Bargain Wife

by Mary Burchell

  ‘Maybe.’ Characteristically he was not the least deprecating about that. “Anyway, what were you going to confess to me? I’m growing curious.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to confess anything, Charles!’ She was suddenly panic-stricken. ‘I was just—just speaking in the most general way. I wasn’t thinking of anything particular. You mustn’t think so.’

  ‘All right.’ He laughed good-humouredly. ‘You needn’t sound so scared.’ He glanced up at her mischievously, and she thought how singularly penetrating his eyes were. She gave him a careless little kiss and stood up, really because she found it hard to meet those shrewd, smiling eyes, even though there was not a trace of real suspicion in them.

  To him the whole thing was a joke.

  And it must remain so! thought Tina. She had been very silly to make even that general inquiry. Besides, where did it lead? Nothing he could have said, either in joke or in earnest, would really have convinced her that it would be safe to confess.

  For a little while after that she found, for some reason or other, that her nervous dread and anxiety became less. Perhaps the reassuring fact that not a word had been heard from Collier had a good deal to do with it, or perhaps it was simply that she was busy and happy in her everyday life and had less time to worry.

  For that reason the shock was all the greater when it did come.

  It was the afternoon of what was usually one of Charles’ ‘hospital’ days when he was away all day, but on this occasion, owing to some last-minute rearrangement, he had been at home until the early afternoon.

  She had enjoyed her morning, going round with him to see their patients, and was specially happy because a very difficult case seemed likely to yield to treatment at last.

  ‘I wish you were staying home this afternoon,’ she told him over lunch. ‘You’re looking just a little tired, Charles, and as though you could do with a rest.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘It’s nothing. There’s been a lot of work lately, but it’s not tiring when you’re actually doing it. That’s the thrilling thing about this comparatively new type of surgery. Today’s discovery may solve the problem of tomorrow’s operation. It’s endlessly interesting.’

  Tina smiled sympathetically and got up to go with him as far as the front door.

  As they came out into the corridor which led from their rooms to the head of the stairs, Mrs. Ardingley came towards them.

  ‘There is a gentleman to see you, Mrs. Linton,’ she said, with that faintly prim air of disapproval which usually meant that some hapless visitor had offended against her special code of visitors’ behaviour.

  ‘Who is it, Mrs. Ardingley?’ Tina supposed it was probably someone to see one of the patients who preferred to have a word with her first.

  ‘He wouldn’t give his name, madam.’ The extra pursing of Mrs. Ardingley’s lips indicated where the visitor’s fault had been.

  Tina laughed.

  ‘Never mind, I’ll come down.’ She glanced past Mrs. Ardingley to the trim, pretty figure of Eileen which had just appeared at the top of the stairs. And as she did so, she thought: ‘Confound that girl and her spiteful curiosity!’

  For Eileen was glancing back over her shoulder with particular interest, and evidently would have liked to know more about whoever was standing in the hall.

  ‘Visitors should either hand their card or give their name,’ Mrs. Ardingley affirmed grimly at that moment, in answer to what she considered to be Tina’s too indulgent attitude towards the erring one. ‘How is one to know otherwise if one wishes to be “at home”?’

  Tina, who was always ‘at home’ to anyone who wanted to see her, only laughed at that. But Eileen, who had drawn near the group, spoke in a different but helpful way.

  ‘You needn’t worry, Mrs. Ardingley.’ Mrs. Ardingley stiffened all over. ‘It’s a personal friend of Mrs. Linton’s. The friend you were seeing off at King’s Cross that day, Mrs. Linton. I recognised him at once.’

  Mrs. Ardingley’s expression said quite plainly that it was the height of impertinence on Eileen’s part to have noticed the visitor, much less recognised him, but Tina was not aware of that. She was terrifiedly concerned only with Charles’ hasty:

  ‘Well, I must go, my dear. Make my excuses for me, it he was expecting to see your husband. I’m late already.’

