Escape to Happiness

by Mary Whistler

  “Quite,” he agreed, with a sort of deathly weariness. “But now that you are involved it’s not the smallest use complaining. And if you want to stay out of things - and keep out of them, Rose! - you shouldn’t have such an aptitude for attending to superficial cuts over runaway bridegrooms’ eyes. And you shouldn’t have such big, concerned eyes yourself, or such a sympathetic voice. I don’t know whether you realize it, but you’re the living embodiment of womanly sympathy and understanding, and I have no doubt at all that that’s why I came running to you!”

  Rose found she could say nothing more, and as the day grew brighter, the sun forced its way through a bank of misty cloud, and the smell of the sea grew more like a vaguely exciting promise, she took instructions meekly from the man at her side, and this last part of the journey passed in a flash. In less than half an hour from the time they left the inn they had arrived outside a pair of rusted wrought-iron gates that looked as if they hadn’t yielded to the hand of man for years, and Wakeford instructed Rose to pass between them.

  Ahead of them ran an ill-kept drive, with rhododendrons and azaleas thrusting themselves into the middle of the grass-grown track, and some giants amongst trees towering above them. In the depths of the woods as they sped up the drive Rose glimpsed a stagnant-looking sheet of water with reeds bending over it, and nearer the house there was a maze of neglected shrubbery that must once have provided a pleasant corner for exercise.

  The house itself came into view rather suddenly, for in front of it there was an open space that had once formed part of a semi-circular drive, and a lawn that ran right up to the foot of the time-worn steps. Now the lawn was a sea of rank grass, and the steps were crumbling so badly that, to Rose, they looked positively dangerous. The windows of the house were beautifully spaced and plainly belonged to the Georgian era, but there didn’t seem to be many panes of glass left intact.

  “It does look a bit of a mess, doesn’t it?” Guy Wakeford observed, as he left the car stiffly and stood almost uncertainly on the gravel of the driveway.

  Rose wasn’t looking at him. She was thinking that this must be a pageant of colour in the spring, when the wallflowers she suspected were hidden in the neglected border under the crumbling terrace - a sheltered south terrace - came into their own, and daffodils marched with the trees down to the drive gates. Even now, when summer was ended and winter was only just around the corner, there were rose bushes bearing untidy examples of what must once have been choice specimens of the rose world, and a cascade of fuchsia filled the stone vases on the terrace.

  And they must be right on top of the sea, for not only was the scent of it almost overpowering, but she could hear the lazy slap and surge of it.

  “I can’t think why you’ve allowed this place to fall into such a condition of neglect...” she was beginning when it struck her that the man who had so high-handedly abducted her was urgently in need of someone to go to his assistance. He was clinging to the side of the car, and his face was almost grey.

  “Sorry,” he muttered apologetically, smiling a travesty of a smile. “It’s this confounded arm! ... Been hurting like blazes for the last few miles, and I’ve got a nasty suspicion I’ve broken it.”

  “Oh, no! ” Rose exclaimed, and was just about to assist him to reach the running board, and some sort of a seat, when the front door opened and a woman with grey hair, and wearing an apron, came running down the crumbling steps towards them.

  “It’s Mrs. Bewes,” Guy murmured, and shut his eyes. “She’s a fountain of common sense.”

  And then the “fountain of common sense” was clucking over him like an agitated hen, and Rose was looking at her appealingly and trying to explain something of what had happened while the owner of the dilapidated house behind them celebrated his return to the least of his properties by passing out altogether. And it was as much as the two women could do to prevent him from falling flat on the gravel.

  CHAPTER V

  But no sooner did Mrs. Bewes - who was undoubtedly a woman of resource, for in a matter of seconds she had her master’s tie undone, and had called sharply to someone within the house to come and assist them - start talking of fetching the doctor, than the sufferer’s eyes opened and he protested in as loud and clear a voice as he could manage that he was in no need at all of a medical man’s ministrations.

