Marry a Stranger (16 page)

He turned away from her, paused, and then
looked back at her.

“I meant it when I said I hoped you hadn
’
t been dull or bored while I was away,” he told her. “But Mrs. Elbe is joining us in a few days, so you’ll probably feel you’ve got a little more moral support, if nothing else. She’s coming by rail as soon as she’s handed over the flat to the care of some relative of hers who is going to look after me in future while
I’m in London.”

“Oh!” Stacey exclaimed. And added:
“
I shall be
pleased to see her.”

“I thought you would be.
”
He glanced at his wrist watch, and then moved over to the door. “Mrs. Elbe has expressed the hope that we’re as happy as we deserve to be, which might mean anything!”

Stacey lifted her eyes to him then, and as sudden mockery had filled his eyes it was all that looked
b
a
ck at her
.

“Well, we mustn’t keep our guests waiting!” And he turned the handle and passed out of her room swiftly.

THIRTEEN

The d
inner that night passed off in an entirely satisfactory manner, with Miss Fountain preferring to dine alone in her room, and therefore leaving the company an even number. There was Vera Hunt, in something sinuous and glittering with golden thread, seated on the right of her host at the polished table, and Stacey facing her husband with Dr. Bruce Carter on her right hand. Hannah waited at table without once making any serious mistake, and the menu devised by Stacey seemed exactly the right one for such an occasion.

Afterwards they drank their coffee in the drawing room, and Vera admired the piano, and asked Stacey whether she ever played. Martin instantly suggested that Stacey should play to them, and after a few moments of hesitation she went to the piano stool and took her place, and Dr. Carter offered to turn over the pages of her music for her. But as she played mostly by ear this was unnecessary, and she thanked him with a smile, and sought to gain confidence by drawing her fingers in musical ripples across the keys.

When she finally ceased playing, even Vera applauded as if she meant it, and Dr. Carter complimented her warmly. Martin sat quietly beneath the portrait of his former wife and looked at the slim form of Stacey with rather a curious expression in his eyes, and when Stacey looked up and met it a sudden uncontrollable blush started spreading rather wildly over her face and neck. Vera Hunt, who had never had the slightest difficulty at putting two and two together and making four, observed the blush—and the look—with faintly arching eyebrows, and then lay back in her chair and demanded a cigarette of her host, who promptly provided her with one and came across the floor to bend over her and light it for her with his own gold lighter.

Vera expelled a puff of smoke and looked up at him with her serene blue eyes a little languid, for once. There was also a tiny smile in the eyes. Then she turned her head a little and looked again at Stacey.

“What do you do with yourself when you’re here alone?” she asked. “Don’t you find it a bit depressing, with so little society?”

Stacey often found it depressing, but she was not going to let Vera know that she did, and she shook her head.

“No,” she said, feeling that the eyes of the other two were on her as well. “We have some very pleasant neighbors, and then there are plenty of walks to be had. I like walking.”

“And riding? I expect you ride, don’t you?”

But riding was not one of the forms of exercise which attracted Stacey, for the simple reason that she had had from her earliest days an odd fear of horses, and although she had striven to overcome it, she was not happy in the saddle. But Vera was amazed that anyone who was admittedly country born and country bred should not take the keenest delight in finding themselves astride a mettlesome piece of horseflesh, and she did not hesitate to voice her astonishment.

“But, my dear, I can hardly believe you, for so far as I’m concerned riding is one of the few unadulterated pleasures of life in the country, and as a matter of fact I was rather hoping to get a little of that sort of exercise myself. I’ve even provided
myself with some jodhpurs
—
”

“Then perhaps we can do something about it,” Martin said. He had not returned to his old chair, but was seated on a kind of stool close to her knee, and his dark sleek head was on a level with her bare, while shoulder. Every time she made the smallest movement a wave of her expensive Paris perfume was wafted in his direction, and whenever she looked at him that little smile was back in her eyes, and they no longer had any connection with cold northern seas. They were warm, and even slightly caressing. “Old Colonel Barstoke at the Manor used to provide me with a mount whenever I wanted one, and I’ve no doubt he would be willing to see you similarly equipped. I’ll ring him up about it tonight, if you like, and if you’re perfectly serious? But it will mean getting up early in the morning—no time like the
e
arly morning for a good gallop across country.”

“Oh, that would be absolutely heavenly!” she declared, leaning a little towards him. “And I’d
simply love it.
Do
please ring him up
—
”

“And what about you, Carter?” he enquired, turning to look over his shoulder at his male guest. “Do you ride?”

“Oh, no, you can count me out!” Carter answered, with a grin to soften his hasty disclaimer. “I’ve a gammy leg, as you very well know, and in any case I’m a townsman. I’d prefer to follow the good example of your wife and remain comfortably in bed while you two test the early morning temperature.” Martin smiled. He looked towards Stacey.

“And you’re quite sure we can’t tempt you?”

She shook her head rather hastily.

“Oh, no, thank you. I’d really rather not.”

“Very well.” But she noticed that he turned back to Vera with a kind of anticipatory pleasure in his face, and they carried on a conve
r
sation which lasted for some time connected with horseflesh and the delights of point-to-points, and the last Boxing Day Meet they had both attended at a country house in Sussex, and similar reminiscences. Until Dr. Carter came across to Stacey and began to talk to her about the house, and other old houses which apparently interested him passionately, and the ambition which he nursed to purchase one day when his retirement drew nearer. And then the conversation became general for a while, after which they played an informal game of bridge, and Miss Fountain looked in to apologize for her non-appearance at dinner—she pleaded, with her colorless eyes expressionless, and her thin lips slightly more blue and compressed-looking than usual, a headache, which had since yielded to treatment—and then Hannah followed her in with a tray of sandwiches
and drinks and coffee.

