The Wedding Dress (16 page)

“
With Elinor?
”
He stiffened suddenly and his expression changed so
that
he looked aloof and on guard.
“
What
on earth do you know about her?
”

“
She was
—
there, this morning, you know.
”

“
Yes, I know,
”
he said unexpectedly.
“
I caught a glimpse of her before the Show began. That was one reason why I didn’t stay to speak to you afterwards. Florian assured me that I would have to hang about indefinitely before I got a word with you, and I didn’t feel inclined to risk that.
”

“
He was there too,
”
Loraine said slowly.

“
Who was?
”

“
Philip. Philip Otway. The man she’s engaged to now.
”

“
So you know him too?
”
Her guardian looked at her curiously, with no trace now of the half-teasing smile which had lightened his glance a few minutes ago.

“
It’s Philip whom I really know,
”
she explained with an effort.
“
He and his mother lived near my home. They were very kind to me during my father’s lifetime. Then I found they
—
he was living in Paris, and that he was engaged to the girl who had
—
”

“
Jilted me.
”
He supplied the word with a sort of grim deliberation, and she nodded apologetically.

“
But, you strange girl, why make such a mystery of it?
”
He gave a slight, annoyed laugh.
“
Why didn’t you tell me?
”

“
I couldn’t,
”
she said simply.
“
You might have forbidden me to see him any more, in view of the position between you and him.
”

“
O-oh, I see. And it was very important to you that you should see him again, Loraine?
”

“
Yes, Very.
”

“
Even though he was engaged to someone else?
”

“
That’s difficult to explain, too. I didn’t want
—
I didn’t
intend
—
to behave badly. But his mother insisted on telling me that Philip wasn’t really madly in love with her
—
that, in fact, she, Elinor, had done most of the running.
”

“
Interesting,
”
he interjected drily.

“
I felt I couldn’t bear just to let everything go by default. I wanted Philip to see me, not as the schoolgirl I had been, but as the girl I now was.
”

“
Do you love him very much?
”
her guardian asked curtly.

“
Yes, I love him very much,
”
Loraine stated, softly but categorically. And at that, Paul got restlessly to his feet and walked up the room and back again.

As she watched him, anxiously, she could not decide if he were very angry or deeply disquieted. She only knew that some quite powerful emotion prompted those restless steps and clouded his grimly handsome face. And after a moment she asked rather timidly:

“
Shall I go on?
”

“
Oh, lord, yes! I suppose there’s some more to tell.
”

“
Quite a lot. But
—
but please don’t stand over me like that while I’m telling it. You make me nervous.
”

He sat down again immediately, though without comment.

“
I couldn’t tell Philip about you, any more than I could tell you about Philip,
”
she went on, after a moment, and, because her head was beginning to ache again, she pushed back her hair with a weary, absent little gesture.
“
I didn’t
like
pretending to you both. In fact I hated it.
”

“
I’m sure you did,
”
he said brusquely.
“
It would have been so much simpler if you had confided in me from the beginning, Loraine.
”

“
You weren’t all that easy to confide in,
”
she reminded him with a small, pale smile.
“
Don’t you remember?
”

“
I’m sorry. Go on.
”

“
I hate to say it
—
but things were made much easier for me when you went away. At least, I didn’t have to practise any active deception or tell any downright lies. But then
—
Elinor discovered I was your ward.
”

“
How?
”
he asked briefly.

She explained about the telephone number, and he smiled grimly and said,
“
Too bad. What did Elinor propose to do with that awkward information?
”

Until that very moment, Loraine had thought she meant to tell Paul the whole story. But then she knew suddenly that, however badly Elinor had behaved, she simply could not betray her exact baseness to the man who had once loved her, and perhaps
still
did, in spite of his anger.

She drew a long breath and said firmly:

“
I don’t know that she proposed to do anything with it
—
until today. Then I was called to show some dresses to her, and Philip and his mother were both there. I hardly know how it happened, but some mention was made of where I was living, and Elinor put it that I was living in your flat, and
—
and Philip immediately jumped
to some horrid conclusion
—
”

“
What horrid conclusion?
”
Paul inquired with dry exactness.

“
The obvious one,
”
she replied, in much the same tone.

“
There is no obvious conclusion to draw except that you are my ward,
”
he said curtly.

