Cuckoo in the Night

by Pamela Kent

  “Women too.” He smiled into her eyes, putting the soft hair back from her brow and kissing it with lingering lips. “It’s much more likely that you’ll grow tired of me, but if you do I give you fair warning I won’t let you go … ever. When you marry me it’ll be for keeps. Anything else is out of the question, so you might as well know that now.”

  She sighed with a delicious form of happiness … which disturbed her when, a second or so later, she thought of Chris. But before she thought of Chris she reassured him on her own behalf.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she whispered, “because I feel exactly the same way. I may be old-fashioned, but I don’t believe in divorce. Divorce, for the one who is set aside, is a form of death!”

  And it was obvious that Tim agreed with her.

  “Poor Chris!” he said thoughtfully, as he walked to the window and looked out into the night.

  It was by now long past dinner time at Tor Park, and he decided to ring his aunt. He explained that they couldn’t possibly leave Chris, but he didn’t explain the reason why. Lady Hannaford, however, seemed capable of guessing, for she uttered a throaty ejaculation or two … and then enquired sweetly after Janine.

  “Jane’s all right,” Tim replied. “I’ll probably have some news for you when I get back.”

  “In connection with Jane?—who was Jan this afternoon!”

  “I think Jane suits her better,” her nephew admitted. “It was my mistake.”

  “Splendid,” Lady Hannaford returned. “Even if it’s late when you get back I’ll arrange for a tray of champagne cocktails to be on hand!”

  But by the time Tim returned to Tor Park so much had happened that he required something stronger than champagne. While Chris slumbered under the influence of several aspirins upstairs in her room the hours ticked by, and still there was no sound of a car on the drive, and no sign of a returning Stephen. When it no longer seemed as if he would be intruding unwarrantably Tim decided to ring the White Hart in Exeter, and was informed that Mrs. Philip Hay, who was still a guest there, had had a gentleman visitor who had joined her at dinner, but afterwards the two of them had gone out in the gentleman visitor’s car, and so far Mrs. Hay had not returned.

  But, as the hotel pointed out primly, it was not their duty—or indeed their policy—to report on the activities of patrons of the hotel, and if the enquirer had any reason to be anxious about the gentleman concerned it might be as well if he communicated with the police station next time.

  Tim set down the receiver with an impatient exclamation and for another hour he and Janine sat together in the oppressively silent drawing-room, while Miranda lay on the rug between them and looked alert but thoughtful.

  As Tim explained, when the hour was up, he was not sure that he had any right to get in touch with the police. If Stephen chose to remain away from his wife it was his affair, and following such a quarrel as they had had it was not such an extraordinary thing that he should remain away. But Janine, with Chris very much in the front of her mind, could not believe that even Stephen would treat her with such an utter lack of consideration if it could be avoided. After all, he had now mentioned divorce … and divorce, though Janine shrank from it in connection with a member of her own family, seemed the obvious solution in the case of such a blighted and unhappy marriage.

  And every time she thought that she herself might have married Stephen and lived through just such an ordeal as this she clutched at Tim to reassure herself about her own future. Tim, understanding though saying nothing, gave her as much reassurance as was necessary, and what with this somewhat prolonged opportunity to be together for the first time since they had really known one another, a plateful of sandwiches which Janine cut herself, and endless relays of coffee, the evening and the better part of the night passed without either of the two who waited and watched having any real cause for complaint on their own account.

  After midnight Lady Hannaford telephoned again and said that she had countermanded the order about the cocktails. She wanted more explicit details of what was going on, and when Tim confided them in as low a tone as possible that could be heard by Lady Hannaford and not overheard by Chris if by any chance she should pick up her bedroom telephone, Lady Hannaford grew very quiet and businesslike all at once.

  “Then you must certainly remain where you are,” she instruced. “And, Tim—”

  “Yes, Aunt?” anxious to return the telephone to its rest and rejoin Janine in the next room.

