CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI

In the first second of horrified surprise, Marigold wondered dully if this were the sort of thing that made one faint.

What probably restored her was the realisalion that Lindley was almost as much taken aback as she was.

'Why, Mari!' It was really only a moment before he found his voice, but it seemed like some limitless period of time. 'Mari, what in heaven's name are you doing here?'

'I—I'm staying here,' she said, faintly and rather foolishly.

'Staying here?' And then, before she could stop him—even if she had had any such intention—he gently put her aside and came into the house, closing the door behind him.

'Where is Stephanie?'

'She—she's not here. She's in London.'

'In London! I imagined her here all the time.'

'And I,' thought Marigold bitterly, 'imagined you in America.' How idiotic it had been ever to suppose that so simple and satisfactory a state of affairs existed, just because one wished it would.

'Then what are you doing here?' He took her arm in the old, familiar way and went with her into the lounge. His whole air was now that of a man who felt very much at home. As no doubt lit did, in one sense. 'I don't understand this business at all. It would be strange enough to have you here with Stephanie. But that you're here without her is simply inexplicable.'

He paused, interrogatively Marigold felt, and she knew she would have to say something now.

'Yes, it—it must seem odd,' she began. Then, because that sounded so stupid and unhelpful, she added: 'I know Stephanie very well. I work with her.'

'Work with her? And how long have you known her? What is all this mystery, Mari?'

He sat down in an armchair by the fire—the chair in which Paul had been sitting only a quarter of an hour ago—and stretched out his long legs comfortably in front of him. He was not angry, she saw. At least, if he was, he had no intention of showing it, for his smile was perfectly friendly.

But he was puzzled, perhaps even a little intrigued—and certainly not without a touch of anxiety, though that too he contrived very largely to conceal.

Marigold sat down slowly on the arm of the chair opposite him. She was wondering how little she could manage to say—how much she would be forced to say. 'There really isn't any mystery about it. I—I happen to know Stephanie——'

How long have you known her?' he interrupted quickly, and for a moment his eyes narrowed as she had seen them do once before. 'You didn't, by any chance, know her before you knew me?'

'No, of course not. I didn't even know what she was like. I took your account of her at its face value.' He made a slight grimace and said: 'Is there a reproof implied in that?' 'You know best if one is deserved,' Marigold retorted with sudden spirit. 'Anyway, I don't want to discuss Stephanie with you. I did come to know her——'

'How?'

'That doesn't matter.' Marigold brushed the interruption aside with more authority than she would have believed possible. 'I—I happen to have'—she cleared her throat—'a few days' leave, and she lent me her house. But if you came down here to see Stephanie, then I'm afraid—I'm afraid you'll have to go straight back to London.'

'And suppose I don't choose to go straight back to London, Mari?' His smile suddenly had a quality of gay impertinence which made him look much younger and reminded her for a flaring instant that she had once found him irresistible. 'Suppose I too have a few days' leave before going to America—'

'Then you are still going?' She was unable to hide the eagerness behind that.

'Yes, I'm still going, though there has been some delay. You would have been glad of that delay once, Mari.'

There was no reproach in that. Merely a statement of fact, and a statement so true that she was unable to find a reply. He was quick to see the advantage of that silence, because he said almost immediately:

'Has everything changed so much between us?'

But her reaction was not quite what he expected. Her grey eyes widened in something like horror and she exclaimed:

'Oh, yes, yes! It could hardly have changed more. And what did you mean by saying you might not choose to go back to

London? You—you'll have to go, won't you?'

He laughed, with the faintest touch of irritation in the sound, and shrugged.

'It may not be my house exactly, but at least it is my wife's house, and until now I have always regarded it as a place where I can stay.'

'But, Lindley you—can't.' Dismay seemed to hold her in such a paralysing grip that she could only protest sharply, instead of taking the situation in hand and dismissing him with authority.

He looked across at her, those brilliant dark eyes of his amused and challenging.

'I take it,' he said quite coolly, 'that we are alone—and should be for the whole weekend.'

