Marry a Stranger (14 page)

“You must come and see me whenever you want to,” she said to Stacey at parting. “My cottage is so close to Fountains that you can drop in at almost any odd time.”

Stacey thanked her, gratefully. Mrs. Aden felt perplexed and a little perturbed as she watched her walk away down the garden path to the gate. Tessa had come with her and was keeping close to her. Tessa seemed to be her only near companion, for that awful Miss Fountain would do nothing but try to make the girl’s life a misery, she was sure.

The next time Martin returned to Fountains an invitation was sent to him and Stacey to dine at Primrose Cottage. For once he intended to stay a few days, and so the invitation was accepted, and Stacey found herself setting out for the first time in her married life accompanied by her husband to spend a social evening with their nearest neighbor.

Stacey felt almost excited as she dressed; for a whole evening with Martin, away from the depressing atmosphere of Fountains, and the disapproving looks of Jane Fountain, in the company of pleasant new friends who wished her well, meant that it was going to be a kind of red letter evening for her. She couldn’t quite make up her mind what to wear, for her black was her most sophisticated dress, and had been her most expensive purchase before she left London, and yet it seemed a little sombre for a bride making her first appearance in public with her husband. In the end she decided on the cloudy grey georgette, with the slightly Puritan fichu. She clasped a small row of pearls, which had once belonged to her mother, about her neck as her only adornment, apart from her wedding ring, and when she was ready, descended to the hall to meet Martin. He looked impeccable, as she had known he would, in his evening things, and he subjected her to rather a close inspection.

“You look nice,” he told her, at the end of it, “very nice! But we must get you something slightly more impressive in the way of jewellery to wear on occasions such as this. That necklace is rather schoolgirlish, but it suits you.”

“It was my mother’s,” she informed him; a little stiffly.

“Was it?” He smiled at her. “Well, no doubt even your mother would expect you to acquire a few trinkets of your own now that you are a sedate married woman. And do
you realize I haven’t even given you a wedding present yet? That thought was exercising my mind this week, and I wondered what you would like?”

“Nothing,” she answered rather hastily. “You don’t have to give me a wedding present, because—”

“Because what?” he asked, looking down into her eyes.

She lowered the eyes immediately, and the color rose in her cheeks.

“Because—because ours is not a—a normal marriage!”

“Isn’t it?” The color was sweeping up over her face and neck, and even disappearing under her hair. “But we need not let the world know that it is not, need we? And the best way to prevent the world from learning the truth is to turn a highly conventional face to it, and to allay suspicion with, at least, an engagement ring! You must let me know the kind of stone you fancy, and then if you’ll also provide me with one of your gloves I’ll set the matter in train when I get back to London. I can’t have my wife causing surprised looks, can I? She must at least appear as other wives are!”

Whether he was laughing at her or not she could not tell, but at least she did recognize the fact that he was probably serious when he said that speculative looks must at all costs be avoided. A man in his position could not afford to have his domestic life providing a subject for discussion amongst his neighbors—a subject for gossip!—and in a country district where gossip was often the breath of life to people deprived of much excitement.

So she said meekly: “Very well,” and he helped her on with her coat, and as it was only such a short distance to the cottage they walked through the gathering dusk and the faint star-shine that was piercing the autumn haze which overhung like a misty blanket the distant line of dark Welsh hills.

When they arrived at the cottage there was a bright log fire burning in the pleasant drawing room, and a tangy odour of chrysanthemums and cigarette smoke, and several people already gathered there and sipping glasses of sherry and waiting for the two latecomers to arrive before going in to dinner. Stacey was a little surprised, and not unpleased, when her hostess actually kissed her lightly on the cheek before introducing her to the rest of the guests—the vicar and his wife (the latter apologetic because she had not yet called upon the new Mrs. Guelder) and the local doctor and his wife, both young, while the former was obviously very much in awe of Martin Guelder—and in the warmth of such undoubted welcome Stacey felt, for the first time since her marriage, a kind of lightening of her spirit, as a result of which she was more confident than under the eyes of Miss Fountain, and more completely at her ease. Although she knew that a certain amount of surprise might be occasioned by her youthful appearance—a man like Martin Guelder should have a wife with the polish and the poise of a Vera Hunt, she thought secretly, and imagined that others would think so as well—and there was that curious first marriage of his concerning which she knew so little, although others would probably have, all the facts—she lost her customary rather childish
gaucherie,
and discovered a poise which became her very well indeed.

