CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIII

It took Marigold longer to go home than she had expected. Either that, or she had stayed at the hospital or in the Park longer than she had imagined.

At any rate, by the time she reached home it was much later than she had thought, and as she let herself into the flat, she was surprised to hear Paul call out:

'Hello, sweetheart! Is that you?'

'Yes.' Marigold came to the door of the sitting- room, and stood there for a second, taking in the shattering fact that the moment of supreme crisis was upon her.

Paul, lounging in a chair, with his long legs stretched out to the fire, didn't look in the least like a man who was about to be involved in a crisis. He got up as she came in, and came over to kiss her and take her coat from her.

'Tired, darling?' He glanced at her quickly.

'No. Only a little, that is. You're home early, aren't you, Paul?'

'Well, I've had two pretty late evenings. It's time I had an early one.' He smiled at her. 'I'll put these things in the bedroom for you, shall I'

'No, it's all right.' She carried her coat and hat into the other room, trying not to think that she was really delaying the moment which she had persuaded herself to meet. No point in putting it off now, but——'

She looked into the mirror without seeing her reflection, smoothed her hair with a hand that trembled slightly, and then went back to the room where Paul was.

He was back in his chair by now, and she crossed the room and sat down on the rug at his feet.

'Aren't you going to make yourself more comfortable than that?' He smiled down lazily at her.

'I am comfortable,' she said, and leant against his knee, whereupon he put his arm round her and drew her a little closer.

'What have you been doing with yourself?' That was not a searching enquiry, merely a tender interest in the way she had spent her day.

'I've been out—all the afternoon.'

'And tired yourself, although you say you haven't.' He moved his arm and lightly touched her hair. 'Have you been walking around enjoying what sunshine there is, or shopping—or what?'

'I've been to the hospital,' she said deliberately. 'I went to see Lindley.'

The hand which was stroking her hair stopped suddenly.

'Lindley, eh?' His voice was slightly strained. 'Why did you go to see him, Marigold? I shouldn't have thought there was any—need.'

'Yes, there was. I went to find out what he told Stephanie the other night. I wanted to know why she—she seemed to think I'd done something wonderful for her.'

'I don't think I quite understand,' he said slowly. 'You must have known about that. I thought the whole point was that you'd persuaded Lindley to supply her with cast-iron evidence for her divorce and not to oppose it. That was what you were talking about, surely, when the fire started.'

Marigold closed her eyes for a moment. Then, with an effort, she pushed from her the last temptation to prevaricate.

'No,' she said, opening her eyes again and staring into the fire. 'We weren't talking about that at all. At least, he only offered to do that on —on condition that I went to the States with him.'

'Went to—God in heaven! How dared he even make such a suggestion?' Paul was sitting upright in his chair now, and she was scared at the anger in his face.

'Wait, Paul.' She noticed that her voice had a tendency to run up to a higher note than usu.al But she forced it down and spoke with determined calm and coolness. 'It was a preposterous suggestion, of course. An insulting suggestion, if you like. But—but he rather thought he had the power to enforce it.'

'What do you mean—"the power"?' He too had made an effort and his voice was calmer 'What—power had he to enforce anything on you?'

For a moment she found it very difficult to go on. Without knowing what she was doing, she took his hand and played nervously and absently with his fingers.

'Paul, that time Lindley came to the house —when you and I were on our honeymoon —that wasn't the first time I had met him.'

She was surprised that he gave no sharp and angry exclamation at that. Instead there was a queer silence. Then he said, without much expression:

'No? When was the first time?'

'I don't know that that really matters. What I was trying to say was that—that I knew him already—very well.'

'You didn't seem to, Marigold.'

'No, I—couldn't.'

'Why not?'

'Paul, I'm telling this very badly. It's partly that I'm frightened, and partly that I've thought of this so often that I don't know which words to choose. I met Lindley first at the office. We became friendly. I didn't know right at first that he was married, but fairly soon I did. I won't pretend anything else. I didn't know what Stephanie was like, of course. I thought she was —was chilly and unsympathetic and—and didn't care about him.' It all sounded so fantastic and absurd, in view of what she now knew, that she hesitated.

'Go on,' Paul said, and it was quite impossible to tell from his voice what he was thinking.

'Paul, will you try to understand and make some sort of excuses for me? I thought I could plead my own case—but I can't. It all sounds so sordid and—cheap, whichever way I put it.'

'Go on,' he said again, and this time his voice was harsh. He had never spoken to her in that tone before and she told herself, too late, that she had been a fool to expect him—or any man —to understand.

'I thought I was in love with him.

—What did you say?'

'Nothing. Go on.'

'I thought he was in love with me too, and I believed that he—he wanted a divorce from his wife—from Stephanie, I mean, and that he- would marry me then. I agreed to go away with him for the weekend, and——'

'Marigold, why are you telling me this?' Paul exclaimed in a tone of angry pain.

'Because I couldn't go on living a lie any longer,' she said helplessly. 'When I met you down at that hotel, I——'

'God! Were you the girl?' he broke in suddenly. And then, when she nodded, he put his hands over his face.

