The Blue Rose (9 page)

CHAPTER TEN

ROSE hardly seemed to see Stephen alone during those next few days until the wedding—but she comforted herself by ticking off the days in her mind. An engagement wasn’t nearly as happy a time as she had imagined. It was wonderful at the beginning but later something seemed to go wrong with it, though no doubt if one had to be engaged for years one would adjust oneself to it. When two people fall passionately in love it is unnatural for them to be parted. Their longing to be together all the time makes them resentful of convention, and the very necessity of parting puts a tremendous physical and emotional strain on them. Stephen perhaps felt it even more than Rose
—
he was very impatient by nature—and those last few days were not altogether happy ones. At moments Rose felt that he no longer loved her quite so much, and that made her more than ever ill at ease with him. Since her lunch with Clare she had been afraid of his getting bored with her, of his beginning already to find her “insipid”, so she strove to be bright and gay and succeeded merely in being brittle.

Their last Sunday, when they might have spent a happy day alone together, Robin Johnson and the girl he was courting, Gai Spalding, went with them into the country. They had been going in separate cars but Robin’s car broke down at the last moment so they all went in Stephen’s. It was a wet day and they had a rather dismal lunch at an inn on the river and played darts afterwards.

And then during those last few days Rose had the unhappiness of witnessing a quarrel between Francie and Derek. The coffee bar was going well, at any rate for the moment, but they had both been overworking and were terribly on edge from fatigue and nervous strain. Rose couldn’t say afterwards how the quarrel had started—it was some little thing that twanged jarringly on over-taut nerves
—
but in a moment they were slanging each other, saying things deliberately to hurt each other. You have to be lovers to know each other well enough to say those little things that can hurt most. Rose was deeply shocked. She knew that she herself would never be able to quarrel with anybody in that way—it was not in her nature—and she was terribly distressed to find how Francie could let herself go in the heat of the moment. While the quarrel was still smouldering after the initial outburst Francie said to her: “It’s really all my own fault. He’s too sure of me. I’ve let him take me too much for granted. We’re too free and easy with each other. I ought to be more like Clare.”

Rose didn’t see how after a quarrel like that, when they had said such dreadfully wounding things to each other, their relationship could ever be quite the same again—but it was all made up by the next morning and they appeared to be exactly the same as before—just as loving, just as comradely.

“Was that your first quarrel?” Rose asked Francie.

Francie burst out laughing. “Good gracious no. The first time it happened we both thought it was the end of the world
...
As a matter of fact we quarrel less than most married people, but I think it does one good sometimes to let off steam. It’s an emotional release when you’re very het up
...
The only sad thing is,” she added wistfully, “the more you quarrel the less marvellous your reconciliations become. Our first reconciliation was even more wonderful than first falling in love!”

Was it true that all married people quarrelled, Rose wondered? She could not recall a single quarrel between her own parents—not so much as a harsh word even—but that of course did not mean that they had not quarrelled in private. They would have taken very good care not to let their children know they were quarrelling. But in the case of Derek and Francie their quarrel had been so loud that the children, if there had been any, would have heard it even if shut up in a separate wing of a great house. But perhaps if there had been children they would have curbed their tempers. Perhaps that was what was really the matter with them?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE day before her wedding Rose woke up with a bad sore throat. She hoped against hope that it was only a dryness of the throat due perhaps to having slept on her back with her mouth open; but as the day wore on and her throat got worse rather than better, she knew that she was in for a cold. She was not going to see Stephen that evening because everyone had warned her that it was unlucky to see your bridegroom the night before your wedding. Stephen had seemed rather irritated by this superstition. He himself had refused to have the traditional bachelor party. He said he would stay at home to work out the last details of their route to Florence.

Rose had only a rather hazy idea of their honeymoon journey. She had left it all to him, and though he had told her all the names of the places at which they would be staying
en route,
she had not looked them up on the map. She only knew for certain that they would be spending their first night at the motel at Lympne so as to fly the car over early in the morning from Ferryfield to Le Touquet. Stephen wanted to get as far as Nancy the second night, a distance of some three hundred miles from Le Touquet.