She sprang to her feet, divided between the horror of remembering that Paul might return at any minute and the fury of realising how Lindley regarded her.

'How dare you speak to me like that! How dare you even insinuate what you are suggesting? Didn't I make myself clear enough when I said—'

'Now, wait a moment, Mari.' He was unmoved by her outburst—indeed he seemed more than a little amused by it. 'You didn't expect this to happen. Nor did I. No one could have been more surprised to find you here than I was. But there's a saying about taking what Gift gods give and being thankful, you know. No, don't be so hot about it,' as she tried to interrupt him again. 'Listen to what I have to say.' He leant forward and lightly caught her by her hand, so that she could not escape. 'If you loved me as much as you said in the old days—'

He stopped suddenly, and she saw, as she stared down into his face, that his expression had completely altered. For a moment she could not imagine what had happened. Then she realised, as he jerked her hand forward, that it was her left hand which he had taken.

For the second time in their lives they both gazed wordlessly at a plain gold ring on the third finger of her left hand. But this time he had not put it there.

After what seemed like a very long while, he said:

'So that's it? There's someone else.'

'Yes.' She was surprised that she found her voice so easily. 'There is someone else.'

'You ran away from a weekend with me, in spite of all your protests. But you're prepared to do it with——'

Afterwards Marigold was both ashamed and pleased to remember that she snatched her hand

away and dealt him a smart slap on his cheek.

How dare you assume such a thing!' she exclaimed furiously. 'It may seem very strange to you, but I'm on my honeymoon.'

'Your—what?' He put his hand to his cheek almost absently, his anger at the blow completely swamped by his surprise at what she had said. Your honeymoon? But, my dear Mari, who on earth is the happy man? And—forgive my curiosity—where is he?'

'He—he's gone out for a few minutes. And it's Paul Irving, and he'll be back at any moment, Lindley, and—oh, I wish you would go!'

The anger and violence had suddenly all gone out of her. She remembered much too late that perhaps it would have been better to have been pleasant, to have appealed to him not to spoil her game, to have pretended to be rather a woman of the world, whose feelings were not much involved but who expected some sort of loyalty to the rules of the game, as between one graceless person and another.

Lindley, who had a sense of humour, might well have responded to that type of appeal. The only difficulty was, of course, that Marigold's qualifications for appearing as a woman of the world were few and not very convincing.

But now she had done the very worst thing of all. She had shown him that she was frightened and that she knew he had the advantage of her. She had not made the very smallest attempt to bluff her way out of her predicament, and now she was actually pleading instead of demanding.

She stood there, biting her lip, finding the greatest difficulty in keeping back her tears or stopping herself from trembling. And as she did so, he repeated slowly.

'Paul—Irving?'

She nodded. 'It—it was through him that I came to know Stephanie. I haven't known him very long either. Only—only——'

'Only since you ran away from me at the hotel,' he said, still speaking slowly. And because there was nothing else to do, she nodded again.

'It was Paul who took you away that night?'

'Yes, Lindley.'

'Then he knows all about your being there with me?'

'Oh, no! No, he doesn't. I haven't explained that. You see, I asked him to take me away with him, because there was no train and I wanted a lift in his car. It seemed like Providence,' she added rather confusedly. 'I told him some story about having gone there with an uncle who was nasty and—'

'And he believed you?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Yes, I suppose he would,' Lindley said. 'You have a truthful face.' And somehow that made her want to cry again, but again she choked back the tears.

'He never guessed for one moment what had really happened '

'It didn't happen anyway,' Lindley pointed out with a certain brutal dryness.

She flushed.

'He didn't guess how it was I was really there. He accepted my story and brought me here to Stephanie.'

'By God, that's funny!' Lindley declared, but he didn't laugh. 'So it was you who spoke on the telephone the next day?'

'Yes.'

'Very well. What happened next?'

'He took me back to London on the Sunday night. And I'd said something to Stephanie about wanting to change my job. I did want to change it. It seemed the—the only thing.'

