Mistress of Brown Furrows (13 page)

Viola led the way into the drawing-room, which was dim, and green, and exquisite. The carpet was like a. carpet of green moss overflowing into every nook and corner, and the long curtains falling

before the windows were of wistaria mauve brocade. There was also a gleaming cascade of silvery net in front of the windows, looped up in imitation of diminutive waterfalls, and the arm-chairs and couches were covered in pearl-grey and leaf-green brocade. There were only a few flowers, but they were arranged with skill and repeated the colors of the furnishings—deep purple dahlias and spiky mauve chrysanthemums.

Viola suggested to Carol that she might like some tea as it was still quite early in the afternoon, and having ordered it, departed to change her dress. When she returned she was sombrely clothed in clinging black velvet, which trailed a little behind her and fitted closely to her wrists, and her gleaming black hair was wound in a coronet of plaits about her head. Her complexion was dead white, but her lips flamed like a peony.

She smiled upon both the men. Her cousin, Brian, was a pleasantly self-assured young man, and his glances strayed often to Carol, whose youthful appearance was thrown into greater prominence by contrast with the sophistication of her hostess, and the girl’s natural shyness and reticence plainly constituted something new in his experience— accustomed to anything but shyness and reticence in the world in which he moved.

It was a world chiefly concerned with art and fashion-shows and the reporting of feminine features at which, apparently, he had recently started to excel. He sat beside Carol on the veranda after tea, while her husband entertained his hostess, and told her about the promising new commission he had accepted, which was to take him to Paris in the New Year. He was obviously quite delighted with himself and his abilities, but he had a slightly naive way of expressing himself which appealed to Carol.

She felt that he was not boasting, but that he was really proud of himself. He had very blue eyes and an engaging smile, and she could imagine that women would adore him. At least, most women. She herself liked listening to his entertaining voice, and she was conscious that there was a certain amount of admiration in his eyes whenever he looked at her—although when he looked at Timothy his glance became slightly puzzled.

Carol, extremely sensitive on this point of her marriage to a man who was in no sense of the word a normal husband, felt herself flushing even to the column of her slender neck when she caught the odd, speculative look in Brian Winslow’ s eyes after he had studied her for a while in silence, and then studied Timothy.

Mrs. Featherstone was so deeply lost in conversation with Timothy that she had little or no time to devote to his wife, despite her professed desire to get acquainted with Carol. There was no doubt about the unusual quality of her beauty, and none knew better than herself how to make the most of it, or how to ‘get it across’ as the saying goes. She had a way of half smiling under her heavy lids and thick eyelashes while her mouth remained faintly regretful, and Timothy himself was perfectly aware of what she meant by that look, and why she followed it by a glance across at Carol which suddenly seemed to smoulder a little.

“Why did you decide to take us all by surprise, Timothy?” she asked suddenly, after a brief conversation about nothing in particular.

“You mean why did I decide to get married without asking anyone else’s permission?” he inquired, with that faint, one-sided smile of his.

Her look was reproachful.

“You might at least have told your friends. Why were none of us invited to your wedding?”

“It was a very quiet wedding”

She looked slightly suspicious, and then a scornful note invaded her voice.

“Most men, marrying such a pretty girl as your very new wife, would have delighted in proclaiming the fact to the world, and the girl herself should have insisted on something more suited to her looks than a quiet wedding,” she told him. “And you told me she was your ward! If she was your ward how did you come to marry her, and why? Don’ t tell me you are head over ears in love with her, or she with you! If you are, then you are certainly the strangest pair that ever I’ ve encountered, and your ability to conceal your adoration of one another is really skilful. ”

“Do you think so?” he asked, voice and eyes mocking her a little.

“Timothy! ” She laid one of her white hands on his arm. Carol was listening to a dissertation from Brian on the enticements and the allure of Paris in spring, and the reasons why she really ought to see it one day if she had never done so, and her attention appeared to be fully occupied. “Are you really and truly and irrevocably married to this girl, or is there something else behind it? If there is, you might at least tell me! Is she rich—will she inherit a fortune one day, because as you know I am certainly not poor? Or was it because you wanted to behave chivalrously...? You’re so quixotic and ridiculous in some ways! ”

“Am I?” his lips tightened a little, although his eyes smiled.

“And why did you not even answer my letters while you were abroad? I wrote to you at least half a dozen times, but you never replied. It was mean of you—it was brutal, because you knew I was simply waiting for an answer. You must have known. ”

“Yet when I went away you were very much occupied in another direction altogether,” he reminded her quietly, ‘ so there was really no reason why I should have imagined you dying to hear from me! And as a matter of fact that was the very last thing I did imagine.”

“But why?” she demanded. She had flushed a little at his tone. “Of course I was never seriously interested in anyone else, and you of all people should have known that. And you did receive my letters—I’m sure you did—”

“I received one,” he told her, “but there was nothing in it to make me believe you had discarded the infatuation of the moment. Perhaps you were not quite prepared to do so at that time!... However, there’s very little point in discussing the matter now, is there? I
am
married, and believe me I’ m quite happily married, and if because I represent the plum that’ s out of reach you feel a little piqued, well—I’ m sorry! But there it is! ” A car was arriving at the foot of the verandah steps and he drew her attention to it. “Here are some more of your guests.... Hadn’t you better receive them?”

“Beast! ” she exclaimed, in a vicious undertone, directed a malignant glance at Carol, which the girl happily missed, and then went forward, all smiles and trailing velvet elegance, to welcome the newcomers.

They moved to the big main lounge, which was all gold and banked-up crimson dahlias, where an up-to-the-minute cocktail cabinet awaited them, and a radio-gramophone provided dance music. Carol was persuaded to dance with Brian Winslow, and since dancing was one of her few accomplishments they both thoroughly enjoyed it.

