Bargain Wife

by Mary Burchell

‘Oh no,’ Tina assured him, ‘I wasn’t bored. I was interested.’

  ‘In what?’ Charles wanted to know.

  ‘In your different reactions to someone you both disapprove of, I suppose.’

  ‘Are our reactions different?’ Earle smiled questioningly.

  ‘Oh very. You’re rather tolerant, I think, even about people you catch out.’

  ‘And I?’ inquired her cousin quietly.

  Tina looked at him, more sadly than she knew.

  ‘I shouldn’t like to have to depend on your tolerance,’ she said slowly.

  Whereat he laughed and said, ‘Quite right, my little cousin,’ in that cool, positive way of his.

  ‘It’s no good,’ thought Tina, in a sort of desperation. ‘I can’t do anything else about it. It may be cowardly. It may be dishonest. I’ve got to go on with things now. Even if I wrote a letter of explanation and disappeared, someone would find it their duty to track me down for having entered the country on a false passport. That’s what catches me every time! What a fool I was ever to do this!’

  And yet she knew that, if she could find herself back in the Brooklyn apartment, with the necessity of going on night after night at the club, subject to the whims and temper of Louis, chained to work she hated in an atmosphere she loathed she would probably stifle the voice of her conscience and take almost any way of escape. It had been just bearable until she glimpsed freedom. Now she would literally rather die than give up even this doubtful security in the country she loved.

  She would have to stiffen her resolution and go on somehow. Above all, there must be no more intimate talks with her so-called cousin. It shouldn’t be difficult to avoid him. A busy doctor, without the slightest interest in her existence until a few weeks ago why should he want to see much of her?

  By the time the party broke up she was thinking:

  ‘It’s been lovely, but it mustn’t happen again. The less I see of both of them, the better. Perhaps I can go out of London for a while, and by the time I come back, they’ll have other interests. No more talks alone with Charles—’

  And at that moment he said:

  ‘I’ll see my cousin to her hotel, Earle. It’s on my way.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes. Quite sure.’

  There was nothing she could do about it except say goodnight to Earle and go with her cousin.

  As they came out of the hotel, the warm summer air greeted them.

  ‘Oh, isn’t it lovely!’ Tina breathed involuntarily. And her cousin paused, smiling a little. Then, as though another thought had struck him, he said:

  ‘Would you prefer to walk?’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘Safe? Oh yes.’ He laughed softly. This isn’t New York, you know. Besides in spite of the rebuff this evening I’ll undertake to take care of you.’

  And, taking her hand, he drew it through his arm, holding it lightly against his side in a warm, personal contact which suddenly set her heart beating inexplicably fast.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AFTERWARDS Tina used to look back on that short walk to her hotel as something very significant in her relationship with Charles Linton.

  It was not that her instinctive antagonism to him entirely disappeared, but it somehow became merged in her fascinated interest in him. An interest which she realised it now had more to do with him as an individual than the fact that she had become forcibly related to him and very much entangled in his private affairs.

  He, for his part, appeared to have little more than this casual, half-amused interest in her, and Tina shrewdly suspected that there were few things-besides his work to which he did pay the tribute of any more serious attention.

  Even when he asked her about her future plans which he did as they walked through the almost deserted streets he did so more as though it were a question one might be expected to ask than a matter in which he had any specially lively interest.

  ‘I don’t know that I’ve made any definite plans yet,’ Tina said slowly, very sure that at any rate she could not discuss them in detail with him.

  ‘Well, you’ll be able to afford to live where you like—even in the gilded security of the stockbroker belt,’ he remarked carelessly.

  ‘But I don’t want gilded security,’ Tina assured him quickly. ‘I didn’t come home to be a parasite.’

  ‘No?’ He sounded amused not very politely so. ‘But then you didn’t know you were coming home to sixty thousand pounds, remember.’

  ‘Well, do you suppose that inheriting money necessarily changes one’s character?’

  ‘Never having inherited any, I’m afraid I can’t say.’

