and the rest is silence. I had this collapse after your wedding, that’s all. Gad, I still had those stupid tails and striped trousers on. They put me to bed in ’em as far as I know.”

“Yes, Papa. The whole truth. What did the doctor say?”

Bleakly his eyes met hers.

“That I’d had a slight stroke. Me, in the prime of life! I said I’d never heard a more mistaken diagnosis. But the truth is, Bea—you wanted the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Knew you would. You face things. Different from your dreamy husband. You’ll have to carry him, as well as the shop.”

For a moment she thought he was wandering. What was he talking about?

But his eyes, even if dim, had not lost their intelligence.

“The truth is, Bea, I’m a bit shaky on my right side. Arm and leg. Can’t get out of bed without the help of that damn fool nurse. Humiliating. Otherwise I’m as merry as a cricket.”

Beatrice moistened her lips. She had to keep calm, but inwardly she was trembling as much as she had trembled in the lobby of the Paris hotel when the telegram had been in her hands.

“Is this permanent?”

“No, by God! No! You won’t see Joshua Bonnington on crutches. But it’s going to take time. I’ve got to be a prisoner here for a few weeks. That’s all. Only a few weeks. But long enough for those bastards—sorry, Bea—to play havoc at the shop.”

“Is there trouble, Papa?”

He nodded. “It blew up just before your wedding. I wouldn’t have told you. Nothing to do with you, anyway, except that Bonnington’s is yours now. Gave you the key, didn’t I?”

“That was for when you died, Papa. Not for a long long time.”

“It’s getting a bit nearer, Bea. Can’t deny that.” He made an attempt to move his right arm and failed. “The thing is, you’ll have to take over.”

“Me!” She was incredulous. Nevertheless, her heart had given an excited leap. Life was too ironic. Why should this opportunity, which once she had longed for, happen at such an inopportune time?

“And why not?” Papa said. “You’ve married a husband you have to support, you’re going to run a house that’s far above our level of living. Not that your mother doesn’t spend money like water, but this is a bit different from that grand place where you’re going to live. Bonnington’s will be bled to keep that up. However, you chose it, so now it’s up to you to keep it going.”

“Surely I couldn’t do that, Papa.”

“Yes, you could. You’re a Bonnington, aren’t you?”

“You’ve always said I’m only a woman.”

“More’s the pity. But you’re my daughter so they’ll all have to listen to you. I might as well tell you that I made a bit of a misjudgment a little while ago when I took on an assistant manager.”

“Mr Featherstone?” Beatrice said, remembering the man. She had thought him sharp, clever and unlikeable.

“That’s right. Have you taken much notice of him?”

“No, but I know Miss Brown doesn’t care for him.”

“She’s always against new blood, of course. But in this case she was right. He wants her to go, although she doesn’t know it. Says she’s old-fashioned. He wants to remodel several departments. I find he’s been countermanding my orders, going behind my back, getting his toadies. And he’s not honest. I established for certain a few days ago that goods were disappearing. I intended waiting until after your wedding before having a damned good row with him and getting rid of him. Instead, I was struck with this illness. And that scoundrel’s singing praises about it, no doubt.”