And by the time she went to bed Stacey was feeling more tired than she had felt for a long time, because she had been called upon to play a part under the eyes of two people who were both shrewd and discerning, and she was not altogether certain that she had played it very competently. Once or twice, during the evening, she had thought that Bruce Carter had looked at her a little oddly—although with a very kindly expression—and Vera Hunt had seemed to watch her sometimes with a glimmer of secret amusement in her eyes. And she had looked up at that portrait on the end wall of the drawing room, too—and then looked again at Stacey, and the amusement had seemed to increase.

“
My dear,” she had whispered, when Stacey handed her a cup of coffee,
“
do you
have
to keep that portrait where it is?”

Stacey had not answered, but as she went upstairs to bed she thought about the question, and wondered what any normal bride in her position would have done about the portrait.

Then she heard Martin speaking on the telephone in the hall to Colonel Barstoke at the Manor, and she guessed that he was making arrangements for the early morning ride. Apparently it was all right, for he laughed and thanked the Colonel, and when he had replaced the receiver she heard him call out to Vera, who had lingered for some reason in the drawing room, to be up early in the morning, and promising to give her a knock upon her door. Stacey closed her own door with a feeling of deflation, and the conviction that she had acted unwisely. Any wise young woman who thought as
m
uch of the man she had married as she did would have overco
m
e her unexplainable dislike of horses and agreed to go with them when they set out in the morning, instead of lying meekly and unhappily crouched in her bed and listening to the sound of their horses’ hooves as they cantered away down the drive.

But that was precisely what she did do, and as it was a glorious morning, promising to be an almost perfect November day, it seemed to make it all the harder.

Dr. Carter was breakfasting alone in the dining room when she entered it. The other two were not back yet.

Dr. Carter quite plainly enjoyed a hearty breakfast, and Hannah had provided sausages and bacon and eggs, as well as porridge and cereals. The sideboard was so well loaded that it made the room seem much more cheerful than usual, and as the sunlight was pouring into it, and Bruce Carter was looking very unprofessional in a loudly speckled tweed suit, and beaming over toast and marmalade, Stacey wished she had come down earlier and joined him at the beginning of his meal.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, rather shyly, as she closed the door behind her. She was wearing a mist-blue high-necked pullover, with a finely pleated skirt, and she looked to his eyes a most satisfying vision to encounter at that early hour of the day.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m surprised you don’t breakfast in bed. Surely you don’t come down here and breakfast alone and in state during the week when Martin’s in London? Although of course,
I forgot, you have Miss Fountain to keep you company.”

Stacey did not inform him that Miss Fountain’s company was of an order she preferred to do without, and it was always a relief to her that Miss Fountain took little, if any, breakfast, and was always out of the dining room by the time she came down.

Bruce Carter watched his hostess helping herself to coffee, and buttering a slice of wafer-thin toast. No wonder she looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away if that was all the breakfast she consumed!

He was a little worried about Martin, and he was equally worried about this new wife of his. No use either of them pretending that they were a radiantly happy pair, because one had only to look into the girl’s eyes to be told the truth at once. They were extraordinarily lovely eyes, but although she tried hard to conceal it they were wistful eyes, and the wistfulness was more than ever noticeable when she was sitting silent and taking no part in the conversation. Surely Martin must know that it was there
...
? What was Martin up to, anyway, and why had he married the girl at all if there was no bond of affection between them? There had been that other unhappy marriage of his
...

He accepted Stacey’s offer to replenish his cup, and as he passed it to her he wondered whether she knew anything at all about Martin’s other marriage. If she did—and if she knew
all
the facts!—why did she allow that portrait of Fenella to remain on the wall in the drawing room?

The door opened suddenly, and Vera and Martin came in, the former looked absolutely blooming, and almost startlingly attractive in her primrose sweater and exquisitely tailored short jacket worn above equally perfectly tailored jodhpurs. Her eyes were bright with exercise, and the color in her cheeks seemed to emphasize their blueness. She might have been a recent victim of influenza, but she did not look as if a prolonged period of convalescence after it was entirely essential in her case.

Martin—for the first time Stacey was seeing him casually attired in riding breeches and high, polished boots, and a tweed coat—also looked as if he had benefited considerably from his morning’s exercise, and when he smiled at Stacey there was much of his old friendliness in his smile. She hastened to pour him some coffee, and to attend to the wants of Vera Hunt, whose appetite was so sharpened by country air that her usual preoccupation with her figure was temporarily forgotten, and she made a breakfast almost as hearty as Dr. Carter’s.

“I take it that you’ve enjoyed yourselves?” Dr. Carter suggested, a little dryly, as he studied their faces.

“I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed myself more,” Vera answered, and stole a side-glance at Martin, who had taken his seat beside her. “We’ll do it again, won’t we, Martin?”

“If you want to,” he answered, occupying himself with his own breakfast.

“If I
want
to?” she echoed, and looked quickly at Stacey, who was crumbling the last piece of toast on her plate and staring down at it without any particular happiness in her face. “Why, I can scarcely wait until tomorrow morning!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Martin h
ad arranged to spend a week away from his consulting room in London, and although, had they been alone, Stacey might have found the time pass quickly—all too quickly!—with two guests in the house requiring to be suitably entertained, and much to occupy her mind and her time which permitted her to see little of Martin, the week seemed to drag itself out until she began to long for it to come to an end.