Francie dosed her with aspirin and hot treacle posset that night before the wedding and put her to bed early. She told her the next morning that Stephen had rung up soon after she went to bed but she had told him that Rose was already asleep. Rose had to stifle a rise of anger when she heard this. She had not fallen asleep for hours and she would have given anything to talk to Stephen, even for a moment.

Fortunately her cold had not yet come into her head but her throat was worse than ever and she had to suck jujubes all the morning. She had been much too nervous and excited to eat any breakfast and even for lunch she would take no more than the cup of coffee which Francie almost had to force down her.

“You’re very silly, darling,” Francie said. “You know the old saying, ‘Stuff a cold and starve a fever.’ ”

“Mother used to interpret that: ‘If you stuff a cold you’ll have to starve a fever,’ ” Rose replied. She started to dress very early because she had nothing else to do (all her packing had been done the day before), and she was in her dressing-gown when there was a ring at the front door. Francie went to answer it and presently came to tell her that it was Stephen.

“Oh, I must see him!”

“You really oughtn’t to,” Francie warned her. “It’s not done.”

“I don’t care how unlucky it is. I’ve simply got to see him,” and she dashed out into the hall in her dressing
-
gown, just as she was, and in a moment found herself caught up in Stephen’s arms. “I couldn’t wait to see you until the church,” he whispered through her hair.

“Oh, I’m so glad you came. I’m so miserable Francie didn’t call me last night when you telephoned. I was wide awake thinking of you and so longing to talk to you.” They were happier at that moment than they had been for the past nine days.

“How’s your cold?”

“Francie shouldn’t have told you. It’s nothing, just a bit of a throat, that’s all. It probably won’t come to anything. Don’t worry. I shall be all right.”

“You’d better be!” he said. “Darling love. I suppose I must go and change or I shall be late, and I gather that brides like their bridegrooms to be waiting for them
...
I shall be waiting for you, don’t worry
...
You feel thin, my love. There’s nothing of you. We’ll have to feed you up with plenty of spaghetti!”

“It’s because she’s hardly eaten anything since she’s been engaged to you,” Francie told him. She had come out into the hall and had overheard his last remark. “And she’s eaten
nothing
at all this morning.”

“Nor have I if it comes to that,” Stephen replied.

“But you must make her eat or she’ll be ill,” Francie said. “I’m sure she’s lost pounds since she’s known you.”

“We’ll have to change all that,” Stephen said. “When once she’s my wife she will have to obey me. I suppose you realize, you poor child, that I still have a legal right to beat you, as long as I don’t use any instrument thicker than my thumb? The law doesn’t seem to realize that thin whips hurt much more than thick sticks!
...
So you’d better be careful. You will be all alone with me where no one will hear your cries—and even if they do, I shall be within my legal rights!”

For answer she put her arms round his neck. “I trust you,” she said.

“Well, don’t forget you will be mine to do exactly what I like with,” and for the first time with somebody present he kissed her.

When he had gone Rose went back to her room to dress with her heart singing. “He looks to me as if he might quite well carry out his threat,” Francie said as she followed her into the bedroom. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a very possessive lover.”

“He couldn’t be too possessive to please me,” Rose replied, laughing. In her excitement at seeing him she had forgotten her throat but at that moment she felt the first warning prickle in her nose which was followed by a thunderous sneeze.

“Here, take some more aspirin quickly,” Francie said. “We mustn’t have you sneezing in church.”

II

As Stephen had promised, he was waiting for her by the altar, Robin Johnson, his best man, beside him. Defying superstition, he had turned his head to look at her as she walked up the aisle. As his normal dress was the striped trousers and black jacket of a City suit he did not look so strange in a tail coat as most men do. There was a white carnation in his button-hole and never had she seen him looking so wonderfully handsome. It was rather a comfort to be wearing a veil, for she could see everyone through it, whereas they could not see her. Derek was giving her away and they walked slowly up the aisle, perfectly in step, to the strains of “Here Comes the Bride”.