'Paul! Listen to me, Paul!' She was kneeling up beside him now, pulling his hands from his face, and kissing him distractedly.

'Don't,' he said, in that same harsh voice, but he didn't actually push her away. 'So I suppose the uncle was an invention?'

'Yes, but——'

'And the need to get away was an invention—'

'No, Paul! That isn't true! I'd only been there a few hours. I'd already begun to understand that Lindley only had me there for—for as, a weekend girl. I'd been a fool ever to imagine anything else, of course, but I had believed in him. It may not sound any better to you to go with a man because you—you think he'll marry you eventually than to go with him for a weekend's f-fun. But there is a difference, Paul. Will you please believe me when I tell you that something about the whole affair suddenly opened my eyes. I was frantic to get away. I'd run up to my room to get my things. I couldn't think of anything but escaping before—before anything happened and—'

'What do you mean—"before anything happened"?' he asked roughly.

'Why,' she stared at him, the colour rushing into her face, 'there'd not been anything between us. Anything that—mattered, I mean.'

He caught her by her chin suddenly—much more sharply and uncomfortably than Lindley had taken hold of her that afternoon.

'Do you swear that to me?'

'Yes, Paul, yes. Do you suppose I should be telling you this now, if I—if I—'

'I don't know.' He released her, and passed his hand rather wearily over his hair. 'I don't know why the devil you didn't tell me before or why the devil you insist on telling me now.'

She swallowed nervously, wishing he would look at her, instead of away from her with that hard expression of bewilderment.

'It—it's the same reason in each case,' she whispered and she pulled at his sleeve, like a nervous child. 'It's because I love you.'

He turned his head slowly then and looked at her, and she was shocked to see that he looked haggard instead of boyish and bewildered instead of confident.

'I thought,' he said slowly, 'that you told me you loved Lindley.'

'But that was over, Paul! That was over! I know I'm only saying what many fools have said before me, but it wasn't anything but infatuation. Please believe me—it wasn't anything else. And I got away before anything—anything irrevocable had happened. I asked you to help me, and you did, dear. If you hadn't, I don't know that I should have escaped at all. I'd no idea you had anything to do with Lindley, of course. I simply went into your room because he was coming up the stairs and I knew he'd see me the next second.'

Paul never took his eyes from her face as she poured out her explanation.

'So you—came to me because you were frightened of him?'

'Yes.'

'And then?'

'Oh, Paul, you know most of the rest. You agreed to help me. I couldn't tell you the truth —I was too much ashamed to tell a perfectly strange man. I invented the uncle, and you believed me.'

'Not entirely,' Paul said under his breath.

'Not?'

'No. I thought there was something queer about the whole story that first evening. But almost at once I—wanted to think that everything about you was all right.'

'Oh, darling—and almost at once I knew that everything about you was all right. I know I sound silly and unbalanced and—and immoral after all this, but '

No, you don't,' he said, with a faint smile. 'You don't sound immoral at all. Only, I thought—' He stopped suddenly. Then, putting out his arm, he caught her roughly against him. 'What did you mean when you said you couldn't tell me then and you had to tell me now, just because you loved me?'

'Why, don't you see?' she pressed eagerly against him. 'I was so afraid at first, Paul. I knew I'd lose you, if I told you I'd been—been playing around with Stephanie's husband, that I was the "poisonous little girl-friend"—'

'Who called you that?' he asked sharply.

'Why, you did. Oh, you didn't know you were describing me, of course. You were speaking about—about the girl who had been with Lindley. If I'd never been ashamed before, Paul, I'd have wanted to die of shame then. And that it was you who thought it! You! I wanted so terribly to be something good and dear in your eyes and Stephanie's. You thought it so odd when I said I—I wished I were worthy of your friendship, but you see now—I wasn't.'

'Be quiet.' He suddenly kissed her hard on her mouth.

She was literally silent for a moment, struggling with the desire to cry. Then he said softly:

'So all the time I was making love to you and wanting you to marry me, you were terrified of being found out?'

'Y-yes.'

'Hush, love. Don't cry.'

'I'm not cr—crying.'

'All right, tell me the rest. How did you suppose it could be kept quiet, once Stephanie brought a divorce suit?'

'Why, you see, I—I hoped at first that my name need never come in. I—I went to see Lindley at his flat that time to see if it could be managed. But I found he—he was tremendously amused and intrigued with the situation. He was determined to let the case go on, and then to smash it by disclosing who I was, because then he knew that you would have to give evidence that you yourself had taken me away from the hotel quite early in the evening.'

'God! You poor little devil. Was that what he was holding over you?' He kissed her cheek, but very softly this time. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'I couldn't Paul. I couldn'tl I kept on hoping that I'd be able to persuade him to change his mind. That he wouldn't insist on satisfying his spite towards all of us that way, but would let the divorce go forward on quite different evidence. That was why I let him come along to the school and talk things over again, and that was why he thought he just might be able to bring enough pressure to bear on me to make me go —go with him.'

