Four Roads to Windrush Read online

  "No," Lindsay agreed, but already a rush of confused and faintly disturbed thoughts were making her mind into a whirlpool, and a good deal of the complacent feeling of happiness and hopefulness with which she had begun the day had departed from her.

  "The one thing you've got to realise about Philip," her hostess went on, "is that he will not always be an easy man to understand. He's by no means all on the surface—never was, even as a child— and unless you make a point of trying to get to know him you're liable to find yourself one day coming up against a brick wall! He isn't the yielding sort, the undemanding sort; he'll demand a great deal from you, and you'll have to give willingly, but if you're clever you'll find that Philip can be handled very easily and any appeal to the gentle side of him, the chivalrous side, will never go unanswered."

  All this was so true about the man she had married, as Lindsay had already proved, that she regarded the contessa with eyes that had widened in unwilling respect. The old lady gazed back at her with the merest suggestions of twinkling humour in her alert old eyes, as if she expected Lindsay to be disconcerted by the bluntness of her statements, and possibly to display signs of not agreeing with her. But Lindsay recognised that his godmother had very little to learn about her godson, and she waited for the contessa to go on proffering her advice—or perhaps to begin to extract information about Lindsay, herself.

  But the contessa had no desire, or so it seemed, to extract information, and Philip's wife was already as good as an open book to her, as her next words proved.

  "I won't call you a sensible girl, because sensible people are never really interesting, but you have a great deal of common sense, allied to other excellent qualities—you won't demand the moon, for instance, from Philip or anyone else. But you're a bit of an idealist, and you don't love lightly—you are in love with Philip, aren't you?"

  For the first time Lindsay was almost shocked by the bluntness of the question, and then she answered .simply:

  "Yes."

  And, after all, why should she mind Philip's godmother knowing? In any case, she probably didn't need to be told. Her smile gave away the fact that she didn't.

  "Then don't ask the moon of Philip—and be content with small things. And now I must have my afternoon rest, but come and see me every day while you're here, will you?"

  Feeling herself dismissed, and not at all sure that she and Philip's godmother had got to know each other at all—or was the important word to like each other?—Lindsay found her way back to the part of the villa given over to herself and Philip, but as the result of that strangely one-sided talk one thing had become very clear m her mind. And that one thing was something that had often puzzled her, the true explanation of her husband's long association with Alison Lame.

  She stood for a while in the big salon which overlooked the lake, and then as the silence of the room., its size and its opulence began to prey upon her nerves, she decided to go out into the grounds to look for Philip. She found him, as she had found him that morning, on the big veranda, quietly smoking a cigarette.

  "Well?" he looked up at her with searching eyes. "How did you get on with the contessa?"

  Lindsay avoided his gaze.

  "I couldn't tell you whether I like her, but I think she's rather remarkable," she answered truthfully. "She obviously wanted to have a talk with me."

  "Yes, I gathered that."

  He moved to draw forward a chair for her, but she stopped him with a hand laid impulsively on his arm.

  "I'd rather walk beside the lake, if you don't mind. It looks so calm and beautiful from here."

  "Oughtn't you to rest?"

  "No, I don't think so." She smiled at him, her heart twisting painfully as she did so and shadowing the smile a little, so that his eyes narrowed. His unfailing concern for her, she thought. Dear Philip!… Wasn't that what Alison had said of him once? And Alison, even if she had never been in love with him herself, had had him in love with her. She had married his closest friend, but even that hadn't caused him to drift out of her life, and when she paid her first visit to the Windrush, Lindsay had received instructions to fill her room with flowers! And that was only a few months ago… "No, I don't think so," she repeated, and she knew she was speaking mechanically. "I'm not at all tired."

  "All the same, you mustn't overdo things."

  But as they wandered by the shore of the lake he suddenly asked her bluntly:

  "What did the contessa say to you, Lindsay, that has made you so very thoughtful?"

  Lindsay glanced at him for a moment, and then away across the lake. If she told him the contessa had warned her, 'Don't expect the moon from Philip!' what would he say to that? Would he agree that there was only one person for whom he would really attempt to reach the moon from the sky? And that one person was Alison Larne, who had been happy to see him marry and settle down at last because her affection for him was genuine, although it never could become love!

  Lindsay remembered her final words to Philip before they left London Airport:

  "I hope that you can be trusted to make her completely happy."

  At the time, somehow, those words had sounded strange to Lindsay.

  "Well?" He sounded just a little impatient. "What did she say to you?"

  Lindsay prevaricated.

  "Oh, nothing very particular. She talked to me about—well, mostly you, Philip. It's plain that she's very fond of you, and I'm sure she wants you to be happy. She seemed also to think that I—I was quite sensible."

  "Sensible?" His eyebrows lifted.

  "Yes." She gave him a quiet, almost a grave look. "She said you had described me to her in your letters, and that I was quite different from Alison—whom she remembers very well. She also gave me several pieces of advice, and amongst them was a recommendation to be as undemanding as possible!"

  Philip frowned down at the path.