'In order to get away from me?'

She passed the tip of her tongue over her lips and then said rather defiantly, 'Yes'. Then as he made no further move to interrupt her, she went on:

'Stephanie happened to want someone to help her in the office of the nursery school where sin- works. We—we liked each other from the first, She wasn't a bit as I had supposed. And when she asked me if I would like to work with her, I jumped at it.'

'Wasn't that risking rather a lot?'

'Yes, I suppose it was. But I—I had to.'

'Why?' He was genuinely curious about that.

Marigold hesitated, trying to remember what it was that had made her feel she had to take that job with Stephanie. Why, in the face of every prompting of caution, she had clung to the connection with the two last people on earth she ought to have cultivated. At the time, the impulse to accept had been overwhelming. Now it was not so easy to explain to someone else.

And then he found the answer for her.

'I suppose,' he said dryly, 'you already thought yourself half in love with Irving.'

'I didn't think it. I was,' Marigold retorted quickly. And she knew that was the truth.

'You're something of a quick-change artist, my love,' he told her, with that slight lift of the eyebrows which she had always found amusing when he spoke mockingly of someone else. Now the almost hated him for it, as she said curtly and finally:

'I can't help that. That's the way things were. And I was married to Paul this morning. Oh, and'—as she remembered the fact again, she turned pale—'and he'll be back at any moment. I can't think why he hasn't come before.'

'Perhaps he hasn't been so long as you think,' Lindley retorted lightly. 'I've only been here ten minutes.'

She stared in stupefaction at the clock confirming that fact for herself. Ten minutes! And nearly everything in the world had changed.

'It seems much longer,' she muttered involuntarily.

'It always does at a time of crisis,' he assured her with a touch of cynical amusement.

'But anyway, he can't be more than a few minutes now.'

'And what,' Lindley enquired coolly, 'do you expect me to do?'

'You must go! Don't you see that you must go?' She was nearly frantic as she realised by how fragile a thread her whole happiness hung. 'If he finds you here—'

'Yes? What will he think if he finds me here? I thought you said he didn't know of any connection between us. I've called here to see my wife, I find someone else's wife instead. Is that my fault —or yours?'

'No. No, of course not. Only you must see how impossible it all is. You must see.'

She really meant that he must see it was beyond her to remain calm and apparently unknowing if both Paul and Lindley were there together. But she saw, with frightened dismay, that the situation appealed to Lindley's rather cruel sense of humour.

He could be so charming, so good-tempered, so easy-going on the surface. But she guessed instinctively that he had not by any mean, forgiven the affront to his pride over that cursed weekend. And it had not become any more acceptable to him because he found he had been cut out by a younger man—and a man whom he already disliked very heartily. That little streak of cruelty in him found considerable satisfaction in the idea of humiliating and frightening the girl who had so unexpectedly refused to fall in with his plans and desires.

That she should receive this sharp lesson on the first day of her honeymoon struck him as genuinely amusing.

There was a short silence between them while he refused, she saw, even to answer the appeal she had made to him. Desperately she sought found in her mind for words or arguments that would move him. But even as she did so, her furs, their hearing cruelly sharpened by the anxiety of the moment, caught the sound of the gate at the end of the drive being opened and then dosed.

'Lindley—please! There are only a couple of moments left.'

'Nonsense, my dear.' He smiled at her, and she knew then that his smile could be hateful. 'You don't expect me to slip out at the back of the house as the unsuspecting husband comes in at the front. That would be suggesting a guilty secret, if you like.'

She didn't say any more after that. She knew that he meant to stay now. In any case, it was too late for him to go. She must concentrate all the energy and ingenuity she had on facing out the situation boldly. If she kept her nerve, it was just possible that she might stave off disaster even now.

She pushed back her fair hair rather wearily, and was faintly surprised to find that her head was damp. Crossing the room to the mirror she passed her handkerchief over her face and then deliberately powdered her nose and added touch of colour to her lips, while all the time Lindley leant back in his chair and watched hot smilingly. She thought, as she glanced at hit reflection in the mirror, that his amusement was not untinged with a certain admiration. Perhaps he was surprised to find she had enough courage to go through with this. Certainly she was.

