The Blue Rose (23 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

SHE went to Peter Jones’ to buy the furniture for the top floor because it was so close and because she happened to have an account there. She found just what she wanted for a reasonable price in the second-hand department, and in the soft-furnishing department she bought some chintz for the curtains. She only hoped that Stephen would approve of her choice. The delivery of the furniture was promised for the next day but she took the material with her. She would be glad of the occupation of making curtains if Stephen had still not returned by the time she got home. She would need something to keep her from going mad with worry; and again anger against him rose in her. “I’ll be thankful when I’ve broken with him,” she told herself. “I can’t go on living like this.” She had affected herself with some of the astringent philosophy that she had been doling out to Gai, and was now in a mood to believe that she could manage very well without him. Her heart felt hard and proud, and she was too unaccustomed to such a mood to realize how very transitory it would be. For the moment she believed that she had suffered a complete change of heart and she almost revelled in her new freedom.

She took a bus home and the first thing she noticed when she opened the front door was some luggage standing in the hall. Her first reaction was that it was Stephen’s: he had come home to pack and now he was going away again for good, and the pang of anguish that went through her belied her new sense of invulnerability. But then she realized with a tremendous relief that the luggage was not his, and at the same moment a stranger appeared at the drawing-room door.

“You must be Rose,” the stranger said in one of the most soothing voices Rose had ever heard. “I’m Deirdre.”

“Deirdre! But we weren’t expecting you until to-morrow! I’m so sorry there was no one to meet you.” Ought she to kiss her? But Deirdre solved the problem by coming up to her and embracing her warmly. “It’s my own fault,” she said. “I was going to wait for the tourist plane but then I got rather anxious about Peter—he seemed worse
—
so we came first class. There really wasn’t time to send another cable.”

“Where is Peter?” Rose asked, looking towards the drawing-room door as if she expected to see his small figure emerge.

“I took him straight to the nursing home. They are going to operate first thing in the morning.”

“What an anxiety for you.”

“No, he’ll be all right,” Deirdre replied with a quiet confidence.

“Come and sit down,” Rose said, leading the way into the drawing-room. “How long have you been here? I hope you have had a cup of tea or something.”

“I’ve only been here about ten minutes and Antonio has already given me a cup of coffee.”

“Of course you know Antonio and Vittoria.”

“Very well. I was so pleased to see them again.”

“I’ve just been to order some furniture for your room.”

“I can easily go to a hotel.”

“Of course not. Of course you are going to stay with us. But you can sleep in Stephen’s dressing-room for to-night as Peter isn’t with you, and I’ll make you comfortable upstairs to-morrow.”

“Anywhere as long as I’m with you,” Deirdre said with a smile. “Let’s sit down here, shall we? It used to be a favourite place of mine,” and she sat down on the top step leading down into the garden and Rose sat down beside her.

While they were talking they were taking stock of each other. Rose would never have recognized Deirdre as Stephen’s sister. There wasn’t the faintest resemblance between them. Deirdre was fair-haired for one thing and she had blue eyes. But what struck Rose most about her was her air of serenity and gentleness, and her lovely slow smile. She was on the plump side and this gave her whole personality an added softness. Her clothes were good but very simple.

“Everything’s exactly the same,” she said, looking round into the room.

“Did you expect it to be different?”

“I thought it might have been.”

“No, I’ve done everything to keep it just as it was before,” Rose said rather proudly, “because that’s how Stephen likes it.”

“Does he?”

“That’s what I was told.”

“Who by?”

“Clare Frenton,” and Rose found herself blushing at the mention of that name. “Do you know her?”

“Oh, yes, I know her,” Deirdre replied evenly. “I suppose that is the screen she gave you for a wedding present.”

“Yes.”

“Do you like it?”

“To tell you the truth I simply hate it, but don’t say I said so because Stephen likes it so much.” What
had
come over her, blurting this out to Stephen’s sister in the first five minutes? “Do you like it?”

“No, I agree absolutely with you about it, but what makes you think Stephen likes it so much?”

