Bride by Arrangement (9 page)

“A week from now. It’s all arranged! The village church
...
After that we’ll go to France.”

“To France?”

“I have a lot to show you on the other side of the Channel, Chloe. That’s where I
really belong, you know.”

Her eyes widened as if this had never really occurred to her before.

“And it’s where you’ll belong too, when we’re married. You’ll be the wife of a Frenchman, for I’m English only on my mother’s side. You’ll have to take root where you never dreamed of taking root, and in doing so perhaps you’ll begin to find out a few things about me. And I’ll find out many things about you!” They gazed at one another across the width of the room, and his look grew brooding and tender. “I want to make you very happy, my darling little Chloe!”

“And what about Trelas?” she asked, not really caring about Trelas, or anything at all save that look in his eyes as she felt herself impelled to go across to him and join him before the empty fireplace. “What will we do with Trelas?”

“We’ll discuss the fate of Trelas once we’re married. For the present there are other things to discuss—of greater importance!” He put his arms about her again and held her very gently, and she thought she knew why he had needed that solitary cigarette, and why even now he hesitated to take her back into the passionate, possessive clasp she craved for. They were alone together in this house that was virtually theirs, and a week was a long time
...

She felt something deep inside her quiver with the need to dispense with that week, and her whole being dissolved in ecstasy at the thought that, however long, it must end. The week must end, and they would be husband and wife!

“I think you should be taking me back to High Cross,” she said, not daring to meet his eyes. “Eunice will think it strange if I'm very late.”

At that Pierre smiled quizzically, and gently touched her cheek.

“I don’t think even Eunice will think it strange that two people in love find it hard to part. She’s beautiful enough to have had her own moments, and will probably have many more. But my aunt would not approve if I kept you here too late, and I feel I owe a lot to her. So I will take you back to High Cross.”

He opened the french window, and she stepped out on to the terrace. The wind blew in gusts from the sea, and she drew the gauzy stole closer about her shoulders. Pierre gazed at her anxiously, and put his arm about her protectively, and drew her near to him.

“I’ll soon have you in the car, darling, and out of this wind,” he said. Then he whipped off his own dinner-jacket and placed it about her shoulders. “I should have insisted on your bringing a coat,” he said.

“And I can’t have you risking a chill,” she cried, struggling to return his jacket.

They gazed at one another in the lights that streamed from the room behind them, and the warmth of Trelas, the security, the beckoning comfort as opposed to the wildness of the night outside—and, above all, the knowledge that it was theirs!—was for one moment almost too much for them, and Pierre groaned as he snatched Chloe fiercely close, and then fastened his mouth on hers.

“If only we didn’t have to wait a week! If only you weren’t so adorable, Chloe!”

And then he lifted her and almost ran with her to the car, and only when they were driving away did he say soberly:

"One day we’ll bring our children here, Chloe. They can play on the beach, and run on the terrace where I kissed you just now! We will have children, won’t we? Say yes, my little green-eyed sweetheart!”

And Chloe could only look at him and tremble deep inside her. The very thought of bearing Pierre’s children was much too much for her just then.

The week passed, contrary to Chloe’s belief at times. Never had time dragged so, and never had she felt so keenly that she must do something to help it develop wings, and prevent it hanging on her hands in the helpless manner in which it did in those curiously unsatisfactory seven days.

She saw Pierre every day, but he didn’t take her to Trelas. They went for long drives in his high-powered car, and they had dinner together on one or two occasions. He chose little inns where they wouldn’t run into any human creatures they knew, and they talked about all sorts of things that had nothing to do with their marriage. Chloe began to get some idea of the kind of things he liked, and the kind of things he didn’t like. She discovered that they had a certain amount in common—in fact, rather a surprising amount
,
but her lack of experience amused him sometimes, and he promised her that under his tutelage she would learn many things once she was his wife. They would do things together
...
Such things as driving a car across Europe, sleeping beneath the stars, climbing a mountain in Switzerland, and ski-ing down the dizzy white slopes in the winter-time.

