Wife To Christopher Read online

  WIFE TO CHRISTOPHER

  When Christopher discovered how Vicki had tricked him into marrying her-he was, not unnaturally, furious and disgusted. By that time, though, Vicki had fallen genuinely in love with him. But how could she persuade him, now, that she could ever make him happy?

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  WIFE TO CHRISTOPHER

  BY

  MARY BURCHELL

  MILLS & BOON LIMITED

  50 GRAFTON WAY, FITZROY SQUARE

  LONDON, W.1

  Reprinted 1960

  Printed in Great Britain by

  Lowe and Brydone (Printers) Limited, London, N.W.10

  TO

  MY DEAR

  V. U.

  WHO LENT ME HER INITIALS TO BRING ME LUCK, AND TO WHOM I NOW OFFER MY FIRST BOOK AS A VERY SMALL TRIBUTE TO A VERY GREAT ARTIST

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  Table of Contents

  WIFE TO CHRISTOPHER § 1

  § 2

  § 3

  § 4

  § 5

  § 6

  § 7

  § 8

  § 9

  § 10

  § 11

  §

  "VICKI."

  "Um?" Vicki glanced abstractedly at her sister where she sat curled up on the end of the bed.

  "How marvellous if you could meet a really rich man at Conways and marry him."

  Yes, marvellous, but horribly unlikely. Do get off the bed, Margery. I can’t pack long frocks unless I have the whole space."

  Margery slowly removed herself; then she leaned her arms on the bed-rail, propping her chin on her hands.

  "That wasn’t meant as a joke,"she said, after a minute. "You might pick up a rich husband at a place like that."

  “Thanks. I'm not out to pick up a husband."

  Margery made an impatient little movement." I never knew any girl who made less use of her chances," she said.

  Vicki didn’t look up. “I don’t know what sort of 'chances' you expect me to find at Conways. I’m simply going there as the old man’s secretary for a week. He’d have fifty fits if one of his guests regarded me as anything but the impersonal force that works a typewriter."

  Margery laughed crossly. "I don’t know how you stand it, Vicki."

  "Oh yes, you do," was the quick retort. "If you had three people dependent on your salary you would take good care not to put it in any danger."

  Margery tossed her head. “Meaning I ought to get a job?"

  "No, of course not. I know as well as you do that Daddy couldn’t possibly be left, and you look after him wonderfully—much better than I could. Besides, I think he would die if you weren’t there nearly all the time," she added, in tacit acceptance of the fact that Margery was the favourite daughter.

  "Yes, it's funny how Daddy overlooks everything in me although I’m the bad girl of the family and you’ve always been the good one." The faintest edge of spite showed for a second in Margery’s complacent young voice.

  "Don’t, Margery,"said Vicki sharply. "I loathe that ‘ good and bad ’ talk. It doesn’t mean a thing, and you know I never think of—of us like that."

  "Very well," her sister shrugged. But if we mustn’t talk of my past, let’s at least talk of your future."

  Vicki went on with her packing. "Well—what do you want? You don't suppose one of Sir Joseph's fellow magnates will fall violently for my charms, do you? Or are you hoping for that and then expecting him to marry me just in time to pay the next grocer's bill, settle with the electric light people before they cut off supplies, and—and send Daddy abroad for the winter." Her voice trembled for a second.

  "Yes," agreed Margery, with a sigh. "That’s the really important thing. Vicki—I didn’t really mean to tell you, but Dr. Rumbolt said this morning that if we couldn’t get him out of England before the winter he— he-"

  "What?" Vicki’s voice was sharp with sudden fear.

  "He doesn’t think Dad'll last through the winter."

  "He said that?"

  "Yes."

  Vicki sank down slowly on the side of the bed. "How much do you suppose it would take to send him abroad?" she asked at last.

  “I don’t know. Anyway, it scarcely matters because one amount is the same as another where we’re concerned.

  "You might as well ask how long it would take to go to the moon and fetch it back."

  Vicki pushed back the waves of thick, fair hair from her forehead.

  "If there were only something—it's so awful to think it's just money that’s needed to keep him alive."

  "It always is money." Margery’s voice was hard. "You can’t do a thing in this world without it. That’s why I’m in dead earnest when I keep telling you to marry money. You are really our only asset, now that I-"

  “Don’t, Margery."

  "Sorry."

  Both girls were silent, and then Margery said with elaborate unconcern, “Hadn’t you better finish your parking?"

  "Yes." Vicki gave a deep sigh. "There is really only my Chinese wrap to put in."

  She lifted it down from its hanger, and as she laid it on the bed Margery put out her hand and touched it admiringly.

  "It’s heavenly, isn’t it?"

  The strained look didn’t leave Vicki's eyes, but she managed to smile faintly as she said, "Yes. I always think gratefully of Uncle Ken when I put it on."

  "Pity it’s a dressing-wrap," was Margery’s practical comment. "So little chance of looking alluring in it."

  But Vicki wasn’t paying much attention to Margery's chatter. There was only one fact running round and round in her mind. Her darling, wonderful father would die unless she could find an incredible amount of money from somewhere—anywhere—nowhere.

  She didn’t know how Margery could go on talking with that awful fact lying naked and terrifying right across their lives. Perhaps to Margery, who nursed him, the verdict had not been so much of a shock. She must have seen more clearly what was coming.

  It seemed to Vicki now that she should have understood better, that in some way she had failed him.

  “Coming?" Margery's voice broke in on her dark, remorseful thoughts.

  Vicki locked her case and followed her sister from the room.

  "I’ve only half an hour. Just time to have tea and say good-bye to
Daddy."

  The girls crossed the hall of the small flat and went into the room opposite. It was quite a warm September afternoon but there was a fire burning and the man sitting there had a rug over his knees. He looked up as they came in, and Vicki thought with a pang, “I ought to have been able to see it. How ill he looks!"

  Maurice Unwin had been almost as well known for his looks as for his brilliant, cruel portraits in his younger days, and even now he was a handsome man, but illness had thinned him, and a lifetime of sarcastic observation of human nature had drawn rather hard, sardonic lines round his mouth.

  To Vicki he had always remained the brilliant, slightly flamboyant creature who had been the hero of her childhood. She had found out long ago that he was selfish and undependable. The discovery had hurt badly at the time, but it made no difference to her love for him. It was merely a fact which she knew and accepted. Just as she knew that if he had kept even a little of the fortune he had once made, she would not have had to wear out her youth now, in the struggle to keep them all.

  She went over to him at once, and as she did so the anxiety left her face and she smiled.

  "Well, Vicki. All ready for your visit among the flesh-pots of Egypt? "

  " It isn't that exactly," Vicki reminded him. “I'm just the useful secretary, darling, and I shall probably be kept well in my place."

  "Nonsense." This from Margery, who was busy at the tea table. “I don’t imagine that anyone among the fleshpots would look the other way if someone as pretty Vicki came along, do you, Daddy?"

  Vicki is not in the least pretty," said her father. “God be thanked, neither of my daughters could be called pretty. You yourself are piquant and interesting, Margery, but pretty—no."

  "And Vicki?" asked Margery, as the girls exchanged an amused look.

  "Vicki," said her father deliberately, "has the sort of face that makes you believe in God."

  Margery's eyebrows shot up. "What on earth do you mean by that?" she said, while Vicki's colour mounted in a wave from her throat to the roots of her hair.

  Their father obviously enjoyed both Margery’s resentment and Vicki's confusion.

  "What do you mean?" Margery repeated.

  "Vicki is one of those foolish people who are always trying to put their arms round the whole world, aren’t you, my dear? She can’t possibly do it, of course, and she will probably get hurt trying. But it’s that urge to protect which gives her a touch of the infinite—that calmness of spirit."

  "But my spirit is often anything but calm," said Vicki sadly.

  "Inwardly, I daresay," agreed her father, smiling at her troubled face. "But you give one a sense of peace, just to look at you. Humanity could dry its tears on the thick strands of your hair, my child, and find its hope of heaven in the blue of your eyes."

  Vicki didn’t say anything. She never knew quite what to make of her father when he spoke in this queer, exaggerated way. He might be serious, or he might just as well be laughing at her.

  Margery, however, found her tongue very promptly.

  "It sounds silly to me," she said tartly. "I don’t know what you mean."

  "No. You wouldn’t," said her father carelessly. "You’re a silly, shallow little thing."

  “Still, you love me, don’t you?" retorted Margery, quite undisturbed by the criticism.

  "Yes, of course. Silly, shallow little things are always easy to love. There’s nothing about them to live up to or worry about. It is the rather rare spirits like Vicki to whom love comes with difficulty. And they usually get bruised trying to find it."

  "Well, what did all that stuff about drying tears on her hair and finding heaven in her eyes mean?" demanded Margery, "if she’s difficult to love."

  "That’s the quality I meant when I said she made you believe in God. She has a quiet wealth of love to give, but it's oddly difficult of approach. People in trouble will always go to Vicki—and find what they want. When they’re happy they will trample on her."

  "It doesn’t sound very comfortable to me," murmured Vicki with a little laugh.

  "And I have an idea you’re being slightly blasphemous, darling," declared Margery. "Anyway, let the poor girl have her tea. She’ll need something to fortify her if life’s going to be so difficult."

  They all laughed a little at that, and Vicki moved over to the table to have her hasty tea.

  It was not until she was in the train that Vicki thought again of what her father had said. What had he meant, exactly?

  She was alone in the compartment and she stood up to look at herself in the oblong of mirror opposite, swaying a little with the motion of the train. She had taken off her hat and her long fair hair, which grew in thick waves rather low on her forehead, was drawn back in a loose knot at the nape of her neck.

  The face that looked back at her was grave, so that it was not easy at the moment to realise the full charm of those wide cheek-bones sloping to a softly-rounded chin. Whenever she did smile and show her beautiful teeth, not only did the corners of her mouth lift, but the line of her cheek changed so that there were little laughter hollows under the cheek-bones. Yet it was Vicki’s eyes that were the most remarkable thing about her. Large and very beautifully set, they were of an extremely dark and intense blue, and it was something in their wide, candid gaze that made her sense faintly her father's meaning.

  Poor darling! had he been thinking of himself when he said people in trouble would want to come to her? Vicki sank back on the seat, thinking of him with aching tenderness. Did he know that he was dying? and had he some curious hope that she would save him?

  But what could she do for him? There must be some way out of the fearful agony of helplessness.

  She sat staring out at the passing landscape, while the pale light of evening deepened into night.

  It was only when the train began to slow down for the junction at which she was to change for a local line that Vicki collected her thoughts for more immediate matters. She pulled on her little blue felt hat, slid into her coat and lifted down her suit-case. She must dismiss her home problems until she was in the safety of her room at Conways.

  During the short journey on the little local line, where the train crawled along reluctantly and took every possible opportunity of stopping, she had time to think of what lay ahead.

  She felt faintly nervous of the visit. It was only three months since the illness of his secretary had made Sir Joseph Kentone promote Vicki temporarily to replace her. No serious fault had ever been found with her work, but she was more than half afraid of the odd, difficult, old textile magnate.

  He never actually bullied her, seldom made her stay late, and paid her not ungenerously, but there was something about him that froze the joy of living around him. He was unbendingly honourable in all his business transactions—Vicki knew that—but she sometimes had the curious impression that he would rise like some Puritan of old and invoke fire and brimstone from heaven on anyone who fell short of his own iron standards.

  Cold, inflexible and completely oblivious of any code but his own, he was respected by his employees but they were, none the less, invariably thankful to escape from his presence.

  Vicki had never heard anything about his private life until a couple of evenings ago. The elderly cashier, who had been with the firm nearly forty years, had been working late with her. For some reason he had unbent a little and spoken of Sir Joseph.

  "He seems so terribly remote and—loveless, somehow," Vicki had said.

  “Funny you should say that." The thin, grey-haired little cashier had looked reminiscent. "He was married, you know, years ago. She was foreign, I think, or partly foreign, anyway. I can remember her coming in here once or twice in the early days when I was just a junior clerk. A wonderful-looking creature she was. Always laughing, and a bit impudent, if you know what I mean. Great dark eyes like saucers and a taste in clothes that used to make us younger fellows sit up and take notice."

  Vicki looked interested at this unexpected portrait of
Sir Joseph’s wife.

  " He wasn’t so dry-as-dust in those days," the cashier continued," but very strict even then, and though I believe he thought the world of her at first, I suppose she began to jar a bit. That kind's wearing for everyday use, I daresay. Anyway, she was very daring for those days and even after their little boy was born she never seemed to settle but was always getting herself talked about. I suppose there was some sort of break finally, because she cleared off abroad again, taking the child with her. I don't know whether Sir Joseph ever saw her again, but she died some years later, and the child was sent home to England."

  It was the first Vicki had heard of Sir Joseph’s son, but the elderly little cashier said, oh yes, he was supposed to be as fine and upright a business man as his father. He would be about thirty-six or seven now, and lived a good deal abroad, managing all the foreign side of the business.

  "But he’s just come home, I hear," he added. " You may see him when you’re down at Conways."

  "Two grim propositions to tackle," thought Vicki, making a face as the train drew into the small halt that was her destination, and she only just suppressed a little shiver of nervousness.

  There was a car waiting for her, with a rather gloomy chauffeur, who drove her, in complete silence, through the dark country lanes.

  Presently they turned into a short drive and stopped before a portico embellished with the sort of debased Corinthian columns beloved of the early nineteenth century.

  Vicki felt tired and depressed, and she wondered if it were only her imagination that made her think the servant who admitted her just as oddly grim as the chauffeur and Sit Joseph himself.

  "Sir Joseph is expecting you, miss," the servant told her. “I’ll see if he is in his study." And he went away, leaving Vicki alone in the great square-panelled hall.