  She was silent at that. And then after a few moments she spoke slowly and thoughtfully.

  ‘If you had inherited Aunt Maggie’s money, what would you have done?’

  ‘You sound like a reporter interviewing a sweepstake winner,’ he told her lightly. ‘And I believe the classic reply is I should just go on with my work.’

  ‘Yes, I know that bit!’ She laughed, though a little vexedly that he so determinedly refused to take her seriously. ‘But haven’t you any idea of what you would do with a suddenly acquired fortune? Most people have.’

  ‘Have they?’ And then, after a moment, with real curiosity, ‘Had you?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I meant to come home to England.’

  ‘Just that? Nothing else?’

  ‘It seemed enough, all those dreadful four years,’ Tina murmured, half to herself.

  ‘What four years?’ He sounded puzzled, and she felt her teeth knock together with the terrified realisation of what she had said.

  ‘Oh, I meant the last four years. In New York, you know. I wasn’t always there. But that was the worst time.’ She hoped that didn’t sound as jerky to him as it did to her. Apparently not, because he just said reflectively:

  ‘Was it? Funny. I liked New York every moment of it.’

  ‘But then,’ Tina pointed out, without rancour, ‘you were not playing in a third-rate nightclub.’

  He laughed.

  That’s true.’ Then, after a pause, ‘So the one thing you meant to do if money came your way was to come back to the country you left as a baby?’

  ‘Yes.’ She spoke rather breathlessly. ‘And what did you mean to do? You haven’t told me yet.’

  ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘I suppose until fairly recently I should have used any unexpected windfall to help to establish a special clinic for my particular kind of surgery. Something like that. Something where I could afford to disregard the financial side of things altogether and simply concentrate on research special cases fresh developments, and that sort of thing.’

  She had no time to question him further as the shape of her hotel loomed before them. Charles stayed with her no longer than to see she was safely inside the entrance to the hotel. Then he left her with an abruptness which suggested that he had much more important things on hand than the affairs of a remote relation.

  That was as it should be, for no doubt he had more important things to do. But as Tina made her way to her room she found her thoughts irresistibly following Charles, before, tired by the events of the day, she fell asleep.

  It was the next morning free, for the first time, from any immediate tasks or worries that Tina began to realise that a life of deception was perforce also a life of considerable isolation.

  Common sense demanded that she should make as few acquaintances as possible until her position was clearer and her plans more definite. For each person who came to know her as ‘Miss Frayne’ added to the complications of her future. Indeed, an uneasy conviction was growing upon her that if the circle were extended much further, she would find herself trapped into remaining Miss Frayne to the end of her days.

  But, in spite of these clear-sighted reflections, Tina was acutely conscious of an illogical desire to be sociable to chat with someone, preferably with some other girl. Not about anything in particular just an exchange of views on everyday things
. One couldn’t exist on momentous interviews with lawyers, nerve-racking conversations with dangerous cousins, or even casual comments from mistaken, elderly waiters.

  I’d just like to talk for the sake of talking,’ thought Tina. ‘If only Sonia—’

  She broke off with that slight sense of shock which the memory of Sonia still brought. So difficult to remember that there was no Sonia now. No real Sonia. Only herself in some masquerade which even now sometimes seemed too strange to be true.

  She shivered, because these recollections were depressing, and caution forgotten she turned with real relief as someone came over and dropped comfortably into the opposite corner of the lounge settee, evidently with the intention of addressing her.

  As Tina glanced up she met the smiling, frankly curious gaze of very bright dark eyes, and she reflected absently though with real admiration that the girl who was watching her had remarkably pretty teeth. Otherwise she was not outstandingly good-looking, but she had a certain youthful air of extreme interest which arrested attention and imparted an unmistakable friendliness to her manner.

  ‘Hello!’ the girl said, without any preamble. ‘Have coffee with me, will you? I’m tired of my own company and I’m hoping you are of yours.’

  Tina smiled. It was impossible not to, in the face of such engaging frankness.

