There was a photograph of the bride, leaving her father’s house, radiant in white satin and centuries-old Brussels lace. She was carrying a bouquet of white roses, white lilac and stephanotis; and behind her as she later approached the altar in the fashionable church was a procession of diminutive pages in satin suits reminiscent of the days of Romney, and little girls with Lady Hamilton chip-straw hats fastened under their chins with enormous satin bows.
There were also at least half a dozen older bridesmaids, and at least two of them were much talked-about and written-about debs of the closing season. The best man was a young man who claimed close kinship with a duke, and it was said that he had scoured London for the missing bridegroom.
At the moment that the paper went to press he was almost certainly still scouring every likely haunt he could think of.
Rose stood holding on to the paper and feeling that this was all very unreal, and a couple of junior typists in the outer office discussed the news excitedly. They were quite unaware that on the previous night Richard Guy Denzil Wakeford had dripped blood all over their office floor, and that afterwards Rose had carefully wiped it up and felt sick because she was one of those people who did turn squeamish at the sight of blood.
They were also unaware that she had rescued a fading pink carnation from the waste-paper basket, and taken it home with her. Under the influence of a little aspirin it had revived considerably.
There was no reason for her to stay late that night, and there was still some light left in the sky when she left the office. She had to pass the church where a wedding was to have taken place that afternoon, and as she looked at it and thought of all the consternation that had milled about it only a few hours before she wondered how she would have felt and reacted if anything so acutely embarrassing had happened to her.
To wait nearly an hour for a man who had promised to marry her, and then to face the truth that she had been callously abandoned! Vulgarly jilted! And in the eyes of all her friends!
But of course there was no question of Guy Wakeford abandoning his bride! It was merely that he had suffered a blow on the head, and he had probably forgotten all about his wedding date. He had seemed terribly confused about it the night before.
And then a question leapt up at Rose.
Even allowing for the fact that he had suffered a blow on the head, why wasn’t he in his flat - or wherever it was that he had spent last night - when his friend arrived to collect him for the wedding! Presumably with the ring in his pocket, and lots of moral support! And why hadn’t his manservant any ideas of his whereabouts?
Rose consulted the newspaper again, and learned that Guy Wakeford had not attended the usual “stag party”, and his manservant had stated that his bed had not been slept in. He had not, in fact, been seen since fairly early in the afternoon of the day before. And not a soul - apart from herself, apparently! - knew about the collision with the taxi.
She began to feel so worried that she left the bus in which she was travelling before it arrived at her usual stopping place, and as she walked the last few yards she asked herself what ought she to do? Telephone the home of Miss Carol-Ann Vaizey and pass on the information that she had? Telephone the police, and get them to undertake the task for her?
They could get in touch with all the hospitals... Start looking for a man whose memory might have failed him altogether, and who was, perhaps, wandering ... not even sure of his own name!
As soon as she had got the door of her microscopic flat open she reached for the telephone, and, reproaching herself bitterly because she had hesitated to call a doctor to him the night before, she was about to dial the number that would put her in instant touch with the police when another hand reached out and prevented her.
“It’s always an unwise thing to make a hasty telephone call,” a calm masculine voice informed her. “In fact, telephone calls are frequently injudicious, and this one would be very much so. Instead, sit down and get your breath, and tell me why you’re so determined to espouse the cause of the enemy?”
Rose gaped at him, and at first she simply couldn’t believe it.
“How- how did you get in?” she stammered.
“Your landlady admitted me,” Guy Wakeford replied. “A pleasant woman - what is known as a ‘homely body’ - and I told her I was a very old friend of your father’s. She even offered to make me a cup of tea!”
Rose’s knees started to tremble, and then they gave way altogether. She sank down into a chair and stared at him as if he had bereft her of the power of speech. Only a second or so before she had been picturing him in hospital ... wandering the Embankment, striving fruitlessly and hopelessly to remember who he was.
And now - apart from the fact that he was still wearing the light grey suit of the night before, and his linen looked a little tired, and there was an unmistakable bloodstain on his tie - he was almost suave and nonchalant. The plaster was still in position above his eye, but he was smiling slightly, and calmly smoking a cigarette ... one from a cedarwood box that stood on a little occasional table in her tiny sitting-room.
Rose found her voice with an effort.
“Did you forget that you were to be married today?”
“No.” His smile developed a little, was not particularly nice, and also curiously inscrutable. “I didn’t forget, and that’s why I’m here. I didn’t want to be married today, but I do need your help! But first you can make us both a cup of tea - or coffee, if you prefer it - before we start to talk!”
CHAPTER III
Rose sat very still on her chair.
“I don’t think I want to make either tea or coffee for a man who allowed a woman to wait for him in a church filled with large numbers of their mutual friends and relatives!”
“Oh, come now, Miss Arden,” Guy Wakeford said, very softly and silkily. “Isn’t that rather a biased view when you’re not in possession of any of the facts? And I do badly need something to drink! Of course, if you can offer me a whisky and soda...”