“I know he does.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because I had a letter from him just before you were married saying that Clare had given you a perfectly hideous screen for a wedding present but that as
you
liked it he was afraid it must be his lack of understanding of
modern
art that was at fault.”

Rose stared at her incredulously. “Did he really write that?”

“Yes, he really did.”

“How extraordinary!”

“I wonder if there are any other little misunderstandings like that between you,” Deirdre suggested gently. “I hear from Antonio that Stephen only got back from New York yesterday
...
and that he hasn’t been home all night.”

“Yes, it’s true and I’m beginning to get so terribly worried.”

“You haven’t any idea where he is?”

“No.”

“Where did he say he was going when he left the house?”

“He said he was going to find Robin Johnson. You know Robin?
...
Well, he has broken from his girl friend and Stephen was very indignant about it. I think he wanted to bring about a reconciliation.”

“Then where is Robin? Find Robin and you’ll find Stephen.”

“Robin’s gone abroad, I believe.”

“Then Stephen has followed him. If he said he was going to find Robin he will find Robin. That’s Stephen all over. Did he have his passport with him?”

“I think he must have. Yes, he must still have had it in his pocket.”

“But it’s not like him not to have telegraphed or telephoned to you,” Deirdre said musingly.

“He was terribly angry with me when he left, and I’m sure he’s staying away to punish me,” Rose said with some resentment in her voice.

“Yes, Stephen might possibly do that. He isn’t often angry but when he is it’s rather frightening.”

“Don’t I know it!
...
It’s no good hiding it from you, Deirdre. You’ll have to know as you’re staying with us. Things aren’t going well between us.”

“I rather gathered that from his letters.”

“Did you? And did he tell you the cause of it?”

“He told me that you had changed.”

“That I had changed? I like that.”

“Yes, he said that you had changed completely since your illness.”

“It’s not me who’s changed,” Rose burst out indignantly. “He doesn’t care any more. I was warned that I wouldn’t be able to keep him. That he would find me stupid and dull, that he was only attracted to me in the first place because I was so naive. A new taste to a jaded palate. That’s what she called it. Like the taste of water to an habitual wine drinker. And nothing palls so much as the taste of water
...”

“Who told you all these charming things?”

“Clare Frenton—when we were engaged. And she was right. The taste of water
has
palled on him already
...
He has just been with her to New York,” she added as if that explained everything. “But he isn’t with her now, because she keeps ringing up asking for him as if it’s a matter of life and death.”

“Stephen went to New York because of a big flotation of shares—a very important bit of business for him. I’m a banker’s daughter and grand-daughter as well as a banker’s sister, don’t forget, and I know about these things. If Clare Frenton happened to go at the same time it was none of Stephen’s doing.”

“That isn’t what everybody thinks.”

“No. Unfortunately there are people in the world with very unpleasant minds. As our father used to say: ‘There is no such thing as a difficult problem. There are only difficult people.’ Stephen has never been concerned with public opinion or the appearance of things, which is the reason why he has so often been maligned. But
you
ought to know him better than that.”

“Sometimes I don’t think I know him at all.”

“I wonder if you do.”

“There’s no smoke without fire,” Rose said doggedly. “You’ve lived out of England. Perhaps you don’t know the things people are saying about him—and—her. And not just strangers. People who know him really well.”

Deirdre thought for a moment and then said: “I must explain to you about Stephen and Clare Frenton, as it doesn’t seem as if Stephen has been able to explain it himself. He is pretty inarticulate.

“Stephen was very lonely when I got married. Being orphans we’d been particularly close to each other and since the day I left school I kept house for him. (We had a lot of fun together but that’s neither here nor there.) When I got married and went to live abroad, which I did soon after our honeymoon, Clare Frenton stepped in and began to manage his life. You can’t blame Stephen for allowing her to get such a foothold. She was useful to him in so many ways, arranging parties for him, saving him trouble—and he
is
lazy, especially socially. And then she persuaded him to let her do up the house for him. She turned out all our old furniture—our parents’ furniture
—
and made it into what he called a ‘decorator’s house—all perfectly in period but quite soulless
...
By the time we last came to England he was thoroughly sick of her but he just didn’t know how to get rid of her. I told him not to worry because soon he would get married and then his wife would be able to change all that, but he said that he would never meet anyone he could possibly marry because he couldn’t marry without love and he despaired of really falling in love with any girl.

