CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XI

For a couple of seconds no one said a word. Then the extraordinary quality of the silence in the small hospital bedroom seemed to impress itself on the nurse. She glanced quickly from one to another of the three people there, wanting very much to say something that would break the queer silence, and the feeling that words might be even more unfortunate than silence.

It was Stephanie who spoke at last.

'My—husband? I don't quite understand. Isn't there some mistake?'

'Why, no, I don't think so.' The nurse, who was a kind and tactful girl flushed slightly and very heartily wished that Sister had taken this job on herself instead of delegating it to a poor busy junior, who appeared to have put her foot in it. 'A Mr, Lindley Marne was brought in too, you know—as a causality from the same fire. I thought, as your name is Mrs. Marne, and Mrs. Irving spoke of you as her sister-in-law—' The nurse paused again doubtfully.

'Yes, I see.' Stephanie spoke much more naturally that time. 'Yes, I am Mrs. Linda Marne. I'll come.'

She glanced at Marigold, but Marigold In closed her eyes. It was the most cowardly form to escape, of course, but she could not—simplycould not—face further explanations now. There was no question of her really losing consciousness. She simply made her mind as blank she could and lay there with her eyes closed. They could think what they liked, say what they liked, but nothing on earth was going to induced her to open her eyes again now.

She knew that Stephanie was near the bed again because she spoke to Paul in an undertone. And because she was in Paul's arms she could hardly help hearing what was said.

'I'd better go, Paul. What on earth does it mean?' That was Stephanie's voice—anxious and pitched so low that the nurse would not be able to hear.

'Don't go unless you really want to.' Paul's voice sounded stern, although it was as quiet as hers.

'But it looks so—awful, if I don't.'

'Damn what it looks,' retorted Paul softly. 'He has no claim—'

'I'm going.' Stephanie's voice was as quiet as his, but determined. 'Only was that was he doing there?'

'Probably pestering Marigold.' Paul sounded quietly murderous. 'She was silly enough to try talk him round once before, poor little girl.' Marigold felt her heart leap hopefully. Paul himself was supplying her with an explanation. But Stephanie said:

'How did he know where to come, Paul? I was very careful never to let him have the address. 'Oh well, it doesn't matter now. I'll go and see what's happened.'

'All right. I'll either see you or ring you later.' There was silence after that, so presumably Stephanie and the nurse had gone.

She lay there, letting the quiet of the room envelop her. So long as she kept her eyes closed there was no need for explanations. By and by she would think of something. It was a problem which she simply could not tackle now. It must wait, as everything else must wait, until her exhausted energies returned and she felt able to cope with life again.

Meanwhile, even her capacity for fear seemed in abeyance. She listened dreamily to the distant sounds of the hospital ward, somewhere outside her door, and—much nearer at hand, so near that she could almost feel it—the even beating of Paul's heart.

He could not, she told herself, be deeply antated or suspicious, if his heart could beat so quietly and regularly. Perhaps there was very little to worry about, after all.

But he had said he would see Stephanie or telephone her later. And that would be after sin had seen Lindley and spoken to him. And what would Lindley say to her?

Except for the frightful, fantastic interlude of the fire, the last passage of words between herself and Lindley had been disastrously and bro tally frank. She had even struck him, now sin- came to think of it. He knew by now that, from every point of view, she loathed and despised him. He was the last man on earth to forgive that easily from someone he had once fascinated.

What would he say to Stephanie, in cynical, spiteful explanation of his presence there in the house with Marigold?

He had an almost unlimited opportunity of taking his revenge on the girl who had dared to despise and slight him.

Marigold discovered that, after all, her capacity for fear was not in abeyance. As she thought now of how completely Lindley could ruin everything, while she lay here helpless and stupid, she felt her own heart-beats begin to quicken, quite out of time with Paul's.

'Paul,' she said softly, but still without opening her eyes.

'Yes, dear.'

'I can—I can explain—later.'

'Explain what, my dear?'

'About—about Lindley being there.'

'All right. Don't bother now.' She felt him kiss her cheek lightly, and she drew a great sigh of relief.

At the moment she had really not the slightest idea how she was going to explain. The exclamation had just been an instinctive and childish effort to ward off suspicion and discovery. But she had felt she must say something.