  “Give my love to my future niece, and if she needs anything, any help of any sort or kind—she or Chris—she’s not to hesitate to approach me. But I know you’re doing your best already.”

  “A moderate best,” Tim admitted.

  “And perhaps I ought not to tell you that poor Elizabeth was quite upset when she went to bed … after I rather hinted a few things! I’ve an idea she’ll be returning to London next week, but I don’t really mind because I’ve decided I don’t really need a nurse any longer, and she was getting just a little bit—well, possessive.”

  “Ambitious Elizabeth,” Tim commented, not entirely without a slight pang of remorse for making use of her. “Let’s hope her next employer will also possess a nephew, and one that will prove more accommodating. ’Night, Aunt! You’d better get to bed or you’ll be missing your beauty sleep.”

  At one o’clock in the morning Tim decided to telephone the police, and at two o’clock Chris awakened and crept downstairs to her own drawing-room to join her sister and her future brother-in-law. She looked white and cold and comfortless—almost as white and cold and comfortless as she had looked earlier in the day—and although she had done something about her face after she woke up, and even put on a dress instead of a dressing-gown, she looked as if she had simply prepared herself to face up to an ordeal, and was not expecting any relief from the weight of her private anxiety.

  Tim put her into a chair near the powerful electric fire that had been glowing throughout the night, and Janine provided her with a cup of strong black coffee with a nip of brandy in it, and afterwards stuffed cushions in behind her hair and tucked a rug round her.

  “I’m not cold,” Chris said, but she looked as if she herself suspected that she would never be warm again. When Miranda crept to her side and rested her great head in her lap she caught hold of the dog’s collar thankfully to keep it there.

  “And to think I didn’t really need Miranda,” she murmured once, as if to herself. “But I don’t know what I would have done without her, sometimes, just the same.”

  She dozed fitfully in her chair, apparently accepting it as absolutely natural that Tim as well as Janine should remain with her. At four o’clock in the morning—or a little after—the telephone rang again, but this time it was not Lady Hannaford at the end of the line. It was the local police.

  “Sorry to disturb you at this hour of the morning, sir,” a voice said hoarsely, “but I’m afraid it’s bad news. There’s been an accident.”

  “Go on,” Tim said, signalling with his hand to Janine to prevent Chris, if she was awake, coming out into the hall.

  “The gentleman you were enquiring about—Mr. Blair—has been involved in a car crash. There was a lady with him. I’m afraid it’s serious, sir.”

  “How serious?” Tim demanded, without any expression whatsoever in his voice.

  “The—the gentleman’s dead, sir. The lady’s in a bad way, not expected to live.”

  Tim set down the receiver very quietly when the voice at the other end of the line ceased providing him with all the least pleasant aspects of the details. He was in no mood, just then, to pass on the information that Stephen’s car was a write-off, and that as yet there was no clear idea what had caused the crash. There had been no collision, but the car had mounted a bank. It had overturned twice, and then righted itself, and then overturned again. The police and ambulance workers had had difficulty in extricating the victims …

  Janine, simply as a result of studying Tim’s
face, knew the worst as soon as he did. Her main preoccupation after that was to prevent her sister overhearing anything that could be spared her, and it never even occurred to her that the details would not even register when the gist of the telephone call was to make it clear to a woman who was now a widow that her husband would never come back to her again.

  Stephen, and his brief-case, would never return to Sandals together, and there would be no more deception, no more half-hearted attempts to save the wreck of a marriage, no more Chinese vases to propitiate a wife who had been neglected.

  There was a slight noise behind Janine, and she turned to see Chris, with all the colour driven right out of her face, clutching at the door jamb for support, and mouthing something foolishly.

  “It’s—it’s Stephen, isn’t it? He—”

  And then she crashed to the floor, and it was Tim who swung her up in his arms and carried her back into the drawing-room.

  “Better get the doctor,” he ordered Janine. “Tell him it’s urgent!”

