Marry a Stranger (2 page)

CHAPTER
TWO

It w
as
a warm June night, and outside the taxis were already darting to and fro carrying beautifully turned out men and women to places of refreshment and entertainment. The light of the sinking sun was reflected in the windows of tall blocks of flats, and there was a smell of hot dust and perfume and Continental cooking floating in the air.

Martin Guelder’s car waited for him outside his consulting rooms. It was a sleek, low-bodied affair, black and glistening in the pleasant evening light. Stacey climbed into it rather shyly, accepting the seat he offered her beside the wheel, and feeling the upholstery yield beneath her weight in a manner which convinced her of its exclusive design. She leaned back against the silver-grey fabric and looked out of the window at the first stars twinkling in a kind of haze so very many millions of miles above her head, and realized with a kind of little shock that she was in London. For the first time in her
life she was spending a night in London, and she was proposing to spend many more.

In Herefordshire, at this season of the year, the stars always seemed close and bright and friendly, just as the scents were fresh and vigorous. But here in this great capital city of Britain there was a sensation of unreality, of lack of kinship with one’s fellow human beings which frightened her a little. She supposed that one would get used to it in time, to the roar of the traffic and the crowds. But tonight she was tired and bewildered, and yet conscious of something exciting about it all which made her blood run faster despite her tiredness, and widened her eyes under the brim of her little straw hat.

Her suitcase had been deposited in the back of the car, and was looking a little out of keeping with its surroundings, just as she felt she herself did. Only Martin Guelder really fitted in with the superior vehicle he drove, his gloved hands maintaining such calm control of the wheel that she was filled with admiration. In a sea of every type of transport, with impatient drivers on all sides of them, wildly hooting klaxons and traffic hold-ups, they progressed with such effortless ease towards their destination that she was quite fascinated by the imperturbable manner in which it was achieved. For the car moved noiselessly, without any noticeable application of brakes or attention to gear levers, and Dr. Guelder lay back in his corner as if barely interested in the business of driving. Once or twice he glanced at her sideways, and once he smiled and asked: “You don’t know London? At least, not very well?”

“I scarcely know it at all,” she admitted, in a husky whisper.

His flat was in a quiet street not very far away from Jermyn Street. When they had ascended in the lift to the white-painted door which admitted them to it the noises of London seemed to have been left very far away. He did not need to produce his key, for the door was whisked open at almost the very moment that they stepped from the lift, and Mrs. Elbe, stout and comfortable in old-fashioned black, with a bunch of keys actually jingling at her waist, stood ready to receive them, framed against a background of dark red Turkey carpet and well-polished oak furniture bathed in discreetly shaded electric light.

If she was surprised by the sight of a young girl who might, or might not, have reached the age of twenty-one, and was obviously drooping under a load of fatigue, accompanying her master, she did not show it. She merely reached out and took the young girl’s handbag from her limp fingers and dropped it upon a dower chest, and then lifted her hands to remove her hat and that horrible sensation of a constricting bandage which had been flattening the curls on Stacey’s dark head. Stacey gave vent to an exquisite sigh of relief, and sank down beside her handbag on the dower chest.

“A good hot bath, something light and nourishing to eat, and then—bed, is what I prescribe,” Martin Guelder said, smiling down at the girl. “And it might be a good idea,” he added, “if she has her breakfast in bed in the morning.”

“Leave it to me, sir,” Mrs. Elbe answered him quickly, her searching glance roving over Stacey. “I’ve known what it is to feel worn out in London myself before today, and it’s an experience you don’t forget easily. But she’ll be all right by tomorrow.”

“I’m so sorry to give you so much trouble,” Stacey apologized, smiling up at them wanly.

Dr. Guelder put his hand upon her shoulder, and his grip, though light, was oddly sustaining and comforting just then.

“You’re no trouble at all,” he assured her. And then he turned to his housekeeper. “My bag is packed, I suppose? I’ll change before I leave, however, and you can give Miss Brent a cup of tea, which will go a long way to putting new life into her.” Stacey was lying back in a comfortable chair in his combined sitting-room-living-room, with a tray of tea on an occasional table beside her, when he came out of his bedroom a little later on, dressed for the evening before him. She did not know it, but her heavy eyes reflected an unmistakable look of admiration as she glanced up at him, standing tall and spare and impeccably groomed in front of her, his white tie and tails giving her the clue to the sort of entertainment he was expecting. That this was to be a rather special evening was obvious, and with his well-held dark head and his grave, dark face he was, she realized, quite unlike any man she had ever met before. Her father, going out to dine at the Manor and spend the evening with the squire, had never looked remotely like that. The squire himself—his nephew, who was a rising young architect, could never look like that. No man she had ever been permitted a glimpse of could look like that—only Dr. Martin Guelder!

And he was regarding her a little quizzically, with that one dark eyebrow of his lifted a little, while he wound a white scarf about his neck.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Loads better,” she answered.

“You’ll feel better still in the morning.”

As he was leaving the room she called after him: "Dr. Guelder!”

He paused and smiled at her over his shoulder.

“Now, don’t start thanking me
—
” he began.

“But I must!” she insisted. She half rose in her chair, and her eyes looked enormous, like great,
shadowy purple violets, luminous with gratitude, and her mouth quivered a little. “I’m turning you out of your home—”

“Forget it,” he advised her softly, from the doorway. “And a flat is never a home, you know!” he added unexpectedly.

In the morning Mrs. Elbe stole in quietly with her morning tea and drew the curtains. Stacey slumbered without even flickering an eyelid on the pillow, her dark curls tumbled wildly, the tip of her small, freckled nose upturned to the ceiling. A lovely color overspread her face, like a young child sleeping.