Mr. Aden, a rather dried-up but very humorous little man, a solicitor in Beomster, paid her a great deal of marked attention—possibly because his wife had instructed him to do so beforehand—sat beside her at dinner, and talked to her upon all sorts of subjects after dinner. The only subject he avoided was the subject of Fountains and the family who had once occupied it, although he talked of other big houses in the district, and Stacey thought that that was probably because he had decided it would be more tactful. But when he caught her glancing across at Dick’s portrait on the Buhl cabinet he suddenly gave vent to a slightly teasing laugh, and wagged a finger at her.

“So ho!” he said. “So you and Dick know one another, do you? What a dark horse he is! And yet I always thought, somehow, that there was a girl who had turned him down at some time or other.”

Stacey looked a little uncomfortable.

“Oh, but Dick and I were only friends,” she said. “Nothing more.”

His eyes studied her with a quizzical expression in them.

“That’s what you say,” he told her. “But as Dick has quite a good pair of eyes in his head, and you seem to have known one another quite a long time
...
” He was thinking that, in that grey dress, and with that shapely little head covered in the silken dark curls, and her rather wonderful, sombre eyes, she would be scarcely likely to make no impression at all on a young man. And Dick was impressionable all right!

“Who is this young man you’re talking about?” Martin Guelder enquired
suavely
, moving over to them from the hearthrug, where he had been having a conversation with the local doctor. “Some cast-off swain of my wife’s?”

His expression was almost bland, his eyes faintly humorous. He sank down in a chair near them, and appeared to relax at the same time that he looked questioningly at his host.

“We were talking about my nephew,” Mr. Aden explained, “or my wife’s nephew, rather. That’s him over there, in the photograph. A good lad—Dick Hatherleigh. Trying to make his fortune at the moment in Africa, although whether he’ll succeed or not I wouldn’t like to say. But he’s the right sort to try—plenty of grit and perseverance and so forth.”

“Is that so?” Martin murmured. He turned a little in his chair and studied the photograph. The young man had a pleasing face, if it was not exactly handsome, and his eyes were level and direct in their gaze. He looked as if he undoubtedly had what his uncle described as “grit”. “And you know him, Stacey?” he asked.

“Dick and I have known one another since I was about six,” Stacey answered rather shortly—for her—for although there was no reason why she should ever have mentioned young Hatherleigh to her husband there was something about his manner of posing the question to her that made her feel almost guilty. Which was absurd, of course.

“Really?” Martin murmured. “You never told me about him.”

“I never thought of telling you about him,” Stacey said truthfully.

Mr. Aden’s eyes twinkled.

“We all have our boy and girl love affairs,” he said, “but we get over them. I remember I fell violently in love with a girl I knew when I was twelve, but by the time I was sixteen I was rapidly cooling off,. By the time I was twenty I’d forgotten all about her.”

“This young man,” Martin said smoothly, ignoring the excerpt from Mr. Aden’s past—“your nephew. He’ll be coming home on leave some time, I expect? No doubt he’ll be coming to see you?”

“As a matter of fact we’re expecting him some time before Christmas,” his host confessed, and rubbed his hands together as if pleased at the thought.

Her husband looked across at Stacey.

“Then you’ll be able to see him, Stacey,” he said, his voice very mild, “and have a chat about old times!”

