Sparkling Cyanide Page 6

  Stephen did not overdo things. He saw Lady Kidderminster entering the room, her eyes in search of her daughter. It was no part of his plan to be introduced now. He murmured a goodbye.

  ‘I have enjoyed talking to you. I was simply hating the whole show till I found you. Thank you.’

  He left Kidderminster House with a feeling of exhilaration. He had taken his chance. Now to consolidate what he had started.

  For several days after that he haunted the neighbourhood of Kidderminster House. Once Sandra came out with one of her sisters. Once she left the house alone, but with a hurried step. He shook his head. That would not do, she was obviously en route to some particular appointment. Then, about a week after the party, his patience was rewarded. She came out one morning with a small black Scottie dog and she turned with a leisurely step in the direction of the Park.

  Five minutes later, a young man walking rapidly in the opposite direction pulled up short and stopped in front of Sandra. He exclaimed blithely:

  ‘I say, what luck! I wondered if I’d ever see you again.’

  His tone was so delighted that she blushed just a little.

  He stooped to the dog.

  ‘What a jolly little fellow. What’s his name?’

  ‘MacTavish.’

  ‘Oh, very Scotch.’

  They talked dog for some moments. Then Stephen said, with a trace of embarrassment:

  ‘I never told you my name the other day. It’s Farraday. Stephen Farraday. I’m an obscure M.P.’

  He looked inquiringly and saw the colour come up in her cheeks again as she said: ‘I’m Alexandra Hayle.’

  He responded to that very well. He might have been back in the O.U.D.S. Surprise, recognition, dismay, embarrassment!

  ‘Oh, you’re—you’re Lady Alexandra Hayle—you—my goodness! What a stupid fool you must have thought me the other day!’

  Her answering move was inevitable. She was bound both by her breeding and her natural kindliness to do all she could to put him at his ease, to reassure him.

  ‘I ought to have told you at the time.’

  ‘I ought to have known. What an oaf you must think me!’

  ‘How should you have known? What does it matter anyway? Please, Mr Farraday, don’t look so upset. Let’s walk to the Serpentine. Look, MacTavish is simply pulling.’

  After that, he met her several times in the Park. He told her his ambitions. Together they discussed political topics. He found her intelligent, well-informed and sympathetic. She had good brains and a singularly unbiased mind. They were friends now.

  The next advance came when he was asked to dinner at Kidderminster House and to go on to a dance. A man had fallen through at the last moment. When Lady Kidderminster was racking her brains Sandra said quietly:

  ‘What about Stephen Farraday?’

  ‘Stephen Farraday?’

  ‘Yes, he was at your party the other day and I’ve met him once or twice since.’

  Lord Kidderminster was consulted and was all in favour of encouraging the young hopefuls of the political world.

  ‘Brilliant young fellow—quite brilliant. Never heard of his people, but he’ll make a name for himself one of these days.’

  Stephen came and acquitted himself well.

  ‘A useful young man to know,’ said Lady Kidderminster with unconscious arrogance.

  Two months later Stephen put his fortunes to the test. They were by the Serpentine and MacTavish sat with his head on Sandra’s foot.

  ‘Sandra, you know—you must know that I love you. I want you to marry me. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t believe that I shall make a name for myself one day. I do believe it. You shan’t be ashamed of your choice. I swear it.’

  She said, ‘I’m not ashamed.’

  ‘Then you do care?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘I hoped—but I couldn’t be sure. Do you know that I’ve loved you since that very first moment when I saw you across the room and took my courage in both hands and came to speak to you. I was never more terrified in my life.’

  She said, ‘I think I loved you then, too…’

  It was not all plain sailing. Sandra’s quiet announcement that she was going to marry Stephen Farraday sent her family into immediate protests. Who was he? What did they know about him?

  To Lord Kidderminster Stephen was quite frank about his family and origin. He spared a fleeting thought that it was just as well for his prospects that his parents were now both dead.

  To his wife, Lord Kidderminster said, ‘H’m, it might be worse.’