  "Perhaps," he suggested, "it would have been as well if we'd waited until you were a little stronger before putting you through the ordeal of meeting my godmother."

  But Lindsay shook her head.

  "Oh, I don't think so. In fact," she added—and although he didn't notice it, she swallowed before she said the words—"I'm very glad I've met her. As you said to me before we went in to lunch with her, she really does know all about you."

  Without it seeming possible to Lindsay, a month slipped away and they were still at the Villa Carlotta. A golden month that seemed to have a touch of languorous enchantment about it.

  Philip took Lindsay for long drives about the countryside and she fell deeply in love with all that she saw of Italy.

  They spent idle days in the garden of the villa too, days that had their fair share of moments Lindsay felt she would always remember, and the evenings when they dined together with Domenico waiting on them. Occasionally they dined with the contessa, but Lindsay had not yet felt herself really drawn to her hostess. It could be, she realised, that the contessa was just that little bit too shrewd, and that she had recognised at once that all was not as it should be between Philip and his new young wife. And so she shrank from the penetration of the old lady's eyes.

  Then, ever since her first meeting with the contessa, she had spent many hours thinking about Alison, and Philip's love for her which might or might not be dead. If it was dead, and in no danger of being awakened, then why, as it became increasingly apparent that she was no longer an invalid, did he still persist in treating her as if she was no more than a young sister—or niece— for whom he had an easy, casual affection and whom he wished to cosset. For he never seemed to grow tired of watching over her and making sure she did not overtire herself.

  But Lindsay began to feel that there was such a thing as being watched over too much, and her own feelings for Philip were rising so dangerously near the surface that she was terrified lest one day she might reveal them to him. She knew that she could never have married Philip if she had not loved him, but sometimes she wondered, secretly terrified by the thought, if she had no
t made the biggest mistake of her life. For, if Philip still loved Alison and felt nothing for her but pity and an easy affection, how could they go on living together for the rest of their lives?

  At night sometimes when she was lying awake, she remembered his stipulation.

  At the end of a year!… But how could she possibly live away from Philip? Then at other moments she wished she had the strength to run away from him and cut herself off from him completely before it was too late—before she gave herself away!

  She came perilously near to doing so one night.

  They were planning to dine quietly together and Lindsay was wearing a dress of delicate pink chiffon, that made her think of the heart of a china rose. When she looked at herself in the mirror before she went down to dinner, her reflection told her that she had seldom looked quite so attractive before, even in the days before her accident. Her hair shone like silk with the hue of palest gold—the gold of the wedding ring on her finger!

  When she entered the dining-room Philip's eyes told her that her mirror had not lied and as she sat facing him she wanted to steal constant glances at him and assure herself in some way that he really was her own husband—that she bore his name, and was his wife!

  After dinner they walked for a while in the moon-drenched sweetness of the garden, and she would have liked to linger there, but he insisted that the air was too cool, and that she should go inside. So she sat at the beautiful piano that occupied almost an entire corner of the salon and, for half an hour, she filled the room with delicate sound. Philip appeared to be lost in a book, but all the same she had the feeling that he was listening to her. She was bringing a Chopin waltz to a close when he looked up, watched her hands attentively while the final chords rippled from the keyboard, and then spoke decisively.

  "You play very nicely, but you must go to bed now. It's quite late—for you!"

  She felt like a schoolgirl being dismissed after having been allowed to sit up just that little while longer, and a feeling of rebellion rushed over her. If she were Alison, would she be ordered to bed in such a summary manner? Or would she be invited to wander in the garden, under the stars, with a man who could enjoy wandering at her side…

  She closed the lid of the piano and walked into the middle of the salon.

  "I don't think I want to go to bed yet," she said.

  Philip smiled up at her indulgently.

  "Nevertheless. I'm afraid you must," he told her. "We're here for a specific purpose, as you know, and that purpose is to get you strong and well again."

  "You're obsessed with my becoming strong and well again." She bit her lower lip hard. "And, as a matter of fact, I am almost completely fit!"

  "Almost—but not quite!" Once again there was that indulgent flash in his eyes, mixed with undoubted humour because she showed signs of rebelling, and all at once it made her squirm inwardly. "One can't have too much of a good thing, and I still think you've quite a considerable distance to go before you can be pronounced one hundred per cent fit!"

  "I sometimes think you fuss over me too much," she told him, thinking that if only there was some slight awareness in his eyes instead of that eternal solicitude and faint amusement, it would make it easier for her to quell her feeling of rebellion. But lately the determined solicitude had banished altogether even the occasional moments of awareness—which, in any case, she had probably imagined—and she felt like a goaded child. "In a way you—you order me about just as much as you did at Windrush!"

  "Do I?" All at once his eyes were genuinely amused. "Well, you weren't my wife in those days, but if you say I ordered you about I must have done. But now that you are my wife I have a far greater right to order you about, haven't I?"

  And before she could answer him he put his book aside lazily, stood up and confronted her, "I think I'll carry you up to bed," he said.

