He said irritably, 'No, of course I wouldn't walk out on you. I couldn't do that to you after you've been so— —' his mouth turned down wryly '—so accommodating about this whole business all along.'
There was the sound of a car approaching up the drive. The family was returning. Maggie was somehow galvanised into action. She grabbed Blake's arm and hurried him across the drawing-room and through the french window. Down the garden, past the big marquee and beyond the high hedge to the little summerhouse among the pine trees.
'We won't be interrupted here,' she said. She sank down on a wooden bench and waited numbly for him to speak.
He was silent for what seemed ages, sitting beside her, leaning forward, hands on knees, his face dark. At last he said moodily, 'This is all hellishly difficult, Maggie. If only I'd waited and not rushed into this crazy arrangement with you—'
'But you didn't wait,' she pointed out. If she could somehow manage to control her feelings and keep everything on a down-to-earth level there might be some hope. Blake had said he wouldn't let her down. She must cling on to that.
He said heavily, 'There's only one way out that I can see. I can't and won't walk put on you.'
The wave of relief almost threatened to drown her.
'So—' she began, fixing her eyes on him, willing him to say that the wedding must go on.
He met her look implacably. His dark eyes were narrowed in determination.
'So,' said Blake, 'you must walk out on me.'
CHAPTER THREE
Maggie's hands closed convulsively over the edges of the wooden seat. She was getting colder and colder. Soon, her whole body would be numb, and that would be good because then she wouldn't be able to feel any-thing more. 'I'm not sure,' she said carefully, 'that I know what you mean.'
'It's the only way,' he said again, his voice rough. I've been thinking about it all night—trying to find some way out that wouldn't do too much damage.'
'That's very civil of you.' She was unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She didn't remind him that he had said he had spent the night comforting Fiona.
He turned to her quickly. 'Ah, don't be like that, Maggie, it's not like you. We've got to work this thing out together sensibly, otherwise we're all going to be sunk.'
'What did you have in mind, exactly?' It was strange how ordinary you could sound when you are frozen inside.
He got up restlessly and stood leaning against the wooden doorpost. She had the impression that he was trying to find the right words, which was unusual for Blake, who was normally so articulate. At last he swung round and said quickly, 'I think the best way is to let everything go on as planned, up to the ceremony itself. Then, when the moment arrives for you to walk up the aisle you—simply don't appear. In other words, you leave me standing at the altar.'
There was a silence, then Maggie said tightly, 'I see. Wouldn't that be a bit corny—like an old music-hall joke?'
He moved his hands impatiently. 'Can you think of anything better?'
'Yes,' Maggie said immediately, 'I can. We could go through with the marriage and then, quite soon, we could get an annulment.' If they were married, she thought desperately, there might be some faint hope for her. Blake might find he liked being married to her, that it suited him to have her with him on the job too well to let her go—Fiona might find another man—oh, anything might happen. But this horrible way that he was suggesting made her feel cheap, unclean almost.
'No,' he said sharply, 'I won't agree to that.'
She looked at the dark, arrogant face and thought she almost hated him. How could you hate someone and love them at the same time? She said, 'You're asking me to behave badly. Why can't you take the rap yourself?'
'Several reasons,' he said. 'One being that it would be the end of my career with the company. My father would never forgive me, he's very strict about things like that.'
'You'd have Fiona. Does your career matter more than her?'
He gave her an angry look. 'Don't be purposely obtuse, Maggie. You know bloody well how much my job means to me.'
'You want everything, don't you?' she said bleakly.
He brushed that aside. 'There's only one way out, for you to do the letting down, as I said. It would be easy for you—nothing would hang on it. It may still be a man's world, but the general feeling is that if a man lets a girl down he's a swine. But if the girl changes her mind nobody thinks any the worse of her for it. And if we do it my way there won't be any doubt about who's jilting whom.' He pulled a wry face. 'I don't say it's going to be particularly pleasant for me to stand at the altar, waiting for a bride who leaves me flat, but I'll have to accept that.'