It had all taken only a few seconds, and her nerves were now strung up for the sound of the bell, which would be the signal for her to run out into the hall and begin the comedy.

Instead there was the sound of a key in the door, and she remembered then that, of course, Paul had a key. She might have thought of that when Lindley rang the bell, and then she would have been less unprepared. But it was too late now to bother about that. She had to rearrange what she had intended to do, and even that small alteration shook her nerve. But she had to speak to Paul before he came into the room.

With hardly a glance at Lindley, who remained completely unmoved by all this, she sent out into the hall, closing the door behind—

'Paul.' She hoped her tone held just the right amount of concern to indicate annoyance and embarrassment, without implying fear and indigsation.

Hello, darling. I'm sorry I was such a time.' He was completely unaware of her tone holding anything except pleasure at his return.

'Paul, there's something I've got to tell you. Lindley's here. I mean, Stephanie's husband is here.'

Why hadn't she said 'Stephanie's husband' right away? That was the natural expression to use if one didn't know him. Why say 'Lindley' as though she knew him as an individual, apart from his being Stephanie's husband? But perhaps that didn't matter. Paul probably hadn't noticed in the surprise and disgust of the moment.

She had never seen his expression quite so grim and uncompromising, and instinctively she said in an anxious, urgent whisper—

'Don't make him angry, Paul.'

'Angry? I'd like to make him sorry he was born,' Paul said, quite pleasantly and quietly. 'You stay out of this, darling. There's nothing to be frightened about. But it just isn't anything to do with you.'

But it was! It was! And she could not afford to stay out of it. And she couldn't afford to let him make Lindley angry.

'Paul, he didn't come with any intention of being horrid.' How she hated to have to defend him! 'He thought Stephanie was here. He was astounded to find me here. I—I had to explain who I was. Just be cool and polite, Paul, and get rid of him as soon as you can.'

If he was surprised at her concern he didn't show it. He didn't even answer her explanations and advice, but gently detached the hand with which—she was surprised to find—she was clinging to his arm. Then he went into the room. And because there was nothing else to do, she followed him rather helplessly.

Even at the sight of Paul, Lindley made no attempt to change his comfortable and casual position.

'Hello.' He nodded with that careless smile of his. 'Congratulations. I hear you're on your honeymoon.'

'What do you want?' Paul asked coldly, without any attempt either to offer or return any greetings.

'Want? Oh, my dear Paul, don't use that tone which sounds so painfully as though you think I might have come to borrow money. A vice which I have never included among my repertoire of things, let me remind you. I came here expecting to find my wife, and instead I find yours. She has made me charmingly welcome, by the way in my wife's house. Is there any other explanation required?'

'Yes. I see no reason why you wanted to come badgering Stephanie. And, since you found she wasn't here, I see no reason why you didn't take yourself off again at once.'

'I was given to understand that if I waited a few minutes I should have the pleasure of seeing you,' Lindley explained with his most charming smile.

Paul failed to react to the charm.

'Well, you've seen me. Now you can get out.'

'Oh, really, your regard for the laws of hospitality—'

"All right, Marne, that's enough fooling. It isn't even particularly amusing in a man of your age.' Marigold noticed that quick narrowing of the eyes which, she knew now, always meant anger or wariness in Lindley. 'I happen to be in possession of this house for the moment, and I can think of no one I'm less anxious to see here than you. I can't say I shouldn't enjoy putting you out bodily, but I'm prepared to forgo the pleasure if you prefer to get out on your own in the next few minutes.'

'Is this demonstration of the masterful male calculated to intrigue your wife?' murmured Lindley, but he got to his feet—though certainly in a leisurely way—and stood on the hearthrug, with his hands thrust into his pockets.

'You know the way to the door,' Paul said pleasantly. 'Excuse me if I cut some of the privileges of a host.'