Her common sense told her that she ought to go on now from that point, trying to fit together some sort of explanation which would cover at least the fact of Lindley's presence in the house. But her powers of resistance really were broken at last. And presently she drifted into a long, dreamless and refreshing sleep.

When Marigold woke it was broad daylight, and in the first minutes of returning consciousness she struggled to remember where she was. Then the door opened, and a nurse—not the nurse of the night before, but a bright, saucy looking junior—came in.

With a rush, the whole train of yesterday's incredible -happenings came back to her.

'Good morning. Here are breakfast, roses and a love-letter for you,' her nurse announced cheerfully, as she fixed an invalid table across the bed, and set a tray upon it.

'Roses and a love-letter?' Marigold sat up smiling and looked enquiring. 'Who from?'

'Well, you should know that better than I would,' the nurse told her with a laugh. 'But he's an expensive admirer if he sends you roses at this time of year.'

'It's my husband,' Marigold said, still smiling as she looked at the roses and picked up the letter. 'How did he get them here, I wonder?'

'They were left quite early this morning, the porter said. Now don't let your breakfast get cold while you read the letter.'

Marigold promised not to neglect her breakfast. But as soon as the door had closed behind the nurse again, she ripped open the envelope and drew out Paul's note, which was a great deal more important to her than any breakfast.

'Good morning, darling,' ran the few lines.

This is just to send you my love, and to tell you to look after yourself and have a quiet day. I'm afraid I shall not be able to get away until the later afternoon, but I'll come in then to see you. Stephanie will come if she has a free moment, but if she doesn't manage to come you will know it is because she is arranging about the nursery school. All my love. Paul.'

Marigold put down the letter and went slowly on with her breakfast.

It was perfectly obvious that he must have seen Stephanie, or at least spoken with her on the telephone. But he still sent 'all his love' and wrote as though nothing were changed between them. That must mean either that Stephanie knew nothing or else had said nothing of what she knew.

Then Paul could not get away until late that afternoon. If only she could persuade the doctor that she was perfectly all right and able to go home in a taxi, then Paul need not come back here again, to ask awkward questions if he were so disposed.

She could go straight home and telephone to his office from there, explaining that he need not call at the hospital, but could come straight home to her.

A lot now depended on being able to convince the efficient, over-cautious people here that she was really all right.

She felt all right, she assured herself. That terrible sense of weakness and exhaustion had gone. If she could only get home she would be all right, particularly if she no longer had the anxiety of wondering what Paul might find out, quite inadvertently, at the hospital.

When her nurse came back, Marigold greeted her with a radiant smile.

'I feel a perfect fraud, occupying a hospital bed like this,' she declared. 'I feel as fit as a fiddle this morning.'

'Rather a pale fiddle,' was the sceptical retort.

'I never have much colour,' Marigold said carelessly. 'When will the doctor be coming?'

'Some time during the next hour. Why? Do you want to get up?'

'Get up? Yes, of course. I want to go home,' Marigold explained, as though there could be no two opinions about that. 'Do I have to see him first?'

'You do,' the nurse assured her firmly.

And with that Marigold had to be satisfied.

When the nurse had gone again, leaving Marigold comfortably propped up and supplied with the morning paper, —she began to wonder about Lintdley. How was he? And why hadn't she thought to make a few discreet enquiries? Her bright little nurse might not know any news about a patient in another ward, but she seemed the resourceful kind who could very well find out,, if she put her mind to it.

Suppose he were desperately ill. Until now, that possibility had not presented itself to Marigold. The easy and comforting reassurance of the nurse in the ambulance—who had evidently wished to spare Marigold any further shock —had been all there was to go on. She had said he was not dead, 'only stunned.' But he had received a terrible blow on the head from that piece of burning beam.

True, he had recovered consciousness last night. Sufficiently even for Stephanie to be allowed to see him. But suppose he were dangerously ill. So ill that he—didn't recover. Then again safety and escape showed themselves enticingly in the distance. This time it would have nothing to do with anything she could decide. It would be out of her hands. There would be no reason why she should not accept the solution, thankfully and without a qualm.

