Escape to Happiness

by Mary Whistler

  She was smoking a cigarette in a long ivory and gold holder when they came in, and a gold and enamel cigarette case was lying in her lap. The sunlight that was streaming in through the big window behind her could discover no responsive lights in her hair ... it was cloudy and black as a blackbird’s plumage, and against it her skin was strikingly pale. The sylvan green of her suit, and the dusky rose of her mouth, were the only colours about her.

  “Ah, Guy!” she exclaimed, and stretched forth a hand to him. “The last time we met you were not in a very friendly mood, do you remember? You said we would never meet again!”

  Guy stood absolutely still, and a mask came over his face.

  She laughed softly.

  “Yes, it really is me, darling! Carmella in the flesh! I’ve written to you, but you haven’t answered my letters. I think that was intended to be hurtful!”

  Rose appeared in the doorway behind him, and she came and stood at his elbow. She hadn’t realized that anyone had called until she saw the graceful figure on the couch, for they had entered the house through a side door, and the bright blue car standing on the drive had done nothing to warn them. But as soon as she realized there was a feminine visitor her instinct was to withdraw at once.

  “No, don’t go, please!” Carmella called, as Rose said: “Excuse me, I didn’t realize...!” and turned as if to make a hurried escape. “I knew you were here, and I’ve been longing to meet you. You’re Miss Arden, aren’t you? My old friend Bruce Carter says you’re helping Guy with a book.”

  “Oh, so that’s it!” Guy said, with something strangely like a sigh in the words. “Your ‘old friend Bruce Carter’! I’ve been puzzled by something oddly familiar about him, and now I remember it was at a cocktail party you gave that we met. That must be several years ago now, and he was looking very unhappy at the time, as if you’d treated him shabbily. Is it possible he’d made the mistake of thinking your affections were unengaged at the time?”

  He sat down suddenly on the arm of a chair and looked at her hard.

  Carmella laughed.

  “Fancy your remembering that! Poor Bruce was going through rather a difficult period at that stage, but I think he got over it all right. He’s a very hard-headed man, you know. His heart isn’t really vulnerable! He’d a practice in the West End at that time, and was terribly fashionable.”

  “Then why did he give it up?”

  She laughed again.

  “Darling, how should I know? I’ve never pretended to understand masculine reactions. I think someone offered him something terribly soul-satisfying abroad ... You know, a clinic of some sort. Some mysterious virus that had been isolated, but which had previously decimated the natives.”

  “And he was in such a desperate condition of mind that he didn’t care if it decimated him?”

  Carmella looked down at her cigarette that was smouldering at the end of her holder, and she removed it carefully, crushed it out in an ash-tray, and tucked the holder away in a pocket of her handbag.

  “My dear Guy, I haven’t come here to discuss Dr. Carter,” she said. “And you are behaving very rudely! Miss Arden is still standing, and you haven’t attempted to introduce us. Please do so now!”

  Guys face no longer wore a mask, but it was grim and set. Rose had seen it look like that on the one or two occasions that Carmella’s name had been mentioned, but now in addition he was intensely pale, and his eyes looked bewildered. He turned to Rose, who had been with him down to the very edge of the shore, and had had a lovely colour when she came in - a colour that went well with the bluey fleck in her tweed coat, and her wind-blown soft gold hair - but which had since faded, and presented her stiffly.

  “This is Miss Rose Arden, whom you seem to have heard about. Rose, this is Mrs. Carmella Cavendish.”

  Mrs. Cavendish held out a gracious hand, and while Rose put hers into it the other woman studied her carefully and deliberately. She felt inclined to draw a long breath of relief, for, with her colour gone, and a strange, shocked feeling of dismay - although there was no real reason why she should feel dismay at this unexpected turn of events, for only a few minutes before she had told Guy quite firmly that she could never, never marry him - making her feel cold inside, as if she had lingered too long down there on the shore. Rose was not particularly attractive, and the beauty of her brown eyes was dimmed by the apprehension for Guy that suddenly gnawed at her heart.