“You dance like a dream,” he told her. “Like a fairy. And you look rather like a fairy, too, with that spun-gold hair.”

He lowered his voice as he paid her the compliment in case Timothy was anywhere near. As a matter of fact Timothy was watching them and their beautiful, matching steps from the opposite end of the room, but neither realized that he was not still at his hostess’ s side.

“Why in the world did you want to get married at your age?” Brian demanded next, a little more boldly, for she was like thistledown in his arms, and her upturned eyes were indisputably lovely—there was a look in them which intrigued him enormously, it was so level, and direct, and clear. “You can’ t be a day older than eighteen, and you take on all the cares of matrimony before you even properly know what it’ s about! Why were you so unwise? Why didn’t you wait to enjoy life?” “Is that what you think you’re doing at the moment?” she inquired demurely, with a shrewdness and a swift touch of humor which surprised him. “Or am I to understand that you are married, too, and bitterly regretting your lost freedom?”

“Good heavens, no! ” he exclaimed. “What made you think that?”

“I didn’t, really,” she admitted. “Not,” she added, “at your age!”

“And what,” he inquired with frowning brows, “do you imagine my age to be?”

“Oh, about twenty-four,” she told him.

“You happen to be right,” he said, not looking too pleased. “But it must have been clever guess-work on your part, for I’m sure I look

older than that.”

“At this moment I think you look even a little younger,” she remarked, amused by the petulant expression on his good-looking face, and he laughed suddenly outright.

“What a girl you are!” he exclaimed. “But why do we all want to look older when we’re younger, and younger when we’re old? Can you tell me that? It’s one of the phenomena of this life, I suppose, and something we’re not intended to understand. However, no one wants to have much dealing with a babe in arms in my profession, so it’s important that I should look as if I’ ve outgrown the nannie stage, at least. Can you in all honesty assure me that I have done that?”

Carol laughed.

“Well, perhaps.... Except when you’re trying to be really impressive! ”

He gave her the lightest of shakes as they glided round the room, avoiding contact with the other dancers, including Viola and Timothy, who had been persuaded to act as her partner. Timothy’s eyes met Carol’s as they passed, and she gave him her swift, delighted smile, and he smiled back at her.

“Very touching! ” commented Brian, observing the little interchange. “But I still want to know
why
you are married when you are so ridiculously young—and why you had to select a man so many years older than yourself! Did you do it deliberately, or did it just happen?”

“Shall we just say that it happened?” Carol responded, very quietly, and suddenly he noticed that her eyes had clouded a little after that brilliant smile with which she had rewarded her husband’ s glance. And he wondered—was it because Viola looked so languid and yielding in Timothy’s arms, as if with encouragement she might melt into them altogether? And with very little encouragement at that!

“Love’ s young dream, eh?” he murmured, apparently flippantly, although his voice was gentle.

Carol was silent.

“All right,” he said, as he led her bade on to the veranda. “I won’t put any more obnoxious and unwanted questions to you, but I will get you a drink. How will that do?”

When the time came for them to go home Timothy was rather silent as he handed Carol into the car. Viola waved to them from the foot of the veranda steps, and Brian stood watching them over her shoulder.

“Little charmer, isn’ t she?” he murmured, almost to himself.

Viola’ s lips tightened.

“Little schemer, if you ask me! ” she replied. “Possibly a designing little minx! ”

“Which makes her even more attractive,” Brian said thoughtfully, and turned away to join the thinning ranks of the guests.

At the wheel of their car Timothy said to his wife:

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Very much,” she replied, not altogether truthfully. “It was good fun. ”

“That,” he remarked, “was the impression I formed—that you found it good fun! ”

She glanced at him curiously. His voice was a little strange.

“Mrs. Featherstone is very beautiful,” she said, “and her home is lovely. ”

He nodded his head rather absently.

“She happened to marry a very rich man, and when he died he left her more than adequately provided for.”

“I expect she will marry again one day,” Carol remarked, rather tentatively. “Anyone as beautiful as she is”—she nearly added “and as rich” —is bound to marry a second time.”

“She might,” he agreed, quite casually. “In fact I should be inclined to say that she certainly will.”

There was silence between them for a little while not the usual, companionable silence, for he was frowning rather forbiddingly at the road ahead. And Carol felt vaguely anxious, a little maggot of doubt and unhappiness gnawing at her young and inexperienced heart.

“Young Winslow will probably go far,” Timothy remarked, when the silence was growing slightly oppressive. “He seems quite a bright lad, and he certainly has plenty of initiative. ”

“Do you think so?” Carol was not particularly interested. “He’s nice, but of course he’s very young,” she added. Her husband nodded. “That’s the point,” he said, with a grim inflection in his voice which she quite failed to understand. “He
is
young!”

And after that they neither of them said anything until they got home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THAT night at dinner Timothy was unusually silent, and for the first time Carol was more or less ignored by him at a meal. He was punctilious enough when it came to passing her the various essential items on the table, but the few remarks he saw fit to make were addressed to his sister Meg. And Meg obviously thought this a little strange, for she glanced more than once at Carol in a mildly speculative fashion.

But Carol stared at her plate and wondered what she had done to incur this form of treatment, and anxiously searched her mind for anything she had said on the way home from Viola Featherstone’ s cocktail party to which Timothy might have taken exception. But she could think of nothing, beyond the fact that they had discussed Viola and her cousin. But surely that was a safe enough subject, and Timothy had never before revealed himself as ‘touchy’. But whenever she found the courage to glance at him his face looked definitely most un-Timothy-like, and his expression was withdrawn and even a little grim.