Such is love

by Burchell, Mary

  157

  A

  herself. She was free to reflect on the disagreeable possibility of having to face whatever crisis there was tonight, alone. Or, if there were no crisis—^then she might be forced to allow Terry to take her home by taxi.

  It was difficult to say which thought was more unpleasant, and she was looking unusually grave when they arrived at Paula's home.

  Actually, Gwyneth found, on arrival, the house at Nor-bury was nothing like so forbidding as Paula and Van had suggested. Large and not very modern, yet it had an air of rich-toned comfort which suggested a very pleasant sufficiency of this world's goods.

  Throughout the house there reigned a rich, carpeted silence which it was difficult to associate with Paula. But then Paula's parents were also a little difficult to associate with her, Gwyneth found, when she and Van entered the long drawing-room and were greeted by them.

  Mrs. Stacey, tall and heavily dignified, wore a dress of heavy amethyst silk, which had probably cost more than anything Gwyneth had ever worn in her life, though she reckoned to spend a good deal'on her clothes.

  Mr. Stacey was rosy-cheeked and bushy-haired—an unexpectedly cheerful little man, and nothing like so dignified as his wife. They were both at least sixty, Gwyneth saw, and indeed Mr. Stacey, at least, was probably not far off seventy.

  Apparently Van enjoyed their almost imlimited approval, and it seemed probable that she was to be allowed to share this.

  "We were sorry, indeed, not to be able to attend your wedding in the summer," Mrs. Stacey told her, "but, of course, my husband and I do very little travelling nowadays, and it seemed too much of an undertaking to come quite so far." /

  Gwyneth assured her hostess that she quite understood —^though she secretly felt convinced that old Mr. Stacey, if left to his own choice, would certainly have undertaken an even longer journey. He seemed game for a good many more things than his wife, but was rather firmly suppressed if he showed signs of breaking out in any unorthodox direction. It was from him, undoubtedly; that Paula inherited her more headstrong qualities, and, in consequence,

  Gwyneth thought, it was probably he, rather than the mother, who had capitulated so completely to Terry's onslaught.

  Conversation took a very correct and conventional turn. They talked of the mildness of the weather, their pleasure in Paula's engagement, the possibility of a foreign honeymoon for her, while Gwyneth thought:

  "How awful! They're so completely and utterly taken in, and they're the kind to blame themselves terribly afterwards if anything happened to their darling. I can't let it go on." And yet to speak meant—what?

  "Mr. Muirldrk," announced the au pair girl, and Terry breezed into the room.

  Until then, Gwyneth had felt that he could not do anything but strike a shghtly incongruous note—in these surroundings, with which he had nothing in common. But she was quite mistaken. Nothing could have been more complete than Terry's assumption of the attributes and qualities most suited to the Stacey's expectation of what a son-in-law should be.

  He bent over Mrs. Stacey's hand, and then respectfully kissed the large, smooth cheek offered. Royalty saluting royalty could not have done it better. He called Mr. Stacey *sir', and deferred to him in most things, listening with pleasant attention to almost every word he uttered. And, while Paula showed a famt impatience at the slow tempo of the household, he accommodated himself to it with magnificent good humour tinged with respect.

  It was not lost on Van, Gwyneth saw, and while she felt nothing but indignation and contempt for what she knew was the exploiting of these decent people, he was evidently very genuinely amused by what he believed to be a piece of harmless and tactful (Uplomacy.

  Terry greeted her with charming courtesy, and Van with more than friendliness. His effrontery was so staggering that Gwyneth was frightened. It was as though he knew he was invincible, and scarcely bothered to suppose that anyone could thmk him anything else.

  Presently they moved into the slightly gloomy dining-room, where heavy mahogany furniture and a deep-piled maroon-coloured carpet seemed to suggest that here eating took place as a very solemn rite.

  Tall, steadily-burning candles shed pools of light on the highly-polished table, and the very exquisite lace table-mats seemed to float on the surface of a dark pool. The flower decorations were conventional but lavish, and they had evidently been chosen quite regardless of expense.

