He lapsed into silence and Maggie knew he was remembering times that had gone for ever. Presently he looked up and said suddenly, 'You know, Maggie, if Blake had been stupid enough to marry the Deering woman it would have been the end of his involvement with the Hong Kong contract. The Directors would never have agreed to his taking her out there as his wife. She was—and this is in confidence, mind,—she was mixed up in a nasty little scandal out there last year. I needn't go into details, but it seems she was involved with a fellow who had links with one of the notorious Triad gangs. You've heard of the Triads, of course—the Hong Kong Mafia. I don't say that the girl was actively working for them, but she was sufficiently in with them to make her absolutely unacceptable to our friends out there.'
Maggie digested this information. 'I didn't know,' she said finally, rather lamely. 'I don't think Blake knew about it, did he?'
J.M. shook his massive grey head. 'I shouldn't imagine so, but if he had been serious about her he would have had to know. He'd have had to choose between that woman and his career with the Corporation, that's what it boils down to.' His face was stern now, the bushy brows drawn together. 'It would have been a blow to me, I can tell you. I don't say he would have been sacked, he's far too valuable for that, but it would have been a severe setback to his upward climb in the profession. You know, Maggie, I'd dearly like to see him take my place, some day, and I know he could do it.' His expression relaxed, his eyes shone with pride in his son. 'With you as a wife, my dear, there'll be no stopping him.'
He insisted on driving her back to Amersham, where he came in for a chat with her parents before leaving. It was all so friendly, pleasant and normal, Maggie thought, as she watched the big car disappear round the corner of the drive, with its owner waving cheerily out of the window. Everyone was so pleased. If only they knew that it was just a sham—a makeshift marriage, Blake had called it—how hurt and distressed they would be! She was living a lie, and she hated it, it was quite foreign to her nature, but once the wedding was over and they had left for Hong Kong that part of it would be finished. Then it would be up to her to try to turn the makeshift marriage into a real, worthwhile relationship. She hadn't a clue, as to how she was going to do it, and there had been no time to think it out, but somehow—somehow—she determined, she would win through, once she was Blake's wife.
All at once, it seemed, the Saturday of the wedding was nearly upon her. She finished at the office on Wednesday and handed over the keys of her flat to the new tenant, not without a twinge of regret, for she had had fun fitting the place up and feeling she was making a home. There wouldn't be a home to make in Hong Kong. And afterwards—when they returned to England—well, she didn't dare look as far ahead as that.
On Thursday James and Catriona arrived from Edinburgh, with their two little daughters, and later that day Mr Webster drove to Heathrow to collect Ian and Joyce, after their long flight from New Zealand.
After that the old house was bursting at the seams, and Maggie was surrounded by a happy, excited, loving family, all chattering together, exchanging news, avid to know all about Blake, and about their plans. It was impossible to get a moment to herself, and as she still had one or two letters to deal with, left over from the office work, she carried her portable typewriter down to the little summerhouse hidden away among the pine trees in the wild part of the big, sprawling garden, and issued instructions that she wasn't to be disturbed unless the house was burning down.
Blake phoned late on Thursday afternoon to say he had just got back from New York. He sounded tired and slightly irritable. 'How did everything go?' Maggie asked him. After all, she couldn't expect him to enquire lovingly after her, or say he had missed her, could she?
'Pretty gruelling, it was like stepping into an oven every time you went out into the street. And I had a hell of a wrangle with Smith. I'm not sure we shouldn't consider someone else for the air-conditioning, Maggie. We haven't signed anything yet, have we, and I get a nasty feeling he's going to be a sticky customer to deal with. We'll discuss it when I see you.'
'And when will that be?' Maggie enquired quietly. What an odd conversation to have with one's husband-to-be just two days before the wedding!
'I'll try and make it early on tomorrow,' Blake said.
'Dad tells me you've already packed up at the office, so I'll come out to Amersham. There are one- or two things I want to talk to you about—did you get the shipping order fixed up for the steel window-frames?'
Maggie sighed. 'Yes, Blake, I did. I've also had my wedding dress delivered and the cake has come. On top of that the whole of my family is now in residence, and although I love them dearly I'm afraid we shan't have much of an opportunity to talk business, if that's what you have in mind.'