  “Just let me get inside the house—” He looked as if he was about to faint away again when an unwary movement jarred his arm. “And if you can find me a drink, Bewsie—”

  Over his head Rose nodded at Mrs. Bewes.

  “Yes, let’s get him into the house. That’s the important thing.”

  But without the assistance of Mr. Bewes, who made his appearance just in time, they might have had a good deal of difficulty over the business of getting him into the house, for he was undoubtedly suffering a great deal of pain, and he wanted to sink down on every second step and was insistent that he wanted to be left alone. Rose begged him to lean on her, but he smiled at her with pallid amusement and wanted to know whether she had suddenly become a strong woman.

  “You don’t look it,” he said. “You look as if a playful gust of wind could blow you away altogether!”

  And then Bewes was inviting him to lean on him, and Bewes was a solid, dependable type known to Wakeford since his boyhood.

  “Ah, good man, Bewes!” he exclaimed, on a sigh of relief. “There are too many women milling about this place, just as there are everywhere else! Have you noticed, Bewes?”

  “Can’t say I have, sir,” Bewes replied, and guided him carefully across an unexpectedly well preserved hall, with a handsome staircase and solid oak doors opening off it, to a little room that was furnished in a very homely fashion, and was undoubtedly the Bewes headquarters. The caretaker lowered him into a straight-backed chair with a velvet cushion, and then went to a cupboard in the corner and poured him a reviving dose of brandy.

  “I needed that,” Guy said, and then smiled with rather less than his usual blue-eyed charm at Mrs. Bewes. “Something tells me you’re not as surprised to see me as you might be, Bewsie,” he murmured. “Can I take it that you’ve been looking at the morning paper? Which, incidentally, Rose and I have not yet seen!”

  Mrs. Bewes folded her hands across her middle, tightened the line of her lips, and then delivered herself of a short speech.

  “What you do, Master Guy, is no concern of ours, but you know you can always come to us if you need help. We’re not likely to ask any questions, and we don’t expect you to offer any information about your affairs if you don’t choose to. That goes for Bewes as well as myself, doesn’t it, Bewes?”

  “Quite right, my dear,” Bewes answered, reaching for a pipe on the mantelpiece and filling it with slow, grave fingers. “ ’Tis Master Guy’s house, and he comes to it when he wants, and stays away when he wants. That’s all there is to it.”

  Guy looked wearily amused.

  “What discretion!” he murmured.

  “But,” Mrs. Bewes continued, tightening the line of her lips until it was in itself a protest, and looking at Rose with hostile eyes, “if this young lady wants to do you a real service she’ll set off at once and get the doctor to you - for it’s a doctor you badly need! - and as our telephone’s out of order we can’t get him any other way, unless Bewes sets off across the fields!”

  “Of course I’ll go for the doctor immediately, if you’ll tell me where he can be found...” Rose was beginning; but Guy said firmly:

  “I’m glad the telephone’s out of order, and I won’t have the doctor. Rose, you’ll stay right where you are!”

  She moved closer to him, and for the first time her brown eyes were full of nothing but sympathy.

  “Mr. Wakeford, you’ve got a broken arm, and it has to be attended to,” she told him. “If you won’t let me bring a doctor to you here, than I shall insist on driving you to the nearest hospital. That will mean more jolting and jarring for you, and a good deal more pain, and obviously the sensib
le course is for you to remain where you are.”

  His eyes gleamed up at her with unwilling admiration. “You should have been an advocate, Rose! With your logic, and your persuasive tongue, you’d get anybody to agree to almost anything! But what will you tell the doctor?” he wanted to know more sharply.

  “Nothing apart from the fact that you’re in need of urgent medical attention. Is he likely to know you?” she asked.

  “I shouldn’t think so. The old boy who practised here when I was a raw youth must have died, or retired, years ago. What’s your local M.O. like, Bewsie?” he questioned her.

  “He’s a new man,” Mrs. Bewes returned primly. “Been here only a few weeks.”