  In addition, she was well aware that Guy was stunned by this reappearance ... he was hardly capable of grappling with it. And she could do nothing to help him!

  Carmella was fascinating... She was like a deadly green snake in her fabulous suit, with her milk-white skin and her brackish eyes. She had only to lift those eyes, under the heavy white eyelids, to any man’s face, and he would want to fall at her feet. Rose was certain of that! Certain because the eyes were unabashed, and full of the most extraordinary mixture of promises!

  “Bruce described you very fairly, I think,” Carmella said slowly, when Rose was at last released from the strange hypnotism of her eyes. “He said you were a nice type, and Guy was lucky to have you with him.”

  “How condescending of Bruce,” Guy remarked, and for an instant his blue eyes looked angry. “Did he write all these things in a letter to you?”

  “No.” Carmella shook her head. “I called in to see him, because I knew he was down here. I don’t think he particularly wanted me to come here.”

  “Was that protection on his part?” Guy inquired sardonically. “Because he thought I was in need of it?”

  “No.” Another shake of the beautifully modelled dark head. “As a matter of fact, I think he was thinking of Miss Arden.”

  “Why?” Guy shot at her.

  She smiled up at him languidly.

  “Perhaps he isn’t altogether certain of the relationship between you, darling ... And Miss Arden is rather young! For a secretary she is extremely young.” She stood up and ran her fingers caressingly up and down his arm, and her smile had something more than languor to distinguish it. “And you know how tigerish some women are! ... How they’ll fight! And not always for their young!”

  That seemed to bring a thought to her mind, for she said with sudden simplicity:

  “Perhaps you haven’t heard that I’m a widow now, Guy. Roger died more than six months ago, and my little son died a year before that. That was my tragedy,” she emphasized. But Guy had heard only one word. He looked at her as if he wasn’t certain he had heard the right word.

  “A widow? Did you ... Did you say you’re a widow, Carmella?”

  She looked up at him, deep into his eyes, and she made the barest little inclination of her head.

  The man stood absolutely immobile, and although the very last thing she wanted to do just then was watch him, or appear to watch him, Rose knew that somewhere at the back of his dark blue eyes a flame leapt eagerly to life. It flickered for a long moment, as if it was trying to draw strength from past memories, and then as less pleasant remembrance rushed up over him, followed by all the bitterness of disillusion, the tiny flame went out. He looked suddenly drawn and haggard, and unbearably hurt - something that made Rose want to cry out - and although Carmella was still clinging lightly to his arm, and the delicate scent of her must have been stealing right up into his brain, he put her roughly aside and went to the window.

  “You must allow me to offer you my condolences, Carmella,” he said curtly. And then: “Why have you come here?”

  “Because I thought you might ... Because I had a curious feeling that you would like to know!”

  “You waited six months!”

  “That was only decent, wasn’t it?” with a gentle smile at his back that was intended to humour him. “After all, Roger was a good husband to me ... And I was fond of him, you know!”

  “It wasn’t because you were fond of him that you married him!”

  “No, but one alters, you know,” sighing as she tapped a cigarette on the lid of her case. She looked r
ound at Rose, and the girl took it as a signal that she was to slip from the room. “It’s depressing, but true, but one alters considerably as the years go by. Six years ago, for instance, you wouldn’t have even contemplated marrying an empty-headed doll like Carol Vaizey. It’s true you got out of it in time ... Before you made a grave mistake! But I had to wait six years before I made the discovery that the one person, apart from my son, for whom I could really feel ... deeply and lastingly...”

  “Rose!” Guy whipped round from the window and caught her as she was about to turn the handle of the door. “Where are you going?”

  She stammered:

  “I - I thought you’d rather be alone.”

  “Quite right, my dear,” Carmella said approvingly, continuing with the operation of lighting her cigarette. She smiled with the same sort of condescending approval at Rose. “And since I, for one, don’t wish to embarrass you, I think you’d better go!”

