Sunshine Yellow (7 page)

CHAPTER VIII

From t
hat day Stephen’s attitude
of
resentment changed, and he no longer vented all his ill humour on Penny.

He had his bad days and his good days, and on his bad days it was difficult for anyone to understand the ferment of rebellion that went on in his mind, and the depths of self-pity to which he allowed himself to sink. But even on those days, he did not now snap at Penny, nor did he disdain her constant vigilant desire to be of help to him whenever she could.

He smiled a little dryly when he heard her footsteps come pattering anxiously towards him, and she called out quickly:

“Not that way, Stephen!” Or: “Be careful, Stephen, there’s a chair in the way!”

But, on the whole, he submitted meekly to being led about, although he insisted that he must be permitted to be responsible for his own movements at least a part of the time, otherwise he would never reach the stage when he could be independent of other people’s assistance.

“I’m not ‘other people’,” Penny protested, when he said this. “I’m your wife, and it’s my duty to do all that I can for you.”

He stretched forth a hand and ruffled her yellow hair, that felt soft as silk to his touch.

“And what if I don’t want my wife to be always thinking of her duty?” he asked quietly.

She sighed a strange little sigh.

“It’s not duty, it’s pleasure. I love doing things for you, Stephen!”

And at that he said nothing. Only, a minute or so later, very soberly and thoughtfully, “You’re sweet, Penny!”

Penny saw no more of Roland Ardmore, although she was often down on the beach, and occasionally she looked for his lively white motor-boat to come diving into the heart of her favourite cove. But the
Sea Nymph
was taking exercise elsewhere, or else Ardmore had gone away and it was temporarily laid up.

Sometimes Stephen accompanied Penny down to the beach, and she would establish him comfortably on the yielding sand while she took a bathe. Sometimes he would call out to her anxiously:

“Penny, where are you?”

And she would answer at once:

“Here!” For she never went far away from him, and not even the sparkling sea could tempt her to swim out so far that he couldn’t hear her voice coming ringing back to him in the salt-laden silence of their own private cove—that caught up the echoes, and every slight vibration, and flung them back at them.

Only once did she fail to answer immediately when he called to her, and then when she reached him she found him standing on his feet and literally shaking with agitation.

“Penny!” His hands were groping out for her. “Don’t
ever do that again! If I call you
must
answer, and you mustn’t go so far away that you can’t hear me!”

“But I wasn’t far away, Stephen,” she protested gently. “It was just that I’d swallowed a mouthful of water, and I had to get my breath!”

“I don’t like you swimming out there alone. If anything happened to you ... if you got cramp, or something of the sort...!”

She gazed at him in astonishment. The sunshine was pouring all over him, and lately he had acquired a coating of tan—he was, as a matter of fact, looking very much better, and apart from his dark glasses much as he used to look—but in the revealing light of the sun there was no doubt about it he had lost his colour.

“Oh, Stephen,” she said, her voice catching as she slipped her arm into his. “I didn’t realize you thought such silly things, because of course I won’t get cramp ... I don’t go out far enough! But if you’d rather I didn’t bathe
...
”

“No, no, you must have your daily dip. Life’s dull enough for you in any case!” He was reaching for the towel and beginning to dry her hair for her as she knelt down in front of him. “But for Pete’s sake don’t get out of your depth! Stick as close to the shore as you can without treading water.”

She smiled, closing her eyes in enjoyment as he towelled her head vigorously.

“If you’d prefer it I’ll paddle,” she offered solemnly. He paused, and she had the feeling that he was looking down at her, although of course he couldn’t see her. Then suddenly he buried his face in her hair, and her heart leapt as he muttered rather strangely: “You smell so good, Penny! So sweet and wholesome! Your hair has an ambrosia perfume, like wild thyme and honey and all the freshness of the morning.” Then he sat up abruptly and flung the towel away from him.

“You’d better get dressed, and we’ll go back to the house.”

The curtness in his voice made her widen her eyes. “It won’t take me five minutes to slip into my dress. If you’re in a hurry...?”

“I’m not, but I’ve got a bit bored with this strip of beach. Let’s get back to that eternal terrace and do a bit of pacing up and down!”

