Mistress of Brown Furrows (7 page)

And for the first time she asked herself, rather wildly, why—
why
had she married him ...?

She suddenly looked rather frightened as she sipped her champagne, and Timothy added his thanks—for both of them. Had she done a very, very unwise thing in tying herself up for life to a man who had not even pretended to want to marry her— though in that case why
had
he married her? Not mere, quixotic chivalry, surely? He was far too level-headed a man of the world for that!

And in her own case, had she been merely carried away by the sheer casual commonsense of his arguments, and a sense of her own insecurity? She didn’t think it was altogether that. For she could, after all, have earned her own living, and if she had disliked him intensely she would have chosen that path without a moment’ s hesitation. And if she had merely just quite liked him, which was very different to liking very much indeed....

She caught Miss Hardcastle’ s eyes upon her, and there was a faintly perplexed expression on the Headmistress’s face. For a moment Carol wondered whether the elder, and certainly very shrewd, woman who had known her so long was beginning to sense that everything was not exactly as it should be at an entirely normal wedding, where the bride was simply bursting with happiness.... And then, as she was beginning to flush a little, and feel uncomfortable, lest Miss Hardcastle asked some slightly awkward questions later on, Miss Hardcastle merely said gently:

“Don’t think I want to hurry you, dear, but if you’re going to catch the midday train.... Well, oughtn’t you to disappear now and change your dress? If you want any help I’ ll come with you.”

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Carol hastily, and replaced on her plate the sandwich she had just commenced to nibble, and disappeared with such lightning speed that the little party of three left behind were silent for a few moments after her departure, and then recommenced a somewhat disjointed conversation.

When she returned, Nat Marples was sampling a glass of sherry and declaring that he liked weddings because they provided him with an excellent opportunity to mix his drinks without caring very much about either the results or the cost, and that the only thing he missed on this occasion was the wedding-cake. And he was particularly partial to wedding-cake.

“So am I,” Carol said suddenly, impulsively, going to stand beside him in her neat new travelling outfit, and looking at him for the first time with very definite interest. “I adore it, but there just wasn’ t time—they have to be ordered several days in advance, you know. ”

“Do they?” He looked at her and shook his head reprovingly. “I didn’ t know, but in that case you ought to have arranged things very differently, Mrs. Carrington.” His pleasant blue eyes were twinkling. “Doing me—and yourself! —out of an opportunity to make pigs of ourselves! ”

Carol flushed deliciously at the ‘Mrs. Carrington, and Timothy said with a dry note of humor in his own voice: “If I’ d known of your combined weakness I’ d have bribed the chef to sit up all night and concoct you a cake. ” He was pleased to see that Carol was looking less like a frightened rabbit, and that her normal schoolgirlish charm had returned to her. “And if we don’t hurry, young woman, we
are
going to miss that train! ”

He turned to Miss Hardcastle and grasped her hand heartily, thanking her once again for her attendance at the ceremony. And then Carol—suddenly overcome by the recollection that this was one of her oldest friends, and that it might be a very long time before they met again—if ever! —turned to her and held up her face to be kissed, like the child she had once been, and Miss Hardcastle pressed her cheek very gently but firmly with her lips.

“Mustn’t spoil your make-up, dear,” she whispered. “It’s perfect!”

Carol’ s eyes suddenly brimmed over.

“Oh, Miss Hardcastle,” she said, “it’ s been lovely to have you! ”

“And me, I hope?” Nat Marples grinned at her engagingly, and offered her his handkerchief. “Don’ t let them run down on to the front of your dress! ” he begged. “You don’ t want to have to send it to the cleaners before you reach your destination! ”

And that caused Carol to giggle a little hysterically.

“That’ s better,” he said. “And don’ t forget I’ m going to be one of your first visitors when you’ ve settled down at Brown Furrows. I live about five miles from your place, and I like to be received with much ceremony.”

“You shall be,” she promised, in a whisper.

“Good! ” he said. His eyes told her that she looked delicious in the suit Delphine had created especially for the occasion. “Then don’t forget.”

Timothy took her arm somewhat possessively and urged her towards the door.

“Stop flirting with my wife so soon after she has become my wife, Nat,” he requested good-humoredly.

And Carol felt something extraordinarily like a thrill speed up and down her arm as his fingers closed about the cloth of her sleeve, and he guided her into the lift. And even then he did not release his hold.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IN the train she relaxed for the first time that day. As they were seated facing one another in the dining-car, and she was selfconsciously about to remove her gloves, she looked up and caught Timothy’ s eyes upon her, and there was an odd, inscrutable expression in their depths.

“Forget it, my dear,” he urged, unexpectedly. “It’s all over now, so forget it, and have a good lunch. I’ m sure you can do with it. ”

Carol’ s surprise must have been given away by her eyes, for he smiled slightly.

“Oh, I know how you feel—I know how you felt all the morning! And I want to see you looking a little less like a lamb being led to the slaughter. We’re married, you and I—for good or ill we’re tied up together, and the sooner we become completely reconciled to that fact the happier we’ll be—or you will be! You won’ t feel so strange when you get used to the idea, and the way to get used to it is to forget it. ”

He beckoned a passing waiter with his hand, and Carol stared at him, repressing a slightly hysterical desire to laugh. How funny, she thought—how completely and unromantically funny! And yet—how comfortable! How soothing to the wrought-up state of her nerves was that intensely masculine speech, delivered with such calm and everyday coolness, such blunt, cold sanity. Already she felt slightly better—very much less agitated—as if she were coming up for the second time after sinking in an unknown strip of water, and someone had thrown her a life-line. She drew a deep breath. She looked at the menu placed in front of her by the waiter. She even began to feel slightly hungry....

Soup, roast chicken and garden peas, ice cream and fruit salad....