Wedding services had always seemed rather long to Rose in the past but her own was over all too quickly. Stephen’s ring was on her finger and they had been proclaimed man and wife and had listened to a short address by the officiating clergyman; almost before she knew it it was all over and they were in the vestry; the piece of veiling that had covered her face had been detached from her headdress of real stephanotis and white roses, and everyone was kissing her and offering their congratulations.

Again that time in the vestry, which always seems an age when you are a mere spectator waiting in the church, was over in a flash—her one little page had caught hold of her train and she was walking back down the aisle on Stephen’s arm, her hand clasped in his, while Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” pealed forth.

There was a car waiting for them outside with a little crowd of people and photographers. Rose
stepped
in, and Stephen followed her; the door was closed and they had begun their first journey together as man and wife.

Stephen kept tight hold of her hand. “Now—at last
—
you’re mine,” he said. “You looked so lovely—I wouldn’t have missed that sight of you coming down the aisle for anything in the world.”

She squeezed his hand. “Now are you glad we waited?” she asked.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll tell you in a year’s time! But I must say seeing you like this has done a great deal to reconcile me to this hellishly long engagement.”

“It hasn’t really been long as engagements go.”

“Hasn’t it? It’s se
e
med like an eternity to me.”

They were soon at the coffee bar, and there the official photographer was waiting for them; but the photographs did not take as long as usual because there were no bridesmaids—only this one little page who was a godson of Stephen’s, dressed as an eighteenth-century sailor. Coming into the hot atmosphere of the bar had brought on Rose’s cold again and there was no denying that she had one. A cold in the head is one of the few ailments that it is impossible to disguise with all the will in the world. Rose recalled with dismay that as a rule the worse the throat the worse the cold, and her throat had been very bad indeed. But as always happens, as soon as the cold started to come out the throat disappeared, and that was one relief.

The reception seemed to pass almost as quickly as the wedding. By the time they had shaken hands with everyone it seemed to be time to cut the cake. Then there was the toast to the bride and bridegroom proposed by Stephen’s partner—the distinguished elderly man who had sat next to Rose at the dinner given by the bank. And then Stephen had to make a little speech, which he did admirably, and a little shiver of ecstasy went through Rose when he brought in the words “my wife and I”.

Arrangements had been made for them to change for their going away in the flat above the shop. It was not yet ready for the Earles’ occupation but enough furniture had been put in it for the occasion to enable them to change, and Antonio, Stephen’s manservant had brought their luggage there that morning.

When the time came to say good-bye to Francie, Rose very nearly broke down, and Francie too looked on the verge of tears. “Be happy, darling,” Francie said. “Write to me, and take care of that cold.” To Stephen she said as she kissed him good-bye; “Take care of her, won’t you?”

“What do you think?” Stephen replied.

Clare Frenton also kissed Rose good-bye. “Don’t forget my advice to you,” she whispered. “And if there is anything I can do for you be sure to get in touch with me as soon as you get back.”

Rather to her surprise Rose noticed that Clare did not kiss Stephen good-bye. It was the kind of occasion on which all good friends kiss each other, and Stephen leant forward as he took her hand as if to kiss her but she drew back from him most deliberately and held her hand out as far as it would go.

“Thank you for everything, my dear,” he said.

“I hope you will still be thanking me in a year’s time,” Rose heard her reply.

When the actual moment of going away came Rose behaved like the majority of brides. She put her head down and charged to the car like a bull. Stephen quickly followed her with his coat collar up
against
the shower of rice and paper rose petals. The luggage had already been put in and they were away in an instant, making for the Dover Road. “Didn’t Francie do everything beautifully?” Rose sighed. “Yes, marvellously. She certainly is a wonderful cousin to have. It was excellent champagne too.”

“I’m afraid I don’t really know the difference between one champagne and another.”

