This Merry Bond (10 page)

“Oh yes, you do. We’ve had all this out before. When an arrangement doesn’t suit you and your father, you decline gracefully to have any more to do with it, and because you are who you are, in nine cases out of ten you get away with it. But supposing we all lived like that. What do you think society would be like if everyone refused to pay their debts or honor their contracts?”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” she said quickly. “One marries of one’s own free will, and I’ve a perfect right to change my mind if I want to.”

“Oh, no. In this case, believe me, my dear, you have not,” said Simon, and a harder note crept into his voice. “Our agreement dates back further than the day I asked you to marry me. You came to me of your own free will demanding quite a big favor, and agreeing upon a certain security. When the time came for you to honor that contract, you ran out on it, just as you tried to run out earlier still on the sale of your land. I offered to marry you where someone else might have taken you at your first valuation. You agreed—again of your own free will. And now, just because you want me to give in over some point that is important to you, you think you can run out on me again. No, Nicky, I’ve no intention of being thrown over like this at the eleventh hour. You made a bargain with me and I expect you to stick to it.”

For a moment she was silent, struggling for the right words, but when they came, it was in a rush of disjointed phrases, angry, a little frightened.

“You can’t conduct my life along the same lines as your shoe factory
...
It’s perfectly absurd to take this line with me ... You can preach as much as you like, but you’ve forced me all along
...
I made no bargain with you that any sane person would expect me to keep.”

“And yet, you know, I don’t believe you got engaged to me simply for what you could get out of me,” said Simon gently, and she was silent.

“I know, my dear, that you weren’t in love with me in the accepted sense of the word,” he
went on. “But I know, too, that I don’t leave you entirely unmoved. You’re a strange, unawakened creature in many ways, Nicky, and I think you know in your heart you’d be safe with me.”

She looked across at him. His face in the circle of firelight was grave and a little appealing, and in spite of herself she felt the strange old urge toward him. Yes, she would be safe with Simon Shand.

“Will you leave Honeysett’s cottage alone?” she said a little breathlessly.

His mouth tightened.

“It’s no use going over all that again,” he said impatiently. “My mind was made up before we ever began the discussion.”

She sprang to her feet.

“And so is mine made up,” she cried. “I won’t marry you and you can talk about bargains and honor till doomsday. It won’t make a hoot of difference.”

He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment or two without speaking, then he said slowly:

“And what about all the money that’s been spent on Nye? A great deal
has
been spent, you know.”

She stared at him.

“What do you mean?”

“Well—” He spread his hands in an expressive gesture. “Would you propose throwing me over and at the same time accept everything I’ve done for the place as a matter of course?”

She was silent, and the angry color began to drain from her face, leaving it white and pinched.

“I see you hadn’t thought of that,” Simon continued, still in that gentle, ominous voice. “I suppose about a couple of thousand has already been spent on the house, to say nothing of contracts for the estate. That, together with the original five thousand you borrowed on your father’s account, makes seven thousand with a couple more to come. What do you 'propose to do about that?”

She clenched her hands so tightly that the knuckles showed white through the skin. For a moment she stood staring unseeingly over Simon’s head. She was caught, caught in a trap of her own making. There was nothing left to say.

Presently she was aware that he had risen and was standing over her, with kindly hands on her shoulders, and was speaking gently above her head.

“Come, don’t be so foolish. You know quite well that this all began in a fit of temper. Let’s forget about it. In any case you can’t begin returning wedding presents at this late date, whatever you may think of me.”

She stood still and straight between his hands and began to speak. “You’ve got me cornered and you know it. You can afford to joke about it. I never had a chance from the start with a man like
you. You’re just a hard-headed tradesman who thinks of nothing but money and contracts. Well, I’ll marry you. I can’t do anything else. But you can’t force me to live with you. I never will. I might have loved you, but instead you’ve made me hate you.”

She didn’t know that she was crying. She scarcely knew what she was saying. He stood in silence looking gravely down at her, but the tears blinded her, to the pain in his face.

“You’re overtired and upset,” he said then, quite gently. “I don’t think you know what you’re saying. I’m going now, Nicky. Get to bed early, and have Mouse bring you something hot to help you sleep. Good night.”

He didn’t kiss her, but went softly out of the room and shut the door.

Gusts of April rain beat upon the windows as Nicky dressed for her wedding. Mouse ran in and out with hot drinks, and heaped wood on the fire, for the girl seemed shivery and sat about listlessly instead of getting herself ready.

“You’d better make a start,” Mouse said as she darted away to attend to Alice Bredon; who was unsuccessfully demanding endless services from the servants. They were too busy and harassed downstairs to pay attention to any of the guests.

Nicky went to the window and leaning her forehead against the glass, looked out onto the rainswept park. Up on the hill she could just see the turrets and upper windows of the Towers, and she wondered fleetingly how Simon was feeling. Up there, he too, was preparing for his marriage, and she wondered if any doubts assailed him, whether in his juggernaut fashion he was so confident of success that he didn’t trouble to think at all.

She had
seen very little of him since that painful scene a week ago, and when they had met he had treated her just as if nothing had happened. The days had passed very quickly and soon relations had begun to arrive, the final details were completed, and Nicky at last knew herself to be committed to a course from which there was no drawing back.

She thought of the little package that had been delivered this morning from the Towers. A lace handkerchief that had turned a delicate ivory from frequent careful ironing, and a pair of blue garters. Something borrowed and something blue. Dear Mary Shand! How kind she had been, and how shyly she approached Nicky with her little romantic follies.

She started as Mouse’s voice behind her said with exasperation: “For goodness sake, Nicky, stop mooning about and get some clothes on. You have to leave in an hour and you haven’t even begun to get yourself ready. And come away from that window. You’ll get your death standing there with next to nothing on.” Nicky turned and began to put on a pair of fine stockings. With a little smile, she slipped Mary Shand’s blue garters over each slender leg.

“For luck,” she said and sat down at' the dressing table to make up her face.

When she was ready, she stood, surveying the room with curious eyes. This was no longer her room, the place that she had made her own since she was old enough to graduate from the nursery. In future her room would be in the other wing, that vast double room that was supposed to have harbored one of the Stuarts for a night. This room was already bare of most of her personal belongings. Her luggage, new and unfriendly, was piled at the foot of the bed and stamped with the letters N.S. Nicola Shand. When she came back to Nye she would no longer be Nicola Bredon.

She almost snatched the little hat Mouse was holding out to her, and crammed it on her head without troubling to look in the mirror. Mouse knew the symptoms from nursery days.

“Now, Nicky, you sit right down in front of the glass and put that hat straight,” she said and folded her arms across her diminutive chest.

“It’s not supposed to be straight,” said Nicky, but-she obeyed all the same.

“You look very nice, I must say,” Mouse said grudgingly. “Though I don’t hold with green for weddings, myself. It’s unlucky.
I
must say, Nicky, you might have had a proper wedding for the sake of the village if nothing else.”

“They can have all the rejoicing they want at my coming of age,” Nicky said carelessly. “Now; that
will
be a party.”

Mouse compressed her lips into familiar lines of displeasure. “Well, take
that sour look off your face when you walk down the aisle,” she said, “or your husband won’t feel very complimented, poor gentleman.”

Nicky turned and gave the old woman one quick hug. Then she ran out of the room, slamming the door swiftly behind her.

It was all over very quickly and she was driving back with Simon between the long rows of chestnuts, their buds already fat and sticky in the rain. In another fortnight they would be in flower. She sat very straight and silent beside Simon, feeling all at once unaccountably nervous. He said very little, but just before the car drew up at the house, he took her in his arms and kissed her.

“I hope I make you happy, little Nicky,” he said gravely. “I’ll do my best.”

They stood under a great bell of orange-blossoms swinging from the famous King post and received their guests, and listened to endless speeches. Charles watched the proceedings with his usual puckish air of amusement, and old Shand, uncomfortable in such an unfamiliar gathering, did his best to be genial as befitted the occasion.

“No word from Michael?” Nicky asked Hilary Bredon once. “I wish he could have been here, but he didn’t even send a cable.”

“My letter must have missed him,” Hilary said. “I haven’t heard from him for weeks now.” He glanced at her closely. “Aren’t you happy, Nick? You’ve got a good man, you know. I told you that the first time I saw him.”

“Yes, of course, Uncle Hilary,” said Nicky quickly. “I hope you’ll come and stay with us as soon as we get back. I shall miss Charles about the place.”

Dick Lucy hurried up to wish her luck. Stella wasn’t back yet from Scotland, he told her. When they came back they must come and dine.

When they came back
—
How changed everything would be,
Nicky realized with a faint sense of panic. Even Nye...

Simon’s voice behind her was saying:

“Time we made a move, darling. We’ve got a long run in front of us.”

With a sense of unreality she made her farewells, and presently she was beside Simon in his own car this time, and they were turning out of the lodge gates where knots of villagers still stood in the rain to cheer them as they passed. She had at last set her face toward the new life, and she felt a terrifying and overwhelming sense of isolation...

They had planned a tour of the north country and Scotland that would take about three weeks. Simon was anxious to show Nicky the country where he had spent all his boyhood, and they hoped to reach the Yorkshire moors on the first stage of their journey. They drove through rain nearly all the way, arriving at their hotel after dinner.

Nicky was desperately tired. The north seemed alien and unfriendly and the hotel, although comfortable enough, was old-fashioned and ugly, and at that time of the year, nearly empty. A sleepy waiter served them hot soup in front of a dying fire in the deserted lounge, and Simon, stretching his cramped legs thankfully, looked at Nicky’s face and burst out laughing.

“My poor sweetheart, it isn’t really as bad as all that!” he said. “Wait till you see the moors from your bedroom window tomorrow morning. You’ll forgive the hotel then for being such a barrack.”

She tried to smile.

“I expect it’s all right,” she said, drinking her hot soup with gratitude. “I’m terribly tired, Simon.”

He looked at her with tenderness. In the dim light her face seemed pale and ethereal. The heavy hair swung forward over her cheekbones as she bent her head over her bowl of soup. She seemed small and childish and rather forlorn.

“Finish your soup quickly and then to bed,” he said gently.

She put her bowl down on a table and stood up.

“I’ve finished now.”

He got to his feet and put an arm around her slender body drawing her close to him.

“Nicky.” His voice had sudden urgency. “I want our life together to be a grand thing. If I make mistakes—and I shall make them—be a little forbearing with me. All I do, I do because of you. Remember that, will you, the next time you feel you want to hit me? You’re such a dear child, Nicky, and sometimes I’m. clumsy...”

He felt her stiffen in his arms, but she made no attempt to get free, and when she felt his hands relax, she lifted her face and gave him a stiff little smile.

“Thank you, Simon. Good night,” she said, and picked up her hat and gloves.

He watched her a little uncertainly.

“You’re very tired, aren’t you?” he said then. “I won’t be long after you.”

When she had gone, he was conscious of extreme weariness himself. He had a whisky and soda and smoked another cigarette, then went slowly up the stairs.