  Each course of the meal was perfectly served, perfectly cooked, and, to tell the truth, perfectly chosen. Mrs. Stacey might not believe in 'patronizing gay restaurants', but she certainly knew how to provide a meal which defied criticism, in her own house.

  Gwyneth*s intelligence paid tribute to it, while her sense of enjoyment was left untouched. It was impossible to enjoy the most perfect of food when one's thoughts were in a turmoil and one's confidence in. open revolt against one's fondest wishes.

  "We were just talking about your plans for a foreign honeymoon," Van remarked to Terry across the table.

  "Oh yes?" Terry exchanged a smile with Paula. "I should actually have liked a tour round the world myself, but we decided it would mean too great a change for Mr. and Mrs. Stacey. One doesn't expect to have one's only daughter taken away quite so completely and abruptly." This time the smile was directed upon Mrs. Stacey, whose slight inclination of the head was evidently meant to convey that she appreciated Terry's thougiht for them.

  Gwyneth watched iu silent but incredulous astonishment It would have been impossible for a casual observer to suppose that any but Terry's money would have paid for the suggested world tour. No—^the change of plans was due solely to his exquisite consideration for others, and not at all to the fact that he was drawing lavishly on his fiancee's family for his future support.

  "You chose Switzerland, didn't you?" Terry was addressing himself to her, she found, and the conversation was apparently still circling round the topic of honey- 1 moons.

  "Yes. We only managed to snatch ten days, but we had a wonderful time." She was surprised, herself, at the agreeable cordiality with which she managed to produce that. 1

  "Ah, that's the worst of you business magnates," Terry • turned to Van again. "Busiuess must come first, even on a honeymoon. Now, we good-for-nothing artists can laze

  away a month or two, and all anyone says is "disgusting how that fellow neglects his work, but then what do you expect from an artist?" And he laughed so pleasantly at the joke against himself that everyone joined in, just to show how absurd was the disparaging reference.

  "But then you work very hard when you are at it," Paula protested.

  Terry shrugged and smiled.

  "You've only seen me working on something I specially enjoy," he told her. And then Gwyneth was not at all surprised to learn that he was busying himself on a portrait of Mrs. Stacey.

  "It's really wonderful," she thought, with something like reluctant admiration for his sheer rascality. "He had the sense to choose her rather than the old man. She was the difficult part of the problem, as I thought He can manage his futiire father-in-law with one hand.

  "Terry is extremely gifted," Mrs. Stacey said to Van, and Gwyneth thought that was certainly true, though not in quite the way she meant.

  "We're having a marvellous studio built, all along one side of the house," Paula explained. "Two stories high and lots of the right sort of light—I never know which it is. Anyway, Terry is delighted with it."

  The whole Stacey family appeared to share Terry's delight, Gwyneth noticed at that moment.

  "A very bad arrangement," Van told Paula rather teas-ingiy. "You shouldn't have your husband working at home. You'll be dreadfully sick of him before the first year's out."

  "Oh no! It's much more fun than saying good-bye immediately after breakfast and wondering after that if he'll even be in to tea. I think Gwyneth's an angel to put up so well with all those hours alone."

  "Gwyneth is quite an exceptional person in every way," Van asserted, still with an air of banter, b
ut this time with an under-current of meaning.

  Gwyneth smiled.

  "I don't mind my own company," she said, "and in any case, I'm not alone."

  "Oh no. Of course, there's Toby now, isn't there? And I hear you really are adopting him permanently, as you

  wanted. But a little boy isn't really very much company, is he?"

  "Toby is." Gwyneth was quite firm about that, while Mrs. Stacey remarked judicially:

  "An intelligent child can be quite a little companion. At six, Paula, you certainly were."

  "Oh, I don't expect I was a tenth as quaint and amusing as Toby," Paula declared generously. "He's quite adorable."

  "My daughter tells me he is a most attractive child," Mrs. Stacey said graciously to Gwyneth. "So fortunate, because, of course, it is a terrible risk."

