CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IV

With a violent physical effort Marigold fixed her mind on the fact that Paul was still speaking.

Somehow she must give an impression of intelligent attention.

She smiled, she looked shocked or sympathetic as the occasion demanded. She even murmured noncommittal comments from time to time.

But it was all done in a queer, detached sort of way. All of her which really mattered was grappling, panic-stricken, with the information he had so coolly let fall.

Even now she could hardly take it in.

She was to be the co-respondent in a divorce suit. And the suit would be brought by Stephanie against Lindley. While Lindley's wife had remained an anonymous and shadowy figure, she had been able to convince herself that she was willing to figure in a divorce suit, if that were the price of happiness with him. Now the whole thing seemed a ghastly and ignominious tangle—a sordid business in which one would loose everything worth holding.

That ill-fated weekend trip—which now seemed not only wicked but ridiculous as well —was not to be allowed to sink into blessed oblivion. It was, on the contrary, to dog her relentlessly, spoiling everything which had promised to make life so sweet.

Stephanie, whose friendship she so eagerly desired and valued, would regard her with astonished disgust and reproach, while Paul—Paul who looked at her with such heart-warming kindness and admiration—would have nothing for her but contempt and loathing.

Indeed, had he not already expressed himself all too clearly?

The poisonous little girl-friend! The useful correspondent!

Marigold felt so sick that she hardly knew how to go on eating. And there must have been something in her expression at last which betrayed her wretched preoccupation, because he broke off suddenly in the middle of what he was saying and exclaimed:

'But it's too bad to worry you with all this. Sorry, Marigold. I'm afraid my temper got the better of my tongue.'

'It's quite all right! I don't at all mind your talking to me about it and—and saying what you think.' She spoke with eager emphasis. 'I was just thinking rather hard about what you'd said. About the divorce, I mean. Suppose —suppose, for instance, that you can't trace this girl who stayed at the hotel with Lind—with Stephanie's husband.'

'It doesn't matter.' Paul filled up her glass for her, and she mechanically drank from it, hoping he didn't notice that her teeth chattered slightly against the rim.

'What—do you mean—"It doesn't matter"?'

'Why, the actual identity of the girl isn't essential to the case, you know. There's the hotel register to prove that he stayed there with some woman as his wife—same room number and everything. And there are Stephanie and myself to prove it wasn't his real wife.'

'I—see.' She leant her elbow on the table and her forehead on her hand, pretending to be deep in thought. She felt she could not look at him and hide the dawning relief. Besides, she actually felt queerly faint for a moment.

A scared and desperate hope was struggling to life within her. Perhaps, even now-—by some blessed miracle—they need not know! It was too much—far too much—to count on in this moment. But the glimmer of hope was there.

'You mustn't let it weigh on you like that,

Marigold,' Paul's voice said gently just then. 'I wouldn't have told you if I'd thought it would affect you like that. It's terribly sweet of you to mind so much on Stephanie's behalf. But, believe me, though no one likes the idea of going through the divorce court, it's the best thing for Stephanie's happiness that's happened for many a long day.'

'Yes,' Marigold agreed in a very subdued tone. 'Yes, I'm sure you're right.' And then, as though she couldn't help it: 'Do you think he will make any objection?'

'Who, Lindley?'

She nodded, her eyes on his face and her expression more anxious than she could have wished.

'I don't really know, Marigold.' He considered the idea thoughtfully. 'I don't think he has much feeling for Stephanie—even so far as his type has feelings at all. But it's very convenient for that sort of man to be married.'

'Convenient? Why?' Marigold demanded sharply.

'Why, you see, it's a wonderful safeguard against having to marry anyone else.' Paul smiled with a sort of good-natured cynicism. 'You don't know Stephanie's husband, but he was cast by Nature for the role of "the man who married the wrong woman." I'm sure it goes down wonderfully with almost any little fool he wants to dazzle. And the beauty of it is that he did marry the wrong woman. Only it's she who did the paying, not he. Your born philanderer will always find a dozen occasions when it's useful to be able to say "If it were not for my wife——" '

'I see,' Marigold said slowly. 'I quite—see.' And if she had never felt ashamed before, she would have felt it then.