  She hardly heard the last three words, and instinctively held him back, her hand clutching his arm. She couldn’t let him go down! He would have to pass Collier in the hall and could not fail to recognise him.

  But the astonished look on his face recalled her to a sense of her peculiar behaviour. Murmuring something she hardly knew what she let him go, and without waiting to say anything more, he just nodded goodbye and ran down the stairs.

  She felt unable even to lean over the banisters and look after him see the meeting for herself and judge what effect it had on Charles. She stood there, a little aimlessly, vaguely aware that Eileen had turned reluctantly away and that Mrs. Ardingley was obviously waiting for her to go downstairs.

  ‘I think, madam, he was one of the gentlemen who came that afternoon to look over the place and ask all those questions,’ she explained disapprovingly to Tina. ‘I thought I recognised him, though I couldn’t place him. Then when Nurse Unsworth put her oar in, I remembered.’

  It was difficult to say why an interruption from Eileen should have stimulated Mrs. Ardingley’s memory for something totally unconnected with what she had to say. But Tina nodded understandingly. She quite realised that an annoyed competitive spirit had prompted Mrs. Ardingley to supply information in her turn, since Nurse Unsworth had gone so far out of her own province as to interrupt a conversation between Mrs. Ardingley and her employers.

  ‘I’ll come down,’ Tina repeated, but in a rather weary tone. She felt very different from the girl who had said the same words a few minutes ago.

  As she went slowly down the stairs, she realised that Collier was standing in an embrasure made by one of the corner windows that jutted out at the side of the house. He had his back to her, but turned abruptly as he heard her footsteps across the polished floor of the hall, and for a moment she had the impression that he too was a good deal shaken.

  Then he hadn’t wanted to see Charles either. No, she supposed, it would be better for his plans that the husband’s suspicions should not be aroused just yet.

  As she came up to him, she said as naturally as possible:

  ‘How do you do? Did you want to see me?’ because she knew Mrs. Ardingley was not far behind her. But the moment she heard the housekeeper’s door close behind her, Tina’s voice changed to low-toned fury. ‘How dare you come to this place! Do you think there’s nothing that I won’t put up with?’

  ‘You haven’t much choice, have you?’ he retorted rudely. But he was not so sure of himself today, and when she made as though to speak again, he interrupted her a trifle sullenly. ‘All right, all right. You don’t suppose I would have come if it hadn’t been urgent, do you? I didn’t specially want to run into that husband of yours. Damned bad luck that he should come down just then. I thought this was his day for operating over at the hospital. I rang up specially to make sure.’

  It was useless to comment on the effrontery of that, so she just said briefly:

  ‘There was a rearrangement. He’s only just gone now. Did he did he recognise you? speak to you?’

  ‘I don’t know if he recognised me.’ Collier was uneasy although he tried to cover the fact. ‘I turned and looked out of the window, the moment I realised who it was, and he passed without attempting to speak. But I couldn’t say if he knew me. You’ll have to lie pretty smartly if he asks.’

  What am I doing?’ thought Tina, furious and miserable. ‘Arranging with this devil of a man how we shall cheat Charles between us!’ But there was no time for protest now, and aloud she simply said:

  ‘What have you come for?’

  ‘Can’t we so somewhere a little less public and talk?’ he asked irritably,
and she was more sure than ever that was shaken by having so nearly encountered Charles face to face. If only one could threaten in one’s own turn. It was so hard that Charles—of whom this man was really afraid— should be the very one to whom she could not appeal.

  She would have liked to refuse to fall in with his suggestion, but for her own sake she must comply. If Eileen were to contrive to come down again on one of her innumerable and useful errands, there was no saying what she might deduce.

  Without a word, Tina led the way into a small sitting-room where she usually received the friends and relations who came to see her patients. How she wished it were someone as welcome and harmless whom she was interviewing now!

  The measure of privacy seemed to restore Collier’s self-confidence immediately. He took a chair without being asked to do so, and looked round him with a disagreeable smile.

