The Marriage Wheel Read online

  “Well—er—you are a bit younger than I expected,” she admitted, “and there isn’t a great deal of you, is there? But women drove all sorts of heavy vehicles in the last war, and perhaps your appearance is deceptive.”

  “I could drive a tank if it was absolutely necessary,” Frederica assured her. “And I don’t suppose Mr. Lestrode drives about in a tank, does he?”

  “Oh, dear me, no!” the housekeeper laughed. “Nothing like that ... In fact, our means of transport is the most luxurious thing we’ve got at the moment.” She waved a hand to indicate the slight bareness of the hall. “Furniture is arriving daily, but we still need masses of it, and Mr. Lestrode is in London at the moment buying up pieces he fancies for the Hall. Of course, it will look marvellous when it’s finished ... all the furnishing, I mean,” with a note of pride in her voice. “And the grounds are going to look marvellous, too, when the gardener we’ve just engaged has had a chance to get to work on them.”

  “Then the place has been a little neglected?” Frederica suggested, thinking that the panelling must be worth a small fortune. “I’ve never been to Gloucestershire before, but this is a gorgeous house, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely gorgeous,” the housekeeper agreed with enthusiasm. She took her coat, and then dived out into the night to bring in her suit-cases. “We’re a little understaffed at the moment,” she admitted. “In fact, we’re badly understaffed, and as yet we haven’t even got a manservant. But that’s another little problem Mr. Lestrode is looking after in town.”

  Frederica followed her along a corridor to a lighted sitting-room, which proved to be the housekeeper’s own sitting-room.

  “I thought we’d share a meal in here together tonight,” she said. “And I’m putting you in the room next to mine in the west wing. It’s actually the oldest part of the house, but I like it—and I thought you might feel a bit strange and prefer to have company on your first night in a house of this size. Of course, when you move into the cottage you can fix yourself up how and where you like, but for the moment the cottage is a bit of a mess—like the rest of the house.”

  “Is—is there any furniture in the cottage?” Frederica asked, subsiding into a comfortable armchair beside a blazing log fire—apple logs she thought with pleasure, inhaling their perfume—and feeling more thankful than she could possibly have expressed in words that she was not to meet her employer that night.

  At least that ordeal, on top of a tiring journey, had apparently been spared her.

  The housekeeper added another log to the fire, and explained that the cottage contained some furniture, but she had no idea whether the new occupant would think it was much use. They would just have to select other pieces from the house if it was inadequate, and in any case Frederica would probably not be moving into the cottage for a week or so.

  “I expect you’ll want to get used to your surroundings and find out whether you’re really going to settle down here,” she added tactfully ... because what she really meant, the new employee realised, was that it would be best for her to wait and find out whether her services were to be retained for any length of time before moving into the cottage.

  “Of course,” Frederica agreed, and accepted a cup of strong, hot tea as it was put into her hand with grateful thanks for the other’s diplomatic evasions.

  The housekeeper explained that she had once worked for Mr. Lestrode in the capacity of a secretary, but she was now in full control of the running of his home. She told Frederica to call her by her Christian name, which was Lucille, and explained that even Mr. Lestrode had done so for years. He was not a formal employer, but he expected the maximum amount of return for the salaries he paid out, and the one thing he simply would not countenance was stupidity on the part of anyone he employed. They had to anticipate his wishes and to be brisk in their approach to their work, and above all he expected them to work well without supervision.

  Even the women who came daily to help with the housework from the village had to be on their toes when he was around. The new gardener wouldn’t last long if he didn’t start getting the grounds into shape without delay. If he needed extra help he would receive it—provided it was obtainable—but that was another matter.

  “If you’re a good driver and you know a lot about cars you’ll go down well with Mr. Lestrode,” Lucille said kindly.

  Frederica swallowed.

  “I know quite a bit about cars,” she admitted. She hesitated. “Is there a Mrs. Lestrode?” she asked.

  Lucille shook her head.

  “No, Mr. Lestrode is unmarried,” she replied. “Of course, there are always rumours of a possible engagement,” she added, while her brown eyes wore an extraordinarily placid and even complacent expression. “But Mr. Lestrode is in his late thirties, and he shows no eagerness to be married. He is an attractive man from a woman’s point of view, and he likes a social life ... but he is also a very keen business man, and immensely shrewd. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he never marries,” she concluded, with the same complacency in her voice as dwelt in her eyes.

  Frederica felt relaxed but apprehensive as she sat there in her comfortable deep chair beside the crackling log fire, while owls hooted in the trees outside and other night-birds joined in.

  “What is Mr. Lestrode’s business?” she asked, since she had not bothered to enquire of the London agent.

  “He deals in property,” Lucille answered. “On the grand scale,” she amplified.

  “And I’ll probably have to drive him about the country?” Frederica said.

  “You will have to do so sometimes,” the housekeeper seemed to think it very likely. “But Mr. Lestrode travels a lot by train, and your principal duty will be to meet him when he’s returning from a journey, and take him to the station or the airport when he sets off on one. It’s just possible he may want you to go abroad with him, but I shouldn’t think so,” surveying her for the first time with real dubiousness.

  Frederica slept that night in a very comfortable bed in a room that had been got ready for her by Lucille. She telephoned her family before she went to bed, and they were eager for all the details she was unable to supply them with as yet. Rosaleen, in particular, seemed disappointed because she had not yet met Humphrey Lestrode, and therefore was unable to gratify her sister’s curiosity as to how he looked and how he reacted when coming face to face for the first time with Frederica as an employee.

  “But don’t worry, pet,” Rosaleen said cheerfully. “I’m sure he’ll think you’re a nice little thing ... And it’s not as if you were a shattering beauty he’s adding to his pay-roll. Beauty and brains don’t always go together, and he might be suspicious if you looked like me ... And I can tell him that you’ve got all the family brains!”

  Frederica retired to her room and pondered this one as she made her way up the handsome oak staircase to the distant wing she was to share with the housekeeper.

  She was very much aware that Rosaleen had no doubts about the quality of her own charms ... but it was the first time she herself had been accused of having brains.

  Beauty and brains didn’t always go together ... and she was a “nice little thing”. She could tell that even Lucille thought she was nice enough in her way, and if she did her job and acquired a mouse-like unobtrusiveness she might even last out at Farthing Hall. She might be driving Mr. Lestrode backwards and forwards to railway stations and airports years hence!

  The next morning she inspected the contents of the garage accommodation at the Hall. There were in actual fact two very large but somewhat primitive garages that had been converted out of the stable block, and another was in process of being added to them.

  The stable yard itself was most attractive. There were still a few loose-boxes and a harness room, and in one of the loose-boxes Mr. Lestrode’s favourite grey was being rubbed down by a man who rode over from a neighbouring estate to fulfil this useful function in the master of the house’s absence.

  Frederica was sorry th
at the appearance of the stable yard was so neglected, but she realised this was more or less inevitable in a day and age when few people could afford the staff to run a place like this. But perhaps, now that Mr. Lestrode—man of property—had taken it over, there would soon be a miraculous change in the whole appearance of the place. The weed-grown gardens would cease to be overgrown and neat herbaceous borders and rolling lawns would delight the eyes of anyone who gazed upon them from the house windows; and in connection with the house itself—a beautiful example of decaying Elizabethan architecture—missing roof slates would be replaced and greying timbers restored to their former eye-catching attractiveness. She had already noticed that one of the chimney stacks leaned badly, and she expected that would be restored, too.

  Before looking inside the garages she made a quick tour of the grounds, and proved how very feminine she was by gathering primroses in the woods. Somewhat to the astonishment of the new gardener, Jason, she approached the double doors of the garages with a whole armful of primroses hugged up to her chin.