  “There is no reason whatsoever why Rose should go,” Wakeford said, his blue eyes compelling the girl by the door. “Only, last night I asked her to marry me, and this morning she agreed to do so. We plan to be married as quickly as possible.”

  For a few seconds there was the most extraordinary silence in the room, and Rose clung feebly to the door handle, too taken by surprise to be capable of saying anything in the way of affirmation or denial. And then Mrs. Cavendish lowered her cigarette carefully to an ash-tray, pressed the bright tip until it was extinguished, and looked up and said slowly:

  “How ... very interesting! I seem to have arrived at the right moment to congratulate you!”

  CHAPTER XI

  Afterwards Rose realized that it was because Guy sent out a silent appeal to her, as well as compelling her with that strangely hunted look he flashed at her as she was about to leave the room, that she kept silent. She could have denied his statement heatedly - as she felt strongly tempted to do once her surprise passed. For why should she be drawn in on the affairs of these two? - but she didn’t do so.

  She could have explained to Carmella Cavendish that, instead of accepting his proposal, she had told him very bluntly that morning that she would never accept second best from any man.

  But because he was grasping at straws ... because he was suddenly ridiculously alarmed lest a woman who had once failed him badly should now have the power to woo him back, he turned and clutched at Rose as if she was a lifeline.

  Across the room they gazed at one another, and he sent out his wordless appeal.

  “Carmella is free, and she’s come back here for a purpose. You mustn’t fail me, Rose! I was hurt desperately before, and I couldn’t go through all that again! Please, Rose!”

  So Rose sat down suddenly in the lap of a settee and found that she could still say nothing at all. Mrs. Cavendish studied her as if she was looking for the answer to an unexplainable riddle, looked towards Guy as if she was certain he held the key and she could wrench it from his grasp if she studied him long enough, and then put back her head and laughed softly.

  “Oh, but this is funny!” she declared. “Bruce was so certain your association was completely innocent, and it just shows how even a clever man can be deceived!”

  Then they all three heard the rattle of cups, and Mrs. Bewes came in with the coffee tray. She explained that she had heard her master and Miss Arden come in, and she had brought enough for all three of them.

  “That was very sensible of you, Mrs. Bewes,” Carmella told her. “As a matter of fact, we need something in which to drink a toast, and I can’t think of any reason why it shouldn’t be drunk in coffee. Your master and Miss Arden are going to be married, did you know that, Mrs. Bewes? Matrimony and Mr. Wakeford are inescapable after all, and it’s still very strongly in the air!” Mrs. Bewes stared so hard at her master that, but for the fact that his expression had suddenly become curiously stony, he might have given the whole truth of the situation away ... to her, at least. For she had known him since he was a very small boy.

  “That’s right, Bewsie,” he said, as he met her eyes. “You can send Bewes down to the cellar again to look for another bottle of champagne, for I don’t approve of drinking serious toasts in anything but champagne.”

  “And this is a very serious toast,” Carmella observed softly, as she started to pour the coffee. She handed a cup to Rose. “And the extraordinary thing is that I’ve got here just in time for it! I’m in it, as you might say, from the word ‘go’!”.

  Rose tried to control the trembling of her hands as she accepted her coffee cup, but she was not prepared for the almost motherly way in which Mrs. Bewes bent over her and gently touched her shoulder.

  “I’m very glad, Miss Arden,” she said quietly. “If I may say so, I think you and Mr. Guy will be very happy together,” and she withdrew from the room.

  “Well, that’s something, isn’t it?” Carmella remarked drily, a gleam in her eyes. “You have the caretaker’s blessing!” Then she looked upwards at Guy and apparently dismissed the matter from her mind. “My own concerns are, however, rather important to me at the moment, and I hope you’ll forgive me for intruding them. I’ve come down here specially to have a look at my cottage, which the agent who let it for me informs me is in a very bad condition, and I want to judge for myself before it gets dark. If the cottage is quite uninhabitable I’ll try and get a room at the Sailor’s Rest for a few days while I go into the question of repairs; but as the Sailor’s Rest is a pretty primitive place, and small...?”