In spite of everything, the rest of the evening was enchanting. At first Marigold thought her anxiety and agitation must surely spoil everything. But after a while, a sort of reckless happiness took possession of her—a determination to enjoy every moment of this evening with Paul, even if there were never another one like it.

Something in his own mood seemed to match hers. Or perhaps it was just that, like all people who live dangerous lives—and she remembered with a stab of fear that the description fitted him exactly—he knew perfectly how to enjoy the present without worrying too much about the future.

Afterwards it was difficult to remember just what it was that had made the evening so memorable—apart, of course, from the grim significance of its early disclosure. But long after Paul had taken her home and said a friendly—even affectionate—good-night to her, Marigold sat before her gas-fire, ready for bed, but in her dressing-gown, thinking over the hours with him.

Measured beside the worldly, polished charm of Lindley, he could hardly be rated as overwhelmingly attractive. And yet just to be with him meant such happiness and content that Marigold sat dreaming of the way he smiled, the way he spoke, the way he laughed, until the sudden recollection of the danger in which she stood set her desperately seeking in her troubled mind for safeguards and reassurances.

One thing was quite certain. A divorce suit would be brought against Lindley and, quite inescapably, she herself—whether anonymously or by name—would have her place in it.

On the side of possible security, she might count the fact that probably all parties wanted it carried through as impersonally as possible. There were not likely to be 'scenes,' with reproaches, explanations and discussions, in which her name might be disclosed by accident.

But, on the other hand, it seemed fantastically impossible that she could go through the next few months as Stephanie's friend, and, no doubt, to a certain extent her confidante, without once letting slip the fact that she was the unknown correspondent who was making the divorce possible.

'It isn't as though one knows about these dreadful things until one's in it up to the neck,' thought Marigold distractedly. 'I've only the vaguest idea of how a divorce suit is conducted. I may suddenly find myself face to face with exposure, simply because I don't know what precaution to take.'

And then she wondered, for perhaps the hundredth time, if it would not be simpler to admit herself beaten and just cut adrift from the whole situation by going right away somewhere where Paul and Stephanie could not trace her.

But the practical difficulties of such a course seemed insurmountable, as soon as she began to consider them seriously, if reluctantly. Besides, nearly every instinct except fear argued passionately on the other side. To relinquish Stephanie—to relinquish Paul—without fighting every inch of the way had now become unthinkable.

Suppose she did somehow manage to come through this nerve-racking ordeal without discovery—wouldn't that be worth almost anything? She could even feel that she had somehow lived in anxiety and misery for her folly and had some sort of right to happiness. After all, it had amounted to no more than folly in the end. Indeed, the curious thing was that no real grounds for a divorce existed, if one came to think of it!

At that point, the complications became too much for Marigold, and she went to bed, telling herself that she must make her real decision later. But she knew in her heart that her decision was made. She would go on with this thing, and hold on to her happiness until it was torn from her by main force.

The rest of her week in Mr. Foster's office passed uneventfully. If Lindley felt that their conversation had been interrupted at an untimely moment, at least he made no attempt to continue it in office hours.

Marigold had a few free days in between leaving her work at the office and going to her new job at the nursery school. But, without quite arguing out the matter to herself, she spent as much time as possible away from home. After all, Lindley naturally knew where she lived —and it was as well not to invite fresh difficulties.

On one of her free days, at Stephanie's suggestion, she went to the big old-fashioned house where the school had been opened, and was taken round the place as a visitor.

