Marry a Stranger (9 page)

Her lips tightened as she went out of the room. Martin Guelder straightened and went over and switched on the bedside light. He smiled at Stacey as the mellow gleam dissipated some of the harshness of the other light.

“That more cheerful?” he enquired.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered gratefully.

When he had left her alone she started to remove her coat, and unwound the gauzy scarf from about her neck. She ran a comb through her hair, and as she looked at herself in the central mirror of the dressing table it was just as if a pale grey ghost looked back at her.

A light tap came at the door, and when she called “Come in,” the little maid, Hannah Biggs, entered.

“Miss Fountain said I was to help you unpack,” she said.

Stacey looked at her carefully. She was not much more than sixteen, and her eyes were large with interest at the sight of the gossamer underthings that were escaping from one of the suitcases that was now open in the middle of the floor.

“Oh, but that’s not at all necessary, thank you,” she returned, smiling at Hannah gently.

“Isn’t it?” Hannah looked disappointed. “The gentleman’s bed is made up in the next room, and your supper’ll be up in a moment. Are you sure I can’t help?”

“Quite sure, thank you,” Stacey answered firmly. Hannah seized the opportunity to study her in her turn. She had read a good deal about brides and the way they looked on the first night of their honeymoon, but there was nothing in the appearance of this one to suggest that her reading had been correct. For one thing, it was not exactly a honeymoon, when it was spent at the home of the bride’s husband, and for another—although she realized that this young woman who had become mistress of Fountains was undoubtedly most attractive, indeed quite lovely if she had a little more color, and her eyes had less of a blank, unseeing look in them—there was nothing of the radiance of a bride about her. There was no radiance at all. But her clothes were perfect.

Hannah had brought up the little hat composed of velvet pansies, and she laid it reverently on the bed.

“Very good, Miss—I’m sorry, Madam! Miss Fountain said I was to be sure and call you Madam.”

Stacey looked faintly amused.
“Never mind, Hannah. You’re bound to make a few mistakes sometimes.”

When the girl had gone—reluctantly—Stacey slipped out of her suit and put a dressing gown on and went along cold corridors to look for a bathroom. She had decided that she was too tired for a bath, but now she changed her mind, and when she had had it she went back to her room to find that someone had switched on the electric fire and placed a supper tray on a little table near to it. There was a plate of sandwiches and a glass of hot milk which was cooling rapidly. Stacey ignored the sandwiches but picked up the glass of milk, and while she stood sipping it and staring at the fire she thought of Mrs. Elbe, now many miles away in London, and the nightly glasses of hot milk which she had brought her, to say nothing of her comforting pots of tea.

Stacey decided that she missed Mrs. Elbe sorely. There was something robust and heartening about her. Stacey liked her very much indeed, and was a little sorry that, clad in her best black, and with a pink carnation pinned to the lapel of her coat, and a jaunty silk rose in her hat, she had found it necessary to look a little perplexed during the marriage ceremony at the Registrar’s that morning. For it had never been properly borne in on Mrs. Elbe that it was not quite a normal marriage, and the sight of the girl whose health she had been building up looking, despite her wedding finery, much more as if she were being hauled up before a magistrate for some offence instead of an amiable gentleman who was uniting her to the man she had chosen for a husband, disturbed Mrs. Elbe. And the sight of the doctor, too—quite devastatingly handsome, as she thought dotingly, in his superlatively cut suit—looking a trifle grim and impatient, as if anxious to have the whole ceremony cut short—when it was short enough, in all conscience!—and not behaving quite like himself even at the little luncheon party which followed, and scarcely noticing his new wife—save occasionally to look at her sharply and ask her whether she felt all right!—had not seemed quite natural either.

Unfortunately she had not seen them in the car on the journey to Herefordshire, when Stacey had relaxed for the first time for days, and Martin Guelder had metaphorically wiped the sweat of relief from his brow and grinned at Stacey because it was all over. And Stacey had perfectly understood that he could not have enjoyed the morning’s ceremony one bit—any more than she had, because she had always wanted to be married in a church—and he
had
once been married in a church, and it had been a very different sort of a marriage to the one he had contracted that morning. It had been a marriage to a woman with whom he was in love very much in love!—and altogether normal. His whole future had seemed rosy, and he had had everything to look forward to. But on this occasion!
...