“I can’t. But there’s some sherry in the sideboard. You can help yourself to that if you like.”
He opened the door of the sideboard and helped himself from a bottle which he regarded rather doubtfully, no doubt considering it scarcely above the level of cooking sherry once he had read the label. But he was plainly in need of some sort of stimulant, for he tossed off the first glass at a gulp, and then poured himself a second. He looked questioningly at Rose, but she shook her head.
“I don’t drink very much,” she said.
“I’m not surprised, if this is the best you can run to. But that’s hardly polite, is it, when you’re my hostess for the time being?”
“A very unwilling hostess,” she assured him.
He looked hard at her for several seconds. There was something glinting and glacial about him tonight, despite the fact that he was looking very haggard, and she had the feeling that he was possessed by a strange ruthlessness. Whether or not he was normally very determined she could not know, but his jaw indicated that he could be stubborn on occasion, and the fierce blueness of his eyes was a concentrated blueness. It was a little like encountering the blue blaze of a searchlight when it was turned full upon her.
“I offer you my apologies for all the trouble I’m causing you,” he said, “and am likely to cause you. Last night I received the impression that you are an exceptionally understanding young woman, but now I’m not so certain. There’s no longer any sympathy in your eyes, and you’re angry because I’m here. But this was the one place I could come to.”
“How did you get my address?”
“I telephoned your office, and” - he smiled again in that unpleasant way - “a young woman gave it to me. No doubt she thought I was a new boy-friend of yours. I’m sure you have boy-friends.”
“I—” Rose bit her lip. “You had no right to do that! And nobody told me that you rang.”
“I particularly requested that it should not be mentioned to you.”
She stared at him, and a sensation of unreality engulfed her. It was unbelievable that he should be here, and half London looking for him! ... A missing bridegroom, who had been written about in the press as a fairytale bridegroom, with enough money to buy himself an aeroplane if he wanted to escape from a set of circumstances that had obviously proved too much for him. And a bride who was probably still sitting waiting in a sumptuous London house! Surrounded by all the chaos of a wedding that had not pursued the normal course of weddings!
Suitcases, going-away outfit, mountains of tissue paper - As if someone had presented her with a mirror endowed with magical properties Rose could see the litter in Miss Vaizey’s apartments, hear her telephone ringing shrilly, watch her maid answering it. There was scarcely any doubt about it, her mother was in a state of collapse, and the whole house in a condition of uproar. Her father was probably at that moment telephoning the police, and reports would be coming in ... Conflicting reports that would get them nowhere.
And there was the man himself, in Rose’s own flat!... Looking as if he had absolutely no conscience about the whole affair, and had no intention whatsoever of setting matters to rights!
A man, moreover, who was quite obviously not himself!
“You must allow me to telephone,” she said, making once more for the instrument in the corner. “I’ve got to let someone know that you’re alive and still in London.”
But once more his hand closed about her wrist like a vice.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Miss Arden!” His voice was chill and repressive. “I decline to permit you to do anything of the kind!”
She attempted to reason with him.
"But Miss Vaizey... Haven’t you any idea how she’s feeling at this moment? Can’t you understand that you’ve behaved abominably? As no gentleman would ever behave!”
“Then you’ll have to accept it that I’m no gentleman!”
She bit her lip.
“You put a woman into an impossible position!... Let her wait for you for nearly an hour in a church where she expected to be happily married! She’ll never get over it ... The humiliation, the shock, the bewilderment. And she must be half out of her mind with anxiety about you!”
“If she is,” he returned coolly, “it’s the first time in her life she’s been in such a condition. Carol-Ann wasn’t born to fret herself about other people ... The boot is always on the other foot! And if you want my opinion of her state of mind at the moment, it’s that she is almost certainly hoping ardently I’ve either broken my neck as a result of jumping off Westminster Bridge, or been disposed of. Preferably the latter, because that would remove any suggestion that I’d let her down.”
Rose gazed at him in horror.
“B-but... You were going to be - be married! She wouldn’t have agreed to marry you unless—”
“She was deeply and passionately in love with me?” His tone grew harsh and mocking. “How much do you know about love, little one? Very little, I suspect! To me you have a most unawakened air, and you plainly dream about marriage as a sort of gateway to paradise. Believe me, marriage never opened any door to paradise ... not for anyone! And marriage to a girl like Carol-Ann could mean entirely the opposite. Utter despair if you were a poor man, rage and frustration if you happen to be a rich one like me.”
“Then ... Then why...”
“Wheels within wheels, my dear innocent. These things arrange themselves. But we can’t go into all that now. Yesterday at this time I couldn’t see a way out, although our honeymoon plans were likely to be upset because Carol couldn’t take her maid along with her. The girl’s mother was ill, or something of the sort - And Carol couldn’t manage without her. Wouldn’t manage without her! There was a lot of useless discussion, and I began to feel as if I was a camel whose back was about to be broken ... Particularly when the decorations inside the church came in for a lot of criticism.”