  She deposited them carefully in a disused horse-trough in the yard and sprinkled them with water from a stand-pipe before realising that she had been putting off the evil moment for as long as she could, and taking her courage in her hands and opening the garage doors.

  After that enthusiasm got the better of her, and she spent a delightful half-hour examining every feature of the new Daimler and a sleek grey Bentley that filled the first of the garages. The other two were empty, and she surmised that they were for the use of visitors who brought their cars to the house.

  The new Daimler was a thing of beauty, and likely to prove a joy for ever once she had got her hands on it. The Bentley was slightly older, but in splendid condition just the same, and she supposed that a local garage had been looking after them until her arrival.

  She took the Bentley out first, because it was slightly more reminiscent of Lady Allerdale’s Daimler, and discovered that she could handle it with comparative ease. The acceleration on the Daimler alarmed her at first, but one or two experimental journeys through the village and out on to the open road beyond quickly gave her the feel of it; and by the time she had stopped at the local garage to make sure the petrol tank was adequately filled, and a slight stiffness of the gears corrected by the mechanic, she was quite happy about it.

  The mechanic seemed surprised that she wanted his advice about the gears, especially when she explained that she was Mr. Lestrode’s new chauffeur, but grinned amiably and expansively enough before they parted. Privately he thought it was a huge joke that Mr. Lestrode—whom he knew slightly—was to be driven by this young woman, and when Frederica had departed in control of her Daimler he discussed the innovation with other mechanics at the garage, who were also inclined to grin widely when it was explained to them that Miss Wells had not yet been vetted by Mr. Lestrode.

  If Frederica had overheard their conversation she would not have felt as happy as she did while returning to Farthing Hall ... and she would certainly not have taken the car out again that afternoon with quite so much happy abandon as she did while the sun was slanting lower and lower over the green coppices that bounded Farthing Hall, and the evening smoke was curling upwards from the Tudor chimneys, and the whole scene was very peaceful.

  She had had a very good lunch—cooked by the housekeeper, since they were not yet in possession of a cook—and a nice quiet cup of tea with Lucille in her sitting-room, and already her fears of the day before seemed to have become dissipated, and were no more than mere and very occasional vibrations in the atmosphere. And with the knowledge that she and Lucille were to have a quiet dinner together that night, and perhaps visit a local cinema, she was able to relax almost completely at the wheel of the glittering car.

  Since there was no employer on hand she was wearing a cheerful yellow sweater and a pair of rather well-worn slacks. She had considered trying out the effect of herself and the car in one of her trim new dresses, but it had seemed a pity to risk spoiling it when there was virtually no need. So, comparatively carefree, she turned out of the gates of Farthing Hall.

  After London, which she was most unfortunately unable to appreciate, every responsive nerve in her body reacted to the peace and the serenity of this quiet spring countryside. She loved the sweet scents that came in at the car windows, and the sight of the brown earth greening over with the first true evidences of spring. The road dipped through quiet hollows and wound through sleepy villages, and woods crowned the crest of every hill and straggled down hill to enclose the thatch of venerable cottages.

  A church tower told her that it was a quarter to six, and she put on a burst of speed for another mile and then decided to turn for home where the road widened, and where turning was possible. She had, in fact, only just arrived at this decision when a car approaching from the opposite direction crawled past at a mere forty miles an hour, and her brows crinkled because there was something vaguely familiar about it. It was in fact the rather decrepit station taxi that had taken her to Farthing Hall the day before, and having accomplished her turn she was somewhat surprised to find it standing stationary at the side of the road. The driver appeared to be having an argument with his passenger, and the latter had left the cab and was risking annihilation right in the track of the oncoming Daimler.

  Frederica jammed on her brakes and came to rest beside the taxi, and the taxi-man breathed a fervent sigh of relief because he had been expecting his fare to be run down and blotted out of existence right in front of his eyes.

