Tell Me My Fortune (11 page)

“Well, he does think the world of her. Otherwise, why would he do all he has done?”

“You see, Leslie?” Morley smiled at her, still teasing, but with a great deal of affection too. “And remember that he had known the fatal Caroline once—still he chose you.”

“But suppose—” began Leslie. Then she stopped. Not only because of the amused lift of her brother’s eyebrows, but because she realized with dismay that she had almost stumbled into the fatal mistake of demanding reassurance.

She changed the subject—laughed off the conversation as though she found it no more than the light-hearted teasing which Morley had meant it to ,be. But she was disturbed, and took herself to task afterwards.

“That’s the danger in any marriage where one feels insecure,” she thought remorsefully. “I must accept, and be thankful for, what I have. Not try to find reassurance of what doesn’t really exist in any careless word that someone likes to utter.”

She was glad she had identified this danger so early, and she imagined she was safely armed against it, now that she recognized it. Just as she was pretty sure, while she was in London and regarding Reid from a distance, that she could learn to achieve a nice balance in her relationship with him.

There was no reason why she should not show an easy, pleasant affection to him. That he would expect. All she must guard against was any display of the inner, breathless rapture which alternately enchanted and tormented her.

It should not be too difficult, she told herself.

But when she saw him again for the first time, after nearly a week’s absence, it was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms and cling to him.

In her effort to appear self-contained, she threatened to turn their reunion into a very tame affair. But, fortunately, Reid had a natural talent for love-making—whether flirtatious or serious—and he greeted her in a manner that must not only have satisfied any member of the family who was by, but which reminded her of his gay boast that she should find their marriage rather more interesting than she seemed to expect.

Alma, who was a weekly boarder at a school in Pencaster, was at home on this occasion, as it was a Saturday, and when she said to Leslie, “Only two more weekends until your wedding,” it seemed to give an exciting reality to the whole thing which, until now, it had lacked.

“Yes. I—find it hard to believe,” Leslie confessed.

“Why?” the literal-minded Alma wanted to know.

“Well, I suppose any big and wonderful change is always rather difficult to accept in advance.”

“I can always believe in anything I want to believe in,” Alma asserted argumentatively. “Have you settled where you’re going for your honeymoon yet?” For she resented that there had been a certain amount of reticence over the discussion of this.

“I don’t know about the first part.” Leslie smiled. “But later we are going to Laintenon.”

“Where Great-Aunt Tabitha lived?”

“Yes.”

“I say! She had
a fabulous sort of villa there, didn’t she? Will you stay there?”

“I doubt it. The place must be very big, and most of it would have been out of use for many years, it would be rather melancholy.”

To Reid, Leslie said,

“Alma’s just been asking where we are going to spend the first part of our honeymoon. I told her, quite truly, that. I don’t know. We can go to Laintenon after the first week or ten days, of course, but we still haven’t settled on the first part.”

“What about Paris?”

“Oh, no!” she cried sharply, remembering what Caroline had said about Paris, and how she had looked.

Reid regarded her thoughtfully, and she found herself blushing, and hoping wildly that he did not remember the occasion too.

There were few things that Reid forgot, however. He made no attempt to ask her why she objected so strongly to Paris. He merely said,

“Have you ever been to Italy?”

“No.”

“Would you like that?”

“Very much,” she said eagerly. Caroline had no associations with Italy, so far as she knew.

“Not one of the obvious places, like Rome or Florence. We might go to Verona, and we could hire a car and I’d take you round Lake Garda.” He was speaking thoughtfully, as though he already visualized the scene and liked it.

“That sounds lovely,” she said softly, anxious to make up for her slip over Paris. Besides, it did sound lovely.

“We could go to Venice for a day or two, if you liked.”

“Yes. I should—love that.”

“All right. I’ll see after the arrangements. We’ll fly to Milan and go on from there.”

“Reid—”

“Yes?” He had been turning away, but he looked back at her now, over his shoulder.

“You didn’t specially want to go to Paris, did you?”

“No, my sweet.” He smiled full at her, and she found it very reassuring. “I want to go some place that you would like equally well. It’s your honeymoon too, you know.”

“Oh—thank you. I’ve always wanted to go to Italy.”

That was true, and she hoped he would take it as sufficient reason for her almost violent refusal of Paris.

“Well, you’re going now,” he told her. “And I hope you’ll have every reason to enjoy it.”

She hoped so too—passionately. Hoped there would be no unforeseen crisis. Hoped that when people said a honeymoon could be more of an ordeal than an enjoyment, they were just being cynical.

Hoped that somehow—somehow—when she took this terrible glorious risk, she would find that she had gambled on her happiness and won.

During the last days before her wedding, Leslie achieved a sort of detachment. She was the one in the household who usually shouldered most of the real work in any arrangements made, and her own wedding was no exception.

“You’re so cool about everything—one would think it was someone else’s wedding,” Katherine said.

To which Leslie replied that she liked things done well, even at her own wedding.

“Leave her alone. She’s just so sure of her happiness that she doesn’t need to bother about anything else,” her mother declared indulgently.

“But she is bothering about everything else,” protested Katherine amusedly. “That’s just it. She attends to every detail, so calmly and efficiently.”

“Because she hasn’t any inner worries,” her mother explained. “That’s it, isn’t it, darling?”

Leslie said that was exactly what it was. And her mother looked peculiarly satisfied.

When her dress was sent home, the day before the wedding, she spread it out on the bed, and all the family—even her father—came to inspect it.