The summer passed, autumn came in with blustery gales and tossing seas, and Penny thought of Roland Ardmore’s words:

“Wait until October, when the gales really start raging
...
!”

And, all at once October was with them, and she had an opportunity to prove that Ardmore was right. The little cottage shook beneath the onslaughts of the frenzied Atlantic winds, and every window rattled so much that Penny was often seriously afraid they would be bereft of every one of them when morning dawned. Usually the gales reached a pitch of ferocity at dusk, and then went on all through the night, screaming through keyholes and moaning down chimneys, and forcing doors to fly inwards sometimes so that they had to be bolted and barred.

Far below the cottage, at the foot of the cliffs, the sea boiled and hurled itself against the granite rocks, and the cliff-top became white with spume that travelled before the wind like huge balls of cotton wool.

On wild nights it was very cosy inside the cottage, for Waters always built up a huge fire in the grate, and the little oak-beamed sitting-room, smelling of the sea, managed somehow to keep the fear of the sea right outside it. There were moments when Penny was afraid, but they passed when she looked at Stephen reclining comfortably in his chair—apparently relaxed—his pipe on a small table at his elbow (for he had recently taken to smoking a pipe) within easy reach of his hand, a whisky-and-soda also within easy reach of his hand, and anything else he needed.

He had formed a habit of wearing his dark glasses, and they made his face look rather hollow in the fire-glow, but his sleek black head resting against the cushions that were tucked in behind it seemed temporarily free of all tension, and his slender hands rested almost limply on the arms of his chair.

During the daytime there was little to do, for the weather kept them imprisoned inside, but Penny sewed and knitted, and knitted and sewed, and sometimes she went shopping in the nearest small town, or had her hair done at the rather primitive hairdresser’s.

She never complained of being bored—she wasn’t bored—and when Aunt Heloise wrote from Grange
w
ood commiserating with her because her life was so dreadfully narrow these days (Penny wondered whether Aunt Heloise was secretly just a little gratified because it was so narrow) she merely smiled and folded the letter.

Aunt Heloise was caught up in all the usual distractions she inevitably became involved in when she was at home at Grangewood. The village institute, jumble sales, raising funds for a new church organ, or something of the sort. She had her women’s meetings in the comfortable drawing-room at Grangewood, and working parties for overseas missions. Aunt Heloise was a great believer in overseas missions.

Veronica was never mentioned in her letters, and
Penny had no idea what Veronica was doing, or whether she had yet found a man to take St
ep
h
e
n’s place. Stephen never asked about her, and Penny never mentioned her cousin.

But she wondered—wondered frequently—how often did Stephen, with so little to occupy him, think of the woman he had so nearly married, the woman he had loved and probably still did love?

One night when a storm was creating havoc without, and Penny had started to feel agitated, not so much because she was any more alarmed than usual by the relentlessness of the gale, but because she had been thinking of Veronica, and what Stephen had lost through her, she heard Stephen’s voice commanding her suddenly:

“Come over here! Come over here and bring your knitting, Penny. Don’t sit over there quaking inwardly because you think we’re going to be lifted up bodily and deposited in the sea!”

Penny obeyed him, and for a time she went on knitting, her chair very close to his, until he issued a fresh command:

“Give me your hand and let me hold it, and then when you hear an extra loud gust of wind you can cling on to me for support!”

Penny laughed a little unnaturally, and gave him her hand. He sat holding it thoughtfully for several seconds, his long thin fingers restlessly kneading the tips of her fingers, and then he asked quietly:

“Why do you think I married you, Penny?”

Penny found it a question she was quite incapable of answering. He said musingly:

“I suppose you think it was because I wanted to hurt Veronica? Or perhaps because I wanted to hurt myself? Because I was touched by the sympathy you
offered me and wanted to ensure for m
y
self a little more of it? Are those the things you think?”

“Yes,” Penny answered, and saw his lips curve oddly in the mixture of lamplight and firelight.

“I’ll be quite truthful,” he said, “and tell you something, shall I?”

“If—if you think I ought to hear it,” Penny replied this time.