'Where shall I find Stephanie?' Lindley asked, still almost casually, but the bantering note had gone completely from his voice.

'I've no intention of telling you that,' Paul said, without any elaboration of the point.

'But, my dear fellow, I've every right to know where my own wife is.'

'I don't think so. She hasn't the slightest wish to see you. I don't intend that she shall be bothered by you.

Lindley's smile became a shade more dangerous, so that Marigold, standing rather helplessly in the background, found suddenly that she wanted to sit down, and groped for a chair.

'Aren't you taking rather a lot on yourself?' Lindley suggested. 'Undertaking to speak for Stephanie quite so positively.'

'Possibly.' Paul seemed quite unmoved by this barge. 'But I've no intention of shifting from that position. Stephanie doesn't wish to see you. That's all that interests me. Incidentally—in case your solicitors haven't already informed you of the fact—she is starting divorce proceedings against you. You may as well know that. It might simplify your views about seeing her.'

Marigold wondered if she really caught her breath audibly. She knew that she had made a .light gesture towards Paul, as though she would restrain him from saying any more. But both men had practically forgotten her existence for the moment, and she felt as helpless to stop the course of events as she would have been to stop a mountain stream with her hand.

'Divorce, eh?' It was evidently news to Lindley, but he took it with admirable coolness. 'Where's the evidence?'

'If you weren't such a skunk,' Paul said thoughtfully, 'I could almost admire your effrontery. You know as well as I do that your behaviour towards Stephanie has been disgusting for years-, and yet you can——'

'I wasn't talking of behaviour,' Lindley reminded him smoothly. 'I was talking of a dence. Quite a different thing, you know. Extremely concrete and so necessary in a court of law.'

'Oh, don't be a fool,' Paul said with contemptuous impatience. 'What about your week end at Porterville at the beginning of the month, if you want a specific case?'

'Oh—that?' The smile which broke over Lindley's face told Marigold immediately that one man, at least, had now remembered her presence in the room. 'An entirely harmless and innocent occasion, I assure you.'

'I don't want your assurance,' Paul retorted dryly. 'I know all I want to know about that weekend.'

'From whom?'

'I happened to be there.'

'I see.' Lindley seemed genuinely interested. 'And you talked it over with—my young friend.'

'Your young——Oh, good lord, no!' Paul laughed contemptuously. 'I don't know or care who the little sweep was. Hotel registers are useful things, you know.'

To Marigold's horror, Lindley began to laugh, so that she thought Paul must surely guess that something was wrong.

'So you're not interested in the—little sweep's identity? Really, Paul, you're almost too academic and impersonal. Well, perhaps you're right. Perhaps that's the way these things should be conducted. But don't be absolutely sure of your case till the decree comes through. Not even interested, eh? Marvellous objectivity.' Then he broke off, perhaps because he saw Paul was not very far from hitting him under the jaw, perhaps because he knew that Marigold was not very far I mm fainting.

'I'll have to go now. I'm glad we've had this little talk. And I'm glad to have met your charming wife.'

Paul too remembered Marigold then, and turned to her with quick concern.

'All right,' she whispered. 'Don't bother about me.' And she almost prayed that her expression was not showing more than the natural concern and embarrassment which any young wife might feel at having this unpleasant family scene forced upon her on the first day of her honeymoon.

But the next moment she found that she had to achieve more than that. She had to stand up and receive Lindley's polite good-bye, delivered with such an air of cynical amusement that it] was all she could do to maintain an air of cool aloofness, suited to her position as a stranger who deplored his behaviour without having any personal interest in it.

Somehow she achieved the almost impossible. And then both the men had gone out of the room, and she was free to sink down in her chair again, and lean back for a blessed instant with her eyes closed, while fear and apprehension and relief flooded over her in turn, like waves which literally threatened to drown her.