Eunice’s behaviour was not easy to understand during that week. Having devoted a lot of her time to Chloe, and interested herself in the details of her wedding, she now seemed to withdraw herself from the plans of the engaged pair, and even adopted a faintly bored air towards them. That is, Chloe seemed to bore her very readily, but she insisted on Pierre’s spending the better part of each day at High Cross, and she wanted to know where he was and what he was doing when he failed to put in an appearance at lunch, or was late for the pre-dinner aperitif. But when he arrived at last she was always particularly charming to him, smiling at him under her white eyelids, and with her exotic red mouth, and making excuses for him because he was late.

There was always innuendo in her speech, a certain amount of quiet malice—or so it seemed to Chloe. She gave freely with one hand, and the other hand was reserved for pointing out
flaws in the coming arrangements, the tie that was to unite Chloe and Pierre.

She would smile in that same half-seductive fashion at Pierre, and push him out into the dusk with Chloe, declaring that of course she understood that they wanted to be alone, and they mustn’t waste time thinking about their hostess. But on other occasions she would contrive deliberately to have Pierre to herself in the garden, and the same soft enveloping dusk, and when they returned there would either be a vague suspicion of triumph in her eyes, or a faintly high colour on her delicate cheek-bones. Pierre usually looked completely unruffled, and just a little enigmatic.

Chloe didn’t greatly care whether Eunice was fond of her or not. It didn’t really matter just then, and it was not until sometime later that she made the discovery that, even if Eunice was fond of her, she had her moments of malicious dislike as well. The kind of dislike that triumphs easily over a vague affection.

“Stop trying to probe, and be content with things as they are,” Pierre whispered to her. “You’re tempting Fate, my darling, and you mustn’t do that—not now! We’ve all our lives before us to get to know one another, and we will get to know one another, my sweetest and dearest. One day you won’t need to ask questions. The answers will all be yours!”

But, as Eunice could have told him, the future was still the future, and the present was alive and real. It was the thing that had to be coped with, and as she drove Chloe past the King’s Arms the following afternoon she thought, with a kind of detached cynicism, that it was she who would have to assist the younger girl to cope with it. Possibly she would be the means of altering the pattern of things a little.

There was no reason why Eunice should have gone anywhere near the inn, but having done so she remembered that she wanted a few words with the landlord, who was a market-gardener as well as a publican, and she wanted to consult him about some difficult seedlings.

“If you don’t mind waiting in the car,” she said to Chloe, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

But as she stepped towards the door of the inn a young woman appeared in the entrance, and the two stopped short to greet one another. The young woman had bright hair and deep violet eyes, and she was wearing a gay beach dress and open-toed sandals. She had a towel rolled up underneath her arm, and she cried cheerfully to Eunice:

“I was just going to bathe! It’s a bit choppy, but I like it like that. Pierre says I’ll end up in Davy Jones’s locker if I don’t
exercise some ordinary common caution over this question of when, and where, and how to bathe ... what with undercurrents and what not! Oh!” She caught sight of Chloe, sitting in the car, as she moved slowly until she was near enough to have a word with her. “So you’re tomorrow’s bride!” she said. “I wanted to congratulate you. Wish you luck, and that sort of thing.”

Chloe sat stiffly and stared at her, and try as she would she couldn’t force a single, solitary word to her lips. Eunice, in jade slacks and a primrose pullover, an odd smile on her lips, moved gracefully back to the long, pale ivory-coloured car, and she opened the door and slid back behind the wheel.

“I won’t trouble the landlord today. He’s probably busy, and my p
r
oblem can wait.” She smiled in a rather exquisite, carefully calculated manner at Fern de Lisle. “Why don’t you come to the wedding tomorrow, Miss de Lisle?” she suggested. “It’s going to be terribly quiet, as you probably know, but a few more people will help to get things going, and we must give Chloe a send-off!” Under her breath she addressed Chloe. “Don’t look so staggered! I thought you knew!” And then, again, to Fern: “Can we at least look for you in the church, Miss de Lisle? Or would you rather go swimming?”