“You’ll learn under my guidance—like so many things. We’ll be driving through the champagne country to-morrow
...
I love that get-up of yours.”

“Do you? I’m so glad. I wanted everything to be a surprise for you, but when we get back I’d like you to help me with my clothes if you will.” She had to break off here to sneeze and blow her nose.

“What a bore it is for you, my poor sweet, to have that cold.”

“It’s nothing. It’ll be gone in a day or two, but I only hope I don’t give it to you.”

“Don’t you worry, I shan’t get it.”

She was inclined to believe him. She glanced at his profile. He looked so impregnable, so strong, but unfamiliar somehow in his grey pinstripe suit. She thought with a little thrill: “He is my husband now. My husband. My next of kin. My nearest and dearest.” Wasn’t husband perhaps the most beautiful word in the English language? Husband. To husband. Even as a verb it was beautiful. Aloud she said: “Do tell me now about our journey. How long is it going to take us to get to Florence?”

“Well, we shall spend four nights on the way. To-night at the motel. To-morrow night at Nancy if all goes well. If not we shall only get as far as Rheims, but if possible I would like to get to Basle the next day by lunch-time. That would be quite easy if we get as far as Nancy tomorrow.” Basle was a great banking centre and he had already told her that he wanted to have a few hours there to do some work. “You’ll be all right by yourself for just one afternoon?”

“Of course.”

“Then the next day to Milan, over the St. Gotthard Pass and then by way of Lugano and Como.”

“Oh, I have always so longed to see the Italian lakes.”

“Well, now you shall, my darling. I hope we have good weather in the mountains. I’m always rather unlucky in the mountains. Last time I was in a thick mist with the windscreen wiper going the whole way
...
And then the last day to Florence via Parma and Bologna. To-morrow is our only long day. I hope it won’t be too much for you. The other days are quite easy.”

“Oh, no, I love being driven. But you will tell me when you are tired and would like me to drive?”

“I never get tired of driving and I hate being driven.”

“How lucky. We are certainly going to be Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat!”

For answer he put his hand caressingly on her knee and she thrilled to his touch.

III

She longed to see what the motel was like. She had heard that there were a lot of motels in America but this one at Lympne was apparently the first to be built in England. Stephen had stayed there twice before so he knew the ropes. When they arrived she found that the main part of the motel was an ordinary old building, but an extremely modern, one-storied wing had been built on—consisting of rooms with garages attached, with all the doors gaily painted in different colours. Stephen left her in the car while he went into the main portion of the motel to get his key and settle his bill. All bills were paid the night before so that the visitors could start as early as they liked in the morning.

The key opened the garage door, and from the garage there was another door leading into their room. It was a small room but compactly fitted with
modern
built-in furniture and with a small bathroom attached. On a table between the twin beds was an electric tea-making machine. The great point of making a night stop at a motel was that it was unnecessary to take any of the luggage out of the car except for an overnight case.

“You’re feeling rotten, aren’t you?” Stephen asked her. “Would you like to go straight to bed?”

“Oh, no, I look much worse than I feel. That’s almost the worst part of a cold. It makes one look so awful.”

“I won’t hear a word against the woman I love! She looks ravishing to me even with a cold in the head
...
Let’s go and have a drink. It may make you feel better, but I shall put you to bed the moment after dinner. We’ve got to make a very early start.”

The bar and restaurant were in the main part of the motel, and apart from being extremely nicely furnished they were nothing out of the ordinary. How Rose would have enjoyed this first cocktail and dinner of their married life if it had not been for her cold, but the drink, far from making her feel better, heated her so that her eyes and nose began to stream.

The moment dinner was over Stephen said firmly: “I am going to put you to bed,” and she did not protest because she was really feeling rotten. Fortunately the maid had put a hot-water bottle in her bed and she was very glad to get there. She undressed quickly in the bathroom. Stephen was waiting for her in the bedroom when she came back, and she discarded her dressing-gown and slipped into bed almost in one movement. He tucked her up. “Comfy?” He stooped to kiss her.