'Seeing that it's all your idea, that's the least you can do,' said Maggie, with sudden asperity.
He glanced quickly at her. 'Exactly,' he said.
There was another long silence. Then Maggie said, 'And what about the job? What about Hong Kong?'
'That won't suffer. I'll fly out tomorrow evening, as arranged. Everyone will no doubt sympathise and understand that in the circumstances I want to get out of England as soon as possible. Fiona will join me later out there.'
'You've got it all fixed up nice and tidy, haven't you?'
He met her eyes and looked away, running a hand almost desperately through his hair. 'It's the only way. First things have to come first.'
'The first thing, of course, being that you must be free to marry Fiona?'
'Yes,' he said, 'that's exactly how it is.' He sat down beside her again. 'I knew you'd see it my way, Maggie.'
She ignored that. 'And what plans have you made for me? I take it you've worked that out as well?'
'Of course.' He felt in his pocket and drew out an envelope. 'Air travel ticket to Majorca, complete with hotel booking there for a fortnight. At my expense, of course. You can have a fortnight in the sun and then, when it's all blown over, you can come back and go on where you left off.'
'Can I? Are you sure? I don't imagine J.M. will want to keep me on in the company after this.'
'My dear Maggie, of course he will. My father thinks the world of you, and a girl can't be blamed for changing her mind. It'll all work out, you'll see,' he said eagerly. 'In eighteen months or so, when I get home from H.K., everything will be as it was before.'
'Nothing is ever as it was before,' said Maggie slowly.
He put a hand over hers and she had to steel herself not to pull away. 'I'm desperately sorry, Maggie, you must believe that. It's all a wretched mess and I'm to blame for letting you in for it. But it might be worse. It isn't as if our—' he smiled crookedly '—our deeper feelings were involved. And you've known the score, right from the start, I haven't kept anything from you. You knew I was crazy about Fiona.'
She said tautly, 'It's just a pity she wasn't crazy about you. That would have saved a lot of trouble.'
He said, 'She's very young. She was dazzled by the glamour and excitement of the motor-racing world. She admits that now.'
'Does she?' said Maggie dryly.
She saw his jaw set and knew he wouldn't discuss Fiona any further. After a moment she said, 'It's going to hurt my family terribly. All the preparations and the work—and my mother's been so happy arranging everything—'
He groaned. 'Yes, I know, I know, I wish to goodness I'd never agreed to A slap-up wedding in the first place. It was you who wanted it, not me. I'd much rather have had a quiet register office ceremony.'
Maggie said quietly, 'Your father was keen on it, as well as my people, if you remember.'
Blake shrugged. 'Oh well—! Of course you'll explain everything to them later, and tell them the whole story. I'm not asking you to cover up for me. It's only the short-term problem that we've got to solve, and a quick, clean cut is the best way.'
'So,' said Maggie, wondering how much longer she was going to be able to continue this conversation, 'the plan is for me to creep out of the house and drive myself to the airport tomorrow morning. I suppose I leave a note? As if I
were committing suicide?'
He winced. 'You know how to hurt, don't you, Maggie?'
'I'm merely trying to be objective, that's what you want, isn't it? You wouldn't like me to lapse into hysterics and plead with you, I'm sure.' If you only knew, she thought frantically, how very near I am to doing just that!
A faint smile pulled at his mouth. 'That doesn't sound very like my Maggie.'
Your Maggie! she almost screamed. But instead she said quietly, 'You know me so well, don't you, Blake? You know what I'll think and feel, how I'll react?'
He glanced sharply at her, but her face was as calm as ever. 'Well, as much as anyone can know anyone else—yes, I think I do know you. Unlike many women you think clearly and reasonably. I knew I could rely on your good sense over this wretched business.' There was a touch of complacency in his voice now. He was sure he had convinced her.
The first part of this nightmare was nearly over now, she told herself, which was as well, because she couldn't stand much more.
Blake got to his feet and stood looking down at her. 'Thank you for being so understanding, Maggie. I'll never forget it.' He leaned forward and kissed her briefly on her cold lips.