He started to pace up and down the narrow confines of the room, and Rose watched him,
“Then it was decided we should fly to Paris instead of to Bermuda. I knew what I was in for - Endless shopping orgies and night life! My new boat would have to wait ... the house that had been got ready for us. Nothing was as it had been twenty-four hours before, and something started to seethe inside my head. And then I was in that collision with the taxi, and my head got a bad crack on it. After that I felt wonderful—”
He gazed at her strangely.
“Wonderful and free! I knew that I could be free!”
“No, no,” Rose cried, “you can’t free yourself from obligations because of a crack on the head. You’re a man who knew what you were entering into when you became engaged, and now you must go through with it! You must let me explain things for you ... Tell the police that you’re here with me, and that you were involved in an accident. It will all be perfectly simple to understand.”
But he shook his head, smiling at her almost gently.
“My sweet Rose, however simple it may be to understand, there is just one thing you have to be clear about. Having extricated myself - having defeated that horrid spider who sat in that ghastly web in which I was caught up - I haven’t the remotest intention of being drawn back into it again. Oh, dear me, no, little Rose! You can take it that the bump on the head has deranged me ... upset my integrity, or whatever you like to call it. But I’m no longer the Guy Wakeford who got his revolting photograph into that paper you showed me yesterday!”
Rose felt as if all her pulses were hammering, and her heart labouring painfully.
“Then ... What are you?” she asked.
“A new man,” he responded, “a free, new man!” He moved a little nearer to her. “And you’re going to drive me to somewhere where I shall be able to enjoy my freedom for a while.”
Rose backed a step. Her greenish-brown eyes were huge.
“W-what do you mean?” she demanded.
He extended his wrist and showed it to her.
“I sprained this badly in the accident yesterday. It’s been giving me a good deal of pain ever since. I don’t think I could drive a car with safety ... not to other people, at any rate! And you wouldn’t want me to cause another accident, would you?”
She moistened her lips.
“How far do you expect me to drive you?”
“Oh, a couple of hundred miles or so. And of course I can’t have you returning immediately to spread the glad news of where I can be found!”
Rose wondered whether this was really happening to her, or whether she was dreaming it. Guy Wakeford’s brilliant blue eyes were hard and cold, and his mouth was hard and cold also. All at once she knew that the bump on the head had done something to him.
“You can drive, can’t you?” he enquired softly.
“I - I used to drive my father. He was a doctor, and I drove him on his rounds.”
“Good,” he murmured approvingly. “What make of car?”
She told him, and he smiled with faint contempt.
“You’ll find that a Bentley has a little more pull. But I’ve no doubt you’ll manage very nicely. There’s something about you that gives me complete confidence.”
It was more than she could say of him, and suddenly she looked wildly round her tiny sitting-room, wondering how he would react if she insisted on using the telephone. After all, short of using physical force...
And then she saw the tiny object that was glittering in his good hand. He had made no noticeable move to his pocket, but there it was ... a small, neat revolver that was pointed most determinedly at her. She felt herself grow cold.
“Rose,” he said, with sinister gentleness, “I don’t want to frighten you, but you must stop thinking about that telephone in the corner. Try and persuade yourself that it isn’t there. And try and get it into your head that I’m a very purposeful man at the moment, and I will not be thwarted - even by someone who looks like you, and has the largest, clearest, most accusing eyes! Do you understand, Rose?”
She nodded, at last, du
mbly.
“You’re quite sure?”
“Yes,” she said.
He put away the menacing thing in his hand.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Go into your kitchen and make us that tea or coffee. See if you can scrape together something in the nature of a meal, for I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast - and that was a roll and butter at a coffee stall. Last night I sat making my plans on the Embankment, and I don’t seem to have had very much sleep. I’ll probably doze while you drive - at any rate, for the first part of the journey - and after that we’ll see. But I hope you’ll talk to me in your soft, sympathetic way, Rose, as you did last night. It was strangely consoling.”
Rose left him and went into the kitchen, and while she peered into cupboards and turned on the electric cooker she told herself that the explanation of it all was that she had read too many thrillers, and seen too many films, in recent weeks.
But, as she hardly ever went to the cinema, and wasn’t particularly keen on thrillers, that couldn’t be the explanation. And in the doorway behind her Guy Wakeford watched her and smiled enigmatically.
“Poor Rose! I hope when you decide to marry everything will go smoothly for you!”
She returned bitingly:
“At least when I decide to marry I shall pick a man who won’t be likely to fail me. Certainly not a man like you!”
He came and sat on the kitchen table and lighted himself a cigarette. He smiled, with a good deal of blue-eyed, white-toothed, touchingly haggard charm, as she broke eggs into a basin.
“It’s never wise to make predictions, Rose,” he said softly. “Just leave it to Fate!”
CHAPTER IV
They drove all through the night, and with the dawn Rose realized that she was very tired, and conscious of nervous strain.
Escape to Happiness Page 2
