Never to Love (17 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Andrea pressed her hand
against her thudding heart.

“Go away. Leave me alone,” she called back in a choked voice.

His reply was another imperative demand for her to open the door, issued in a tone that made her wonder fearfully if the lock would hold against force. She did not answer, and presently she heard him going back to his own door. A few seconds later he tapped on the paneling of the communicating door behind her.

“Andrea, I must talk to you. Tell me what’s upset you.” His voice was quieter.

Forgetting he could not see her, she shook her head and backed away toward the bed.

There was a silence for a while and then he said, “Aren’t you being rather unfair? You’ve accused me of being a hypocrite, but you haven’t explained why.”

“Oh, go away. Please go away,” she cried desperately. There was another silence until, just as she was beginning to feel physically sick with suspense, he said, “Very well. If that’s the way you want it. Good night.”

For about ten minutes—although it seemed like an hour—she remained tense and wary, listening to him moving around the next room until at last the slit of light below the door went out and there were no more sounds. Only then did her taut nerves begin to relax and she sank onto the bed with a quivering sigh of relief.

After a time she summoned the last remnants of her energy and began to undress, too weary to put away her clothes or bother with her normal cleansing routine. When she had bathed her face with cold water and cleaned her teeth, she crept between the sheets, her whole body aching with exhaustion. But although she
longed for the blessed
oblivion of sleep, her mind was tormented by a torrent of feverish thoughts that, like some relentless maelstrom, seemed to be dragging her down to the blackest depths of anguish and despair.

For more than an hour she tossed and twisted restlessly, turning the pillows a dozen times to find a cooler place for her throbbing head. Finally she dragged herself back to the bathroom and took three aspirins. It was past three o’clock before she fell into an uneasy doze, only to wake again, at first light, out of a macabre dream. For a while she lay still, oppressed by a deep mental and physical lassitude.

But self-discipline, once learned, is not easily thrown aside, and Andrea had spent the greater part of her life schooling herself to meet reverses squarely. As the dawn light grew stronger her essential firmness of character began to reassert itself? Presently she got up, dressed and slipped cautiously out of her room and down the stairs.

The dew was heavy on the lawn as she made for the woods, and she remembered the winter morning when she had met Justin riding over the moor a few miles away from here. If only she had refused his invitation to dine with him in London, her present unhappiness would never have come about. But it was no use mulling over past mistakes. What she must do now was to decide how best to face the future.

Last night, when she had been too angry to think clearly, she had considered running out—leaving the whole wretched tangle behind and starting afresh, in America perhaps, or somewhere far away where she could resume her career without embarrassment.

Now, reconsidering the idea, she knew it was impossible. Marriage was not something one could cancel as easily as a subscription—even this kind of marriage. In fact, because it was this kind of marriage, the discussion that she had overheard last night and that might be justification for a normal wife to leave her husband was in her own circumstances no excuse for any default.

Why, then, had the discovery of Justin’s association with another woman been such a stunning blow? There was not one single logical reason.

C
oming to a clearing among the trees, she sat down on a mossy log and lighted a cigarette, her delicately marked eyebrows drawn into a troubled frown.

Why had she assumed that she would be the only woman in his life when their relationship was so incomplete, so lacking in any of the qualities that would give her the right of loyalty and consideration? Perhaps she had allowed herself to forget the terms of their agreement. She was entitled to share his name, his position and his wealth—nothing more.

Yet in her heart she knew that these harsh facts had not been so
much forgotten as overlaid by the new and more harmonious feeling that had sprung up between them in the past eight days. That, she supposed miserably, was the real reason for her angry outburst last night when she had accused Justin of hypocrisy. She had obviously misconstrued his efforts to be particularly agreeable, giving them a false significance so that what she had overheard had been a savage blow to her pride.

An hour later, having decided on her future course, she returned to the house. What she must do would not be easy, but there was no alternative.

She went indoors by way of the kitchen where Ellen was feeding the stable cat, a ferocious-looking ginger tom that lived in perpetual feud with the dogs.