At first there was nothing but the sick, shuddering reaction from the strain of the scene which had just passed. Then came the dread and terror of what might develop later. But finally —as though human nature had stood all that it could and now must find some relief, however temporary—she could think of nothing but the fact that Lindley had gone at last, and still Paul had no idea of her part in all this.

It was ridiculous to cling to that one bit of spurious comfort. Even as she did so, she had to remember too that because he knew nothing, she had had to plunge deeper and deeper into deception, so that ultimate exposure had become an even more horrible thing, if it should ever come.

And what genuine hope was there of being able 10 avoid it?

'But I can't think of that now,' Marigold told herself with defiant despair. 'I simply can't think of that now. I've been saved for the moment. I'm on my honeymoon, I'm Paul's wife. If I'm found out tomorrow, I shall still have been Paul's wife for a few hours. That's all anyone in my position can hope for—to see a few hours ahead.'

For a moment her thoughts became so desperately confused that her head quite literally ached. Then, unaccountably, Paul was beside her, and his voice said very tenderly:

'Here, drink this, darling. What is it? You weren't really frightened by that damned cad, were you?'

'No,' whispered Marigold, knowing that she had probably never been more frightened in her life. 'No. I'm really quite all right. My head ached a bit, and— and I just shut my eyes for a moment.'

He accepted her explanation, but he looked at her with some concern, and Marigold cursed herself for the stupid touch of faintness which must have come over her. He would think she was like some Victorian heroine—fainting because two men had an argument in front of her. Or would he perhaps begin to wonder if there- were some thing more to it than that—some personal element which he had not thought of until that moment?

But, with the realisation that her tormented imagination was about to present new and more terrifying possibilities to her, Marigold made a supreme effort at self-control.

She sat up and smiled at Paul.

'I'm perfectly all right now. He has gone, hasn't he?'

'What, Lindley? I should say he has. What pleasure it would have given me to kick him down the front steps! I say, darling, I'm most frightfully sorry to have inflicted this on you on your wedding day. I don't know what you can be thinking of the family you've married into. But it's only the connections by marriage who are quite impossible. We are really quite nice ourselves and—'

'Oh, thank you,' Marigold said and began to laugh. In her hysterical relief that Lindley had gone and that discovery had somehow been put off, she could have gone on laughing and laughing and laughing. But, with another effort, she managed to get a grip on herself, just as Paul said:

'I don't see—Oh, lord! I'm sorry. You know what I mean, you absurd darling.' And then he laughed too, and kissed her so that she could easily have passed from laughter to tears, and she longed almost unbearably to cling to him and tell him the whole story.

But confession was just the last luxury she could allow herself. She could only let the present happiness of his love act as a drug to calm her fears, and to help her to a determined ignoring of the frightful gulf which Lindley's visit had opened beside her.

After that they sat by the fire, sharing the same big armchair, and talked of the beautiful present and the vague, lovely future, so that somehow Marigold almost forgot Lindley and the past which he represented. And when Paul said, in one of the long, pleasant silences, 'I wish that fellow would break his blasted neck on the way back to Town,' she very nearly said, 'What fellow?' before she remembered that he was speaking of the shadow which lay across Stephanie's life, without in the least knowing that the same shadow lay across his own life and hers too.

She perhaps begin to wonder if there-were some thing more to it than that—some personal element which he had not thought of until that moment?

But, with the realisation that her tormented imagination was about to present new and more terrifying possibilities to her, Marigold made a supreme effort at self-control.

She sat up and smiled at Paul.

'I'm perfectly all right now. He has gone, hasn't he?'

'Oh, thank you,' Marigold said, and began to laugh. In her hysterical relief that Lindley had gone and that discovery had somehow been put off, she could have gone on laughing and laughing and laughing. But, with another effort, she managed to get a grip on herself, just as Paul said:

And when Paul said, in one of the long, pleasant silences, 'I wish that fellow would break his blasted neck on the way back to Town,' she very nearly said, 'What fellow?' before she remembered that he was speaking of the shadow which lay across Stephanie's life, without in the least knowing that the same shadow lay across his own life and hers too.

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