Always providing, of course, that he had not been able to say anything much to Stephanie last night.

Oh, why hadn't she asked her nurse for news of him?

Marigold had to wait a good hour until the doctor at last put in an appearance. And then he proved to be a good-natured, gossipy sort of person who wanted to hear all about her adventure of the previous evening.

She gave him a brief account, and tried an innocent query about Lindley on him. But Lindley's case was not under his care, it seemed, and he was unwilling or unable to give her any information.

However, her main point at least was gained. He agreed with her that there were no serious after-effects from the shock, and although he suggested her staying in the hospital until the next day, he yielded to her earnest entreaties to be allowed to go home that afternoon.

'All right. There's no real harm. Is your husband going to fetch you? When can he come?'

'He can't come today,' lied Marigold promptly. 'I'll be all right in a taxi.'

The doctor started to say that she would be nothing of the sort, and Marigold's heart sank again. But at that moment, her nurse came brightly to the rescue, with an offer to take Marigold home in a taxi during her free time.

'I'm off at two. I'll take you then,' she promised.

'Oh, thank you.' Marigold could have embraced her in her gratitude and relief, though she felt bound to add: 'Don't you really mind giving up your free time like that?'

'No, that's all right. It won't take very long.'

So it was settled that way. And Marigold was then allowed to get up and have her lunch, sitting at a small table where Paul's roses made a welcome splash of warm colour.

Just before her nurse went off duty, she came in to see Marigold.

'I'm going off duty now. I have to go over to the Nurses' Home to change, but I shan't be more than a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes,' she told Marigold. 'Can you be ready then?'

'Yes, of course. There's just one thing, Nurse.'

'Yes?' The nurse turned in the doorway.

'I'd like very much to know—how Mr. Marne is. He was brought in too, last night, you know. He—he's my brother-in-law.' She supposed, in some preposterous way, he was! 'Do you know how he is?'

'I'll ask Sister, if you like.'

'If you would. And'—Marigold hesitated, and then added with sudden resolution—'if I could see him for a moment, I—I'd be glad.'

'All right, I'll ask.'

She sat there with her heart beating uncomfortably fast, while her friendly nurse was now making enquiries.

Presently she came back with the news that Marigold might go over to what was referred in as 'Men's Casualty' and make her own enquiries.

'I'll take you,' her nurse volunteered. 'It's not far. I'll leave you there on my way over to tin- Home, and you can find your way back here quite easily. And I'd better bring a coat for you. You didn't collect much from your fire last night, did you?'

'No. I'm afraid everything was burnt except what I stood up in,' Marigold said. 'They seemed to have cleaned those up pretty well, though.'

'They still smell a bit smoky, I expect, don't they?'

'Yes, I don't think I'll ever like the smell of a wood fire again,' Marigold said with a little grimace.

She was surprised to find that she could chat carelessly like this about clothes and wood fires, when in the next few minutes she would be seeing Lindley and perhaps finding out quite definitely that he had betrayed her to Stephanie at least.

Her friendly nurse handed her over to a rather severe-looking Sister, who promptly dashed her hopes of much information by saying:

'Well, you can come and see him for a moment if you like. But I think he's asleep.'

She took Marigold into a small room, very similar to the one which she herself had occupied. And there, sure enough, Lindley lay exhaustedly asleep, his face oddly thin and dark against the whiteness of the pillow and the bandage round his head.

'Is he just—asleep?' she asked in a rather fearful whisper. 'Or is he unconscious?'

'He's asleep. But he doesn't come to the surface much.'

'Is he—dangerously ill?'

'He's had a nasty knock on the head,' was the non-committal reply.

'But he did recover consciousness last night, didn't he?'

'Yes.' The severe Sister looked even more severe then. 'But he was allowed to talk much too long then. A great mistake.'

Marigold found it in her heart to be sorry for the wretched junior who had no doubt made a great mistake. But there was something else, of much greater importance to herself, implied in that remark.

'His wife was allowed to see him, wasn't she?'

'Yes.'

'And he—talked a long time to her?'

'Much too long.'

The Sister seemed to think that was all then- was to be said on the subject. And Marigold too could find no further reason to linger.