  He knew his daughter fairly well, knew that her quiet manner hid inflexible purpose. If she meant to have the fellow she would have him. She’d never give in!

  ‘The fellow’s got a career ahead of him. With a bit of backing he’ll go far. Heaven knows we could do with some young blood. He seems a decent chap, too.’

  Lady Kidderminster assented grudgingly. It was not at all her idea of a good match for her daughter. Still, Sandra was certainly the most difficult of the family. Susan had been a beauty and Esther had brains. Diana, clever child, had married the young Duke of Harwich—the parti of the season. Sandra had certainly less charm—there was her shyness—and if this young man had a future as everyone seemed to think…

  She capitulated, murmuring:

  ‘But, of course, one will have to use influence…’

  So Alexandra Catherine Hayle took Stephen Leonard Farraday for better and for worse, in white satin and Brussels lace, with six bridesmaids and two minute pages and all the accessories of a fashionable wedding. They went to Italy for the honeymoon and came back to a small charming house in Westminster, and a short time afterwards Sandra’s godmother died and left her a very delightful small Queen Anne Manor house in the country. Everything went well for the young married pair. Stephen plunged into Parliamentary life with renewed ardour, Sandra aided and abetted him in every way, identifying herself heart and soul with his ambitions. Sometimes, Stephen would think with an almost incredulous realization of how Fortune had favoured him! His alliance with the powerful Kidderminster faction assured him of rapid rise in his career. His own ability and brilliance would consolidate the position that opportunity made for him. He believed honestly in his own powers and was prepared to work unsparingly for the good of his country.

  Often, looking across the table at his wife, he felt gladly what a perfect helpmate she was—just what he had always imagined. He liked the lovely clean lines of her head and neck, the direct hazel eyes under their level brows, the rather high white forehead and the faint arrogance of her aquiline nose. She looked, he thought, rather like a racehorse—so well groomed, so instinct with breeding, so proud. He found her an ideal companion, their minds raced alike to the same quick conclusions. Yes, he thought, Stephen Farraday, that little disconsolate boy, had done very well for himself. His life was shaping exactly as he had meant it to be. He was only a year or two over thirty and already success lay in the hollow of his hand.

  And in that mood of triumphant satisfaction, he went with his wife for a fortnight to St Moritz, and looking across the hotel lounge saw Rosemary Barton.

  What happened to him at that moment he never understood. By a kind of poetic revenge the words he had spoken to another woman came true. Across a room he fell in love. Deeply, overwhelmingly, crazily in love. It was the kind of desperate, headlong, adolescent calf love that he should have experienced years ago and got over.

  He had always assumed that he was not a passionate type of man. One or two ephemeral affairs, a mild flirtation—that, so far as he knew, was all that ‘love’ meant to him. Sensual pleasures simply did not appeal to him. He told himself that he was too fastidious for that sort of thing.

  If he had been asked if he loved his wife, he would have replied ‘Certainly’—yet he knew, well enough, that he would not have dreamed of marrying her if she had been, say, the daughter of a penniless country gentleman. He liked her, admired her and felt a deep affectio
n for her and also a very real gratitude for what her position had brought him.

  That he could fall in love with the abandon and misery of a callow boy was a revelation. He could think of nothing but Rosemary. Her lovely laughing face, the rich chestnut of her hair, her swaying voluptuous figure. He couldn’t eat—he couldn’t sleep. They went ski-ing together. He danced with her. And as he held her to him he knew that he wanted her more than anything on earth. So this, this misery, this aching longing agony—this was love!

  Even in his preoccupation he blessed Fate for having given him a naturally imperturbable manner. No one must guess, no one must know, what he was feeling—except Rosemary herself.

  The Bartons left a week earlier than the Farradays. Stephen said to Sandra that St Moritz was not very amusing. Should they cut their time short and go back to London? She agreed very amiably. Two weeks after their return, he became Rosemary’s lover.

  A strange ecstatic hectic period—feverish, unreal. It lasted—how long? Six months at most. Six months during which Stephen went about his work as usual, visited his constituency, asked questions in the House, spoke at various meetings, discussed politics with Sandra and thought of one thing only—Rosemary.

  Their secret meetings in the little flat, her beauty, the passionate endearments he showered on her, her clinging passionate embraces. A dream. A sensual infatuated dream.

  And after the dream—the awakening.

  It seemed to happen quite suddenly.

  Like coming out of a tunnel into the daylight.

  One day he was a bemused lover, the next day he was Stephen Farraday again thinking that perhaps he ought not to see Rosemary quite so often. Dash it all, they had been taking some terrific risks. If Sandra was ever to suspect—He stole a look at her down the breakfast table. Thank goodness, she didn’t suspect. She hadn’t an idea. Yet some of his excuses for absence lately had been pretty thin. Some women would have begun to smell a rat. Thank goodness Sandra wasn’t a suspicious woman.

  He took a deep breath. Really he and Rosemary had been very reckless! It was a wonder her husband hadn’t got wise to things. One of those foolish unsuspecting chaps—years older than she was.

  What a lovely creature she was…

  He thought suddenly of golf links. Fresh air blowing over sand dunes, tramping round with clubs—swinging a driver—a nice clean shot off the tee—a little chip with a mashie. Men. Men in plus fours smoking pipes. And no women allowed on the links!

  He said suddenly to Sandra:

  ‘Couldn’t we go down to Fairhaven?’

  She looked up, surprised.

  ‘Do you want to? Can you get away?’

  ‘Might take the inside of a week. I’d like to get some golf. I feel stale.’

  ‘We could go tomorrow if you like. It will mean putting off the Astleys, and I must cancel that meeting on Tuesday. But what about the Lovats?’

  ‘Oh, let’s cancel that too. We can think of some excuse. I want to get away.’

  It had been peaceful at Fairhaven with Sandra and the dogs on the terrace and in the old walled garden, and with golf at Sandley Heath, and pottering down to the farm in the evening with MacTavish at his heels.

  He had felt rather like someone who is recovering from an illness.

  He had frowned when he saw Rosemary’s writing. He’d told her not to write. It was too dangerous. Not that Sandra ever asked him who his letters were from, but all the same it was unwise. Servants weren’t always to be trusted.

  He ripped open the envelope with some annoyance, having taken the letter into his study. Pages. Simply pages.

  As he read, the old enchantment swept over him again. She adored him, she loved him more than ever, she couldn’t endure not seeing him for five whole days. Was he feeling the same? Did the Leopard miss his Ethiopian?

  He half-smiled, half-sighed. That ridiculous joke—born when he had bought her a man’s spotted dressing-gown that she had admired. The Leopard changing his spots, and he had said, ‘But you mustn’t change your skin, darling.’ And after that she had called him Leopard and he had called her his Black Beauty.

  Damned silly, really. Yes, damned silly. Rather sweet of her to have written such pages and pages. But still she shouldn’t have done it. Dash it all, they’d got to be careful! Sandra wasn’t the sort of woman who would stand for anything of that kind. If she once got an inkling—Writing letters was dangerous. He’d told Rosemary so. Why couldn’t she wait until he got back to town? Dash it all, he’d see her in another two or three days.

  There was another letter on the breakfast table the following morning. This time Stephen swore inwardly. He thought Sandra’s eyes rested on it for a couple of seconds. But she didn’t say anything. Thank goodness she wasn’t the sort of woman who asked questions about a man’s correspondence.

  After breakfast he took the car over the market town eight miles away. Wouldn’t do to put through a call from the village. He got Rosemary on the phone.

  ‘Hullo—that you, Rosemary? Don’t write any more letters.’

  ‘Stephen, darling, how lovely to hear your voice!’

  ‘Be careful, can anyone overhear you?’

  ‘Of course not. Oh, angel, I have missed you. Have you missed me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But don’t write. It’s much too risky.’