“
I meant
—
the obvious one when anyone uses that particular expression.
”

“
You mean, in fact, that Elinor gave the statement a particular and questionable flavor?
”

“
I was too stunned to notice just
how
she put it,
”
Loraine lied gallantly.
“
I only knew that Philip was appalled
—
”

“
The censorious prig!
”

“
Oh, he
isn’t
! Only, before I could straighten things out, Madame Moisant came in and wh-whisked me off to be phot
o
graphed in the wedding dress and I was so m-miserable I didn’t know what to do,
”
Loraine confessed forlornly. And, in spite of all she could do to prevent it, a lone tear trickled down her cheek and splashed on to the back of her hand.

“
Don’t cry,
”
he said in a flat sort of voice.
“
I don’t expect he’s worth crying about. Few of us are.
”

“
Oh, but he is!
”
She gulped and managed to choke back the rest of the tears.
“
He was always so wonderful to me. Like no one else at all. I know, in a way, he belongs to Elinor. But he belonged to me in a very special sense before he even met her.
”

“
How?
”

“
It was when I was very much on my own
—
because my father didn’t really take much notice of me. And on my eighteenth birthday Philip found me, out on the moors, and he took me home to his mother and they gave me a heavenly, heavenly day I shall never forget. After that, I used to see a lot of him.
”

“
Did he ever make love to you?
”

“
No. I think he just thought of me as a schoolgirl. Which I was then, of course,
”
she added naively.

“
But he doesn’t think of you as a schoolgirl now?
”

“
I
—
don’t think so.
”

“
Not after seeing you in that wedding dress today,
”
he said half to himself.
“
Florian’s a clever devil.
”

Loraine opened her eyes wide, and was on the point of asking how Paul could possibly know about the special significance of the wedding dress. But at that moment, he glanced at the clock and said:

“
Dear, have you noticed the time? I’m afraid your personal problems will have to wait for another day. Tomorrow isn’t going to be much less strenuous than today, is it?
”

“
Oh, no! We have both the Press Show and the showing for the buyers.
”
She smothered a yawn at the very thought and got to her feet.
“
I must go to bed. But
—
I’m so
glad
I’ve told you, Pa
u
l.
”

“
I’m glad too.
”
He also stood up and, as he looked down at her, she found his expression hard to fathom. It was indulgent, she was relieved to see, but there was a curious touch of melancholy too in the way he looked at her.

“
Are you
—
disappointed in me?
”
she asked diffidently.

“
Disappointed in you, child? No, of course not! Why on earth should I be?
”

“
Well, I thought, you know, that it might seem to you that I’d been deceitful and not
—
not at all like truth itself, as you once said.
”

“
You were not deceitful,
”
he told her.
“
You were just pushed against the wall and didn’t know what on earth to do next. If I had been half as understanding as I should have been, you wouldn’t have had to handle this business alone.
”

“
Oh,
please
don’t blame yourself!
”
She put her hands on his arms and looked up at him anxiously.
“
There wasn’t a thing you could have done about it, even if you’d known more.
”

“
No?
”
He took her face between his hands and smiled down at her.
“
I wonder.
”

Then he kissed her, lightly but with an odd tenderness which told her that any fault or indiscretion of hers was entirely forgiven.

“
Goodnight, Loraine. And try not to worry too much. I know that sounds fatuous when one is miserable. But things have the strangest way of working out in the end.
”

“
Is that what you told yourself when
you
were miserable?
”
she asked, with a touch of mischief.

“
No. If I had, I might have avoided a vital mistake,
”
he replied drily.
“
Now go to bed.
”

So she went to bed, though she would have liked to linger and ask him just what he meant by that last admission. But it was too late now to go into the complications of his relationship with Elinor. She was sorry if he felt he could have handled his own love affair better, but she simply could not help thinking that, in point of fact, he had had a lucky escape when Elinor had thrown
him
over.

Incredibly, after all this emotional discussion, she slept dreamlessly and deeply, and woke to a feeling of freshness and well-being.

True, the instinctive smile was wiped from her face when she recalled the scene yesterday in the fitting-room. But, with an illogical sense of comfort, she remembered Paul’s saying that things had a strange way of working out in the end. And, although she could not see her own affairs working out with any degree of satisfaction or simplicity in the near future, she recalled thankfully that at least she had taken her guardian into her confidence and would no longer have to guard every word and action while at home.