On this occasion all he had to look forward to was and inexperienced girl of twenty-one to run his home, a girl whom he would probably not see for long intervals at a time, seeing that his work was in London. And she
...
? What had she to look forward to
...
?

But, nevertheless, she had enjoyed that journey in the car, although conscious of increasing weariness and a certain amount of reaction setting in after the morning, and when they had stopped for dinner at Beomaster she had enjoyed the halt even more. Even though she had only toyed with the roast chicken and its various trimmings, refused the sweet, and drunk one glass of champagne because he insisted and because it was her wedding night. Her wedding night! ...

“Here’s to you!—here’s to both of us!
”
he said, lifting his glass and studying her over the top of the bubbles which danced beneath the softened rays of the picturesque wall lights on the panelled walls of the ancient hostelry. “Being married won’t always seem so strange. You’ll get used to the idea in time!
”

Would she? she wondered. Would she get used to her kind of marriage? And for one panic-stricken moment she wondered why she had been so unwise as to agree to marry him when he had asked her, and why it had never occurred to her that she would be simply storing up unhappiness for herself. But perhaps it had occurred to her, only somehow she hadn’t had the strength of will to let him go, when the
opportunity was hers to tie him up to her for life!

Her eyes were so large and wild and frightened for a moment that his expression changed. He put down his glass and laid a hand over hers.

“Don’t let it frighten you,” he said gently. “You’re quite safe with me, you know—you always will be safe!”

And she was even more afraid that he hadn’t the least idea of her feelings, what she was thinking at that moment. He had the wrong idea entirely
...

And now the bedroom door opened suddenly and quietly, and he came in. He might have knocked, but if he had she hadn’t heard the knock. She turned round in almost a startled fashion from the electric fire, the barely tasted glass of milk in her hands. Her dressing gown was of a dusky peach color, and it was fluffy and feminine, with a little upstanding collar which framed her small head like a ruff.

“No need to jump as if a burglar had come swarming up the drainpipe,” he said, smiling at her. “I’m used to entering ladies' bedrooms without always waiting for their permission, and in this case the conventions are thoroughly well satisfied, because I’ve a right to come in. You happen to be my wife now!”—looking at her and noticing that her dark curls were a little damp and tumbled from her bath, and the whole room smelled delightfully of some delicately perfumed dusting powder she had used.

“I was just thinking of getting into bed,” she answered, flushing uncontrollably because he was watching her so closely.

“Well, stop thinking about it and do so,” he advised. He took the glass of milk from her hand. “You can finish this in bed.”

She hesitated before slipping off her dressing gown. An absurd embarrassment had her in its grip, but there was no excuse for delaying because the bed had been turned down during her absence in the bathroom, and the fat, downy pillows, in their lace-edged pillow cases, actually looked inviting beneath the rays of the bedside lamp. Martin watched her fumbling with the sash of the dressing gown, and then determinedly laid hold of it himself and expertly whipped it from her shoulders. “There!” he exclaimed. “In you go!”

She kicked off her quilted mules and slipped into bed. She drew the bedclothes up about her shoulders, concealing as much of their slender whiteness from him as she could, as well as the froth of lace and transparent nylon fabric of which her nightdress was co
m
posed, and she saw—or thought she saw—a twinkle in his eyes.

“Such modesty!” he exclaimed. “But you don’t have to bother about that sort of thing with me. I’m case-hardened.”

He put the glass of milk back in her hands, and then she watched him place a couple of tablets on the table beside the bed.

“You can take those with the last of the milk,” he said.

“I will,” she promised, and wished that he would go away. Her embarrassment refused to desert her while he stood there beside the bed.

“Ah, but will you?” He eyed her with his head on one side, a quizzical lift to his eyebrow. “I’d rather see that you do, and I think I’d better wait until you have taken them.”

Somehow she had reached a stage where she could no longer meet his eyes. She picked up the tablets and swallowed them hastily, and then just as hastily slid down in the great bed. He replaced the cover over her.