“It’s all mixed up with your hair
...
that fascinating, primrose-coloured hair of yours, and your large brown, bewildered eyes. The first thing I thought about when I recovered consciousness after the accident was your hair—your hair and your eyes! And I can see them now quite clearly, so clearly that if I never recover the sight of my eyes I’ll have them before me all the rest of my days. Yellow hair, and dear, anxious, easily hurt, wistful eyes
...
” There was a pause, and then he asked quietly, “Tell me why you married me, Penny?”

Penny reminded him of something he had once said to her.
“Never fall in love if you can help it!”
“You said if I married you I’d be safe from that sort of thing,” she added, concentrating on picking up
a
dropped stitch in her knitting, and doing it with a gravely bent head over which the firelight danced as if it loved the yellow hair.

Stephen turned to look at her quickly ... or rather, he turned his sightless eyes—always protected by the dark glasses—towards her.

“Did I say that?” he asked, and there was an incredulous note in his voice.

She recovered the dropped stitch, and sat back and proceeded with her knitting.

“Yes, don’t you remember? At the time I believe you thought it was good advice.”

“Then I must have been mad. Or perhaps I was merely upset
...
shall we say temporarily deranged?” Penny’s pulses bounded uneasily. What did he mean by the use of the word “temporarily”?

“You were certainly upset.”

There was a light tap at the door, and Waters put his head in to inquire whether they wanted more logs on the fire. When he had built them up a splendid blaze that would last until long after they had both retired for the night, and the cottage had grown quiet and still, he withdrew, and Stephen said to Penny: “Come and kneel here in front of me, Penny, and let’s get this matter cleared up once and for all.” As she obeyed him, and she felt his fingers grasping her shoulders, he asked, “And did you think it was good advice I gave you? Did you marry me because you thought there was little likelihood you would ever fall in love with me?”

Penny’s whole slim body quivered from head to foot under his hands, but she answered truthfully: “No.”

“That wasn’t the reason you married me?”

“No.”

“Then what was the
...
reason?”

His hands were drawing her near to him, and she could feel his breath stirring her hair. A sudden wild hope dawned in her at the softness of his voice, and the urgency of his touch, and she put back her head to gaze up at him, her breath coming eagerly between her parted lips. She wanted to say, “I married you because I love you, Stephen!” but such a bald statement as that wouldn’t pass her lips. In fact, there were no words that would pass her lips.

“Remember I can’t see you,” he teased her gently. “It shouldn’t be difficult to tell me the truth when I can’t even watch your expression, and make up my mind whether it’s the truth or not. So
...
tell me, Penny!”

But shyness prevented her from uttering a sound.

“Let me ask you another thing, then,” he said. “Since you are married to me, do you find life very unbearable, or are you reasonably content?”

“I’m ... perfectly content.”

“Even when you cry into your soup, as you did the other day?”

She nodded, and he could feel the golden hair swaying against his hands.

“And you don’t feel any repulsion because I’m a blind man?”

“Of course not!” Penny burst out, indignation in her tone. “And you mustn’t talk of yourself like that
...
as if there is no hope that you’ll one day recover your sight! You know very well that Sir Robert Bolton will be seeing you again in a few months’ time
...
”

He dismissed Sir Robert Bolton.

“Let’s forget him,” he said. His voice grew urgent again. “Penny, let’s take me as I am now, and as you are now ... a very pretty girl tied to a man who can’t see. Do you think you could ever—look upon me as a husband who might make demands, as well as snap you up so badly at times that you burst into tears?”

Again came a soft tap at the door—more hesitant this time—and Waters once more put in his head.

“Excuse me, sir—madam!” he said, “But Mrs. Blair is wanted on the telephone, and it’s a long-distance call.”

Stephen lifted his head and spoke furiously.

“At this time of night? Who in the world is it?”

“Mrs. Wilmott, sir,” the servant answered. “I told her I wasn’t quite certain whether you’d gone to bed—” he paused as if he hoped that had been diplomatic—“but she said she wanted a few words with her niece. She said it was rather urgent.”

Stephen gave vent to a smothered sigh, and Penny stood up.

“Thank you, Waters,” she said. “I’ll go and deal with the call at once.”

As she passed Waters in the doorway she had the feeling that he was resenting the interruption almost as keenly as she was, and she wondered why.

Had he realized that in another second she would have been in her husband’s arms?