  "Adopting a child, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "We didn't feel there was much risk about it," Van put | in, with that casual firmness that always made Gwyneth feel the whole thing was so reasonable and justifiable—^not simply a wild and emotional impulse, as it must seem to some people.

  "I think the most remarkable thing is their objective view of it," Terry declared to Mrs. Stacey. "I don't believe they even insisted on knowing anything of the child's antecedents."

  "Do you thmk that was very wise?" Mrs. Stacey's tone expressed perfectly that she did not.

  "But there weren't any known, in any case, were there?" ,j Paula said. I

  "There must have been some sort of record at the | orphanage, unless he was actually a foundling," her mother. insisted.

  "I don't think he was that," Van said. "But Gwyn and I both felt that the less we knew about his previous circumstances, the more he would seem like our own."

  Mrs. Stacey sucked her under-lip thoughtfully and shook her head.

  "But the parents might have been anybody" she pointed out with perfect truth.

  "Does it matter?" Van's smile was extremely charming in its determined tolerance.

  "Well, I rather think it does."

  Terry laughed good-temperedly and explained to Mrs. Stacey:

  "What Onslie means is that it just wouldn't have made any difference. Suppose Toby's mother had been—^no better than she shoxid be, for instance—and I suppose it's more than probable—still they would have wanted to have him."

  It was not until that moment that Gwyneth realized how Toby had grown into Van's affections and pride. The look he gave Terry was quite frightening in its cold anger.

  "I've never supposed Toby's mother to have been anything of the sort," he said icily, and for a moment an uncomfortable silence fell on the company.

  Even when Mrs. Stacey healed the breach with.a pleasant and cast-iron platitude, Gwyneth herself remained silent—^withdrawn from the conversation, almost unbearably moved.

  M Van had known! If Van had knownl With those dear, curt, angry words, he had been defending his own wife. It touched her so that she could have wept in front of them all, and it hurt her that she would never be able to thank him for the comfort he had given her.

  CHAPTER TEN

  After dinner, while Van and Terry were left with their host to do justice to his admirable port, Gwyneth found, to her dismay, that she was to inspect the part of Paula's trousseau wtdch was already completed.

  She didn't know which was more agitating—Paula's excited pleasure or her mother's graver, more weighty satisfaction.

  The weaker part of her conscience began to whisper insistently to her: "Now, isn't it better to leave them in this nice fools' paradise as long as possible? They won't thank you for pushing them out of it. Is it really worth ruining your whole life to do it? Anyway, what are you going to do?"

  She didn't know the answer to that question, so she looked at delectable creations in white and peach and palest blue and mauve, and said: "Sweetl" "How lovely!" and "What an adorable shade," as often as was necessary.

  If only she had not known just how base Terry was! If only she hadn't seen for herself that his wife was still alive!

  But of course, she ought not to think that, because it was that which had made her realize the urgent necessity of saving Paula.

  It was ridiculous to suppose that Terry would really settle down with her for the rest of his life—even if one could overlook the unpleasant fact that the marriage was no marriage. That, after all, was not her business. But it was her business that she, of all of them, knew just what would happen when, presently, he grew tired of Paula. There would be nothing to hold him, either legally or financially. Her own parents would have provided him with the wherewithal to desert her.

  And she would not be a deserted wife. She would be a deserted mistress—as Gwyneth had been. And there might be a child as well 1

  "Of course, I shall miss her very much." Mrs. Stacey was speaking and Gwyneth must listen and make suitable replies. "But it's what all parents must expect, sooner or later, and if you know your children are going to be happy, that really is the only thing that matters."

  Gwyneth agreed as fervently as she could to this indisputably excellent truth. She wondered what good it would be to say: "Yes, but this man happens to be a bigamist, you know, and an extremely accomplished swindler."

  No, that was not the way to do it. She must wait for a better opening.

  Or was it just that her cowardly conscience counselled delay, delay, delay?