He actually laughed at that. 'O.K., I get the point,' he said. 'We'll have to cut out the business part then and behave like two young lovers, shall we?'
She laughed too, although it was rather an effort. 'Will it be so very difficult for you?'
'Oh, I've no doubt we can put on a good show if we both try hard.'
Maggie felt like howling, but she kept her voice steady and said, 'I'll see you tomorrow, then, Blake. Are you quite sure it's convenient to come out here?'
He didn't seem to sense any irony in the remark. 'Oh, I think I can fit it in,' he said carelessly. 'If not, I'll give you a ring and you can come into town, can't you?'
'I expect so,' she said coolly. 'Goodbye, then, Blake.' She fumbled the receiver on to its stand, not trusting herself to continue the conversation. There were tears in her eyes, but she forced them back. It was stupid, she told herself fiercely, to care so much about how he spoke to her, but just hearing his deep voice brought all her love for him welling up inside her and with it a sense of utter frustration and a hollow fear that he would never love her.
Catriona came into the hall then, followed closely by her two small daughters, dark and pretty in their swinging kilts and white blouses, and refreshingly well behaved. 'We still understand the meaning of the word discipline up in the North,' James had grinned last night when the girls had gone off to bed with hardly a protest. 'Catriona's marvellous with them.'
Jessie, nine years old, and the elder by eighteen months, ran up to Maggie as she put the telephone down. 'Were you talking sweet nothings to your boyfriend, Auntie Maggie?'
Catriona's eyes met Maggie's apologetically. 'Where do they pick these expressions up?'
Jean, the seven-year-old, piped up, 'We found it in a book in the attic, and it said that the two lovers exchanged sweet nothings.'
'It sounds like a fairly antiquated book,' laughed the practical no-nonsense Catriona, but Maggie thought privately that 'nothings' expressed quite well what she and Blake had just been exchanging. 'Nothings', but not particularly 'sweet'.
She was finding it increasingly difficult to talk about Blake to her family, but she felt that something was required of her now. 'Blake has just come home from the U.S.,' she volunteered. 'He sounded absolutely whacked, but I expect he'll be coming along tomorrow morning and then you can all meet him.'
'That will be grand,' said Catriona, smoothing down Jean's silky dark hair. 'We've heard so much about him from Gran, haven't we, girls?'
'Will he like my pink dress?' Jean enquired perkily.
Her sister stuck out her tongue. 'Silly, he won't be looking at you. He'll have no eyes for anyone but his bride as she walks up the aisle. It said so in that book too.'
'Don't put out your tongue, Jessie, it's very rude,'
Catriona reproved her elder daughter. 'And I think I shall have to supervise your reading matter more carefully, my girls. You're a little too young for romance!' But there was a twinkle in the goodhumoured grey eyes.
Jean was jumping up and down, her kilt flapping against her skinny little legs. 'Can I put on my pink dress now to show Auntie Maggie?'
'No,' her mother told her firmly. 'I've told you, not until tomorrow. I have to press it first. Now run off into the garde
n, both of you.'
Jean looked downcast and Maggie snatched her up in her arms and hugged her tightly. 'I'll look forward to seeing your dress tomorrow, poppet, and I'm sure you're going to look smashing, both of you!'
She watched the two little girls run out of the front door and across the lawn to where the men were just beginning to unpack the large marquee for the reception on Saturday. 'You've got two gorgeous children, Catriona,' she sighed, and the older girl looked keenly at her.
'You want a family, Maggie?'
Maggie felt the heat rise into her cheeks. 'There's nothing I'd like better.' Blake's children—little boys with Blake's long-lashed eyes and unruly dark hair. She felt weak at the thought.
'And Blake—does he want it too? Some men don't, I know, these days,' Catriona added unemotionally.
'Oh, I—we haven't discussed it yet,' Maggie said awkwardly.
Catriona shot her a quick glance but didn't press the subject. 'And where is the honeymoon to be? Or is that a closely-guarded secret?'