  The indignant fare in question wrenched open the nearside door of the Daimler and looked to Frederica as if he was in a towering rage.

  “What,” he demanded, with an obvious constriction—almost certainly due to rage—in his throat, “do you think you are doing with my car, young woman? And how dare you let her out at that speed when she’s still in the process of being run in?”

  “Run in?” Frederica blinked at him. “But a car like this doesn’t need to be run in’ ... and I’m sure I wasn’t doing more than ninety, because I was just about to turn...”

  “Oh, you were, were you?” His face was pale with anger. “That’s very kind of you, I’m sure ... Slight proof that you were not actually making off with the car. And when I say you were doing a hundred and fifty you were doing a hundred and fifty, so please don’t argue with me in future!”

  “N-no, sir.” Actual and acute dismay tore through Frederica, and she hardly knew how she answered him. No need to ask who he was. Even the taxi-man was sitting there behind his wheel looking as if a time-bomb was about to go off at any moment, and he perfectly understood the reason why. The one thing the taxi-man had been appalled about was the request that he should pursue the Daimler before it made its turn, and as he had pointed out to the irate owner, a vintage car with the eccentricities of his vehicle simply did not travel in the wake of anything that was capable of speed. It managed to do the journeys to and from the station, but almost everything left it behind.

  “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” Frederica breathed, after moistening her lips.

  “You haven’t yet explained what you’re doing in the car. This fellow Wilkins says he drove you to the Hall yesterday. Are you a friend of Lucille?”

  “No.” Her tongue flickered once more over her bottom lip. “I—I’ve been engaged to drive you, sir!”

  “To—drive me?”

  To say that he reeled back and clasped his head would have been an exaggeration; but there was no doubt about it, he had seldom been more surprised in his life. For a long moment he stared at her in absolute incredulity, and then to her horror he said curtly:

  “You’re joking, of course.”

  “I’m not joking, Mr. Lestrode,” she replied. “I’ve been engaged to act as your chauffeur, and I was engaged by the agency to whom you applied for someone to be sent to Farthing Hall as quickly as possible—someone with the right sort of qualifications. And I—I happen to possess the right sort of qualifications,” she
added, in what sounded in her own ears like a slightly defiant whisper.

  Humphrey Lestrode turned to the taxi-man and ordered him, in a bleak voice, to put his luggage in the Daimler. He appeared to have quite a quantity of it, and it was all very expensive luggage, with the rather worn appearance that luggage acquires when it travels continually about the globe, and is handled sometimes with care and sometimes with extreme carelessness. Every piece had the letters H.V.L. painted on it in large black letters, but it appeared to have escaped being plastered with hotel labels ... no doubt because Mr. Lestrode was too fastidious to permit this sort of thing.

  Mr. Lestrode himself was tall and dark, with well-cut features and cold eyes. They were not hard eyes, and it was impossible to determine their colour until one got to know him rather well; but Frederica understood that the annoyance that dwelt in them at the moment was the result of a sudden shock. He was profoundly disturbed, and at small pains to hide the fact, and it lent to the shapely curve of his lips a definitely harsh curl, and seemed to throw into prominence the rigid line of his jaw.

  “You’d better slide over into the other seat, and I’ll take the wheel,” he said. “I’m a little tired after travelling all the way from Manchester, but this car happens to be a very recent purchase of mine, and I prefer to drive it myself rather than have it smashed up somewhere between here and the Hall.”

  Frederica heard herself expostulate in a stammering voice:

  “B-but I’m perfectly capable...”

  “Move over.” His tone was bleaker than ever, and there was definitely an adamantine quality about the line of his jaw. He paid Wilkins his fare, and the taxi-man ventured to glance sympathetically at the girl. He had thought her a very nice young woman the day before, but was surprised to learn she considered herself capable of piloting someone like Mr. Humphrey Lestrode about. If only he’d known earlier he could have warned her what to expect.