  ‘Pretty comfortable here, aren’t you?’ he said approvingly.

  ‘Was that what you came to tell me?’ Tina asked crisply, and he laughed.

  ‘No,’ he drawled. ‘I came to let you know how very useful that little present was that you gave me. Saw me through a difficult week or two, I can tell you. But—’

  ‘I’m not interested in what you did with the money you blackmailed out of me,’ she interrupted fiercely.

  ‘No. But this bit will interest you. I was unlucky and lost the last fifty pounds.’

  ‘Lost it?’ She looked at him with contempt.

  ‘Um-hm. There are various ways of losing money, you know. Sometimes one makes an unlucky bet.’

  ‘Oh that!’ Her scorn deepened. Then she pressed her lips together. ‘What has that to do with me?’

  ‘Quite a lot, my dear, because, by a series of circumstances with which I won’t bore you, I need fifty pounds very, very urgently. You’re my best chance of getting it. That’s why I’m down here this afternoon, in spite of the risk of running into your charming husband.’

  ‘Do you suppose,’ Tina asked slowly and coldly, ‘that every time you want a sum of money, large or small, you have only to come here whining to me?’

  ‘Demanding,’ he corrected almost pleasantly.

  ‘Whichever way you put it, you must see that the position is impossible!’ she exclaimed. ‘No one would—could put up with it. Whether I thought it worthwhile or not, I should have to tell my husband. I simply couldn’t stand it.’

  She saw that her words really made some impression on him. He sat up slowly from his lounging position, studying her with that frankly insolent gaze.

  ‘Well, I see your point,’ he said with an air of mocking reasonableness. ‘But that isn’t my idea, you know. You won’t be having so many visits from me.’ Her heart leapt with hope. ‘This is what you might term a little emergency call. But when I have time to get down to our problem properly well, we’ve never had that long talk, you and I, and when we do, I think we should be able to come to something quite satisfactory between us something which means I don’t have to bother you like this.’

  ‘You mean a sort of settlement?’ She hated herself for catching so eagerly at his monstrous hint.

  He grinned at her and nodded.

  Tina said nothing for a moment. She was breathless with the glimpse of freedom at last. Whatever it cost her, she felt she would pay it thankfully. If this wretch meant that he would take a large sum and clear out leave England then it would be worth anything.

  ‘When do you propose to have this “little talk”, as you call it?’ She tried unsuccessfully, she felt to conceal her eagerness.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He considered the point carelessly, and she felt furiously sure that he was certain he could make his own terms. ‘Shall we say Friday week?’

  That’s nearly a fortnight to wait.’ Her voice was sharper than she meant it to be.

  ‘But I can’t manage it before then,’ he retorted at once, with an air of finality that just prevented her from descending to argument.

  ‘Friday week, then,’ she said shortly. ‘And for the present—?’

  ‘For the present? fifty pounds,’ he told her smilingly.

  She said nothing. There was really nothing to say. All she could do was go out of the room, with what dignity she could muster, and upstairs to her own room to fetch the money this man demanded.

  Tina was almost surprised that she saw nothing of Eileen either on the way up or when she was coming back. It would have been entirely in character if Eileen had managed most charmingly and convincingly, of course to be somewhere handy to observe Tina’s preoccupation and distress.

  As it was, she returned safely to the room where Collier was waiting on his feet now, and with an air of not wanting to wait any longer. Perhaps the few minutes alone had given him time to think over how awkward it would be if some accident should bring Charles back again.

  He took the money without any touch of shame, counted it, and put it away in his wallet.

  Thanks,’ he said, as though she had been paying a debt. ‘And I’ll let you know when and where to meet me on Friday week.’

  Tina didn’t waste any goodbyes on him. She saw him to the door, closing it behind him almost before he had left the front step. Then, feeling very tired, she went slowly upstairs.

  But she changed her mind about going to her own room. It was impossible to bear one’s own thoughts this afternoon. And she went to see some of the patients instead.