'Oh no, not at all. We're not having a proper honeymoon until later on. We're flying out to Hong Kong straight after the wedding, to get on with the job there, and we'll take time off when we can.' Maggie was improvising wildly. Blake hadn't even mentioned a honeymoon, which she supposed was understandable under the circumstances.
Her sister-in-law looked at her rather doubtfully. 'Is that a good idea, do you think? Honeymoons aren't always what they're cracked up to be, I know, but you do need time to adjust to each other.'
Maggie laughed a little selfconsciously. 'Oh, I think we've adjusted pretty well already. Blake and I have been working together for the last two years, you know.'
She met Catriona's quizzical glance and flushed crimson as she realised just what she had implied, but her sister-in-law merely smiled and said nothing.
'And of course,' Maggie rushed on nervously, 'it will be like a holiday, in a way, all so new and thrilling. I can't wait to see Hong Kong. It sounds a fabulous place.'
Catriona was an extremely intelligent young woman, with a disconcerting ability to read between the lines, and Maggie had a horrible feeling that she could somehow guess at the turmoil that was going on inside her at present. It was a relief when Ian and Joyce came downstairs just then, having been hustled up to bed by Mrs Webster a couple of hours ago, to sleep off their jet-lag.
Maggie loved all three of her brothers, but she and Ian had always been particularly close, especially as the two older boys usually paired off. Seeing him again was a special delight. He looked splendid, she thought, bronzed and fit, with the brown eyes and curly light brown hair so like her own. And he had broadened out quite noticeably; marriage evidently suited him.
It would be fun, too, to get to know Joyce better; they had only met once before, when Ian brought .his new wife over for a very short stay soon after they were married. Joyce, slim and flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, was obviously a little shy among all these people whom she didn't know very well, and Maggie made a special effort to put her at ease and make her feel at home during supper and the rest of the evening, so she had no time to worry about her own fears and uncertainties.
But when Ian put a brotherly arm round her shoulder as she went up the stairs to bed and said softly, 'Well done, Sis, I'm glad you're taking the plunge. I can recommend marriage,' the tears were suddenly back in her eyes and she had to dash them away and smile.
'Tears of happiness—you know.'
Ian planted a kiss on her wet cheek. 'I know the score, little one,' he said softly in her ear, and pushed her gently up the stairs.
No girl, thought Maggie, as she closed her bedroom door, had ever had a happier childhood or a nicer, warmer family, and they were all living proof that marriages can work out happily. If only, she thought wistfully, I can somehow make mine go the same way!
After breakfast next morning Mrs Webster announced that she was taking them all to the church, to help arrange the flowers. She herself had been up at the crack of dawn, raiding the garden, and the big cool larder was full of buckets brimming over with tall spikes of delphiniums and lupins and special snow-white daisy-like flowers that had always grown to profusion in the garden and reminded Maggie of all the summer holidays and tennis parties and teas-under-the-apple-tree that had been the high spots of her childhood.
'Will you come with us, Maggie?' her mother asked, and then, with a quick look at her daughter's pale face, 'Are you feeling all right, dear? Not been overdoing things?'
Maggie shook her head. 'I'm fine,' she lied. Actually, she was feeling more and more tense all the time. 'But I think I'll stay, because Blake said he'd probably come here this morning, and if he doesn't he'll phone.'
Her mother nodded sagely. 'You'll feel better when you've seen him. You've missed him these last few days, I know. Well, we'll all be off, and then you can have the place to yourselves when he arrives. Bring him down to the church later on, perhaps?'
'Yes, of course,' Maggie said brightly, and waved them all away in two cars filled with flowers and chattering, happy people. Guiltily, she felt a sense of relief when they had gone.
Alone in the house, she wandered about from room to room. There were still thank-you letters to be written, but she could settle to nothing until she had seen Blake. If he weren't able to come here, she decided, she would get into the Mini and drive into town to see him. Until she had spoken to him again she couldn't believe that all this—the flowers, the presents, the big white marquee on the lawn outside—was real. Even her own reflection as she caught sight of herself in mirrors as she passed them had the appearance of a small ghost in a pale green dress. She went up to her bedroom and changed into jeans and a red tee-shirt and dabbed her cheeks with blusher, something she normally used only in the evenings.