Once more he drove her down to the dress house, where she was greeted with cries of mingled congratulation and envy, because she had captured most of the headlines in the morning newspapers.

It was the most extraordinary experience, to find oneself something of a minor celebrity, and to see one’s own face smiling back from the page of a newspaper.

“
She has influence, that one,
”
declared Lisette contemptuously.
“
Only so does one have one’s photograph in the papers before the actual Press Show.
”

“
No, no. She won the distinction on merit,
”
countered Odette good-humoredly.
“
She was a sensation, the little Loraine. The biggest sensation since Gabrielle stole the show and married Monsieur Florian. Perhaps you also will marry romantically,
petite.
”

“
But not Monsieur Florian. She is a good little girl,
”
mocked Lisette,
“
and does not take someone else’s man. Is that not so, Loraine?
”

“
I hope so,
”
said Loraine. But so soberly and thoughtfully that the other girls laughed, and Odette said it was as well not to commit oneself too far on such generalities.

The Press Show and the Buyers’ Show lacked, perhaps, the drama of the opening day. About them there was no element of the theatre premiere. But in practical fact, Loraine knew, they were at least as important. The one supplied priceless advertisement and the other represented solid business.

Twice again she went through her part, not only to the satisfaction of Florian, but in a manner which won her the kind of notice and compliment she still found difficulty in accepting as hers. But she kept her head and even contrived to remain pleasant and unruffled when the representative of one of the more sensational papers tried to extract intimate details of her private life from her.

“
You did well to say nothing so charmingly,
”
Odette told her with approval.
“
Now he will have to make it all up.
”

“
Make it up?
”
Loraine looked taken aback.

“
To be sure. He will have his story, one way or another. But now he will have the trouble of inventing it.
”

“
Oh,
”
said Loraine, none too pleased. And, for the first time, she glimpsed the kind of persecution which some Continental newspapers turn upon the unfortunate people classed as newsworthy.

Again there was little time to think about her own affairs. But, in the background of her mind, there still hovered both anxiety with regard to Philip and relief whenever she thought about Paul.

“
In a way, I suppose I wasted yesterday evening,
”
she thought once.
“
I should have telephoned to Philip and insisted on explaining the real position. Or at least I should have got in touch with Mrs. Otway and asked her advice. Instead
—
”

But how could she possibly regret what had happened instead
?
Every time she thought of the way Paul had looked after her, his understanding reception of her confession, and his particular method of reassurance, she felt soothed and comforted.

All the same, she realized that she must somehow contrive to give over this coming evening.to the problem of finding Philip and counteracting the mischief which Elinor had done her. The longer she left things, the worse they might well become. And it was significant that Philip himself had not attempted to get in touch with her.

True, he probably knew that she would have been very late at the salon the previous night. But that not even a telephone call had been received did now strike her as ominous.

She grew more and more nervous and anxious, therefore, as time went on and it was obvious that another late evening was inevitable. And the last straw came when Marcelle
—
well-wishing but dreadfully serious about everything
—
snatched a moment to run up from the boutique and inform her:

“
A very charming English monsieur is waiting outside for you. But he has his car and he says it is all right. He will wait until you can get away.
”

'Oh, dear!
”
Loraine exclaimed in dismay. She had not expected Paul to repeat his good deed of the previous evening, and now it was going to be difficult to explain that he had waited in vain
—
that, in fact, all she wanted was to go to Mrs. Otway’s hotel and find out the best way to get in contact with Philip.

“
He is
very
charming,
”
Marcelle repeated earnestly.

“
Yes, I know.
”
She could well imagine that the tall, distinguished Paul would appeal to Marcelle.
“
But I wish he wouldn’t wait, just the same. Could you possibly
—
”

“
He is not the kind to be put off,
”
Marcelle declared, with considerable acumen.
“
I would not wish to try, Loraine. And now I must go.
”
Which she did, with all speed.

There was nothing else for it. Loraine just had to continue with her duties for another half-hour, fretting all the time over the knowledge that she would have to appear both ungrateful and obstinate when she did finally join Paul.