The house, standing in its own somewhat dilapidated grounds, had probably been the home of some prosperous City man thirty or forty years before. The rooms were big and lofty, with the exception of the kitchen regions, which, according to the ideas of those days, had naturally been planned with every disregard for comfort and convenience, and then been tucked away in the basement.

'We've had to write off most of the kitchen regions as unusable,' Stephanie explained. 'So we've had outhouses built on at the back for cooking and washing, and there's nothing much in the basement now except the boiler.'

'All your own arrangement?' Marigold enquired, and, as Stephanie nodded: 'You're really a very practical person and good organiser, aren't you?'

'Oh, I don't know.' Stephanie laughed. 'I have a lot of good advice and help from David Trevlin. He's our doctor. He comes in twice a week—unless, of course, I want him for a special case. Look, this will be your room. It's small, but it's nice.'

It was indeed nice, Marigold decided, as she looked with pleasure round the small, cosy room, with its big window looking on the garden. The furniture was mostly old-fashioned and had obviously been collected from more than one source, but it was attractively arranged, and a bright wood fire added a pleasant touch.

'Would you like to have a look at the babies now?' Stephanie asked. 'They'll be having their midday sleep, so they'll all be quiet and presentable.'

'Yes, of course. I'd love to.'

So Marigold was taken to a long, airy room, which ran the full length of the house from back to front. Down each side of the room was a row of small camp-beds on which reposed children varying in age from two to five, all of them in a state of angelic peace and quiet, almost too good to be true.

'Oh, you don't have absolute babies?' asked Marigold in an awed whisper.

'Not at the moment. Though we're probably going to have a few later on in another part of the house. These ones have simple lessons part of the time. At least, the older ones do.'

'I see.'

'I see you too,' remarked a husky little voice from the nearest bed. And Marigold turned to find herself under the scrutiny of one extremely bright blue eye. The owner, a fat little boy of about five, had the other eye tightly closed, presumably in deference to the fact that he was supposed to be asleep.

Marigold very much wanted to laugh, but Stephanie said gravely:

'You should be asleep, Kevin.'

'I am, miss—half,' Kevin said and reluctantly closed the other eye.

Stephanie and Marigold then withdrew, Marigold remarking with a laugh, as soon as they were safely outside the door:

'I'm going to love working here.'

'Oh, I expect you will,' Stephanie linked her arm in hers. 'I wouldn't do anything else for the world.'

'Oh, you wouldn't, of course,' Marigold said. 'You're cut out for this sort of thing. In fact, you ought to have a home and family of your——Oh, I'm so sorry. How clumsy and stupid of me!'

'No, it's all right, really. You needn't behave as though there's a death in the house, just because I and my husband haven't made a success of things,' Stephanie assured her. 'Come on into my room and let's talk. I've got a free half- hour.' And she took Marigold to a room on the first floor, where the view of the garden and the general air of homeliness and comfort was much the same as in her own room.

When they were seated either side of the fire, Stephanie said frankly:

'I don't mind talking about things, you know. At least, not to you. I kept it all bottled up for years, particularly before Paul and I quite got to the point of discussing it. But now—oh, I suppose I've really accepted things as they are, and there's a sort of relief in facing the worst and deciding quite finally on what you're going to do.'

'Yes,' Marigold agreed, and her own private thoughts gave point to that. 'It's when you don't know what on earth to do that you're so acutely miserable.'

Stephanie nodded, and for a moment there was silence. Then Marigold said, a little diffidently:

'Paul says you've decided to divorce Lind —your husband.'

'Um-hm.' Stephanie stared thoughtfully into the fire. 'It isn't as though I haven't given things a chance to right themselves. There does come u point when it's—oh, degrading to go on. Ami then the best thing is a clean break.'

'You aren't—I mean, you don't sound as though there's any very deep feeling involved,' Marigold ventured.

'No, I won't pretend there is now. At one time, of course, there was. But, to be quite frank, it was the old case of marrying in haste, Marigold, and I've had a lot of time to repent,' Stephanie said with a little grimace.