She thanked the Sister humbly, receiving a somewhat stately inclination of the head in return, and then went rather slowly back to her own room, to await the coming of her nurse.

So he had been talking a long time to Stephanie—'much too long.' Yes, thought Mari gold, it could be much too long, from her point of view too. But that wasn't quite what the Sister had meant.

There was not time to do much more anxious thinking and wondering before her nurse returned.

It was not really a long drive home. In an astonishingly short space of time, or so it seemed to Marigold, she was back in her familiar surroundings, and had persuaded her young nurse to stay and have tea with her.

'All right. As a matter of fact, I was hoping you'd ask me to,' was the candid retort. 'I haven't been long in London and I don't know many people. It wasn't really kind of me to offer to take you home. I was glad of the chance.'

'Well, I'm glad to have you,' Marigold told her with a laugh. 'And you must come and see me another day when you're off duty.'

The invitation had been accepted with alacrity before Marigold reflected that her own future was so uncertain that it was perhaps rather unwise to issue invitations to a home which might not be hers very long if—well, if certain facts came to light.

'If you tell me where the things are, I'll make tea,' her visitor offered good-naturedly. And Marigold, remembering that she must telephone to Paul, let her new and rather managing young friend attend to the tea while she herself took up the telephone.

There was some difficulty in getting her connection, and, even when she had been put through to his office, he was not there. So she left a message that he should come straight home as his wife had left the hospital, and then devnted the next hour to being a sympathetic and attentive hostess, while her visitor displayed a considerable degree of home sickness by discoursing with a great air of indifference on ill the members of her family.

Amused and touched, Marigold allowed her to do most of the talking, and, when she left, the invitation to return on another day was renewed in defiance of the uncertainty of the future.

Alone at last, Marigold sat down by the fire and tried to decide what she should say to Paul when he came in. His own belief evidently was that she made another ill-judged attempt to persuade Lindley not to oppose Stephanie's divorce suit. Probably much of the safest and simplest thing was to give that as the reason for Lindley's presence at the nursery school at such an odd hour of the evening. The most she could be accused of then was obstinate foolishness and an excessive desire to interfere on behalf of Stephanie's happiness.

On the other hand, what had Lindley said to Stephanie?

That was the problem to which one always came back. And if one looked facts in the face, it was almost certain that he had told her very fully in that too-long conversation—what the original connection was between himself and Marigold.

Well then, suppose one did face facts—did admit to oneself that Stephanie at least knew the truth by now—what could be done?

Marigold pushed back her hair from her aching forehead, and tried to concentrate on this fresh problem.

Was it just possible that Stephanie, with her generous and understanding outlook, could be persuaded to take a lenient view of what had happened? Or rather, to be absolutely exact, what had not happened. Could she perhaps be made to understand how bitterly Marigold regretted that mad and foolish impulse, and that, in spite of everything, she would make a good wife to Paul?

If so, then Stephanie could be pledged to silence and—once more the bright, the unattainable, came into view—Paul need never know.

But this would entail explanations and discussion with Stephanie. It was vital that Marigold had a talk with her before she saw Paul again. How stupid of her not to have thought of that before, and to have spent some of her idle day arranging it! But it was not too late to telephone now.

Habit was so strong, that Marigold found herself dialling the nursery school number before she remembered that it was useless to try there. With hopes a good deal dashed by the reflection that it was unlikely that Stephanie would be at home when there was so much to be done, Mari gold then tried the number of her flat.

Silence greeted the buzz of the telephone bell, and Marigold dispiritedly replaced the receiver.

Well, she would just have to try what she could do tomorrow, for Paul might be in any time now. And as she thought that, she heard his key in the door.

She ran to meet him and was caught up right off the ground and kissed several times.

'How dare you come home alone from the hospital?' he scolded her affectionately. 'I meant to fetch you myself this afternoon.'

'Yes, I know. But I wanted to come home. I was quite all right, and longing to be home. I couldn't stay any longer. One of the nurses brought me home, and I'm quite all right.'

'Very well.' He looked at her fondly —certainly not as though Stephanie had made any damaging disclosures to him. So the note and the roses had reflected his real feelings and, so far, there were no suspicions to live down!