“Good morning, madam.”

“Good morning, Ellen. Is ... is Mr. Justin up yet?”

“
He’s just this minute started his breakfast, madam. I told him you were out and he said he wouldn’t wait.”

Andrea bent to stroke the cat, mustering all her courage for the moment when she would walk into the dining room and face her husband.

“It’s certainly a fine morning for a walk. You’d never guess we had such a tempest yesterday,” Ellen said comfortably. “I expect you’ll be hungry, getting up so early. Will you have some bacon and eggs, madam?”

“No, thanks. Just my usual coffee and fruit.” Andrea managed a smile. “I don’t want to put on too much weight.”

“If you don’t mind me saying it, madam, you look a lot better since you’ve been here, and so does Mr. Justin. I said to Bassett the night you came, ‘One thing is plain
enough,’
I
said, ‘that French chef up at the London house may be very clever with fancy sauces and the like, but he doesn’t seem to know much about good nourishing food with the master and madam looking as they do.’ ”

“If we stay
h
ere much longer, I will be as fat as this cat,” Andrea said.

Ellen’s beam of pleasure at the compliment changed to a thoughtful expression.

“We were hoping you might persuade Mr. Justin to spend more time here, madam,” she said. “Unless, of course, you’re not too partial to country life. But it seems a shame for a house like this to be shut up so long with dust sheets over everything and the big gates locked and no one about but me and Bassett.”

“Yes, it does. Lady Bartley was saying the same thing last night.”

There were footsteps in the yard and Bassett appeared with the daily newspapers and the mail, which he collected from a box at the main gateway each morning. Andrea knew that he usually stopped for a cup of tea at this time, but that Ellen would not give it to him while she was present, so she took the papers and letters and left them. In the hall she paused for a moment, bracing herself. Then, taking a deep breath, she pushed open the dining-room door and went in.

Justin was sitting in his usual place with the dogs lying on the floor nearby. He had finished breakfast and was leaning back in his chair, smoking and staring out of the open windows with an inscrutable expression. As she closed
t
he door he turned his head, looked at her intently for a moment and then rose slowly to his feet. The blankness of his expression was so unnerving that for an instant her resolve faltered and she had an almost overwhelming desire to turn tail. But she knew that she must face him now, for the longer she hesitated, the more grueling the ordeal would be.

“Good morning.” Her voice was husky with nervousness.

“Good morning.”

Willing herself to appear calm, she walked to the table and laid the papers and letters by his plate. The dogs
thumped their tails, hoping for tidbits, but she did not notice them. Fixing her eyes on the coffee-pot, she said, “I want to apologize
for ... for
last night.”

She waited
a moment, expecting some scathing retort. But he never moved or spoke.

“I behaved very stupidly. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” she finished flatly.

A wasp flew through the open window, made a brisk reconnaissance of the table and hovered above the marmalade dish. Neither of them attempted to wave it away. Its striped body suspended above the marmalade made the only movement in the room.

“Is that all you have to say?” Justin’s tone was as blank as his face.

“There’s nothing else I can say.”

She noticed an infinitesimal crack on the lid of the coffeepot, finer than a hair. Odd how, in moments of extreme stress, the mind registered trivial details that were normally unnoticeable.

“Except to explain what it was all about,” he said.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him crush out the smoldering cigarette. Was it only fancy, or was there leashed violence in the commonplace action?

“I can’t,” she said wretchedly. “I’m sorry but I can’t.”

His mouth hardened, but he shrugged and said, “As you wish.”

Back in London,
their life resumed its former pattern, and it was as if their brief sojourn at Lingard with its promise of a closer understanding had never happened.

About ten days later Andrea was shopping at Fortnum &
Mason’s in Piccadilly when she saw Rosa Abbott.

They were both buying gloves, but it was not until she heard a low-pitched, beautifully modulated voice asking for a paler shade of gray that Andrea looked along the counter and saw the actress sitting within a few feet of her.