To be sure, he only said, “Very handsome, very handsome,” in a modest tone, as though he were personally responsible for it, and then walked off. But her mother and her two sisters hung over it, exclaiming and admiring.

Leslie stood a little way back in the room, answering their remarks at random, gazing fascinatedly at the dress and thinking,

“When I put that dress on tomorrow, I shall be going to the church to marry Reid. I couldn’t turn back now, if I wanted to. I’m absolutely committed. If I’ve made a terrible mistake, I can’t do anything about it now.”

“You do like it, don’t you?” Katherine looked up and across the room at her.

“I adore it!”

“Oh—you were so quiet, I wondered if you were disappointed. Though I couldn’t imagine how anyone could be.”

“I think it’s the loveliest wedding dress anyone ever had,” Leslie said deliberately.

Her mother gave a pleased laugh.

“You’d better tell Reid that, darling. He told me I was to spare no expense whatever in finding you the dress of your dreams.”

“He said that?” She flushed delightedly.

“He certainly did.”

“Oh” She laughed suddenly and felt indescribably happy. For surely no man thought or spoke on those lines, if his heart were completely set on another girl.

Why should she not hope and believe in her future happiness? Why should not Reid recover from his infatuation for Caroline, just as she herself had grown out of her youthful passion for Oliver?

Looking back afterwards, she was always glad to remember that nothing spoilt the tranquil joy of her own wedding.

Worries there might have been beforehand. Problems there might be afterwards. But, during the service, and the small, intimate family reception which followed, she was quietly and completely happy.

“I don’t think I ever saw anyone look so happy as you did,” Katherine said to her, as she helped her sister change into her going-away suit of grey, edged with squirrel. “Once or twice, in the beginning, you know, I felt anxious about you. I thought maybe you were taking Reid for family reasons, in spite of all your protests. But when I saw the way you looked as you came down the aisle after the ceremony, I knew it was all right.”

“Oh, Kate! Was it so obvious?”

“You bet it was! And quite right too,” Katherine said, giving her a hug. “Have a wonderful time in Italy. But I’m sure you will. Reid’s the kind to give any girl a wonderful time. What a good thing Caroline What’s-her-name went and snaffled old Oliver, or you might have got yourself tied up with him.”

“I don’t think I should have. It simply had to be Reid,” Leslie, insisted. And in that moment she was actually grateful to Caroline for having taken Oliver off her hands.

Such are the beautiful, arrogant heights to which happiness can lift us.

It was over at last. They had run the gauntlet of parental blessing (her father), a few sentimental but happy tears (her mother), and an ill-directed shower of confetti (Alma), And they were in the car on the way to London, where they were to spend the night, and take the early morning plane to Milan the next day.

They drove through the bright, early autumn afternoon, past orchards where apples and pears hung heavy on the trees, and fields where the dark golden corn was being stacked. And Leslie thought the world had never been more beautiful, and that it was not humanly possible to be more happy than she.

“How did you enjoy your wedding, my sweet?” Reid asked at last, and she was aware that they must have been silent for a long time.

“I loved it.”

He laughed.

“Girls always like weddings, I understand. Even other people’s.”

“Maybe. But one’s own is always something special.”

“Why, yes, I suppose it is. Even—” He stopped, because a big car was racing towards them, and he had to take the bend carefully.

“Rash idiot,” he remarked to Leslie, when they were past.

“Yes. But—what were you saying, Reid?”

“Something in general praise of weddings, wasn’t I? Good heavens, just look at that orchard. Heaviest crop we’ve seen so far.”

She stared at the orchard, and hated its mellow beauty. But she managed to say something appropriate. And—much harder—she managed not to yield to the temptation of forcing him back on to the subject they had so abruptly left.

What was the qualification he had been going to make, with such careless matter-of-factness, about their own wedding? Until they reached London, and the hotel where they were to stay, the question tormented her.

In the luxury hotel where Reid had assumed she would like to stay, a very beautiful suite had been reserved. And so obviously pleased was he to be providing her with the very best of everything on her honeymoon that she had to conceal from him, at all costs, her dismay at discovering how very palatial and un-intimate the suite was.

There were two bedrooms and a sitting-room—which seemed excessive for one night, Leslie could not help thinking. And, for the first time, the dreadful idea came to her that perhaps he still regarded their marriage as a friendly compromise rather than an actual fact.

Was this his tactful way of indicating that the wedding need not radically change the relationship between them for the time being?

She told herself that she was being fanciful. And then that—even if she had guessed right—she must be patient. The family necessity had forced them into a seeming intimacy for which he might think neither of them was ready.

“But, if he thinks that, how am I to make him see otherwise?” she thought desperately. “And, if I can’t make him see it, how am I to bear it?”

They had arrived too late for dinner. But they had supper together in the brilliant, beautiful restaurant, and danced for a while afterwards to a superb band. But, all the while, this new and terrible problem hovered in the back of her consciousness and, try as she would, she could not be at ease with him.

“Well, we’re due at the air office at a fiendishly early hour in the morning,” he said at last. “It’s about time we turned in, isn’t it, and got what sleep we can?”

“I expect so.”

“Would you like a drink before you go up?”

“No, thank you.”

She wondered if she sounded as cold and casual to him as she did to herself. She thought perhaps she must have, because he gave her an amused, rather quizzical glance as he patted her shoulder, and said,

“All right. I think I will. Good night, my sweet. Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow morning about six.”