“And a couple of cocktails to begin with,” Timothy said. “Today you shall try a martini, Carol, and see how you like it! ”

Carol smiled at him with less uncertainty. His eyes were as blue as the day when he first came down to Selbourne to rescue her from being a schoolgirl, and once again she noticed how unusually long and thick and black for a man’s were his eyelashes. And she liked the way he smiled, and the way his teeth gleamed in contrast with his bronzed skin, and that shadow of dark moustache on his upper lip. And most of all she liked the way he looked at her—as if he thought she was very young, and rather foolish, and that although she needed a certain amount of protection she also needed a great deal of encouragement.

In short, she liked him altogether, and she hoped one day that she would find the courage to let him know that she did.

Unless, perhaps, he already guessed...?

After lunch a kind of mental exhaustion came over her, combined with the effects of the excellent meal she had so recently consumed—with a great deal of unromantic relish, she had to admit to herself! — and when they returned to their first-class compartment she found herself growing rapidly drowsy, and inclined to nod in her corner. The train was not due in at Albrington Junction until close upon seven o’clock, and there were several hours yet to go before that time was reached. And in the meanwhile it was a very warm afternoon, they were running monotonously through a somewhat unchanging landscape, and the steady rhythm of the train was like the rhythm of a piece of music running through her head....

Her eyelids felt weighted, and every now and then her chin jerked down on to the white collar of her blouse. She started up and grabbed at the pile of magazines on her lap, for people who fell asleep in railway-carriages always looked so completely and ridiculously funny, with their mouths wide open and their heads wobbling uncertainly from side to side; and sometimes they were inclined to snore a little....

And Timothy, her husband, although ensconced behind his newspaper, and apparently lost in its contents, might notice her....

He knew, as a matter of fact, the instant she fell asleep— having given up the unequal struggle—and he laid down his newspaper and looked across at her, and a little smile touched the corners of his lips.

“She’ s had about enough for one day! ” he thought.

He knew that in her heart she was confused and utterly bewildered by all that had happened to her in such a short space of time, and that her reactions to those happenings were not yet sufficiently crystallized for her to be aware—deep down within herself—what her feelings were, now that she was no longer Carol Inglis, and a schoolgirl at Selbourne Abbey. Some people grow up overnight, but Carol was not of that order, and she had experienced no tremendous emotional upheaval to aid in her development. New clothes, new surroundings, a new outlook—a newly acquired status—these things alone could not effect any radical alteration in the essential Carol, and Timothy Carrington was sufficiently aware of that fact to be aware at the same time that the immediate future must not be expected to reveal any extraordinary changes.

Time—and time alone—would provide her with the opportunity to throw off her youthful chrysalis, and the effect of all sorts of new experiences would sooner or later reveal changes. But there could be no hurrying the matter.

In the meantime he watched her, and by the time she sat up and blinked her eyes and flushed with sudden horrified guilt at the realization that she had fallen asleep after all, the train was nearing its journey’s end and the brightness of the summer afternoon was becoming dimmed a little by its meeting with early evening.

“But why didn’t you
wake
me?” Carol demanded, shocked to discover that she had slept so long.

“You certainly do go long way towards sleeping the clock round once you start,” Timothy commented, regarding her concern with an amused look in his own eyes. “I remember you did it once before, on the way up from Selbourne. And on that occasion as well as today you had suffered a little from overexcitement, so we will find it in our heart to forgive you.” He waved a hand to indicate the change of scenery that had occurred while she slept. “What do you think of that?” he asked.

Carol, about to drag forth her powder-compact and inspect herself in the mirror—a habit she had lately formed, and which she did with none of the sophisticated nonchalance of your true young woman of the world, but rather as if she was horribly ashamed of the action—slipped it back in her bag again and looked. And a little gasp of pure delight escaped her.

The hills were rising all round them—or so it seemed to her—and steep and altogether enchanting valleys fell away on all sides. The valleys were filled with a pearly-grey mist, like the grey of wood smoke, and patches of water caught her eyes, gleaming very still amongst clumps of far-away trees. The hilltops soared right into the clouds, which sailed like balls of cotton-wool across the evening blue, and there was a rosy, flushed look in the air, as if the sun was not very far away from its setting.

Carrington pointed out a heron, winging its flight unerringly across a sky of tranquil turquoise, and Carol watched it with completely charmed eyes.

“So free,” she murmured, ‘‘so absolutely free!...”

“And you,” he said oddly, watching her very closely, “are no longer free. Is that what you were thinking?”

“Of course not.” Instantly she was covered in confusion, and he took pity on the high color which rose up in her cheeks and suggested that, if she really wanted to do whatever it was women did to their faces when they considered them in need of repair, she should disappear to the cloakroom at the end of the corridor and do it in comfortable privacy.

“We’ve got about half an hour,” he said, “before we reach Albrington, and so you needn’t rush. But personally I think you look very nice as you are, even if your nose is a little bit shiny. And that sleep has obviously done you good. You look more fitted to face up to the future.”

Carol’ s heart sank suddenly, like a plummet.

To come face to face with his sister for the first time, he meant! And she had heard so much about Meg in the past few days that she was secretly seriously alarmed at the idea of meeting her.

Meg, the perfect housekeeper, Meg who had looked after her brother for years, and had no doubt counted on doing it always, Meg who was so efficient, and orderly, and composed, and loyal! Meg who was the exact antithesis of a girl who had spent almost all her life shut up in a cloistered school in the south of England, and had been expecting to earn her living doing shorthand and typing, or something of the sort. Certainly she had never anticipated taking any part in the running of a large country house that was also a busy and prosperous farm. She knew nothing whatsoever about farming, or the kind of life expected of a farmer’ s wife.