  Chapter XIII

  THE doctor came and administered a sedative, and Chris slept for the whole of that day and well on into the night. Janine had no clear idea how the hours passed, but she knew that without Tim she could never have survived such an ordeal on her own.

  It was Tim who did everything that had to be done, and who did it without saying very much about what was happening to the girl he intended to marry. The news of their engagement was withheld, but Lady Hannaford, at least, understood the position fully, and so did Elizabeth Tempest. To Janine’s surprise Elizabeth proved herself invaluable, and Lady Hannaford consenting to do without her, she arrived at Sandals and took over the task of looking after Chris. She was, as Tim himself had said, a first-class nurse, and what Chris needed at that particular time was a first-class nurse. Her doctor anticipated a certain amount of trouble with her once she fully recovered her senses, so she was kept heavily drugged until everything was over and Tim could report that everything that had to be done had been done, and that he himself had seen to it.

  There was no question of Chris attending the funeral, but Janine and Tim both followed Stephen to his last resting-place. Janine saw to it that a wreath from Chris rested on the coffin, and the small card attached to it was inscribed simply: With all my love, Chris.

  Janine decided against buying black for herself, and she wore a simple dark outfit and Lady Hannaford provided her with some black gloves. Afterwards they returned to Sandals and it was all very still and quiet, with Chris in a state of semi-consciousness upstairs and Nurse Tempest sitting with her. Lady Hannaford had exerted herself sufficiently to be present in the drawing-room, and she presided over a cold luncheon and afterwards decided that she would stay on for tea. She had some suggestions to make, she announced, and she got down to the business of making them when her second cup of strong Indian tea without sugar or lemon was placed at her elbow.

  Mrs. Philip Hay was recovering in hospital, but it was unlikely Chris would ever wish to see her or any member of the family make contact with her. The newspapers had been very kind about her presence in the car with Stephen at such a late hour—or rather, early hour—in the morning. There was no whisper of scandal, and Stephen’s reputation that he had carefully built up over the years was not blown upon or besmirched; the sympathy Chris received was the sympathy a normal widow would have been offered, and apparently only Tim and Janine—and Lady Hannaford—had the least idea of the true position on the night when Stephen left his house for good.

  Therefore, as Lady Hannaford pointed out, talk was averted, and the whole district was alive with pity for Chris … nothing more. There was nothing now that Mrs. Philip Hay could gain by pestering her. She herself would probably be inclined to brood badly once she was in a condition to do so, and that was an eventuality that had to be avoided if possible.

  “And I think I’ve arrived at a solution,” Lady Hannaford announced. “I’ve decided to go abroad for a while—somewhere where the weather can be depended on—and I think I’d like to take Christine with me. She and I have always got on reasonably well, and up to a point I like her. You might even say I’m fond of her. She’s young and extremely attractive, and as soon as she’s had time to get over the shock of all that has happened to her she’ll want to marry again.”

  As Janine looked startled and appeared about to interrupt Lady Hannaford held up her hand.

  “Now, my dear, I know you’re very possibly a romantic, and believe in lasting love—” her eyes rested for an instant on her nephew, looking particularly impeccable and quite arrestingly attractive in a dark suit—“and it’s perfectly understandable under the circumstances, but a girl like Christine is a little different, I think. What she needs from life is protection, a great deal of cosseting and the kind of affection that doesn’t fade easily, and she’ll find it sooner or later, I’m sure of that. With her looks it would be amazing if she didn’t. But I plan that she shall find it sooner, and not later.”

  She waved a fragment of toast.

  “I’ll take her away with me, and ensure that she meets someone suitable … Oh, yes, I know that sounds old-fashioned and unrealistic, but money still counts, you know, and I have quite a lot of it. I shall take her to the best hotels, where only the right people stay, and if necessary I’ll even go in for entertaining to entice the right man into my net. Within six months you’ll probably hear that Chris has found a substitute for Stephen … and he won’t have to be a great deal better than Stephen to be a vast improvement on him as a husband!” she concluded on a note of fierceness.