  ‘Thank you, I’d like coffee. And yes, I’d like to talk too.’ Too late to remember that it would have been wiser to plead an urgent engagement. And the girl was ordering coffee and arranging the cushions into a more comfortable position behind her head before Tina could modify her admission.

  ‘My name’s Audrey Unsworth,’ she informed Tina, still with that complete lack of ceremony, ‘and we’ve been turned out of our flat, and I’m simply furious with everyone, because I don’t like living in this place. Do you?’

  ‘I’ve been here only a couple of days,’ Tina explained with a smile, ‘and it seems comfortable enough. It will do until I get a place of my own.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s different, of course. It’s the reverse process that’s so infuriating. Coming here from a place of one’s own.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your having to leave your flat,’ Tina murmured with what she hoped was an air of tactful sympathy. From her companion’s slightly dramatic way of imparting the information she rather wondered whether bailiffs had had something to do with the hasty exit. It was difficult to inquire but it also proved unnecessary, for Miss Unsworth appeared to suffer from no special reticence about her private affairs.

  ‘The landlord came back in a hurry and more or less turfed us out as our lease was up.’

  ‘I suppose he needed it,’ Tina suggested mildly.

  ‘I didn’t believe a word he said. But there you are. Life’s like that, isn’t it?’

  Tina agreed cautiously that, broadly speaking, life was often like that.

  ‘Anyway, it’s a good thing it didn’t happen until after Eileen had gone.’

  Tina waited while coffee was poured out, in the hope that Eileen’s identity would be made a little clearer. It was, almost immediately.

  ‘Eileen’s my sister,’ her companion explained. ‘She lived with me in the flat. Now she’s gone to take up nursing.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Tina felt that some comment was called for, but that the only kind of comment which would be appreciated would be an invitation to continue the monologue. ‘How interesting!’ She hoped that sounded convincing.

  ‘Oh, do you think so? I don’t a bit. I’d much rather be a model or test pilot.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tina agreed, wondering for the first time how old the adventurous Miss Unsworth was. Under twenty probably, judging from her views. ‘But your sister voted for nursing?’

  ‘Um-hm. Not that Eileen had the usual illusions about it, of course.’

  ‘The usual illusions?’

  ‘Yes. You know how lots of girls think it’s all pillow-smoothing and smiling at good-looking doctors. And all the time it’s really mostly bed-pans and being nagged by the Matron.’

  Tina laughed.

  ‘But that didn’t discourage your sister?’

  ‘N-no.’ For the first time Audrey Unsworth hesitated in her rapid flow of conversation. Then, with apparent irrelevance, she volunteered the information:

  ‘I saw you coming in yesterday evening. That was the first time I noticed you.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Yes. I was in the entrance hall. That was Mr. Linton with you, wasn’t it? Charles Linton, the surgeon.’

  ‘Why, yes!’ Tina spoke a little more sharply than she had intended, and she could not help glancing quickly at her questioner. ‘Do you know him, then?’

  ‘Oh no. At least, not to speak to. But that was one reason why I thought I’d like to get to know you. You see, he’s one reason why Eileen wanted to do nursing.’

  Tina thought the reasoning was becoming slightly mixed, and frowned in a puzzled way.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite see,’ she confessed. ‘Why exactly did Eileen take up nursing? and what had it to do with Charles Mr. Linton?’

  ‘Goodness! Do you know him well enough to call him by his first name?’ Her hearer was embarrassingly impressed.

  ‘He’s a sort of cousin,’ Tina explained, biting her lip, because she was a little vexed at being trapped into admitting as much. ‘But do tell me about Eileen.’

  ‘Oh, well, you see, she’d done first aid work and all that sort of thing, and suddenly she got a chance of pulling a string or two and getting taken on at Charles Linton’s hospital. At least, I mean the hospital where he does most of his work.’

  ‘Does she admire his work so much or something?’

  The younger Miss Unsworth gave a scornful sound indicative of extreme amusement.

  ‘You could put it that way, I suppose,’ was what she said.