  “Nothing could be better,” her master observed complacently, and then turned grey again as a fiery pain sped up and down his arm. With his good hand he reached out and caught hold of Rose. “But I don’t want you to go and fetch him, Rose,” he said. “I want you to stay here with me!”

  “That’s all right, sir,” Bewes said easily. “The young lady must be tired after driving all night, and I’ll get the doctor. If he’s in his surgery I’ll probably be back with him in no time at all.”

  “And Miss - Rose,” Mrs. Bewes said, with emphasis, “can help me to make up a bed for you, sir. The sheets are aired, and the room’s all ready, but it will save time if someone gives me a hand with the bed.”

  “Go and give her a hand, little one,” Guy said quietly, reluctantly releasing Rose’s arm. And then as Bewes put a welcome cigarette into his fingers: “But you’re barking up the wrong tree, Bewsie. Rose is just Rose - But I think you’d better call her Miss Arden!”

  Outside the door the caretaker’s wife said stiffly:

  “This way, Miss Arden!” and she turned and led the way up the stairs.

  Rose followed, a strange mixture of emotions all but preventing her from admiring the rich carved beauties of the staircase, and the quality of the panelling that lined the walls. She was sure that a knowledgeable antiquarian would have considered it extremely well preserved, and the width of the floorboards over which they trod hurriedly seemed to indicate that the house was much older than its exterior suggested.

  Before they turned off at an angle, and reached a corner of the house that seemed to be far removed from the little room downstairs where Guy Wakeford steeled himself for the attentions of a doctor, Rose caught her first glimpse of the sea from a deep-set window, and she stood still and exclaimed aloud with pleasure.

  “Oh, and there’s a strip of beach, too!... wonderful golden sand! Is there a way down to the beach from the garden?” she asked Mrs. Bewes.

  “There is,” the dour-faced woman admitted. “But it’s not used nowadays.”

  “Why not?” Rose asked.

  Mrs. Bewes looked curiously at her.

  “Mister Guy never entertains here,” she explained at last. “He hardly ever comes here ... Save on occasions, like the present, when he has some special reason for coming here. But his grandmother was very fond of the place.”

  “And she died...?”

  “Just after Mr. Guy’s twenty-first birthday. She left him the house.”

  “And you and your husband look after the place?”

  “We look after the inside. The outside has to take care of itself.”

  “That seems a pity,” Rose remarked, and leaned forward eagerly to snip off a white rosebud that was still clinging tenaciously to a vine outside the window. As she held it gently in her hands she asked: “When did Mr. Guy come here last? And was that for some special purpose?”

  “Yes, it was,” Mrs. Bewes answered, but beyond that she was obviously not prepared to be communicative, and instead she turned and went on down the corridor, and Rose followed her. Another exclamation of surprise and delight left Rose’s lips when she saw the inside of the room they entered, and even Mrs. Bewes’ expression softened a little.

  “This is my late mistress’s room,” she said. “It was her sitting-room, and we try to keep it as she liked it to be kept in her lifetime.”

  Rose looked at the faded satin damask that lined the walls - a kind of pale ivory colour - the parchment velvet that hung before the windows, the carpet with its garlands of roses faded by the strong clear light from the sun and the sea, the little walnut writing desk. There was a smell of sandalwood and mothballs, of fabrics that might crumble at a careless touch, of potpourri and violets and hot June sun. Sunlight that had been captured and imprisoned by the room, and would remain there possibly for all time ... or for as long as the house existed.

  Rose stood very still breathing in the scent of the room, looking from one of the big windows on to a lawn that had been crowded out of existence by weeds and rank growth, and Mrs. Bewes left her to the contemplation of a prospect that was a definite paradox when one thought of the wealth of the owner and went into a room adjoining and started to remove the bed-cover from a massive four-poster bed. Rose remembered her guiltily and hurried forward to assist her, but the caretaker was bending over a press and taking out sheets and pillow-cases that were not only beautifully embroidered but of the finest possible linen, and Rose felt a queer thrill of excitement when she handled them for the first time.

  Her own grandmother had left behind her a stock of lovely linen; but it had been sold to settle one of her father’s unfortunate debts, and nowadays Rose slept in cotton sheets.

  “Are there many valuable things in this house?” she enquired of Mrs. Bewes as between them they turned down the top sheet, and Rose settled a fat pillow with an extra caressing pat.

  The caretaker regarded her thoughtfully ... suspiciously.

  “There are,” she admitted. “Enough to make me nervous if we don’t lock up properly at night. But I’m always very careful myself, and Bewes is careful too,” as if their custodianship had been called to account.

  “You’re in rather an isolated position, aren’t you?”

  “We’re a good way from the village, but I wouldn’t say that was a disadvantage. I can’t say I like people very much.”

  Rose smiled a little.

  You don’t like me, she thought... You think I’ve designs on your master, and that I’m responsible for him running away. But that shows you’re rather stupid, for he isn’t the type to run away - not in normal circumstances! - and he certainly wouldn’t have run away because of me!

  She looked round the room, with its air of sombre comfort, and she wondered how she could make her position clear. As she puzzled over the problem her glance slid off a gleaming tallboy and a wardrobe that could have housed a Paris Collection ... or a collection of fugitives, if they were prepared to remain very still and quiet ... and then noticed the dressing-table with its plain mahogany top. On it there was nothing but a silver-framed photograph, and Rose felt her curiosity mount immediately as soon as she caught sight of it.

  “I’ll have to open up a room for you in the other wing,” Mrs. Bewes remarked, as she gave a last, prim touch to the eiderdown. She looked quickly at Rose. “The bathroom’s old-fashioned, but you’ll have to manage. This suite is the master’s suite.”

  “Of course,” Rose murmured abstractedly, and moved round the bed until she stood in front of the dressing-table.

  “Who is this?” she asked, picking up the photograph.

  “A friend of Master Guy’s.”

  “Was she a very close friend?”

  “We all thought she would be Mrs. Wakeford one day. Mrs. Guy Wakeford!”

  Rose studied the photograph, and she knew that this was the girl - or the woman, for she looked quite mature - who had once held Guy Wakeford’s whole future happiness in the palm of her hand. But instead of holding on to it she had let it go, and looking carefully at the great dark eyes with their hint of a derisive sparkle, and the cool hardness of an otherwise lovely mouth, Rose had to admit to herself that she wasn’t in the least surprised.

  This girl - woman - or whatever she was, would never have made Guy happy. But since he was a ma
n nothing on earth would have made him believe it at the time! And even now, if she reappeared, he might be prepared to risk his future again. Judging by the way he spoke of her - the haunting unhappiness in his eyes when he was off his guard - he hadn’t forgotten her.

  He probably thought of her a good deal, and she was almost certainly one reason why he couldn’t face marriage with Carol-Ann.

  “Not exactly beautiful, but with something more appealing - or perhaps dangerous! - than mere beauty... Or so I would say!” Rose observed, as she restored the photograph to the dressing-table top.

  For the first time Mrs. Bewes looked at her with a tinge of doubt in her expression.

  “She was very beautiful. Or we all thought she was at the time,” she stated a little defiantly. “She wore beautiful clothes, and she was charming too. She would have made a lovely mistress for this house.”

  “But would she have come and lived here?” Rose asked, turning to confront her.

  “Not as it is now, no. She would have wanted it done up.”

  “And when it was done up? Would she have lived here then?”

  “Well, perhaps not ... But Mr. Guy has lots of other houses. You couldn’t expect a beautiful woman - one written about in the fashion magazines, and very clever too - to bury herself in the country.”

  “In what way was she clever?” Rose asked curiously.

  “She painted, and she designed things too ... unusual materials, and that sort of thing. She also used to decorate people’s houses, and furnish them for them from top to bottom if they wanted her to. She had a flair for that sort of thing - or I think that’s what it’s called.”