  Janine and Tim looked at one another.

  “But—but supposing Chris proves awkward?” Janine suggested.

  “She won’t,” Lady Hannaford stated confidently.

  “Suppose she declines absolutely to marry again?” Tim remarked sceptically.

  “She won’t,” Lady Hannaford replied with equal confidence.

  “She might very well be an invalid for a few weeks,” Janine contributed.

  “I’ve thought of all that,” Tim’s aunt told them. “And because I think what you’ve just said is very likely I’ve spoken to Elizabeth, and she has agreed to go with us and look after the pair of us. She’s such a sensible girl she’ll be a great comfort, and apparently the idea of the West Indies and places like that appeals to her.”

  “The West Indies?” Janine shook her head, marvelling a little. When Stephen had thrown her overboard there had been no benevolent Lady Hannaford on hand to suggest the West Indies for her—and pay all her expenses. For her it had been Switzerland and a teaching job. But now that she looked at Tim she realised how very, very lucky she had been.

  And even the most well-intentioned Lady Hannaford would not cause her to fall in love and marry a man just because it was the most convenient thing for her to do. But Chris, as she knew very well herself, was different. Chris could be won over by flattery, and she adored pretty clothes and luxurious living.

  It might not take Chris so very long to find a substitute for Stephen, who, after all, had not provided her with very much actual happiness.

  “And what about Miranda?” Tim asked, pulling the dog’s ears. “Who will look after her in her mistress’s absence?”

  “You can,” his aunt replied at once. “As a matter of fact I think you and Jane had better adopt her.”

  Tim smiled at Janine. One quirk of his eyebrows asked if that was okay, and she nodded. He leaned forward after that and addressed his aunt softly.

  “Having dealt with Christine,” he said, “what about us, Aunt? As you know perfectly well we’re going to be married … and we’re going to be married soon!”

  Lady Hannaford fairly cooed at him.

  “Splendid, dear boy,” she replied. “And I’ve thought about all that, too. As you know, I intended you to have Tor Park one day, but I think I’d better make it over to you without delay. You can then marry Jane and the two of you can move in and know it’s your own home, and if Sandals
comes on the market—which it probably will do soon—I’ll buy it and settle down there when I return from my wanderings. It’s a much more suitable house for me than it would be for a young couple, and it won’t worry me if one of the bedrooms has a secret door. I shall probably make it my own bedroom, and if someone tries to break in through the secret way and steal my jewellery I shall set up an elaborate burglaralarm system which will ensure that he’s caught before he can get away with it. What do you think of that?”

  Janine felt inclined to gasp with admiration. Lady Hannaford thought of everything. She was quite brilliant, in fact!

  “Well?” she demanded a trifle impatiently, as neither of them appeared to be overwhelmed by her plans for them. “How do you like the idea of being mistress of Tor Park, Janine?”

  Janine stammered: “I—I expect I shall love it, Lady Hannaford—”

  Tim came to his fiancée’s rescue and placed a hand over hers where they rested in her lap.

  “If you don’t mind, Aunt,” he said, “Janine will make our own plans, and before we decide where we’re going to settle down eventually we’re going to have a honeymoon in Venice. Naturally, we shall welcome Tor Park when you feel like making it over to us, but until that day dawns I’ve a London flat where we can live. Miranda might not be so happy there as she is here, but she’ll settle down.”

  And as if she was in entire agreement with him Miranda thumped her tail on the floor and then approached him for a certain amount of fussing.

  “Some people,” Lady Hannaford grumbled, “are much too independent. But I’ve still got Chris to concentrate on. I really shall concentrate on her!”

  Fortunately for her Chris was too listless and uninterested in what happened to her to raise any protests when the time arrived for her to be handled by Lady Hannaford. She raised no objections to anything, she allowed all sorts of arrangements to be made on her behalf without saying a word. And when the time arrived she left England still without raising a single protest.