The phone rang twice and each time she dived to answer it. Once it was the caterers, asking questions about wine glasses. The other time a friend of Mrs Webster's to offer apologies for missing the wedding tomorrow, as her daughter's baby had got to go into hospital. Maggie answered mechanically, hurrying through the calls in case Blake was waiting to get on the line.
When she hadn't heard from him by eleven o'clock she put a call through to the office. His secretary said he had been in and gone out again, he hadn't said where.
The phone rang again and this time it was Blake. He cut off her greeting abruptly with, 'Look, Maggie, I'm ringing from a phone box in the village. Are your family around just now?'
'No,' she said, slightly bewildered, 'they're all down at the church doing the flowers. Why?'
'I have to see you alone,' he said. 'Is that possible if I come to the house, or will you come down to the village?'
'There's no one here at all,' she said. 'But—?'
He cut her off. 'I'll see you in a few minutes,' he said. Maggie held the aimlessly clacking receiver away from her ear and stared at it. If most bridegrooms had said, 'I must see you alone,' it would be perfectly understandable, but the urgency she had heard in Blake's voice was of quite a different nature. Different, and vaguely alarming. Slowly she replaced the receiver and went to the front door to wait for him.
As soon as he got out of the car she saw from his face that something ominous had happened. He looked terrible. His eyes were black smudges and his cheeks below them were shadowy hollows. He was holding a folded newspaper, one of the tabloids, and as they went into the house he held it out to her without a word.
Splashed in banner headlines over half the front page were the words, DEATH OF A HERO, and underneath, RACING DRIVER PIETRO MATTIOLI GIVES LIFE FOR RIVAL.
Her eyes went to the picture below. A crash on a racing circuit—two mangled cars ablaze—a man in racing suit stumbling across the track, half hidden in smoke and flame—
The newspaper dropped from her hand. 'I hadn't heard the news,' she faltered. 'How terrible! It was—'
He said heavily, 'The man Fiona married.' Then his voice quickened, became almost eager. 'She came to me last night, Maggie,
she hadn't anyone else to turn to. She's in a dreadful state. She's at my flat now, I've been with her all night, trying to—' he shrugged '—to give her some comfort. They've only been married a bit over a month.'
He moved restlessly across to the hall window and stood with his back to her. Maggie stayed where she was. She felt as if the whole of her had been suddenly turned to stone. Her body, her brain, nothing was functioning, and all she was conscious of was a terrifying feeling of impending disaster that loomed ahead like a high, blank wall.
Blake swung round abruptly. 'Maggie, I can't go through with it,' he said.
'With—with what?' she faltered, but she knew what he was going to say.
'With this charade of a wedding tomorrow. I couldn't—not when Fiona needs me so badly.'
Maggie's knees sagged and she sank into the nearest chair. 'Can't you?' she said stupidly.
He came and stood over her, leaning forward, speaking urgently, the way he always spoke when he was trying to convince her of something, and expecting her to understand and agree with him. 'Of course I can't. Don't you see, Maggie, it would be a sort of crime—a dishonesty.'
'Would it?'
'Of course it would!' He sounded angry, as if she were being purposely dimwitted.
'You still love her?' Maggie said dully. 'You want to marry her?'
He shrugged impatiently. 'That's all in the future. The point is that I couldn't possibly marry anyone else, now that Fiona is free. You do see that, don't you, Maggie?'
She put a hand on her forehead. 'I'm trying to. I can't quite—quite take it in yet. I—I don't see how we can just—cancel everything.'
She looked vaguely through the doorway into the big dining room, the table loaded with presents, the mantelpiece stacked with letters and cards.
'We've got to,' Blake said grimly. 'There's no other way.'
She stared at him. This wasn't Blake and herself; it, couldn't be. It must be happening to two other people, or she was having a nightmare. 'You mean you'd just-walk out on me? Would you do that to me, Blake? It would be very—very humiliating.' Her voice was shaking so much she could hardly get the words out. Her teeth were chattering and she pressed her hand against her lips.
Makeshift Marriage Page 4