She drew back, shuddering inwardly, as her mother's voice came across the garden. 'Maggie, are you there? Can you come to the phone, dear? It's Christine Baker and she'd like to speak to you.'
'Coming!' Maggie called back.
Blake looked over his shoulder apprehensively. 'I'll go out by the garden gate—I left my car in the lane.' He hesitated a moment and then took her hands and squeezed them hard. 'Bless you, Maggie, I'm fathoms deep in your debt.' He turned and escaped between the pine trees—back to Fiona, of course. She didn't wait to see him go.
At six o'clock on that overcast July evening the old summerhouse was very quiet under its canopy of tall, dark trees. The nostalgic scent of pines, mingled with damp earth, came to Maggie as she sat alone at the wooden table, trying to compose the note that seemed to her like a death warrant.
After Blake had left this morning she had moved through the events of the day like a zombie, her limbs heavy as lead, her head aching dully, and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She had said what had to be said: 'Blake was so sorry he missed you all,' and: 'It was really too bad, but he simply had to rush back to the office to tidy up a lot of loose ends,' and other explanations that sounded feeble in the extreme to her. But everyone accepted them without question. Everyone except, possibly, Catriona, and if she had any doubts she kept them to herself.
Somehow Maggie got through lunch. After lunch she played with the children in the garden, in and out of the marquee; that was easier. Later in the afternoon Miss Parsons, her mother's visiting hairdresser, arrived to do her hair, and after that the rest of the evening stretched ahead emptily.
It would have been better if she had had something to busy herself with. But her mother had organised everything, down to the last detail. The wedding dress hung, swathed in tissue, in her room. Her going-away case was packed except for a few last-minute items that might crush. The little brown and cream suit she was to wear for the journey hung in the wardrobe, together with hand baggage she would take with her into the plane.
But here in the summerhouse, another travelling bag was packed, and hidden behind the stack of deck-chairs in a corner, together with a pair of corduroy trousers, a light top, and a jacket, all ready for a different journey.
And now she sat at the wooden table, her typewriter pushed aside, gripping her pen in nerveless fingers. The note must be in her own handwriting, and she must somehow put her unhappiness into it, so that they might understand a little and perhaps forgive her.
She began, 'Dear Everyone—' Then her eye fell on the corner of her travelling bag, sticking out from behind the stack of chairs. Glancing over her shoulder, her heart racing, she jumped up and pushed it out of sight. This must be what it felt like to plan a murder, she thought ghoulishly.
In fact, the planning hadn't been difficult. Part of her brain seemed, miraculously, to be working much as usual. 'You think clearly and reasonably,' Blake had told her. Well, that was lucky for him, wasn't it?
She rehearsed the scene again as if it were in a play. She could see it all in her mind quite clearly. Time: tomorrow morning. Place: the hall of the house. The wedding party would have just left for the church and she would be alone with her father. Daddy would be all dressed up in his morning suit with the cream rosebud in his buttonhole. She would be in her silky ivory lace, with the coronet of pearls and the filmy veil that floated down over her curly brown hair.
She would suddenly seem to remember and say, 'Daddy, wait here for me, there's something I want in the summerhouse. You know—you're supposed to wear "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" and I've got a yen to take a little blue brooch I hid down there ages ago, when I was about ten. It'll be lucky.'
Daddy would look anxiously at the flowing ivory lace and say, 'You'll mess up your dress and your mother will never forgive me. Couldn't I get it for you, sweetheart?'
'You wouldn't know where it's hidden,' she would say airily, 'I'm not quite sure myself. No, you wait here for me, I won't be a minute.'
Then the quick flight down the garden, past the marquee, with the waitresses gathered round the entrance, goggling at the sight of the flying bride. Under the pine trees into the summerhouse. Strip off and into trousers and top. Place note prominently on heap of white lace on floor, pick up travelling bag. Through the trees to the Mini, standing alone in the garage, and off along the road to the West. (Blake had been clever not to book a flight from Heathrow or Gatwick. That would be where they would look first. They'd never think of Bristol.) At airport, leave Mini in long-stay car park and mix with the crowd. Check in—passport control— departure lounge—final flight call—board plane. Then airborne to—what? She wouldn't think about that yet.
