by Sara Seale
He came back to the house when darkness fell, and Lou sensed at once that his mood of yesterday had changed. He was once again the Piers Merrick she first remembered; the raffish, rather world-weary young plutocrat whose slightly waspish humor did not match the warmth of his voice, and who seemed to slip back so easily into the familiar superficial interchange with Melissa.
“You’re very silent, Cinderella,” he said, his attention suddenly focussing on Lou, making her jump. He was, had she known it, very much aware of that stillness in her which had first attracted him; of the way the lamplight fell on her smooth hair and long neck, of the touching look of a dressed-up child one of those unsuitable trousseau frocks gave her, and his mouth tightened, remembering Melissa’s innuendos of the night before. He wanted no unwilling bride who was ready to confide her fears and doubts to the first inquisitive listener.
“Well?” he said impatiently, “haven’t you anything to contribute to the conversation?”
“I haven’t had much chance of joining in,” she retorted mildly, then unwisely added: “If the weather doesn’t worsen you’ll be able to make the trip to the mainland with Melissa tomorrow, won’t you?”
Piers made no comment, but his smile was not pleasant, and Melissa sent him a little sidelong glance of amusement.
“My truthful Cousin Louise couldn’t be plainer, could she?” she said with a small pout. “Speed the parting guest and all that. Still, Lou darling, I do sympathise. I have gate-crashed the honeymoon, after all, and that should be a social blunder—or shouldn’t it?”
“It depends on the honeymoon, I imagine,” Piers said carelessly, and this time there was no doubting the edge to his voice and the smouldering spark of anger in his eyes.
“Of course. I didn’t mean to be rude, Melissa,” Lou said quietly, but she bit her lip as she saw her cousin’s expression of smugness and the little look of complicity she threw to Piers. Whatever devious methods had been employed last night, Melissa had done her work well or, more likely, Piers, faced unexpectedly with the fruits of his own folly, had realized too late where his affections lay.
“I wouldn’t blame you, darling, if you were rude, but the situation has its piquancy, hasn’t it?” Melissa said, and Lou knew that she was enjoying herself. She was not sure that in a cynical, inverted sort of fashion Piers, top, might not be capable of deriving amusement, if not pleasure, from this embarrassing affair, and she sprang to her feet, suddenly unable to bear this ill-assorted triangle any longer.
“I’m going to wash my hair,” she said, because it was the first excuse that came into her head, and having made the statement, felt bound to comply with it.
She washed her hair by candlelight because Tibby had omitted to put a lamp in the bathroom, and as she soaped and rinsed, her tears mingled with the water and she found herself sobbing without control because this way only was there relief from the trap in which she found herself. How dared Melissa pry and hint and patronise? How dared Piers side, at any rate by implication, against his wife? But, of course, she was not his wife, she thought wearily. Tibby knew, and Melissa knew, and whatever construction they chose to put on the situation, the shame was hers, not Piers.
She sat on the floor drying her hair by the fire in her room, drawing comfort from the small familiar chore. There was still an hour or more before dinner would be ready, time to gather fresh courage while the two downstairs exchanged their unknown confidences, even indulged, perhaps, in mutual regrets. She remembered, then, Piers saying on their wedding night: “I never regret things. If they don’t work out I just forget them or throw them away...”
Had he decided so soon to cast her off, to make handsome reparation for his mistake, no doubt, but to adjust the foibles of the rich with no great inconvenience to himself?
Lost in her own unhappy speculations, she did not hear him come upstairs, but suddenly she was aware of him standing in the doorway between their two rooms. He was looking down at her with faint surprise as if he had not expected to find her there.
“So you really did mean to wash your hair?” he said.
“But I said so.”
“I imagined it was a feminine excuse to get out of the room. You shouldn’t let Melissa get away with things so easily, you know.”
“And what,” asked Lou with a spurt of anger, “do you suppose, she’s trying to get away with? You could have taken her to the mainland this morning if you’d had a mind to.”
“So I could,” he said, advancing into the room to stand over her. “I understood, however, that it was you who had begged her to remain—to ease an awkward situation, one must suppose.”
“Melissa said that?”
“Oh, I don’t blame you, Lou. You could hardly be expected yet to learn to dissemble for the sake of your pride, but it’s a pity you gave yourself away so completely.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know very well. I would have thought you’d have had more sense than to blurt out the dreary details of the failure of our honeymoon, and to Melissa of all people.”
She was suddenly afraid of him. He spoke with the measured distaste he might have used to an impertinent stranger, intending perhaps to hurt her with his casual contempt, but behind his words anger smouldered, too, the slow, unpredictable anger of a man whose pride was bitterly wounded.
“I’ve discussed nothing of our personal relations with Melissa,” she replied, indignation lending her courage. “She’s simply drawn her own conclusions from what she’s observed—and, I suppose, what she must instinctively know.”
“And what’s that?”
She turned her face away, bending her head to the warmth of the fire, shaking the remaining drops of water from her hair.
“That she should have been in my place. That we both made a great mistake, that—”
“So you think we made a mistake?” His voice sounded remote and impersonal above her head. If he had touched her, she thought, if for one moment the old warmth and kindliness had come back, she could have confessed that for her there could be no regrets save one of ignorance, but she would not go on offering him that which he no longer wanted.
“Well, don’t you think so?” she replied at last, surprised to find her voice quite cool and steady. “You implied a moment ago that I hadn’t enough pride, Piers, but I think it’s your own pride that’s been hurt. You don’t like Melissa to know how easily she could get you back, do you?”
“What the hell are you two cooking up between you?” he demanded furiously. “I listened to her last night out of consideration for you, since you had made me out an ogre, and I hoped to find out why, but if you don’t want her here then I’ll send her packing tomorrow, but for God’s sake make up your mind.”
He squatted suddenly on his heels beside her and turned her round from the fire to face him, and as he became aware of her defenceless expression, his hard features began to soften. There was a nursery air about her, he thought, as she sat curled up on the floor in a dressing gown, the soft fringe damp and childish on her forehead, and the unmistakable traces of recent tears on her flushed cheeks.
“You’ve been crying,” he accused. “For heaven’s sake, what am I doing to you, my poor Cinderella?” She leant towards him, the tears ready to overflow again at the kindness back in his voice. Could she make him understand, even now, when she understood so little herself?
“Everything’s spoilt—” she said. “I thought—I’d hoped—”
“What did you hope for? The happy-ever-after ending to the fairy tale?”
“That’s what you promised, didn’t you?”
“Did I? Rash in the circumstances, perhaps, but one can always carry on with the make-believe.”
“Was it only that for you? Is it Melissa who’s real, after all?”
“Melissa is no more real than I am, perhaps,” he replied enigmatically. “That’s why I—well, at the time we seemed complementary. Can’t you understand?”
“In a way. But things are diffe
rent now, Piers, surely? Won’t you send her back tomorrow?”
She thought he hesitated too long before giving his reply, and when he did speak he sounded ambiguous and not too encouraging.
“You realize, I suppose, the stories she’ll spread around? After your girlish confidences, you no less than I will be a laughing stock.”
“Isn’t that why you married me in the first place—to avoid being made a laughing stock?” she asked gently. She was too tired to deny again that she had confided in her cousin, and judging by his small twisted smile he would not have believed her if she had. Melissa would scarcely have had to embroider very much to convince him of his own shortcomings as a lover.
“I am, it would seem, a rather irresponsible person when it comes to something as serious as marriage,” he said, getting to his feet. “If it’s what you really want, however, we’ll send Melissa home tomorrow. Far from turning her out, I’ve no doubt Blanche sent her here in the first place, so you don’t need to have a conscience.”
“Cousin Blanche? But why should she—”
“Oh, be your age, Lou!” He was tired and disturbed and her ingenuousness suddenly irritated him. “If the marriage had gone through as planned your insatiable cousin as mother-in-law to a rich man would have had an endless pull on my purse-strings, but as a mere cousin by marriage many times removed, she scarcely qualifies for further charity, does she? Hadn’t you better be getting dressed? Dinner will be ready in half an hour, and I imagine you’ll want to match our guest’s warpaint with some of your own. I’ll go down and break it to the lady that she’d better start packing.
III
But Melissa, of course, did not go. All that evening she behaved beautifully, having apparently accepted gracefully Piers’ ultimatum of an early departure. She was, Lou thought, rather overdressed for a quiet evening at home, but the effect was highly satisfactory. She struck delightful poses, made amusing comments, charmed an unwilling host back into ease, and deferred politely to Lou as became a guest. This time she was the first to retire gracefully to bed, embracing her cousin affectionately and blowing a discreet kiss to Piers.
“Thank goodness for that,” Lou said, drawing a deep breath. “I thought there might have been a scene.”
“You don’t know your cousin very well, do you?”‘ Piers retorted. “Melissa only makes scenes as a last resort.”
“Does she? Well, there was hardly anything to make a scene about, was there?” Lou said, feeling a shade uneasy. Piers’ eyes at times resting on Melissa’s lovely, discontented face had, if cynical, still been admiring, she thought, with the same unconscious look of appraisement she had seen him give to any pretty woman. He would, however, be scarcely human, she supposed, if he did not remember that only a very short while ago he and Melissa had made love together and planned marriage.
“I mean,” Lou blundered on a little helplessly, “It wasn’t reasonable to come in the first place, was it? She could hardly expect—”
“She would probably argue that my change of brides wasn’t reasonable either, so what?” Piers retorted dryly, and she lowered her lashes, not wishing to meet that suggestion of mockery in his eyes.
“Then,” she said, because despite the knowledge that it was unwise to argue with him on such a delicate subject she liked logical conclusions, “she shouldn’t have quarrelled with you and run off with someone else in a pet.”
He laughed in spite of himself and pulled her out of her chair.