  Tina smiled.

  ‘Or how else could one put it?’ she asked.

  ‘We-ell I don’t really know why I’m being so frank to you.’ A belated discretion seemed to descend upon Miss Unsworth. ‘Eileen’s always saying that I talk far too much.’

  Tina privately thought Eileen was probably painfully correct, and she said at once:

  ‘Well, don’t tell me anything of your sister’s private affairs. I only thought—’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. I started it.’ Audrey Unsworth admitted generously. Then, after another of those pauses during which she studied Tina with an attention that would have been embarrassing if it had not been so ingenuous: ‘Would you mind if I asked you something frightfully personal?’

  ‘I don’t expect so.’ Tina was amused again.

  ‘I mean really something that isn’t my business at all.’

  ‘Well, I could refuse to answer if I didn’t like the question,’ Tina pointed out mildly.

  ‘Yes of course, you could. I only wondered you’re not engaged or anything to Charles Linton, are you?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ replied Tina, with a promptness that seemed to dispose of the vague ‘or anything’ quite as finally as with the suggestion of an engagement.

  ‘Good!’ Her hearer drew an unmistakable sigh of relief.

  ‘Why?’ Tina could not resist asking her curiosity getting the better of her.

  ‘Well, I think Eileen means to marry him. And it’s always so much nicer for everyone around if Eileen gets just what she wants,’ was the rather astonishing reply.

  Tina tried without success to imagine what Charles’ reactions would be to these matrimonial efforts on his behalf. Aloud she said:

  ‘But does your sister know him very well?’

  ‘Not very,’ Audrey Unsworth admitted with characteristic candour. ‘But you simply can’t imagine what a determined person Eileen is when she wants anything. She’s much more worldly and sophisticated and all that sort of thing than I am, and she always knows just exactly what she wants.’

  Tina couldn’t help wondering if Eileen’s ideas on marriage were to be taken about as seriously
as her sister’s ideas on careers. But the next sentence disposed of that.

  ‘Eileen’s lots older than I am, you know. Nearly thirty though she’d be furious if she knew I said so.’

  ‘I see. Reached an age of discretion and knows her own mind.’ Tina smiled, though for some reason or other she felt disquieted as well as amused by the conversation. ‘So she’s very fond of my charming cousin?’

  Miss Unsworth wrinkled her nose sceptically.

  ‘Funny how you keep on using all the wrong words to describe Eileen,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t say she was fond of anyone. Except herself, of course,’ she added, with a singular lack of rancour for an unloved younger sister.

  ‘You see, she always meant to marry someone with their foot on the ladder of fame, as you might say.’

  ‘Really?’ Tina felt her eyebrows go up almost without her own volition. ‘And does that describe Mr. Linton?’

  ‘Oh, rather. “Brilliant surgeon of the younger generation specialising in plastic ‘surgery.” I mean the headlines positively write themselves.’

  Tina laughed rather vexedly, and her companion exclaimed with sudden anxiety:

  ‘I say, you won’t feel it your duty to warn him or anything, will you?’

  ‘No,’ Tina said, a trifle dryly. ‘I imagine Charles Linton is very well able to look after himself without any cousinly warnings.’

  ‘Very likely. Though, of course,’ murmured Audrey reflectively, ‘you don’t know Eileen.’

  Tina couldn’t help feeling that she had no wish to know Eileen either. The whole episode was becoming rather silly and irritating, and anyway, one could hardly be expected to take it seriously.

  Still rather dryly she said:

  ‘Is Eileen so extremely attractive? Or on what does she base her rather exaggerated hopes?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I explain that?’ Audrey nickered her lashes with an ingenuousness which Tina felt to be almost though not quite too good to be true. ‘She’s quite attractive, of course. But the real point is that she has money. We both have only mine’s tied up until I’m twenty-one.’

  Tina wondered with some embarrassment how many more intimate facts about the Unsworth family were to be presented to her, free, gratis, and for nothing, and rather hastily she said: