The Marriage Wheel Read online

  “Thank you very much, sir!” Wilkins climbed back into his ancient taxi, and Mr. Lestrode waited until he had removed the offending sight of it from his line of vision before starting up the Daimler and moving off effortlessly in the direction of Farthing Hall. Frederica sat very still beside him, biting her lips so hard that they bled a little, and wondering whether he was always as impossible as this and why Lucille had not had the sense to warn her in advance.

  If only she had said, “He’ll never let you drive that car...” then she would have known what to do. She would have realised that she had made a big mistake and returned to London by the morning train—before being humiliated like this.

  “I shall have to have a word with that agency,” Mr. Lestrode remarked as he drove. “They should never have sent you down here without letting me know beforehand that you were a chit of a girl. Standards may be slipping nowadays, but I’m accustomed to adequate service when I’m expected to foot the bill for it. Just let them submit a bill to me for this little lapse of—ordinary common sense!”

  Frederica went on biting her lip.

  “You can’t possibly object to me simply and solely because I’m a—girl,” she said.

  “Can’t I?” He glanced at her momentarily sideways as if for an instant she amused him. “Then I’m afraid you don’t know me, my dear young lady. I can object to anything if I feel that my reasons are good enough ... and a girl of your size at the wheel of a car like this is quite ridiculous! Besides, you’re a mere infant. You may be able to manage a Mini, but I wouldn’t like to be your passenger.”

  “I was not driving carelessly when you saw me just now.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion!”

  “I’d just got the feel of the car ... really got the feel of it, I mean! This morning, when I took it out for the first time, I thought the gears were a little stiff, and I got the local garage man to look at them—”

  “Oh! So you took it out this morning!” His face went black as a thundercloud. “While I was innocently having my breakfast on the London train you were threatening my newest acquisition!”

  “It was not as early as that,” she pointed out truthfully; and then wondered why she bothered to make such a stupid observation when it opened the door to yet another conversation.

  “Oh! So you were still in bed, were you? You’re not an early riser? Let me tell you that when I employ either a man or a woman I expect them to work hard for the salary I pay them! Under no circumstances do I permit slack behaviour, so it’s perhaps fortunate for you that I shall not be adding you to my pay-roll.”

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” she agreed, with a meekness that was born of sudden absolute depression.

  The car was behaving beautifully under his hands, and he was such a confident driver that he was able to spare her a second sideways glance ... rather a thoughtful one this time.

  “By the way, what is your name?” he asked abruptly.

  “Frederica Wells.”

  “And how old are you? Nineteen?”

  “I shall be twenty-three next birthday.”

  “A great age,” he observed, “but not old enough to be entrusted with anything belonging to me.” They turned in at the gates of Farthing Hall. “In any case, if I employed you I couldn’t call you Wells ... and Frederica is an impossible name. It would have to be plain Fred.”

  “My sister calls me Freddy,” she confessed with the same air of dejection and meekness.

  “Oh, so you have a sister! And what is her name?”

  “Rosaleen.”

  “Ye gods!” he exclaimed. “Any other sisters?” “No. There are just the three of us—my mother, my sister and I.”

  “And did your mother bestow your Christian names upon you?”

  “I believe so. She is called Electra ... and she likes people to call her Electra.”

  The car swerved for a moment, and as they were travelling at considerable speed along the drive she felt justified in uttering a faint gasp of alarm.

  “Sorry,” he apologised carelessly, “but I’ve never known any woman struggling with the disadvantage of being called Electra wishing to be known by that name.”

  Frederica felt an upsurge of genuine indignation. “Ah, but you haven’t met my mother,” she reminded him icily.

  “That is perfectly true. And I would say at this precise moment that there is little or no likelihood of my ever meeting her. However, I’m inclined to agree with you that your family’s penchant for unusual Christian names is their affair.”

  They came to rest at the foot of the front door steps, and he addressed her carelessly over his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry you’ve come all this way for nothing, Miss Wells. Naturally, I shall see to it that you’re not out of pocket. Before you leave here tomorrow I shall pay you one week’s salary and give you your fare back to London.”

  A muscle at the corner of her mouth quivered. “Then you’re quite determined not to employ me, although you haven’t asked me any questions relating to my previous experience, or bothered about previous references, or anything of that sort? You prefer to accept it that the agency who sent me here was behaving incompetently?”

  “I do.”

  “And there is not even a—a faint possibility that you’ll give me a trial?”

  “I’m afraid not. Having witnessed the manner in which you handled this car I’m counting my lucky stars that my train got in from London when it did.”

  She stumbled awkwardly out on to the drive, and in the whole of her life she had never felt so abashed and humiliated—and at the same time so silently resentful.

  “Very well, Mr. Lestrode,” she choked.

  “Of course, you don’t have to leave here until the morning,” he said quite kindly, surveying the gleaming instruments on the dashboard in front of him with an air of pleasure and pride. He even patted the wheel as if that in itself afforded him a great deal of satisfaction. “I’m sure Lucille will fix you up with some dinner tonight, and perhaps in the morning you’ll get your own breakfast—I don’t like my staff to be overworked.” He glanced at her briefly. “You’ll find an envelope addressed to you on the hall table in the morning. Goodbye, Miss Frederica Wells!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Frederica slept badly that night in the room that had been hers for such a short time. She heard the owls hooting in the trees outside, and the moonlight flooded the room and bathed her in a silvery wonder that had the effect of alerting her brain still more, and she knew that if she didn’t get up and draw the curtains she wouldn’t sleep at all. But when she got up and saw the shaggy lawns and the overgrown borders that made up the grounds of Farthing Hall all tenderly touched by moonlight; and when she caught a whiff of roses from the rose-garden and heard the mellow chimes of the stable clock, a quite extraordinary lump came into her throat ... and she knew that what was the matter with her was acute disappointment because she had to leave all this behind and return to London.

  She had been getting on so well with Lucille, and even the gardener had had friendly words for her. Lucille had been talking about taking furniture from other rooms to make her room comfortable, and going into the nearby town to buy fresh curtain material for the windows. The house was such an attractive house, and it would all be so much more attractive when all the plans for modernisation had been carried out and the furnishing and interior decorating had been completed. At the moment the place was rather like a great empty barn—a gem of an early Tudor barn that no one would ever wish to destroy because it was so beautiful, and the possibilities in connection with it were endless.

  But she would never see the results of all the planned endeavour, because its owner had ridden rough-shod over her as if she wasn’t merely a stupid young woman but a thing of no account. She felt bruised as if he had actually attacked her instead of simply disposed of her with a few contemptuous words. To him his new car was so all-important that her battered feelings didn’t matter.

  And there was Elec
tra ... and Rosaleen to be faced when she got back. She was quite sure they were so certain she was going to hold down this job that they had already done most of their packing in Notting Hill, and were simply waiting word from her that it was all right for them to buy their railway tickets.

  She thought with horror that they might even have given up the tenancy of the flat and left themselves homeless.

  In which case she would have to rush around when she got back to London and find somewhere else for them to live, for neither Electra nor Rosaleen were capable of doing that sort of thing. But they were capable of taking matters for granted, and making fantastically unwise moves. And the trouble was they never either of them considered they were possibly unwise until it was too late.

  After this very disturbing thought she found it impossible to go to sleep, and by the time dawn broke she was already up and dressed, and her single suitcase was packed and ready to be dumped in the local taxi.

  She had arranged over the telephone the night before to be picked up by Mr. Wilkins. Unless he delayed, or his car broke down, she would be on the London train by nine o’clock.

  Lucille had left a corner of the kitchen table laid for her breakfast. They had said goodbye the night before, and the housekeeper had seemed quite genuinely sorry that Frederica was not to be given at least a trial. She had tried to soften the blow for the girl, explaining that Mr. Lestrode was a man who made quick decisions, and very occasionally changed his mind. It was just possible, if he couldn’t find anyone to replace her with the speed he usually liked to arrange matters, she might yet be given an opportunity to prove herself.

  But Frederica had shaken her head.

  “I wouldn’t work for him now, if—if—!”

  “I understand,” Lucille said sympathetically. “He’s rubbed you up the wrong way, and you feel he’s terribly arrogant. But behind the arrogance there is something else, you know. He can be quite kind!”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Frederica observed, with a forlorn smile, and wondered at the same time why people with kindly impulses so frequently hid them under the most unlikeable exteriors.

  For nothing that Humphrey Lestrode could do now would convince her that he was not an extremely hard man at heart. In addition to being a very unfair man!

  The worst happened on the way to the station, and Mr. Wilkins’ taxi broke down. By the time they reached the station the London train had passed through it without picking up a single passenger, and there wouldn’t be another train until just after midday. Frederica could have cried with vexation because every minute counted now, and the vague certainty that was building up inside her that her mother and sister were shortly to be bereft of a roof to cover them filled her with a feeling very close to despair. She was having one of what she privately believed to be clairvoyant forebodings ... and if it was something more than a foreboding then she couldn’t afford to be sitting at the side of a railway track for three hours waiting for another train.

  But that was exactly what she had to do, although she filled in part of the time exploring the little country town which was the local shopping town for people who lived in places like Farthing Hall, as well as their nearest contact with the railway. And half-way through the morning she bought herself a coffee in an old-fashioned cafe, which revived her somewhat, and after that she made her way back to the station and sat on a seat outside the bookstall waiting for the London train.

  At a quarter to twelve she was comparing her watch with the station clock, and deciding that her watch was a little fast, when she heard a slight commotion outside in the station yard. A car swooped into the yard and came to rest within a yard of the entrance, and the bright spring sunshine sparkled on its bonnet and on its glittering fixtures. Frederica glanced casually over her shoulder and expected to be joined on the platform by some plutocrat on his way to the metropolis, and not being in a position to recognise the car imagined it had been driven by someone who was fearful of missing the train—judging by the slight grating of tyres and the hurried slamming of a car door.

  Her utter astonishment, therefore, when she recognised the “plutocrat” as Mr. Humphrey Lestrode, her employer of a couple of days, was so great that she stared up at him open-mouthed. He strode towards the seat on which she had already spent so much time that morning, and with tweed-clad efficiency and hostile coldness stood in front of her.

  “Come on!” he said. “Get into the car! I was afraid you were half-way to London by now, but there was just a chance that you had missed the earlier train ... Knowing Wilkins taxi I thought there was quite a strong hope! And luckily the hope has become reality!”

  Frederica gaped up at him.

  “But, Mr. Lestrode—”

  “No ‘buts’,” he ordered her. “Get into the car.”

  He stooped and picked up her solitary suitcase, and without giving her an opportunity to enter into further conversation turned and led the way outside.

  Frederica had practically to run to keep up with him.

  “I do wish you’d tell me why you’re behaving like this,” she demanded breathlessly, as he put her in the seat beside the driving-seat. “Last night you told me that you couldn’t employ me—”

  “The situation is somewhat changed.” But his tone could not have been grimmer, or more unfriendly. “Last night I said I would not employ you, and today I find that I’ll have to give you a trial. If you can’t drive a car perhaps you can help the gardener, or Lucille, or do a bit of interior decorating ... You’re reasonably decorative to look at,” with such a jaundiced expression in his eyes, however, as he gazed at her, that she realized this was not intended to be a compliment.

  “I’m sorry,” she said helplessly, “but I simply don’t understand...”

  They shot away from the station like an arrow from a bow.

  “Don’t you?” he enquired in a sceptical voice. “Then you’re not very familiar with the reactions of your mother and sister. If you were you might have anticipated that something like this would happen.”

  “Something like what?” And there was alarm in her voice.

  “My old friend and business manager, Robert Rawlinson, telephoned me while I was still in the middle of my breakfast this morning and warned me that I could expect a visitation ... on the grand scale! It would appear that your mother and sister called on him yesterday afternoon and explained their intention of descending on Farthing Hall with all their impedimenta, their plan of campaign being to take over the cottage that is usually allocated to the chauffeur and dig themselves in there. Most unfortunately Robert Rawlinson is an old friend of your mother ... possibly an old flame! And the long and the short of it is that I appear to have my hands tied. I can’t show them to the door when they arrive at Farthing Hall ... I’ll have to show them over the cottage. And that’s that!”

  Frederica sat for such a very long moment completely aghast and utterly horrified beside him and unable to express herself in words that his temper flared, and he would have rounded on her if he hadn’t had to attend to the business of driving.

  “Well?” he demanded. “You knew about it, of course? ... You knew they’d go to Robert Rawlinson? And almost certainly you knew what would happen once they did that! Apparently your mother is even younger-looking than you are!” Frederica’s clear skin was stained by a painful and agonised flush.

  “I didn’t know,” she assured him in an equally agonised whisper. “I’ve never even heard of Robert Rawlinson!”

  “Well, you’ve heard of him now! And I give you my word he’s on your mother’s side of the fence. Talked of her non-stop for nearly ten minutes—at my expense, of course, since the telephone bill is my responsibility!—and tried to convince me that she’s utterly helpless and appealing, and that you’ve simply got to be given the job. I told him I simply will not entrust my cars to you, and it was he who suggested that you might be capable of doing something else, especially as we’re in the throes of moving in. Can you?” he demanded.

>   “Can I what?” she returned faintly, fairly flinching at the harshness of his tone.

  “Do something else? Can you cook, for instance? Lucille is having difficulty finding a cook.”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m the world’s worst cook.”

  “Then can your mother cook?” in desperation.

  “She’s even worse than I am,” Frederica admitted. “When we’re all at home together we live on sardines on toast and that sort of thing. Rosaleen is quite clever at making an omelette ... but anyone who employed Rosaleen to cook for them would be mad!”

  “Why?”

  “She doesn’t get up in the morning until nearly noon ... and if she goes to a party she stays in bed for very nearly the whole of the next day!”

  “And does she make a habit of going to parties?”

  “She has lots of boy-friends, and they take her to parties.”

  “And is your mother an inveterate party-goer, too?”

  “No, she’s a party-giver.”

  He groaned.

  “Yours sounds to me an utterly fascinating family!”

  They had been driving along very smoothly, and the Daimler had been behaving irreproachably; but all at once he drew in to the side of the road, and under an overhanging spread of trees they came to rest.

  Frederica stared at him enquiringly.

  “It’s this confounded arm of mine,” he explained, flexing an obviously painful muscle. “I’m not supposed to use it ... not for a while, at least. I had an accident not long ago, but physiotherapy hasn’t yet succeeded in obliterating the after-effects. However, it’s improving all the time ... But I didn’t expect to have to drive myself when an agency had just found me a chauffeur!” glaring at her.