A Bachelor Husband Part 33

"Are we going in the car?" Marie asked, and was glad when Chris said that he would rather walk if she did not mind.

They set off together happily enough. It was on occasions like this that Marie tried to cheat herself into the belief that Chris did care for her a little after all, and that it was only his awkward self-consciousness that prevented him from letting her know of it-- a happy illusion while it lasted!

It was after they had bought the necklace--a charming double row of beautiful pearls--and were having tea that Chris said suddenly: "Marie Celeste, why don't you go about more and enjoy yourself?"

She looked up with startled eyes.

"Go about!" she echoed quietly. "Do you mean by myself?"

He did not seem to hear the underlying imputation, and answered quite naturally: "No, can't you make friends or ask some people to stay with you? You must have friends."

The color rushed to her face.

"I had some friends at school," she answered, "but not many. I don't think I was very popular. There's Dorothy Webber---"

"Well, why not ask her to stay with you?"

There was a little silence.

"I don't think I want her," Marie said slowly. Dorothy Webber and Mrs. Heriot had always somehow gone together in her mind; they were both essentially men's women--very gay and companionable--and though she would not have admitted it for the world, Marie did not want Chris to meet Dorothy Webber.

"Oh, well, if you don't want her, of course that alters things," he said with a shrug. "But it seems a pity not to have a better time, Marie Celeste! Most women with your money would be setting the Thames on fire."

"Would they? What would they do?"

He looked nonplussed.

"Well, they'd go to theatres and dances, and play cards, and things like that," he explained vaguely. "I don't know much about women, but I do know that not many of them stay at home as much as you do."

She sat silent for a moment, then she said: "You mean that it would please you if--if I was more like other women?"

He laughed apologetically. "Well, I should feel happier about you,"

he admitted awkwardly. "It's not natural for a girl of your age to stick at home so much. Time enough in another thirty years."

"Yes." Marie remembered with a little ache the kindly warning which Feathers had several times tried to give her.

"Chris wants a woman who can be a pal to him--to go in for things that he likes--and you could, if you chose to try!" He had said just those words to her many times, and though in her heart she had always known that the first part of them was true, she felt herself utterly incapable of following his advice.

If she had loved Chris less it would have been far easier for her, but as it was, she was always fearful of annoying him, or of wearying him with her attempts to be what he wanted.

"There's no need to stay in town all the autumn, either," Chris went on, after a moment. "Why not go down to the country, or to somewhere you've never been? There must be heaps of places you know nothing about, Marie Celeste."

She laughed at that.

"Why, I've never been anywhere, except to school in France, and to Brighton or Bournemouth for summer holidays."

Chris lit a cigarette.

"If you could get a friend to go with you, there's no reason why you shouldn't go to Wales or Ireland," he said, his eyes bent on his task.

Marie stared at him; she could feel the color receding from her cheeks. So he did not mean to take her himself!

She became conscious that she had been sitting there dumbly for many minutes; she roused herself with an effort.

"Perhaps I will--later on," she said.

The pearl necklace of which she had been so proud a moment ago felt like a leaden weight on her throat. She wondered hopelessly what he was going to say next, and once again the little streak of happiness that had touched her heart faded and died away.

And then all at once she seemed to understand; perhaps the steady way in which he kept his eyes averted from her told her a good deal, or perhaps little Marie Celeste was growing wise, for she leaned towards him and said rather breathlessly trying to smile:

"You are very anxious to dispose of me! Why don't you find a friend and go away for the autumn too?"

She waited in an agony for his reply, and it seemed a lifetime till it came.

"Well, Aston Knight said something about it when I saw him last night. You remember Aston Knight?"

Marie nodded; she remembered him, as she remembered everything else to do with her fateful wedding. He had been best man because Feathers had refused.

"What did he say?" she asked with dry lips.

"Oh, nothing!" Chris spoke as if it were a matter of no consequence. "We haven't arranged anything, but he asked me to run up to St. Andrews with him later on for some golf. You don't care for golf, I know, and I shouldn't care to go unless you were having a good time somewhere, too ..."

She did not care for golf. It was clever of him to put it that way, she thought, as she answered bravely:

"Well, why don't you go? You would enjoy it."

He looked at her for the first time, and there was a vague sort of discomfort in his handsome eyes.

"You're sure you don't mind?"

"Mind!" Marie almost laughed. What difference would it make if she told him that she hated the idea of his going away from her more than anything in the world. "Of course I don't mind; I should certainly arrange to go. I thought we agreed that we were each to go our own way?"

"I know we did, but I thought ... well, if you are quite sure you don't mind."

"Quite sure." There was a little pause. "Perhaps Mr. Dakers will go, too," she hazarded.

"Yes, probably, I should think. I heard from him this morning."

"And is he still away?"

"Yes; he asked if we had made any plans for the autumn."

She noticed the little p.r.o.noun, and her heart warmed; she knew that Feathers at least--with all his contempt for women and marriage-- would not leave her out of a scheme of things that concerned Chris.

She looked at her husband, and her throat ached with tears, which she had kept pent up in her heart for so long now.

She was sure that Chris could always tell when she had been crying, and she was sure that it made him a little colder to her, a little less considerate.