“You look a little lost in there,” he observed, studying her dark head on the snowy pillow. “It’s rather like the Great Bed of Ware—but at least there’s no danger of your falling out!” Already her long eyelashes were drooping a little languidly, and he bent over her and smoothed an end of a feathery curl back from her brow. “Sleep well
,
” he said softly. “I shan’t be far away.”

Suddenly she knew that she could not have borne it if he had elected to sleep in some far corner of the house. But he was only going to be next door to her. And that was far enough away
...

She wanted to touch him—to thank him for his consideration and kindness, but she lacked the courage. Or possibly it was because she was getting too sleepy.

“Good night,” she whispered.

“Good night—who?” he asked.

“Martin.”

“Good girl!” he exclaimed. He lightly touched her cheek. “Good night, Stacey, my dear. Just thump on my door if you want me.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

But w
hether as a result of the sleeping tablets or her complete exhaustion she slept so well that night that she was not conscious of wanting anyone or anything. And she was only awakened in the morning by Hannah coming in with a breakfast tray, and proceeding to draw the curtains.

“What time is it?” she asked, sitting up and noticing that the sunlight, pouring in through the big windows, was already so bright and golden that the morning must be far advanced.

“It’s almost eleven o’clock,” Hannah told her, hoping that one day—when, perhaps, she got married herself—she would have a nightdress as finely tucked, and edged with as lovely a mist of lace, as the one her new mistress was wearing. “And Miss Fountain said she thought you’d better be awakened, otherwise you’d miss breakfast altogether.”

“Oh, but of course,” Stacey agreed, horrified to find she had slept so late—even at the flat she had never slept as late as this in the mornings, and Miss Fountain would be forming an entirely wrong impression of her. “But Dr. Guelder is up, of course? He had breakfast downstairs—long ago, I expect?”

“Oh, yes, Miss—Madam,” Hannah corrected herself hastily. “And he’s gone out now for a walk, and taken one of the dogs.”

“I didn’t see any dogs when I arrived last night,” Stacey recollected. “I didn’t know there were any dogs here.”

“There aren’t in the house,” Hannah told her. “Miss Fountain would never allow dogs in the house. Or cats. She can’t abide animal smells except in what she calls the proper places.”

“And those are?” Stacey asked.

“
The stables. The gardener looks after them and keeps them exercised.”

Stacey made no comment, but she hurried over her breakfast and dressed herself after it as quickly as possible. The view from her window was breathtaking now that she saw it in daylight. The garden sloped in a succession of terraces to woods that crowded like frills at its skirts, and beyond the woods there were open fields and hills, and beyond them—softened by distance and shimmering in a heat mist—the mountains of Wales.

Stacey already felt invigorated by her good night and the pure country air, and she ran downstairs almost lightly. In the hall she encountered Miss Fountain running a yellow duster over a shining oval table which was decorated with a vase of early Michaelmas daisies.

“Good morning,” said Miss Fountain, looking up at her appraisingly. “I hope you slept well?”

“Very well,” Stacey answered, “thank you. But I’m ashamed of having slept so late.”

“That doesn’t matter at all,” Jane Fountain assured her, with a kind of detached good humor. “My cousin Fenella—your predecessor, the first Mrs. Guelder—always breakfasted in bed, and I never expected to see her around before midday. But she was such a vital person, so much of a live wire that she simply had to rest, and of course she never went to bed before midnight—usually long afterwards.” She suddenly flung open the door of a room on the right of the hall, and invited Stacey to enter it with her. “There is her portrait on the wall,” she said, indicating it. “It depicts her exactly as she was, and if anything it doesn’t do her justice.”

But Stacey was so amazed by the appearance of the room that at first she did not even look up at the portrait. It was a delightful room—a drawing room, with long windows opening to the garden, and there was nothing in the least threadbare or shabby about it. The carpet was a lovely Aubusson, and a grand piano across a corner might have cost almost any fanciful figure. The white fireplace was flower-filled—long sprays of larkspur and delphiniums in a huge pottery vase.

“Oh, but this is lovely!” Stacey exclaimed, the words forced out of her.