Oh yes, it was all well planned. Like a perfect crime. And in a way it was a crime, she thought, passing a hand over her aching forehead.
She began again on the note. 'Dear Everyone, Please try to forgive me, but I can't go through with this wedding. I'll come back soon and explain everything. I know how much this will hurt you, but believe me, it has to be done this way. Please, please forgive and don't hate me. Your ever loving and most unhappy, Maggie.'
She sealed the envelope and pushed it into the top of her travelling bag, hidden behind the chairs. There, it was done!
Outside the summerhouse there was a crackle of twigs on the carpet of pine-needles and she spun round to see Jean standing in the doorway in her pink bridesmaid's dress, her small face a picture of triumph and apprehension. 'Auntie Maggie, Mummy said I shouldn't come down here and please don't be cross, but I wanted you to see my dress,' she gabbled excitedly, and performed a pirouette, her arms held wide.
Maggie had no time to respond, for Catriona appeared then, flushed and agitated, with Jessie tagging along after her, also in her bridesmaid's array.
'You naughty girl!' Catriona scolded her youngest. 'You know quite well Auntie Maggie isn't to be disturbed when she's in the summerhouse.' She turned apologetically to Maggie. 'I'm so sorry, Maggie. Jean got away from me while I was fixing Jessie's dress. They should have waited until you came in, but they're overexcited, I'm afraid. Come along, girls, and leave Auntie Maggie to finish her letters.'
'No, let them stay,' Maggie pleaded as she saw Jean's lower lip begin to protrude pathetically. 'I've finished my letters anyway. I was just coming up to the house. Now, let me look at your dresses. My goodness, you do look splendid! Like two little sugared almonds.'
The little girls giggled, delighted, and Maggie turned to their mother. 'The dresses are super, Catriona. You didn't make them yourself, surely?' Catriona was known to be a very clever dressmaker. 'All that lovely embroidery on the collars—and the smocking on the bodices! It must have taken hours and hours.'
Catriona nodded, smiling with pleasure. 'It was a
labour of love. I enjoyed doing it, and the girls have been so thrilled. They've lived for nothing else for weeks, ever since they knew about the wedding. It's their very first wedding—and it's so lovely that it's in the family. They'll remember it all their lives.' Her pleasant face became serious. 'First impressions are so important at their age and I believe that they'll grow up thinking of marriage as something lovely and worth-while—which is a blessing in these casual days.'
Maggie could say nothing. There was a huge lump in her throat as she looked at the two little girls, who were going to have a very different memory of their first wedding.
Jessie pulled at her hand. 'Aunt Maggie, please can we have a rehearsal?' She brought out the long word carefully. She led Maggie into the little clearing outside the summerhouse. 'Let's pretend this is the church and we're walking behind you.' Two large pairs of eyes gazed hopefully up at her.
Maggie walked slowly the length of the clearing and turned to see the pair following solemnly, hand in hand, their pink dresses vivid against the darkness of the trees.
Her breath suddenly caught in her throat. 'Darlings, you do it beautifully,' she told them unsteadily. 'Now, go along with Mummy and take off those pretty dresses. Until tomorrow.'
Her eyes, swimming in tears, met Catriona's, who smiled back sympathetically. 'Nervous, dear? But it'll be all right on the day, you'll see.' She smiled encouragingly and shepherded her daughters back towards the house.
Maggie stood very still, her face stony. It wouldn't be all right on the day. It would be terribly wrong for everyone—including those two little girls, who would remember their first experience of a wedding as a day of disappointment and bewildered unhappiness.
She stood there for what seemed an age, motionless. Then she said aloud. 'There must be a better way. There must!'
Galvanised into action, she turned and ran towards the garage.
Makeshift Marriage Page 5