  ‘Did you like my letter? Did it make you feel I was with you? Darling, I want to be with you every minute. Do you feel that too?’

  ‘Yes—but not on the phone, old thing.’

  ‘You’re so ridiculously cautious. What does it matter?’

  ‘I’m thinking of you, too, Rosemary. I couldn’t bear any trouble to come to you through me.’

  ‘I don’t care what happens to me. You know that.’

  ‘Well, I care, sweetheart.’

  ‘When are you coming back?’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  ‘And we’ll meet at the flat, Wednesday.’

  ‘Yes—er, yes.’

  ‘Darling, I can hardly bear to wait. Can’t you make some excuse and come up today? Oh, Stephen, you could! Politics or something stupid like that?’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s out of the question.’

  ‘I don’t believe you miss me half as much as I miss you.’

  ‘Nonsense, of course I do.’

  When he rang off he felt tired. Why should women insist on being so damned reckless? Rosemary and he must be more careful in future. They’d have to meet less often.

  Things after that became difficult. He was busy—very busy. It was quite impossible to give as much time to Rosemary—and the trying thing was she didn’t seem able to understand. He explained but she just wouldn’t listen.

  ‘Oh, your stupid old politics—as though they were important!’

  ‘But they are—’

  She didn’t realize. She didn’t care. She took no interest in his work, in his ambitions, in his career. All she wanted was to hear him reiterate again and again that he loved her. ‘Just as much as ever? Tell me again that you really love me?’

  Surely, he thought, she might take that for granted by this time! She was a lovely creature, lovely—but the trouble was that you couldn’t talk to her.

  The trouble was they’d been seeing too much of each other. You couldn’t keep up an affair at fever heat. They must meet less often—slacken off a bit.

  But that made her resentful—very resentful. She was always reproaching him now.

  ‘You don’t love me as you used to do.’

  And then he’d have to reassure her, to swear that of course he did. And she would constantly resurrect everything he had ever said to her.

  ‘Do you remember when you said it would be lovely if we died together? Fell asleep for ever in each other’s arms? Do you remember when you said we’d take a caravan and go off into the desert? Just the stars and the camels—and how we’d forget everything in the world?’

  What damned silly things one said when one was in love! They hadn’t seemed fatuo
us at the time, but to have them hashed up in cold blood! Why couldn’t women let things decently alone? A man didn’t want to be continually reminded what an ass he’d made of himself.

  She came out with sudden unreasonable demands. Couldn’t he go abroad to the South of France and she’d meet him there? Or go to Sicily or Corsica—one of those places where you never saw anyone you knew? Stephen said grimly that there was no such place in the world. At the most unlikely spots you always met some dear old school friend that you’d never seen for years.

  And then she said something that frightened him.

  ‘Well, but it wouldn’t really matter, would it?’

  He was alert, watchful, suddenly cold within.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She was smiling up at him, that same enchanting smile that had once made his heart turn over and his bones ache with longing. Now it made him merely impatient.

  ‘Leopard, darling, I’ve thought sometimes that we’re stupid to go on trying to carry on this hole-and-corner business. It’s not worthy, somehow. Let’s go away together. Let’s stop pretending. George will divorce me and your wife will divorce you and then we can get married.’

  Just like that! Disaster! Ruin! And she couldn’t see it!

  ‘I wouldn’t let you do such a thing.’

  ‘But, darling, I don’t care. I’m not really very conventional.’

  ‘But I am. But I am,’ thought Stephen.

  ‘I do feel that love is the most important thing in the world. It doesn’t matter what people think of us.’

  ‘It would matter to me, my dear. An open scandal of that kind would be the end of my career.’

  ‘But would that really matter? There are hundreds of other things that you could do.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Why have you got to do anything anyway? I’ve got lots of money, you know. Of my own, I mean, not George’s. We could wander about all over the world, going to the most enchanting out-of-the-way places—places, perhaps, where nobody else has ever been. Or to some island in the Pacific—think of it, the hot sun and the blue sea and the coral reefs.’