  Their company and their conversation quieted her nerves a little, though from time to time she remembered with sickening apprehension that Charles would be coming home some time, and if he had indeed seen Collier he would be bound to expect some explanation.

  And that odious, odious remark of Eileen’s! How could Charles be anything but suspicious if he had really recognised Collier and now knew, thanks to Eileen, that he was the man Tina had been with at King’s Cross!

  More than once that afternoon, she knew, Eileen’s large thoughtful eyes regarded her with innocent interest and curiosity. Audrey herself could not have looked more artless, but Tina knew that behind that innocent stare, inquisitive and uncharitable ideas were working.

  It made her feel slightly hysterical as though she must justify herself aggressively to Eileen, without even being accused. That would be insane, of course, but the desire to try to find out something of Eileen’s thoughts became irresistible.

  As she was leaving to go across to her own rooms, she noticed that Eileen was going off duty, and on the split of the moment she said:

  ‘Do come across and have tea with me, will you? It’s rather quiet on my own.’

  There was only a moment’s hesitation before Eileen accepted with a graceful:

  ‘Thank you, I’d love to.’

  For the first few minutes it was difficult to know how to make conversation. Then tea was brought in, and over the usual conventional inquiries and answers the restraint between them lessened.

  Tina wondered a little now why she had forced that meeting, and then it gradually became apparent to her that Eileen was much more ill at ease than she herself. It was difficult to imagine why, for Eileen was not a girl who was easily put out.

  If she had not wanted to come, she could easily have made some excuse. But it was more than a general reluctance to be in the society of someone she envied and disliked, Tina thought. There was a sort of wariness about her, which no charm and smiling self-assurance could efface. As though she, and not Tina, had reason to be anxious.

  For a while Tina was completely mystified. Then Eileen said, with all the casualness in the world:

  ‘It was very nice of you to let Audrey come to your wedding. She was terribly thrilled, you know. But then you really got very friendly with my young sister, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mrs. Linton, she’s also a very tiresome child at times.’ Eileen’s expression was that of an indulgent elder sister rather than the domestic tyrant which Tina knew she could be to poor young Audrey. ‘She’s very much inclined to exaggerate and
even romance about people. I think you must have noticed it sometimes.’

  The indulgent expression vanished suddenly, and she was looking very hard at Tina almost challengingly.

  ‘Ah,’ thought Tina, ‘now I know what’s wrong! She’s got it out of poor Audrey that there’s been some injudicious talk!’

  ‘Audrey never told me anything that struck me as untruthful,’ she said pleasantly, though a little dangerously. ‘And I’m not sure that she even exaggerated, more than girls of her age often do.’

  ‘Mrs. Linton, she said some extremely exaggerated and untrue things about me, I think.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ inquired Tina with a coolness that did her credit.

  ‘I don’t even think it I know it,’ Eileen retorted impatiently. And with that sudden gesture of frankness the formal relationship of nurse and surgeon’s wife ceased to exist between them. They were just two girls who very much disliked each other because of one man. ‘Audrey confessed some of the ridiculous things she told you about me. She made some silly remark which made me suspicious, and then I made her tell me what she had been saying.’

  ‘But were they such very ridiculous things that she told me?’ Tina said quietly, wondering en passant how much sisterly bullying had gone to making Audrey disclose what she had said.

  ‘Of course they were,’ Eileen sounded as though she were controlling her temper with difficulty. ‘Stupid things about me and—’

  ‘About you .and my husband,’ Tina completed for her.

  ‘Exactly. That I intended—’

  ‘Eileen,’ Tina said unexpectedly, ‘don’t you think it would be much better for your dignity and our future relationship if you didn’t put these things into words? Just as it would have been much better for you not to have accepted the post at this particular nursing-home. You’re attractive, my husband says you are an excellent nurse. You could go anywhere.’

  ‘I see you refuse to believe anything but what that little idiot told you!’ Eileen exclaimed indignantly. ‘I suppose you like to think that other women are running after your husband! It makes you feel good to think that you got him.’