Mrs. Elbe tiptoed out again, carrying the tray of tea. It was ten o’clock when she returned, and this time Stacey was lying dreamily listening to the noises of traffic far down in the street outside the window, and watching the sunlight gilding the edges of the curtains. They were severe biscuit-colored curtains lined with cool green, and the dressing table which stood beneath them was a severe type of dressing table also, without any of the trimmings which would have proclaimed it feminine. And it was suddenly borne in upon Stacey that the bedroom she was occupying was most decidedly a masculine bedroom, and she started up on her elbow and looked in almost a startled fashion at Mrs. Elbe, who this time had provided herself with a breakfast tray.

“So you are awake!” Mrs. Elbe exclaimed, smiling at her comfortably as she set down the tray on the bedside table, and then drew back the curtains. “And much better you look for that long sleep!”

Stacey watched her as she poured her out a cup of tea, and she thought guiltily of the master of the place lacking the ministrations of such an excellent
housekeeper. Then Mrs. Elbe informed her that Dr. Guelder had already telephoned that morning, and that he suggested that she should take things easily for a day or so. He would be quite all right occupying the room above his consulting rooms, so she was not to concern herself on his account. He had also suggested that she should make herself familiar with London by going out and exploring it a little, and as soon as he could find time he would get along and see her and they would have another talk about her future. In the meantime she was to be sure that Mrs. Elbe would make herself responsible for her creature comforts.

“But I can’t possibly go on keeping him out of his flat,” Stacey objected, getting out of bed and donning her old blue ripple-cloth dressing gown, which permitted several inches of home-made nightdress to show beneath it. “That would be taking the basest
advantage of his kindness
—
”

“My dear child,” Mrs. Elbe reassured her—for to her she was little more—“when Dr. Guelder says a thing he means it, so there’s no reason at all for you to go worrying your head. And now, as it’s such a nice day, I’d hurry over your bath and get out, and if you’d like to have your lunch out it’s all the same to me. But if you’d like to come back for it, it will be here for you.”

Stacey smiled at her gratefully—the smile she reserved for people she liked and wanted to please, and which brought into play the dimples lurking unsuspected at the corners of her rather grave mouth. “Then if you’ll tell me how to get to the British
Museum
—
? And I’d like to see Westminster
Abbey and the Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s, if I can manage them all in a day.”

But when she set off, the shops fascinated her so much that she spent a long time gazing into them, wishing that she had enough money in her purse to buy some of the delightful things the windows displayed. Such tempting items as nylon underwear and gossamer hose, trim little suits and absurd little hats. If only she could afford them!
...
But she couldn’t, and she moved on and boarded a bus and spent some time before lunch in Westminster Abbey, and after lunch she visited the United Services Museum in Whitehall and was thrilled by the wonderful collection of equestrian armour and the Banqueting Hall where Charles the First once dined. And after that she had tea in a little tea shop, and then went back to Dr. Guelder’s flat, which was temporarily empty as Mrs. Elbe had gone out shopping.

She removed her hat and her light summer coat and sat down in the pleasant living room to look through a pile of magazines, and was chuckling over an illustration in
Punch
when the
doorbell
shrilled. Hesitating at first, she suddenly made up her mind that her right course was to open the door, and went along the red-carpeted passage and did so. Her breath was rather taken away by the sight of an exquisitely attired young woman who stood there on the mat outside the white-painted door and stared at her without any astonishment, but with a good deal of cool criticism and interest.

“May I come in?” asked this glamorous vision. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“Why, of course,” Stacey answered, but looked her surprise.

The young woman stepped past her into the narrow hallway. She was tall, and as slender as a willow wand, and she wore a suit of black grosgrain relieved by a froth of organdie frilling in almost startling white at the opening of the lapels. Her hair had a Nordic flaxenness which was as startling as the white frilling, and was wound in a severe coronet of plaits about her shapely head, and resting upon it was a tiny cap of white feathers. She carried an enormous white handbag and white doeskin gloves, and the heels of her black patent leather shoes were the highest Stacey had yet encountered.

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” she said, in her slightly husky voice, “but I suppose Mrs. Elbe is out? My name, by the way, is Hunt—Vera
Hunt, and I’m quite a close friend of Dr. Guelder’s.”

“Oh, yes?” Stacey murmured, and ushered her into the sitting room. Miss Hunt swept the magazines off the settee and sat down in a reclining attitude upon it, and then looked deliberately across the room at Stacey, studying her with clear, cold blue eyes that were very thickly and darkly lashed to contrast strikingly with her exceptionally pale hair. Her mouth also was exotically made up, and there was an aura of expensive perfume about her which filled the little sitting room, and was, Stacey thought, somehow exciting.

“Yes; Martin was quite right,” the husky voice proclaimed after a moment or two, and she nodded her head in a strangely satisfied way. “You
have
got quite a good figure—a little immature as yet, of course, but time will remedy that; and you’re almost as tall as I am, though rather colt-like about the limbs. But you’d be absolutely ideal for some of my younger dresses—my ‘springtime’ models, as I call them. That look of youth and innocence
—
”

But Stacey was staring at her in so much amazement that she broke off and laughed apologetically.

“But, of course, you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? How silly of me!” She produced a cigarette case from her handbag, and selected a cigarette, offering the case as an afterthought to the young woman facing her. Stacey, however, declined, and the other continued with a smile which did not reach those cold blue eyes of hers: “Martin told me last night that you are looking for a job. Is that right? He also told me all about your coming to London, and having nowhere to stay, and about his permitting you to remain here until you can find somewhere else—which was sweet but quixotic of him, and entirely like him! As I told him, the world might look a little askance at a man of his years and position taking pity on a young and inexperienced girl!
...
Although, of course, as your father was an old friend of his it does make it all rather different
...
”—sending clouds of Egyptian cigarette smoke into the air and watching Stacey through the fog.