  Lindsay felt herself stiffen for a moment to resist him, and then melt before the touch of him as he swung her up easily into his arms. She shut her eyes and felt a trifle breathless as he carried her up the graceful, curling staircase. In her room he set her down lightly on the bed, and then bent to switch on the bedside light. It sent a rosy glow across her filmy dress and her golden hair.

  "Well, there you are!" he exclaimed, as he stared intently at her. "Is there anything you would like me to ask Bianca to bring you up? Hot milk, or anything like that?"

  "No—no thank you."

  She slid off the bed and stood facing him.

  "Be patient just a little longer, Lindsay," he encouraged her softly. "You've been wonderfully good and uncomplaining so far, so don't spoil your excellent record. And in another few weeks I won't have to fuss over you at all, and you'll be able to lead a completely normal life again—stay up as long as you like." He laughed briefly. "All night, if you wish!"

  "It's not that." She felt an odd constriction in her throat, and her heart was hammering in her own ears. "I don't really want you to stop fussing over me, and I don't want to stay up all night. I'm not bothered about a completely normal life again, only—only—"

  "Yes?" She wondered whether it was purely her over-excited imagination, or was there a note of caution in his voice? Something almost cautious in his eyes as he watched her?

  "Oh, I—it doesn't matter—"

  She turned away, wondering how much she had given away, and feeling horribly ashamed because she had been so overwhelmingly tempted for just a few moments to give herself away at all, while his eyes were so completely detached. And then, as she started to fumble with the clasp of the pearls about her neck, he came up behind her.

  "What is it, Lindsay? Something is the matter, isn't it?"

  "No." She actually shrank when she saw his hand come out to lightly stroke her hair. It was a soothing touch he might have bestowed on a child, but so far as she was concerned it was almost, if not completely, her undoing.

  She caught at his hand and held it against her cheek, and her eyes filled with tears.

  "Oh, Philip!" she exclaimed, and then stood petrified.

  Philip gently removed his hand, and handed her his handkerchief instead.

  "You're overtired," he said kindly. "I think you ought to let Bianca help you to undress. I'll ask her to come up to you."

  And then he was gone, and the door was closed, and she sat down shakily on the side of the bed and realised that her little overture had been spurned. It had not been a deliberate overture— it had been something she had been quite unable to prevent herself from doings but Philip had let her see clearly that he considered it too effusive, if nothing worse. And he had suggested sending Bianca to her . . !

  But when Bianca arrived, tapping softly on the door, Lindsay sent her away. She locked the main door, and she locked the door shutting her off from Philip's room, then undressed and got into bed. But her brain felt feverish with activity, and she knew she would not sleep at. least not until she had done something to rid herself of the appalling sensation that she had not only lowered herself in Philip's estimation, but in her own as well . .

  So it was true about Alison! Philip had married her because Alison had declined resolutely to marry him, and Lindsay had been in need of care and attention, and perhaps he had felt that he owed her something because he had treated her somewhat harshly in the past. There might have been the vague thought also in his mind that if he married her, Lindsay, he might hurt Alison just a little. He would be letting her see that he no longer intended to waste his life waiting for her to relent… Which, perhaps, he had known very well she never would do!

  But he had not married Lindsay with any intention of allowing the marriage ever to become a normal marriage.

  Lindsay's mind and thoughts seemed to flame as she lay there, hour after hour, in her luxurious bed. She heard Philip enter his own room shortly after midnight, and for perhaps a quarter of an hour there were vague movements in the room, and then silence. The whole villa seemed wrapped in silence—a silence that seemed to be mocking her, Lindsay thought, as
she tossed restlessly from side to side.

  She could not, and she would not, stay with Philip! There was no reason why he should go on lavishing kindness on her, and breaking his heart over Alison at the same time. It would be the best thing for him—and for her. He would be spared the necessity of heaping so many benefits upon her—benefits for which he apparently sought no rewards whatsoever—and she would be spared the agony, that was becoming almost unbearable, of knowing that, although she loved him, he cared nothing for her.

  In time, she thought, he might even begin to think that she was like her aunt—that she had married him for money and position and because one day he would take her back to Windrush! But she would never go back to Windrush with him—she would not wait until his stipulated year was up and he could be set free… She would leave him now.

  She got up and dressed silently. It was about four o'clock in the morning, but the sky was still dark and the villa seemed absolutely lapped in silence.

  There was a bus which left the inn in the village about nine o'clock each morning, and the village was within walking distance. She wasn't quite sure where the bus went to, but wherever its destination it would almost certainly be a town, and from there she could either get a train or fly back to civilisation, and far away from Philip. It didn't much matter where she went, and she had quite enough money to last her for a few weeks, at least. And at home, in England, there were the tiny remains of her banking account, and that would keep her going until she could get herself a job. A job—to give her back her self-respect and to help her forget…

  And Philip…? All that she had to do now was to write a note to Philip, and then she could leave it down on the desk in the big salon, where he would see it quickly enough. She wrote the note with a hand which she forced to be steady: