“Well, and what if I did?” she shrilled, looking for the first time in her life with distaste at her own daughter. “What if I did make up my mind that you should marry well? All your life I’ve done everything I could for you—bought you the most expensive clothes, sent you to horribly expensive schools! And to do it I had literally to crawl to my bank manager to get him to extend my overdraft over and over again! And all for nothing, because you let me down over Stephen, who would have made you a far better husband than you’re likely to get now that everyone knows you’ve jilted a man. A man with a reputation to consider!”
Veronica’s glorious violet eyes grew suddenly baleful. “You should have thought of that, Mummy darling, before you made such a wholesale grab at Stephen!”
Mrs. Wilmott gathered up her writing-pad, the telegram, everything that she could lay her shaking hands on, in preparation for withdrawing to their suite inside the hotel.
“And I don’t mind telling you, Veronica, that unless you do marry someone soon who has a great deal of substance behind him—whether you like him or not, or whether you even fancy you’re in love with him—there will be no more trips abroad of this sort for you and me, and I shall have to sell Grangewood. I’m not being spiteful, or joking ... that is the absolute truth!”
Veronica saw Martin Myers, her American—who unfortunately hadn’t been able to impress her with his tales of life at home in “little old N’ York”—returning with a waiter bearing a tray of drinks in tow, and she sat up hastily and tried to soothe her mother.
“All right, Mummy, I get your point, but please don’t get yourself worked up when the temperature’s as high as it is. And, remember, Penny is your niece, and she was always a very devoted and amenable niece. You may live to be glad that she’s married Stephen and not let him become a prey for someone far less scrupulous. And don’t you think you ought to send off a telegram congratulating them?”
Mrs. Wilmott had also caught sight of the American, and she had no wish to sit and listen to his nasal accent while the sun beat down on the terrace and her head was throbbing with indignation, and she was amazed at her daughter’s attitude.
“All right,” she said coldly, tugging her wide straw hat down over her eyes, and losing her sunglasses as she bent to retrieve her knitting. “I will do that, because I’m beginning to think Penny was much more deserving of all that I’ve done for you than my own daughter! I’ll tell her I forgive her for being unscrupulous, and wish her well ... and Stephen, of course! Shall I say that you also wish them every happiness?” with much dryness.
“Of course,” Veronica replied complacently, and her mother stalked off to become involved with one of the reception clerks over the matter of sending a telegram to England.
But by the time she had worded it, decided that that wouldn’t do and re-worded, and finally got it off, another telegram was on its way to her from England. And that made the one she had just sent seem like a stroke of irony, or a bitter jest.
Stephen was so anxious to get the whole thing over and done with, once he had made that astonishing proposal to Penny, that without quite realizing what was happening to her she allowed herself to be rushed into a form of matrimony that could offer nothing for her future save security, and after giving a lot of thought to the word security she decided that she must have been mad to be tempted by it.
Stephen had been almost brutally plain ... brutally blunt.
“I shan’t ask anything of you, Penny, because that would be rather like insulting you. I’m not in love with you, and you’re not in love with me, but you’re alone in the world and I can do a lot for you. You’ll be a nice little wife to have around the house, to act hostess when I give a dinner party, and that sort of thing, and I hope we’re good enough friends not to drive each other mad every time we meet at the breakfast table.”
He had said that the second time he took her out to dinner, and by that time she was already having secret qualms. In fact she was amazed at herself because she had ever let him talk her into agreeing to such an extraordinary and cold-blooded union when she was a young girl of twenty-four—quite pretty, because he frequently said so!—and he an apparently warm-blooded man of thirty-six.
It was true there was more than ten years between their ages, but Veronica had been exactly a year older than herself, and Stephen had been madly in love with her.
Penny didn’t expect him to pretend to fall in love with her—he was too bitterly unhappy, she well knew, over the collapse of that other engagement—but the thing that worried her was her own secret knowledge that she had been in love with him from the moment Veronica first brought him home to Grangewood, and, holding out his hand to her with an almost teasing smile in his blue eyes, he had called her Penny Wise because her eyes were so big and brown and slightly solemn, as if they were filled with wisdom.
Right from the beginning he had refused to look upon her as a young woman who was capable of acting the part of his future mother-in-law’s secretary— amongst other things; and had dismissed her in his charming, careless fashion as if she were nothing more than a schoolgirl.
But that didn’t prevent her losing her heart to him. In point of fact it had dropped right out at his feet from the moment that he called her by that now familiar name.
Penny Wise ... Penny Foolish from the moment that she consented to marry him, for how could she hug to herself a secret that would always have to remain a secret and not give it away in unguarded moments? How could she be happy keeping up such a pretence, knowing that he had no real use for her at all, and had only asked her to marry him as a kind of futile gesture—to Fate? To the unkind Providence that had deprived him of the woman he did love—and keep up the pretence for years?
“Don’t worry, Penny,” he had said reassuringly, after that second dinner. “I know you don’t properly realize what you’re doing, and that perhaps I’m depriving you of something ... But keep that untouched look, and it’ll be worth while! At least you’ll never suffer disillusion!”
Wouldn’t she? she wondered. Was he right? Could you suffer disillusion if you expected nothing?
She was amazed at the speed with which he went to work, arranging the details of their wedding. He wouldn’t permit her to write to her Aunt Heloise and inform her of what had happened, and as she was not a minor there was no necessity at all for anyone’s consent to be obtained. The cook at Grangewood made a wedding cake which was never cut or eaten ... to Penny’s knowledge, that was, for the reception was held at a small hotel in London, and to it were invited only a couple of Stephen’s friends, who also acted as witnesses.
The bride, in a simple suit of dark leaf green, with a heavier coat worn over it when they set off for the coast and the Channel port where they boarded a steamer for Calais, had a slightly dazed look in her brown eyes while the brief ceremony in a register office lasted, and afterwards there was none of the brilliance of a bride about her. Her golden hair, worn short, so that it was a little like a primrose cap, showed to advantage under the little green hat she wore, and her skin looked entrancingly fair with a slight, hectic flush rising up on her cheekbones when the well-known heart specialist who had given her away lifted his glass to toast her as a bride.
Then, as there was nothing to change out of, and they were all ready for the road, they set off in Stephen’s long black car to begin a honeymoon on the Continent that was never to become an established fact, and like the uneaten cake—reposing in a tin at Grangewood!—was never to provide them with memories.
Only one nightmare memory at the very outset.
CHAPTER IV
On the way down to Dover Stephen was in such an excellent humour that Penny, who was very quiet by comparison, glanced at him occasionally to find out how much of it was forced, and how much was genuine.
There had been one moment during the morning, just before they were made man and wife, when she had felt him grow stiff and taut beside her, and when she glanced at him she had seen that his lips were
set. She would always remember the grim compression of those lips, the faint but noticeable pallor that showed up his dark eyebrows and the blackness of his hair as it lay sleekly against his head. In that moment she knew that he was renouncing everything in the nature of true happiness in the future, and such a wild alarm seized hold of her heart, such a panic because she knew definitely that she was doing the wrong thing!—that it very nearly got the better of her, and she only just stopped herself saying “No, no, I can’t!” when the registrar asked her if she would take Stephen Mervyn Blair to be her lawful wedded husband.
Afterwards, when it was all over, and Stephen’s two old friends were proffering their congratulations, Stephen seemed to undergo a kind of metamorphosis. His mood, which had been so intensely sober, so grave, became gay as if he hadn’t a care in the world—as if he was, indeed, a happily married man—and he caught Penny in his arms and kissed her on the lips and took her breath away for one ecstatic moment of time.
Then he suggested that they repair without delay to the hotel where they were to have lunch, and although there were only four of them, he made such inroads on the champagne already reposing in an ice-bucket beside their table that Penny began to feel a tug of anxiety at her heart.
Stephen’s eyes were like vivid blue flames, and his smile flashed brilliantly in his lean face. Even in moments of the utmost good humour there was a slightly sardonic cast to his features, and although his mouth was an unusually handsome mouth, it developed a twist when he smiled. Penny had often noticed before that it was a curiously dry twist, which rendered his smile a little mirthless, and when he lifted his glass to acknowledge toasts, the mirthlessness flashed out at the same time that his eyes glowed like blue jewels.
On the way down to Dover he continued to talk quickly and lightly while he drove, and Penny found it unnecessary to say very much because most of his talk centred round various episodes and incidents in his past life, and although they were often amusing her smile was a trifle forced.
She began to feel as if there was a lump in her throat that might presently rise up and choke her, and she yearned for just one word from him that would set this wedding day of hers apart from every other day in her life. A word that was not lightly spoken, or with a glib sound to it ... a word that she could treasure, even if it was only her name, spoken with the right sort of intonation.
But when he said her name at last it was with sudden soberness. He must have sensed how desolate she felt, sitting there on the seat beside him, close to him yet many miles removed from him, because there was no real bond between them. Not even a spark of genuine affection—on his side, at least. And she was only twenty-four, and she looked very slight and attractive in the dark green suit and the heavy top-coat that was a mixture of greens, like the occasional flecks in her huge brown eyes.
“Poor Penny!” he said, and there was genuine remorse in his voice as one of his hands left the wheel and covered hers. “This isn’t good enough for you, is it? Not a wedding day like this!”
She said nothing, because the lump started steadily to grow in her throat, and he stared ahead through the windscreen, which was becoming misted with a fine rain that was partly sea spray as they drew near to the sea.
“I’m sorry, Penny,” he said suddenly, with grave politeness. “I don’t suppose I should have drunk all that champagne at one go, but it seemed to help things a bit.” She saw him gnaw hard at his lower lip, and something inside her flinched and curled up in a kind of agony. “But you only had a very small glass of champagne, and you haven’t much to look forward to, have you?”
On the boat he looked after her as if she was a small sister of whom he was very fond, and as she was a poor sailor—although she managed somehow not to be sick, in spite of it being rather rough—she was grateful for the warmth and the comfort of his protection.
As she sat, tightly swathed in rugs, in a sheltered corner of the deck, where she could get enough salt-laden air to overcome the sensation of nausea, she found herself glancing in a secretive fashion at the bright gold ring on her finger, and the only comfort she had that day was in the knowledge that, from now on, she had a right to her husband’s protection.
They had dinner soon after they landed, and then they set off on the drive to Paris through a night that was dark and dismal with softly falling rain. The surface of the road was wet and glistening, and every time a car passed them its sidelights lit up the glistening surface. Stephen’s mood had altered yet again since they left the boat, and he was morose and taciturn as he sat behind the wheel.
Because of the poor visibility, and the fact that it was some time since he had driven on the wrong side of the road on the Continent, he decided against going straight through to Paris, where rooms were reserved for them at one of the bigger hotels; and, between struggling with a faulty windscreen-wiper that refused to function, and endeavouring to get the better of a mood of black depression that almost certainly had something to do with the inclemency of the night, he told Penny that he would stop at the next town of any size and make inquiries about accommodations for the night.
Penny didn’t really care what he did, the blackness and the dampness and the frustration of the man beside her making her feel that nothing was any longer of the smallest consequence. She knew now that she had made a dreadful mistake, and Stephen knew it too, and he was trying to rise above his mounting consternation by swearing softly at the windscreen-wiper, and cursing every motorist who passed them without dipping his lights.
Penny knew that, normally, he would never have behaved like that, with a very new bride beside him.
If, for instance, she was Veronica, and the same conditions prevailed, they wouldn’t matter at all.
She heard him apostrophizing petulantly the glassy surface of the road, and then a car came travelling towards them at terrific speed. Stephen had been letting his car out somewhat unwisely considering the conditions that annoyed him so much, and as the other car came on and its headlights bathed them he uttered an angry sound and trod on the accelerator.
Penny never knew what happened after that, but before it happened she had a wild impression of screeching brakes and tyres that skidded all over the road. Then there was a horribly loud noise that rose above everything else, and she knew no more.
CHAPTER V
When she opened her eyes she was in a very quiet room with white-washed walls, and a crucifix hanging on the wall at the foot of her bed.
To her amazement, as she turned her head very slightly, she looked up into the eyes of Aunt Heloise.
“Where am I?” she asked, in a voice that was so faint her aunt barely heard it.
Mrs. Wilmott was instantly afraid that she oughtn’t to have been allowed to say even that much, and she bent over her quickly and reassuringly.
“You’re in the Convent of the Sacred Sisters of the Holy Cross, and they’re looking after you splendidly, so there’s nothing to worry about,” she told her niece. “You mustn’t move, and it will be better if you don’t say very much just now, but if you’d like a drink there’s something cool here in a jug that I can give you.”
Eagerly she poured some of the liquid into a glass and held the latter to Penny’s lips, but Penny merely stared at her with enormous eyes. She wasn’t really seeing her aunt; she was looking down what seemed to her to be a long lane of a telescope, and trying to get a glimpse of a picture that would give her some idea of what had happened.
“Stephen?” she whispered, and because Mrs. Wilmott didn’t reply immediately she uttered the name again and lifted her head from the pillow. Such a blinding pain shot through her head that she gasped and sank back on the pillow. Aunt Heloise decided that this was the moment to summon assistance, and a couple of white-coifed nuns came quickly to the side of the bed.
Penny tried to make them understand that she had to have some information about Stephen, but the white figures merely smiled at her gently, and one of them took her wrist and held it. She heard their low-ton
ed conversation, in French, but her brain refused to register what they were saying, and before they fell silent she was no longer aware of anything that was happening in the room, and Aunt Heloise took her place beside the bed again.
The next time she opened her eyes the small, whitewashed space was full of brilliant morning sunlight, and Aunt Heloise was no longer there. It was a doctor who felt her pulse, who beamed at her with Latin expansiveness, and assured her that she was doing very nicely. He spoke English with very little accent, and he sat on the side of the bed and tried to ascertain whether she had any other tender spots apart from the overwhelmingly tender spot that was her head.
“Don’t worry, young lady,” he said, as she tried to answer. “At the moment you feel as if a steamroller has run over you, yes?” He showed all his white teeth in a reassuring grin. “But that is not so, and in a week —two weeks—you will be out of here. I promise you that, Mademoiselle!”
At the word her eyes grew dark.
“My—my husband?” she insisted. “Tell me about him, please! Is he all right?”
The doctor rose and put away his stethescope.
Sunshine Yellow Page 3