'I'm sorry, Stephanie.' Marigold spoke from the bottom of her heart. 'You're the kind of person who should have a much fairer deal than that.'

'Oh, I don't know about that.' Stephanie smiled and shrugged slightly. 'Stupid mistakes usually have to be paid for.'

'That's true.' Once more Marigold's own reflections made her speak with feeling. 'But I wish there were—oh, something more for you to look forward to. You've got such a warm and rich personality. It shouldn't all just be sidetracked on good works and that sort of thing.'

Stephanie laughed and flushed.

'I don't know that it's going to be—since you put it so kindly.' And then, as Marigold looked enquiring—'I don't expect you'll be surprised to hear that there's someone a good deal more important than Lindley nowadays.'

Marigold gasped slightly. And then of course she saw.

'You mean—you'll marry again?'

'Um-hm. I don't want to talk about it yet, because there's something rather indecent in talking about one husband before you're rid of the other, however unworthy he may be. But—well, don't worry about me from that point of view.'

'I—won't,' Marigold said slowly. 'And I'm very glad, for your sake, Stephanie. Really glad.'

'I knew you would be. That's why I told you.' Stephanie smiled. 'And now I must send you off. The children will be waking up soon and I've several things to do before then. Ring me up if there's anything else you want to know, and I'll expect you here to-morrow morning.'

Marigold bade her good-bye and went downstairs, letting herself out quietly by the big front door, in case any extra sound should awaken the young charges, of whom she was still considerably in awe.

Out in the street once more, she made for the bus stop, but, on sudden impulse, she turned in the opposite direction, so that she could walk across the Park and pick up her bus at another point. It was a cold, grey day, not very inviting for walking, but Marigold felt suddenly an overwhelming urge to be alone with her thoughts, and the idea of a crowded bus was hateful.

As she walked through the Park a sharp wind stirred the branches and blew down the very last of the autumn leaves. Very few people were about, and by the time Marigold had walked a few hundred yards she seemed almost alone in the world, the distant hum of the traffic serving only to emphasise the stillness around her.

So that was it! And she had been too stupid and absorbed to realise what was staring her in the face. It was partly because she had thought of Paul and Stephanie as really brother and sister instead of—as was actually the case—no relation at all.

Now she realised the exact significance of what Paul had said about Stephanie's marriage taking place while he was abroad, and of his coming home too late to do anything. And then his keeping out of the way, in case of spoiling things—that was more understandable than ever now. But when he had realised that her marriage had completely foundered on the rocks—well, when he had said what was in his mind. And the result was that she had decided to divorce Lindley.

Marigold walked on rather slowly, telling herself now that she was truly glad to think that her good friends would find happiness together. In an odd way, she smiled rather wryly to herself —she would be providing the means for them to find that happiness.

Only an utterly mean-spirited person would feel anything but glad and happy to think that all was to end so well for the two people who had been so kind to her. Of course she was glad that Stephanie was to marry Paul. Of course she was glad that Paul was to marry---------

Marigold swallowed rather hard.

If anyone were silly enough to entertain hopes and dream dreams without any foundation —well, they must expect to have a rude awakening.

Not that this was a rude awakening. And anyway, she'd hardly known Paul any time. Certainly not long enough——

And it was rather stupid to go walking in the Park on a bleak day like this. Naturally one felt a bit depressed and miserable. If she had had any sense she would have jumped straight on her butt and gone home, instead of wandering about the Park feeling sorry for herself, for no reason whatever.

Here she was with a good job, good friends and more than a possibility of escaping from u dreadful complication for which she had only herself to blame. She might well consider herself to be extraordinarily lucky.

And, with this very sensible reflection, Mari gold took the shortest cut she could find back to the main road again, bought an afternoon paper, and read it steadily all the way home in the bus.

She had just stepped inside the front door when the telephone, which stood in the hall and reluctantly did duty for all the inmates of all the flatlets, shrilled loudly.