Fern de Lisle stepped backwards as the powerful car purred gently to life, but the expression on her face was inexplicable. She seemed to want to say something to Chloe, but Eunice put her foot down hard on the accelerator, and the car shot away from the inn, to the indignation of a couple of returning holiday-makers who had to step back hurriedly.

“Sorry about that, my dear,” Eunice apologised, as soon as she had turned the car off the main street, and they were in a deep Cornish lane. “I’m afraid I’d forgotten about—that particular young woman!—when I decided to call at the King’s Arms. And, in any case, I’ve never been able to make up my mind whether you knew about her or not.
”

“Knew what about her?” Chloe asked, in an absolutely flat voice.

“Why, that she’s still staying here. She came back, as a matter of fact, while we were in London. David told me when he joined us at Brown’s. He was a bit upset, but I didn’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill, and I advised him to say nothing.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Less than twenty-four hours later, having decided that she had no choice, Chloe became the Vicomtesse de Ramballe, or Madame Pierre Albertin, as she understood she would be called.

The weather, although it had broken overnight, and a freakish wind had played havoc with the gardens of Trelas, was so bright that Chloe felt the blaze of sunshine almost hurt her eyes as she emerged from the church. Inside the church it was so dim that she had felt grateful for the shadows, and the protective vagueness; but now it was as if a searchlight was turned on her and Pierre as they stood for a moment in the porch, and Pierre’s hand held hers firmly.

All through the ceremony she had been aware of his calmness, and the strange strength that seemed to emanate from him. But for the secret knowledge that she had, which was like an actual burden upon her spirits, she would have said that he was a man secure in his own happiness, and with a conscience as clear as a spring watercourse, and content to carry out the vows he had just made.

To have and to hold
...
From this day forth, and for evermore!

The marriage service did not insist on the “evermore,” but Pierre had sounded as if that was what he intended. The
“till death us to part
”
was not enough, and he had committed himself for all eternity. His voice was not only firm, it reverberated a little in the quietness of the church, and Chloe felt a sudden feeling of faintness attack her—sweep over her like a wave—as she listened to the echoes of that attractive voice. She made an instinctive movement, as if she would clutch at him for support, and instantly Pierre took tighter hold of her hand, and looked down at her with quick anxiety in his eyes.

But she wouldn’t look at him, not once while the ceremony lasted, and outside that brazen glare of sunshine fell upon her like a golden mantle, and made it impossible for her to do anything but blink her eyes. Pierre blinked his brown eyes too, but all at once they were alight and gay.

“The serious part is over, little one, and now we can enjoy ourselves,” he whispered. “I’ve always found weddings very amusing, but this one is my very own, and therefore I can enjoy it all the more!”

Eunice embraced her and kissed her, enveloping her in a
wave of perfume, and then she kissed Pierre—“because one always kisses everyone at weddings!”—and cried with dulcet sweetness:

“Bless you, my children! May you always be as happy as you are now!”

And only Chloe understood that there was dryness underlying the sweetness.

David said anxiously to Chloe:

“You look pale, my dear. Much too pale, even for a bride,” and his dark blue, handsome eyes rested on her in a concerned fashion, and for one moment that never returned to her she wished it was he who had just bestowed upon her his name—as he would very willingly have done!—and endowed her with a feeling of safety and security, if not delirious happiness, because she was the wife of an upright man, a man who would never stoop to any form of deceit.

As they drove away from the lynch-gate Chloe knew that she looked deliberately for one bright-haired young woman who might suddenly emerge from the shadows of the church. She had looked for her inside the building, when the opportunity was hers, but there had been no sign of Fern de Lisle. She must have decided to ignore Eunice’s invitation to be present at the ceremony.