A little later he suggested that they should leave, although his hostess pressed him to remain and make a fourth at bridge. He excused himself on the grounds that his visit to Fountains was very brief, and that he had business in Beomster the following day, and one or two other urgent matters he wished to attend to, and that he wished to be up early. Stacey thanked her hostess with sincere gratitude in her eyes, and Mr. Aden wrung her hand heartily.

“Come and see us as often as you can,” he said. “You mustn’t let her be lonely at Fountains, Dr. Guelder. We shall be delighted if she’ll look in upon us whenever she feels like it.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Dr. Guelder replied smoothly, on behalf of his wife. “Very kind of you indeed!” He took Stacey by the arm, for it was very dark outside. “Perhaps I’d better go and get the car?” he suggested.

“Oh, no,” she said, and clung to his sleeve while she groped in, her thin evening shoes, for the gravel path.

“You’re sure?” he said. He gave a casual wave of the hand back at the
Aden
s, who were standing in the brightly lighted porch and speeding their departure with warmly called good nights. “Then you’d better hang on to me and not let go, otherwise you’re going to let yourself in for a twisted ankle or something of the sort in this badly rutted lane!”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Stacey r
equired no more pressing invitation to avail herself of the support of his arm, but she was a little surprised, during that short journey from the home of the Adens to the more imposing, if less cheerfully illuminated, bulk of Fountains, that he attempted no conversation of any kind—not even a few comments on the evening just ended.

It was very dark in the lane, and an owl hooted eerily on one side of them, and but for his near presence she might—country-bred though she was—have felt a little nervous because of the sighing wind in the trees, and the sensation of remoteness, and almost exquisite loneliness, emphasized by the glimpses of pale, cold stars through the little gaps in the foliage. And when they reached Fountains, where only the hall light burned dimly, shining out through the staircase window, he stood on the barely illuminated steps and put his key deliberately in the lock, and then stood aside for her to enter—still without saying a word.

Stacey felt the coldness of the hall strike into her as she entered it. She was glad when he switched on the light in the library, and she could see, that for once, Miss Fountain had had the forethought to leave them a small banked-up fire in the grate, and a tray of sandwiches and a Thermos flask of coffee set down on a little table drawn invitingly close to it. Or maybe it was Hannah who had had the thought for her mistress’s comfort. Hannah was developing quite an attachment for Stacey since she had arrived at the house in the guise of its new chatelaine

Martin went forward and stirred the fire with the poker, and Stacey drew near to it and held her hands to the warmth. He looked at her keenly for a moment, and he noticed that, although her face had blanched a little as a result of the slight rawness of the night, there was a reminiscent gleam of pleasure in her eyes, which told him that she had enjoyed her evening.

He saw her, however, shiver slightly, and he removed the cap from the Thermos flask and poured her a cup of steaming coffee, which she sipped
gratefully.

“A pleasant enough evening,” he observed, breaking his silence for the first time; “but it might have been wiser to take the car. However, the distance was short, and there was no danger of your getting your feet wet”—with his eyes on the fragile silver sandals which peeped from the hem of her gown. “But I thought it a good plan to come away early. You’re not very much accustomed to late night
dissipations.”

“I don’t think the
Aden
s are the sort of people who are very much accustomed to late night dissipations, either,” she remarked, with that warm glow in her eyes which told him that she had firmly adopted them as her friends. “I think they’re charming, and Mrs. Aden especially. She paints beautifully.”

“And she has a nephew whom you also think very nice?”

Stacey looked up at him, her expression a little wondering because his voice was rather cool, and his expression was watchful and somehow a little discomposing.

“I’ve told you that Dick and I have known one another for years,” she said quietly, her deep, violet
-
blue glance unwavering, while the sudden little flush of pink which stole into her cheeks increased her attractiveness enormously.

“But you never told me anything at all about him until tonight!”

Stacey felt almost as if she had come up against a quite unexpected brick wall, and had done so so suddenly that she had stumbled up against it and bruised herself on its unyielding brickwork.