She sat on the arm of his chair while he had tea. And it was with a coolness which surprised herself that she said presently:

'I want to tell you—about Lindley, Paul.'

There was only the slightest hesitation in her voice. And, similarly, there was only the slightest tightening of his hand which was resting on the other arm of the chair.

'Um-hm? What do you want to say about him?' He didn't look up at her, but went on very casually eating his tea.

'It must have seemed very—odd to you that he was there too.'

'Yes, a bit peculiar,' he agreed, still in that carefully expressionless voice, a little as though he were afraid that any great display of feeling might frighten her.

'I had met him—in the street, oddly enough, that lunchtime. He stopped and spoke. I didn't intend to at first, but it was difficult to walk on, once he had spoken. And then he mentioned Stephanie and—and the divorce. I expect it was silly, Paul, but I had the impression that perhaps, after all, if I could have another talk with him, he might be more reasonable.'

'You are a little idiot, you know,' he said gently.

'Yes, I know.' She touched his shoulder timidly with her hand and, unexpectedly, he stiffened slightly. 'But I—I didn't know then. I thought I really might do some good. I asked him to let me talk it over with him again. He said he hadn't time then, and at first he wasn't at all keen on any further discussion at all. Then he said—all right, he could give me half an hour that evening. He wanted me to go to his flat, but I refused. And then he said he would come along to the nursery school.'

'At that time in the evening!'

'Yes. It had to be after Stephanie was sure to be gone. I said I'd stay late working.' She noticed nervously that he had clenched his hand a good deal more tightly by now, and she added rather hurriedly and breathlessly: 'I—I'd forgotten that Sanderson and his wife went out on Tuesdays.'

'I see. Go on.'

'Well, that—that's all, really Paul. He came, and we started to talk, and then we realised that something was wrong. And before we knew where we were, the place was ablaze.'

'You must have been very much absorbed in your conversation,' Paul said a little dryly.

'Oh, we were. Of course we were, Paul. It—it was about Stephanie.'

'And do you mean to say that Lindley had you alone there wasn't offensive to you?' He did turn his head then, and looked straight up at her.

'Well------ ' Marigold swallowed nervously. In every single detail she could recall that odious scene when he caught hold of her and kissed her.

'I see,' said Paul slowly. 'He was.'

'Paul, he did try to kiss me. And then we heard one of the windows breaking with the heat of the fire, and it was in that moment that we realised the house was on fire.'

'How lucky,' Paul remarked with an air of grim understatement. And then: 'I'd like to kill him.'

'Paul, please—' She caught his arm nervously. 'Please forget about it. It's over now. And he's very badly hurt. You can afford to be generous.'

'Generous!' Paul laughed shortly. 'I hope he dies.'

She was silent, appalled—not by the sentiment, which indeed she could almost have echoed, but by the look of self-contained fury on Paul's face.

She had never seen him look so angry, and it terrified her. If he felt like this about an attempt to kiss her, what would he do if he knew tin truth? In a cold sweat of terror, she tried to think what precautions she could take to ensure that she saw Stephanie before he did. She found herself madly rehearsing, in her own mind, tin- arguments which she must use to convince Stephanie of the necessity for silence.

And even as she did so, there was a ring at the front-door bell.

Marigold sprang off the arm of the chair, but Paul caught her and quite gently put her back.

'All right, I'll answer it.'

'No, no,' she began, and then realised how extraordinary her behaviour must appear if she persisted in feverish protests.

He went out of the room, and she put her hands over her face, trying to pretend to herself that it might be a tradesman or the housekeeper or one of their neighbours. But, with a sense of fatality, she knew it was none of these. And when she heard Stephanie's voice in the hall, there was no feeling of surprise. Only a chill of despair.

It seemed to her that they lingered unnecessarily long exchanging greetings—or was it information? And then, as she made an effort to appear calm and self-possessed, Stephanie came into the room, followed by Paul.

It would have taken very little indeed to make Marigold break into hysterical tears at the moment. She hardly knew what she expected. Reproaches, contempt, accusations.

But what really happened was beyond her wildest imaginings. Stephanie came straight across the room and, putting her arms round her, kissed her with considerable emotion.

'Marigold, you are the very best friend that anyone ever had. Thank you, darling,' she said.

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