  Her eyes asked a direct question of Guy, and he answered as if he was now under a certain amount of compulsion:

  “You mean that you want to come here? But this place is pretty primitive too, you know, and Mrs. Bewes is only the caretaker. It’s asking rather a lot of her ...Or it will be!”

  “How charmingly inhospitable,” she returned, “and to an old friend too! Her dark eyes mocked at him, and held a certain deliberate softness at the same time. “But I’ve stayed here so often in the past that I know all the weaknesses of the plumbing, and it won’t be the first time Mrs. Bewes has ironed my ‘smalls’ for me.” She looked challengingly at Rose. “We used to have wonderful times here years ago, when Guy wasn’t at all averse to my accepting his grandmother’s suite. In fact, he insisted on it! An attic room was good enough for him, so long as I was comfortable. I expect you’re installed in the suite now, aren’t you?”

  Rose shook her head. She was still in the nursery, and the plumbing was very bad, but that wouldn’t have mattered to her at all if Carmella hadn’t chosen to look so surprised.

  “But, my dear, that’s very inconsiderate of Guy! Although, of course, he was always devoted to his grandmother, and perhaps the suite is rather precious!”

  She looked through narrowed, glittering eyes at Guy, and then smiled at him.

  “I shall come back and throw myself on your mercy if I can’t do anything about the cottage. And then I shall want to hear all about your wedding plans. It must seem strange to keep switching from one set of plans to another, but of course you’ve got to make plans, haven’t you? I mean, you couldn’t both go on hiding yourselves away here, as if you were feeling terribly guilty...” She broke off. “And that’s given me an idea. I shall be returning to Paris at the end of the week. I still keep on my flat there, the one I’ve had for years, and if Rose wants to buy a trousseau, what better place could she buy it in than Paris? You have a house there too, Guy, and you could open it up. We could have one .or two fabulous parties before you take that final plunge you’ve been avoiding for years!”

  The other two gazed at her as if they only dimly comprehended what she was talking about, and she smiled and rushed on light-heartedly:

  “Of course, Rose could stay with me, and I could help her choose her trousseau - introduce her to all the right fashion-houses. I’ve been so bored for the last few months ... unable to settle to anything since poor Roger died. And now I’d enjoy being of use to someone, acting the part of chaperone to you both.” She
shook a waggish finger at them. “You know, it really isn’t right that you should be here alone like this. I know you have Mrs. Bewes to keep an eye on you, but Rose is very young...” The way her voice trailed off, and the way she lifted an eyebrow at Guy, said very plainly that he was very experienced! And youth and experience were hardly a fair match.

  “Well, are they, darling?” she said softly, as he frowned and walked towards her.

  Guys face was a curious blend of constraint and dignity, resentment and sternness. She rose with one sinuous movement as he neared the settee, and they stood eyeing one another in entirely different ways. She was very tall, so that they were practically of a height, and her willowy body seemed to incline towards him a little. Her black eyes were alive with mockery and something else, his were dark and brooding and thoughtful.

  “I don’t think you should come back here, Carmella,” he told her.

  “But why not, darling?” She smiled indolently, insolently, up into his eyes. “I’ve a feeling that your little Miss Arden could need me. She’s so unlike the types who normally people your word, and a woman who knows the ropes is always an asset at a time like this. And I meant it about Paris. You’ve a lot of publicity to live down, and London is hardly the place for that. In Paris there won’t be very much interest in your wedding that didn’t quite come off, and, even if there was, the French will forgive anything that has some connection with a desperate affair of the heart! They won’t blame Rose for breaking Carol-Ann’s heart!”

  When she had rushed away, declaring that she must make the most of the daylight, Rose went across to Guy and looked at him with the shadow of anger in her eyes.

  “Why did you do that?” she demanded. “It wasn’t fair to me, because I’ve already refused to marry you. And, unless you’re afraid of her, why did you do it?”