Her first reaction was surprise, because, although there was no mistaking her identity, the famous star looked much older than she appeared on the stage. Andrea had imagined her to be in her early thirties, but at close quarters and with ordinary makeup on her face she looked
closer to forty. She was dressed with quiet elegance in a cream linen suit—which Andrea recognized as a Hardy Amies model—with a handsome topaz-and-gold brooch pinned on the collar.

Had Justin given her that? Had he paid for the exquisitely cut suit, the expensive cream suede bag, the fashionably tapered Ferragamo shoes?

Andrea’s soft mouth hardened as she noted each impeccable detail of the other woman’s appearance.

Unaware that she was being watched, Rosa Abbott chatted pleasantly to the assistant serving her. Once she laughed, a delightful bubble of sound, and for an instant the years fell from her face like a discarded veil and she looked young and glowing.

Suddenly conscious that her own assistant was waiting for her attention, Andrea turned back to the box of gloves on the counter and chose two pairs. While they were being wrapped she stole another glance at the actress. At the same moment Rosa Abbott turned her head and their eyes met.

For a fraction of a second the older woman’s gaze was as casual as that of any ordinary stranger, and then her eyebrows contracted slightly in the manner of someone encountering a person who seems familiar but whom they cannot quite place. Finally she gave a polite smile and looked away. Shortly afterward, her purchase concluded, she thanked the salesgirl and left the counter.

Andrea watched her walk away, pausing to glance at a display of filmy hand-embroidered Swiss underclothes before she stepped into the elevator and out of sight. So that was the woman with whom she shared Justin, the woman to whom he went for companionship and amusement and passion. Why, then, had he not married her? Because she was a few years older than himself? Because it did not suit him to have a wife whose career demanded the major part of her time and energy? Neither seemed an adequate reason.

And why should Rosa Abbott, whose appearance and manner suggested a keenly fastidious taste, lend herself to a situation that not only invited scandal but must undermine her self-respect?

Andrea spent many hours puzzling over a score of such questions and finding no satisfactory answers. What was equally puzzling was her own reaction to the discovery of another woman in Justin’s life. Why had it upset her so much? She had no reason to be jealous. She did not really mind gossip. The circumstances did not affect her life in the way they must humiliate and hurt a wife who had formerly enjoyed a normal relationship and who was now relegated to second place in her husband’s affections and interests. Why, then, had she felt that upsurge of furious resentment at finding out the truth?

Some days later, when Simon called to return a rare book that Justin had lent him, she had an opportunity to learn more about the woman whose existence had disturbed her plans for the future.

As they talked, Simon told her about his early days in Fleet Street when one of his jobs had been to write paragraphs about parliamentary, society and theatrical personalities for a gossip column. His anecdotes about certain stage and screen stars he had interviewed gave Andrea a perfect chance to ask the question she had been wanting to ask someone for days.

“Did you ever meet Rosa Abbott?” she said, with studied carelessness.

He shook his head. “She has a phobia about journalists. Never gives interviews and keeps her private life a deep dark secret.”

Nothing in his tone or expression betrayed whether he knew the question had a special significance.

“Isn’t that difficult to do if one is famous?” Andrea asked.

“Not necessarily. Usually the ‘I hate publicity’ line is just a pose, but there are a few who mean it.”

“I saw her in Fortnum’s the other day,” Andrea said, not looking at him. “She looked much older than she does on the stage.”

“They generally do,” he replied dryly. “You ought to know how deceptive photographs can be, and on the stage greasepaint hides the wrinkles.”

“I wonder if she’s married?”

“I’ve never heard of a husband, although it doesn’t seem likely that she’s a spinster. I daresay she made one of these hasty stage marriages when she was a youngster and it ended in the traditional divorce. I didn’t know you were a fan of hers.”

Andrea suppressed a mirthless laugh.

“I th
i
nk she’s a very clever actress,” she said casually, leading the conversation on to another topic.