“Very true, Miss Prim. Now run off to bed while I deal with some letters I want to post on the mainland tomorrow. We’ll make an early start if the weather will let us,” he said.
But it was not the weather which delayed Melissa’s departure. The wind and the sudden squalls of rain had lessened considerably by morning, and Lou, waking to find Tibby standing by her bed with the customary early tea-tray, felt a great relief as the curtains were drawn and a watery sun gave promise of a better day.
“She’ll not be leaving yet,” Tibby said, immediately quenching the relief. “Been sick all night, she says, poor maid.”
Lou’s hand shook as she poured the tea. Her unease of the night before returned in force as she remembered Melissa’s exemplary behaviour, the suspicious lack of argument or pleas for extended hospitality.
“It’s a trick!” she cried, uncaring that the old servant’s smile was sly and pitying at the same time. “I heard nothing in the night.”
“Maybe you sleep too sound. Mr. Piers was up.”
“Piers? But surely he would have called me?”
“Maybe yes, maybe not. Who’s to say that they mightn’t have wanted to be alone?”
“If you’re trying to make mischief, Tibby, you’re going the wrong way about, it,” Lou said coldly, and Tibby shrugged and shuffled to the door.
“The mischief was made when Mr. Piers brought you here instead of that other one. Go see for yourself if you don’t believe me,” she said, and left the room.
Lou jumped out of bed and seizing a dressing gown, hurried across the passage to Melissa’s room. Whether Piers had been disturbed or not seemed of little consequence then; it was easy enough, she thought, to fool a man with imaginary illness; she had not, herself, been above providing vague symptoms to satisfy an obliging doctor in her school days.
Melissa greeted her wanly from a bed which bore evidence of frequent tossing and unrest. Lou, prepared for an act she had every intention of exposing, had to admit that her cousin looked ill. Her face had a waxen tinge which was not induced by any cunning use of make-up and her forehead was damp with little beads of sweat.
“Sorry, darling,” she murmured. “It doesn’t look as if I’ll be a starter for the homeward trip today.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Don’t know—must be something I ate. That old woman brought me some foul potion to settle my stomach, but it only made me sick.”
“Tibby? Had you gone to her?”
“No, she came to me—said she guessed I wasn’t feeling well. I felt a darn sight worse after she’d dosed me. She woke Piers, too.”
Lou gave a little shiver. It was, of course, ridiculous to imagine that Tibby could have had any part in Melissa’s indisposition, but on the other hand she was plainly gratified that the departure must be postponed, and surely it was odd to rouse the master of the house in the case of illness and not the mistress?
“How do you feel now?” she asked, trying .to put some concern into her voice, and Melissa gave her a faint, mocking grin.
“Lousy,” she replied. “Apologies and all that, darling, but with the best will in the world I couldn’t face a heaving ocean today.”
It was very clear that she could not, and when she closed her eyes and rolled over on to her side with the weary lack of interest of someone who only wanted to be left alone, Lou went away. She met Piers in the passage, fully dressed, carrying a tray bearing a small array of medicine bottles and a glass.
“Oughtn’t we to get a doctor?” she said, and his smile was amused.
“Hardly worth sending over to the mainland for a bilious attack,” he replied. “This little lot should settle a queasy stomach rather better than Tibby’s home brewed muck.”
“Why didn’t you call me in the night?” she asked, and his eyebrows lifted.
“Why disturb you when there was nothing you could do? Tibby was there.”
“Tibby seemed to know without being told that Melissa wasn’t feeling well, and her patent remedy appeared to be the finishing touch,” Lou said with point, and saw Piers frown.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to imply by that, but I’d advise you not to let your imagination run away with you,” he replied with distinct coldness and, brushing past her, knocked on Melissa’s door and, once inside the room, closed the door firmly in his wife’s face.
The day passed uneasily for Lou. Although Melissa remained in bed and made few demands on anyone’s time, she could not rid herself of a feeling of foreboding.
Piers, it would seem, did not appear to share in her disappointment over their interrupted honeymoon and was silent and slightly irritable, while Tibby went about with a secret smile and made a great to-do over preparation of the invalid’s food. By tea time, however, Melissa was sufficiently recovered to have made up her face and chosen a becoming bedjacket in which to receive visitors. Lou, who had been keeping an anxious eye on the weather all day, suggested that her cousin should make the effort, if possible, to travel tomorrow before the threatened storm could break, and was discomfited when Melissa turned with a grin to Piers and said: You should be flattered, darling, by your come-by-chance bride’s anxiety to be alone with you. How do you still work the old charm on this godforsaken island with no tempting distraction to offer?”
Piers, quite unembarrassed, replied with a flippant rejoinder, but later, when they were alone, Lou said with unfamiliar bitterness:
“Come-by-chance ... that’s what I am, aren’t I?”
“Your grammar is questionable and your supposition faulty,” he replied, but his regard was kindly. “You should know your cousin well enough not to take her seriously.”