Marigold picked up the receiver and almost immediately Paul's voice sounded in her ear:

'Could I speak to Miss Turner, please?'

'Oh, Paul, I'm speaking.'

'Hello, Marigold!' He sounded amazingly pleased, considering she was only the friend of his future wife. 'I hoped I'd catch you. What about a theatre tonight? It's your last twenty-four hours of freedom, isn't it?'

'I hadn't thought of it that way,' Marigold sighed. 'But I'd love to come. That is'—she caught herself up suddenly—'are you sure you and Stephanie wouldn't rather go on your own? You don't really want a third party, do you?'

'Don't be absurd,' Paul retorted promptly. Anyway, Stephanie isn't coming. She's busy with something else.'

'I'll call for you about six. That will give us lime to get something to eat before we go. Agreed?'

'Agreed,' Marigold said, unable to contain her pleasure. And then she hung up the receiver and ran upstairs to her room, so eager to be ready by the time he arrived that there was no occasion to sit and ask herself whether she were being wise or foolish.

At six o'clock precisely Paul presented himself, and as Marigold came down the stairs to the hall where he was waiting for her—looking up the stairway to watch her coming—she thought she had never until that moment appreciated to the full how attractive he was. The well-set, laughing eyes, the firm mouth and chin, the lazy, rather teasing smile which entirely belied the real energy of his disposition

Ah well, Stephanie was a lucky woman. And no one had ever more truly merited luck, Marigold reminded herself sharply, as Paul took her hand in his.

'I'm sorry Stephanie wasn't able to come too,' Marigold said, and in that moment she honestly thought that was true.

'She'll come another time,' he assured her easily as they went out of the house together. 'She phoned me this afternoon after you'd left the school and—'

'Oh, did she suggest your taking me out?' Marigold was not quite sure whether it was relief or a sort of vague, unworthy disappointment which prompted that.

'Oh, no.' Paul smiled to himself. 'I do have some bright ideas all on my own, you know.'

Marigold laughed, but she felt slightly uncomfortable. She really very much wanted to ask whether Stephanie even knew they were out together, and to be reassured that she did. But to ask the question would immediately attach a ridiculous and unsuitable significance to it. So she said instead:

'I suppose Stephanie told you how delighted I was with the school, and that I'm sure I'm going to love working there.'

'Yes. She seemed to think you and she were going to work together splendidly. I believe Stephanie has some sort of idea that her run of bad luck is over, and that everything will go smoothly for her from now on. I don't know whether you're her mascot or something.' And he grinned at Marigold mischievously.

'I'd like to be,' Marigold said, thinking how odd this turn of the conversation had become. 'Anyway, I hope she's right about everything going well now. I'm sure she's right,' she added earnestly.

She wondered whether she might say something tactful at this point about how glad she was to hear that her two good friends were going to be happy together. But somehow that seemed a little premature, considering that the proceedings for the necessary divorce which must come first had not even been begun.

The play he took her to was not an unmixed pleasure to Marigold. The acting was excellent, the theme absorbing, but it centred round a situation in which the heroine was driven by circumstances to deceive the man she loved. And although, of course, one could not think of an exact parallel in one's own life—well, an uneasy conscience certainly did seem to provide an extraordinary number of circumstances in which one felt uncomfortable and saw a reflection of oneself.

Afterwards they walked part of the way home, through a cold, clear, moonlit night which had, most unexpectedly, succeeded the misty day.

'Did you enjoy it?' Paul asked anxiously, perhaps disquieted by her silence.

'Yes. Very much, of course.' It was she who slipped her arm into his that time, and immediately received a warm pressure of her hand.

'I thought you seemed rather quiet.'

'I was only thinking.' That was true enough. 'I was wondering what I should have done in that girl's place.'