“And then he met you. I wish I had the letter to show you in which he wrote and told me about you. I’ve kept it, of course. I think it’s one of the most beautiful and moving letters I’ve ever read. I can’t think of it now without wanting to cry. One of the things he said in it was that now he had something which he would always bless Clare for, because it was at her house that he had met you
...
He wrote often during the time you were engaged and his letters were all about you. You had filled him to the exclusion of everything else. He wrote so optimistically too about the future—how different life was going to be
—
no more Frentons, no more bridge parties, no more dining out, no more club life. He said that he knew you would put a soul into the house. In one letter he wrote that he thought it would be like living in the country—all chintz and white paint. You had been telling him about your mother’s cottage in the country apparently
...
And then, after you got back from your honeymoon
...
He was very worried, of course, about your being ill. But even when you were better
...
The whole tone of his letters changed. ‘Another dreary bridge party at the Frentons’ this evening,’ I remember he wrote in one. And then in another, ‘Clare has taken Rose under her wing and it’s culture, culture, culture all the time, but she seems happy and much better.’ I began to wonder then. I began to wonder what Clare was doing to you. Now I think I know.” Deirdre paused. She had been looking straight ahead of her into the garden while she spoke—she had not once glanced at Rose—but Rose, as can be imagined, had been listening with all her ears.

“I was beginning to feel that I ought to come over,” Deirdre went on; “that things weren’t as they should be. I wanted to see for myself what was happening
...
And then I had to come because of Peter. Of course, it wasn’t the opportunity I would have chosen, poor little boy, but I’m so glad I did come, for something tells me that I’ve only got here just in time.” She stopped again, and now she did look at Rose, but Rose’s arms were on her knees and her head was hidden in her hands.

“It’s what you said yourself just now that gave me the clue,” Deirdre continued quietly. “The taste of water! ‘Nothing palls so quickly as the taste of water,’ wasn’t that it? Whether Clare has tried deliberately to separate you, or whether it was just instinctive, I’m not saying. Perhaps she doesn’t even know herself. Perhaps she didn’t even know that she was in love with Stephen until she saw him in love with you—but whatever her motive, whether it was deliberate wickedness or not, it is
she
who has done the mischief. You have been trying to change yourself, haven’t you? Under her guidance you have been trying to turn yourself into a different person?”

Rose raised her head at last from her hands. The whiteness of her face quite frightened Deirdre. “Yes,” she said, and her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “I wanted to keep him. I was so afraid he would get tired of me. She has destroyed me. I don’t know what I am any more. I can’t be natural with him any more. I never used to think before I talked but now I can’t say anything to him without thinking about it first and usually it seems so stupid that I don’t say it at all. I can’t remember what it was like before. I only know that we were happy—that we seemed to understand each other, that I felt we were made for each other
...”

“And so you are,” Deirdre said, her voice emphatic for the first time. “All he wants of you is yourself—your real self. That’s what he discovered in you and loved in you. Don’t you see? If it’s the taste of water—well, man can live without wine but he can’t live without water.”

“She told me that I mustn’t touch the house,” Rose went on tremulously; “that he would resent even the tiniest change in it. That I mustn’t stop him from going to the club, that he must have his bridge parties the same as before, that I must encourage his friends
...
That’s why this trouble arose with Robin. Robin has broken with his girl because of me. Stephen found out and that’s why he’s so angry with me. He told me I had ruined both their lives, and so I have. It was all my fault. I did encourage Robin; I even flirted with him
...
It was the night I was wearing that awful new dress. I thought I was being such a success when all the time I was just cheap and horrible
...
And now it’s too late. He’ll never come back. He’s through with me; he’s disgusted with me.”