“No; that’s true,” she admitted. “But there was never any reason why I should mention him.”

“Not even though I received the impression that you were more or less friendless?—and this young man, or so it seems, has been fairly intimately acquainted with you since childhood!”

Stacey stared at him, unable for the moment to think of the best way in which to answer him, and she was conscious of a sensation almost like shock because for the first time the way he looked at her was slightly hostile, and there was a bleakness in his eyes which actually chilled her a little She stammered, feeling the color increasing in her cheeks in a wild and almost guilty rush: “Not
intimately
acquainted with me! We—we knew one another
...
We were neighbors—or practically neighbors—and when he went away we wrote—for a time—but only
for a time! I haven’t heard from him now for weeks
—no months...”

“And he doesn’t even know that you’re married.”

“No.”

“Bu you’ll be writing, no doubt quite soon, to let him know that you are.”

“I don’t think
so,” she answered, her voice so quiet now that it was like a thin whisper in the sombre room. “I don’t think it’s at all necessary, especially as his aunt will probably write to him in any case and she may possibly mention that I’m living near to her, and that I’m married
”
—with a sudden quiver in the carefully controlled quietness—

“Well of course, I suppose it’s almost certain that she’ll do
that.” He turned away from her for a moment to cast his cigarette end into the fire, and when he turned back he concentrated on lighting a fresh one, so that for a few moments it was difficult to gather what his expression was like; and when the cigarette was glowing comfortably, and he had tossed away the match into the fire, he leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece and stared down into the heart of the coals which were now sending tongues of flame leaping high into the chimney, and cast strange
shadows across his face.

“By the way,” he remarked suddenly, almost casually—as if he had dismissed the subject of Dick Hatherleigh from his mind, at least temporarily—“I think I ought to tell you before I forget that I
’
m expecting a few friends to arrive here for next weekend, and one of them at least may stay for a little longer
than
a weekend. She’s recovering from a nasty bout of influenza, and I suggested that a breath of country air would probably do her good.”

“Oh, yes?” said Stacey, waiting with her hands clasped in a rather curious attitude over her breast,
as if she was expecting a blow to fall—and was preparing herself to meet it.

“I'm referring to Vera—Miss Hunt, as you know her,” he told her, glancing at her swiftly, and then away again. “I shall probably bring her with me when I return next Friday. And Dr. Carter you have already met. He was one of our witnesses when we were married.”

Stacey could recall him—Bruce Carter, with the kindly, slightly humorous eyes, and the understanding smile. Though whether he had understood—or even partly understood!—how she had felt that day when so brief a cere
m
ony united her to the man who was now leaning negligently against the old-fashioned marble mantelshelf in the somewhat oppressive, book-lined library, she had often wondered, but his handclasp had certainly done its best to give her confidence, and his farewell words had war
med
her even at a ti
m
e when she was in such a state of bewilderment and cold, uneasy dread lest she had done something which would recoil upon her at some distant future date with the inevitable return of a boomerang, and leave a trail of useless and perhaps bitter regrets in its wake.

“Martin’s a good chap!” he had told her. “A very good chap! And I think you’re lucky to be married to him. But I think
he’s
lucky too
!”

Yes;
she
remembered
Dr. Carter quite vividly.

“Perhaps you’ll see to it that two roo
m
s are got ready for them?” Martin suggested, beginning to take a restless turn or two up and down the room.

“Yes, of course I’ll see that their rooms are prepared,” Stacey answered, without any apparent emotion in her voice.

“Good!” he exclaimed. He paused and, without apparently thinking what he was doing, tossed his half-smoked cigarette after the end of his old one into the grate, and then turned and faced her with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his dinner jacket, and his shoulders slightly squared. “I’ve been considering the advisability of asking Mrs. Elbe to come here and take charge,” he told her. “With people to be entertained, and so forth—well, it’s asking rather a lot of you, with practically no
—”