'Damned skunk,' muttered Paul. And then, in a tone of surprise: 'But apparently you persuaded him, after all. I'd forgotten that. And he did it to please you—not for Stephanie's sake.'

'Oh, it—it was more or less a chance in the end,' Marigold said. 'He'd been stunned by a blow on the head when we were trying to escape from the fire. I—I could have left him. I very nearly did, Paul——'

'A thousand pities you didn't,' Paul interjected grimly.

'It was something of a temptation,' she admitted doggedly. 'It would have meant that—that no one need ever know. But you can't leave someone to die, when it comes to the point.'

'I could have left him with the greatest pleasure,' Paul declared dryly.

'No, you couldn't. But anyway, it doesn't matter. I didn't leave him and—well, he seemed to think I deserved something in return. He told Stephanie that I had persuaded him not to oppose her divorce, and also to supply her with much more conclusive evidence than—that anything connected with that hotel incident.'

'I—see. And you didn't know about that until Stephanie came yesterday evening?'

'No. And I didn't know even then what had made her think me her benefactor,' Marigold admitted with a smile. 'That's why I went to see Lindley this afternoon. He told me what he had done and that nothing about my visit to the hotel would ever come out.'

'Whereupon you promptly celebrated your freedom from blackmail by coming home and telling me all about it,' Paul said bewilderedly. 'Why?'

'I've told you, Paul! I've told you!' She was hanging round his neck, kissing him beseechingly. 'It's because I love you. I can't have lies between us. I can't let Lindley know something about me that you don't know. And I can't ever, ever be happy unless you know me for what I am and will love me and forgive me.'

'You darling, darling little idiot!' He was returning her kisses as eagerly as she gave them. 'So that's it. You could have kept it all quiet, but you wanted me to know.'

'Not quite "wanted you to know," ' Marigold confessed. 'I dreaded your knowing. But I—I terribly wanted to be forgiven, I suppose.' And then, as he just smiled at her in silence: 'Am I forgiven, Paul?'

'No, of course not,' he said, touching her cheek gently. 'There's nothing to forgive.'

'But there is, Paul. There's a lot to forgive.

You were so terribly angry just now. That shows.'

'Was I?' He dismissed it with a smile. 'There was a lot to explain, darling, but nothing to forgive. And I'm not angry any longer.'

'But there—there must be something'. She hugged him with nervous eagerness.

'What kind of something?' He looked amusedly at her. 'Do you want me to stage a grand forgiveness scene?'

'Not exactly.' She laughed a little at that. 'Only it all seems so simple, Paul. As though—as though all the storm and crisis has just died down quite naturally and there's nothing wrong, after all.'

'Well, that's how it should be.' He gently ruffled her hair, and pressed her head against him. 'There's nothing wrong, after all. And of course, it's all quite simple. Because, as you yourself said, you love me. Or rather, because we love each other.'

She was silent against him for a long while after that, perfectly happy in the simple content between them. Then at last she said anxiously:

'Need Stephanie know?'

'Not unless you wish to tell her,' he said carelessly.

'I'd rather not.'

'Very well, we'll leave it at that. There she is, by the way, I should think,' he added, as the front door bell rang.

'I'll go.' She jumped up, but he caught her and held her for a moment.

'What?'

'Only that you're so dear—and mine,' he said as he kissed her.

She was laughing happily as she went to open the door to Stephanie.

'Oh, my dear! No need to ask how you are. You look a different girl,' exclaimed Stephanie as she came into the sitting-room and saw Marigold in the full light.

'Do I?' Marigold looked slightly surprised. 'I feel wonderful,' she added with a smile at her husband.

'Obviously. What have you been doing with yourself?' Stephanie threw herself into a comfortable chair and began to pull off her gloves. 'Lazing by the fire, or enjoying what I'm sure is excessively healthy but very cold sunshine?'

'Neither,' Paul said, answering for her. 'She went to see Lindley this afternoon, and confirmed that he is quite determined not to put any difficulties in the way of your divorce. I think we owe a good deal to my clever little wife.'

'Indeed we do.' Stephanie smiled and kissed the tips of her fingers to Marigold. 'I didn't tell you before, Paul, for fear of making you jealous, but she evidently made the most enormous impression on Lindley.'

There was a short silence. Then Paul said rather politely:

'Is that so?'

'Yes. Don't be so ridiculous and formal. It's just so,' Stephanie assured him. 'In fact, if I didn't know it was impossible with Lindley—'

She stopped and frowned thoughtfully.

'What, Stephanie?'

Stephanie turned in her chair and faced Marigold.

'I never heard him speak in quite the same way of any woman before. Not even of myself when he was making his best impression. Of course, I know he hardly knew you and so it sounds absurd. But, odd though it seems, I believe he was fond of you.'

Marigold's grey eyes opened wide—partly in surprise and partly in a sort of alarm. Then she thought of Lindley turning from her that afternoon with his air of rather weary indifference, and she slightly shook her head.

It was Paul who answered in words, and his tone was that of a man who had stumbled on a queer discovery.

'Odd though it seems,' he agreed thoughtfully, 'I believe he was.'

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