  Back in the drawing-room once more, they found that the men had already come in, and presently Gwyneth sought the company of old Mr. Stacey, because she simply-could not bear to hear the wedding and honeymoon plans which formed the principal part of almost every conversation conducted by Mrs. Stacey—or, indeed, Paula.

  The old gentleman seemed pleased and rather flattered by her notice, and asked her if she played chess.

  Gwyneth confessed complete ignorance, but was more than willing to show interest, if only it would keep him from the subject of Paula's foolish marriage.

  He showed her his collection of chessmen, which included some beautiful specimens that she would have found genuinely interesting at any other time. They were

  at the far end of the long room now, rather removed from the others, and Gwyneth felt a slight slackening of the tension. It tightened almost immediately, however, when he said:

  "Terry doesn't play, but he has a very keen appreciation of some of these specimens as works of art. I'm glad—I'm very glad, because I'd like them to go to someone who would appreciate them."

  "Perhaps Paula would," Gwyneth suggested. (It was horrible! Even this nice old man's precious chessmen were to go to the contemptible, sponging Terry.)

  He laughed slightly and shook his head.

  "Oh no, Paula doesn't care much about this kind of thing. Naturally, naturally. She's very young and likes something brighter and more in keeping with youth. Besides"—^his eyes twinkled—"it isn't a very feminine game, chess, you know."

  "N-no. But if Terry is interested in these works of art, surely Paula might be too?"

  "Oh, a little, I daresay. But she's more interested in jewellery and that sort of thing, you know. This is more what would have gone to a son, if we'd had one. But then, of course, Terry is a very good substitute for one. He's a good boy," the old man added, with grave inaccuracy. "We're more than willing to look on him as a son."

  Gwyneth was silent, holding a beautifuUy-carved ivory *piece' in her hand and trying to think what to say.

  The old man watched her, willing to let her take her time in examining things.

  "I suppose"—Gwyneth cleared her throat slightly, and started again—"I suppose you are perfectly satisfied about —Paula's future?"

  "Pleased about her marriage, you mean?"

  "Y-yes."

  The old man smiled again, in the indulgent way he seemed to keep for any reference to his daughter.

  "I think she is doing what will really make her happy, so—^yes, I'm quite satisfied. I don't want to lose her, of course, but "

  "I didn't quite
mean that."

  "No? Well, I suppose you know he isn't bringing her very much in the way of worldly goods. In fact, it's very

  much the other way about, of course. I won't say the idea didn't shake me a good deal at first. That and his being an artist. I'd rather expected her to marry some decent, solid, comfortable fellow in the City. I suppose one always expects one's son-in-law to be in the same line as oneself. I shouldn't be surprised now, if your father had rather imagined you as a clergyman's wife?"

  "Oh, I don't think so," Gwyneth said, a good deal surprised. She was perfectly sure her father hadn't had any ideas on the subject at all.

  "Well, well, perhaps not. Anyway, it's rather a silly thing to do. It only means you have to readjust yourself when your girl does make her choice. And, of course, I did see Paula's point pretty quickly. One doesn't expect quite the same standards and ideas from an artist "

  "But one does," Gwyneth exclaimed in dismay. And then, before her slightly startled host could take that up, Van came over to her.

  "I'm so sorry, Gwyn. I've just had a phone message and I shall have to go along to the office after all. But there is no need at all for you to come, of course. I'll take the car now, and I don't expect to be very long. As a matter of fact, I'm almost sure to get through in time to come back for you. If not, I daresay you won't mind getting a taxi."

  "No, of course I don't mind." She spoke rather slowly, because she did mind, terribly. She felt frightened and deserted and alone. She knew some crisis was very close on her now. Ridiculous to feel like that, of course, because, if anything, it was better for Van not to be there. He could not be any help or protection—and in any case, he would be the worst person of all to have to tell. He would have to know about it—^naturally—almost as soon as the others did—how, she was not quite sure; probably, she supposed, through Terry. But, in a way, it was something of a reprieve to have him go. She ought to feel glad.