'Um? Oh, she'd have done much better to have been frank in the first place,' Paul declared with easy assurance. 'Never does to complicate life with a string of secrets and misunderstandings between people who are fond of each other.'

'Sometimes it can't be helped.'

'Nonsense, Marigold. It's always best to have the truth out and take what's coming to you.'

'Suppose one loses everything that matters by doing that? Suppose in this case that the girl had just lost her husband?'

'She wouldn't have. There'd have been an awful flare-up, and everyone would have thought they'd never be happy again. And then ordinary, everyday life would have reasserted itself, and somehow they would have patched things up because they were necessary to each other.' Paul was quite positive, and Marigold found herself almost amusedly envying his capacity for reducing life to simple terms.

'Well, perhaps in this particular case,' she conceded doubtfully. 'Because they were necessary to each other. But there are other circumstances where I could imagine '

'But why imagine them? You sound as though you're making yourself quite miserable about it, and it's only a theoretical problem,' Paul protested with a laugh.

'All right.' She laughed slightly too, though she felt singularly little amusement when she reflected that the problem was far from being purely theoretical. 'Life presents itself in pretty simple terms to you, doesn't it, Paul?' she said slowly.

'Meaning that I'm a simple soul without much sensitive perception?' he suggested without rancour.

'No! Of course not. I only meant that I think you see right and wrong nearly as clearly as black and white, so you make your decisions without much hesitation. You aren't troubled by —well, what one might call the shades of grey.'

'I suppose not.' He considered that reflectively. 'I know the few things I couldn't forgive in other people and I don't find any temptation to do them myself, if that's what you mean. Otherwise, let other people be happy in their own weird way, and I'll be the same in mine, is my motto.'

Marigold laughed irresistibly, deliberately rejecting the desire to ask what were the le things he could not forgive either in himself o other people. Instead she said:

'No wonder Stephanie is so fond of you.'

'Why, Marigold'—he slowed down almost to standstill—'that's an extraordinarily nice thing for you to say.'

Something in his tone sent Marigold's heart racing—racing frightenedly, and all at once tin long, empty, moonlit street seemed to take on u strange quality of intimacy, as though they well no longer in the open air, but alone in a room, shut away from all the rest of the world.

With a tremendous effort, she blurted out the only safe remark—the only saving remark in the circumstances—which came to her mind.

'Yes, I think you suit her marvellously. I—I'm awfully glad about it. She told me this afternoon.'

"Told you what?' He had stopped now, and turned so that he faced her, but because he had not released her arm they were very close together.

'Why, that—that after she's got her divorce, you and she—I don't know why I didn't guess it before. It was stupid of me, because of course you'd have to be in love with her. No one could know her so well and not——'

'The deuce I should! You little cuckoo!' And suddenly he kissed her, and it seemed a perfectly natural part of this extraordinary scene. Haven't you enough sense to know when a man's in love with you, instead of packing him painstakingly on to someone else? I think Stephanie's twenty-two-carat gold all through, but I'm not a bit in love with her.'

'But——' A sort of delicious horror engulfed Marigold, and she struggled against the over- over whelming desire to cling to Paul and kiss him. 'But she thinks——'

'Who does? Stephanie?' Marigold nodded wordlessly. 'What does she think? Nothing about my heart-breaking charm, I can assure you.

She's too much wrapped up in that doctor of hers, David Trevlin. It's he she's in love with and going to marry, you absurd child. He'll suit her, if you like.'

'Oh!' Marigold gave a great gasp, in which astonishment and the most shameless relief were equally mingled. 'I thought——'

'Yes, I know what you thought.' His arms were round her now and he was laughing down at her, and if the scene had been a rose-garden in June instead of a London street in November it could not have been more romantic. 'I know what you thought. You've just told me. You thought I'd suit Stephanie marvellously, and you were awfully glad about it. You little liar! Just try to tell me that again. There's only one girl I suit, and that's you, and the sooner you get used to that idea, the better.'

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