He was watching me now and I had to be careful.
‘You’re a strange creature. The strangest I’ve ever met.’
I lowered my eyes. ‘Suppose I am?’
‘According to what you’ve told me, if it’s true, you don’t have much contact with other people. You say you ride a horse – good exercise, but what about the rest of the twenty-four hours? You say you’ve spent over two years this way. Didn’t you have friends?’
‘I didn’t have boyfriends. I got to know a few people. There was always something to do. I wasn’t lonely.’
‘But living that way is only half living. You’re too withdrawn.’
‘I enjoyed it.’
‘Perhaps it all helps you to make up these exciting stories, does it? I’m thinking of what you told me about your husband. You were so upset after the motor accident that if you’d stayed on in Cardiff you’d have become a nerve case. But it was easier for you than for me because you’d been able to move and take a job.’
‘Don’t remind me please. I was – very ashamed of that.’
‘You were? That’s something anyhow. And about your mother and father in Sydney, and how they found it too hot in the summer months. And your father watching the Davis Cup matches. It was quite an effort on your part, wasn’t it?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m desperately sorry.’
‘I wonder how much of what you’ve told me tonight is out of the same book.’
I raised my head again.
‘I’m not lying now! They’re two different things! I was a fool, but it didn’t occur to me that I should get to know anyone well in my job. I’ve told you, I like to be solitary! When I found I was getting to know people I found I had to go on adding to my – to what I’d said at first. It’s like a snowball. It piles up and up.’
‘It’s a common consequence, Marnie. But why send your parents to Australia in the first place, when they were both dead? How did that help?’
It was the first time he had used my name. ‘It didn’t help. I somehow wanted to make up a life quite different from my own.’
‘There’s such a thing as a pathological liar. Are you one?’
‘I don’t know. Anyway you’re going to check everything I’ve told you tonight, so you can see for yourself.’
He was still looking at me sort of funny, half-way between a doctor and a lover. ‘I can’t check everything. I can’t check what to me is the most important thing you’ve said tonight.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That one of the reasons you committed this theft was because you wanted to get away from me, because you were afraid of getting entangled and getting hurt.’
‘It’s true!’
‘I wish I could be certain.’
‘Mark, it’s true! D’you think I have no feelings at all?’
‘I’m certain you have some but I want to be sure what they are.’
It was getting a strain, sitting there looking at him all the time, and I knew I was running into a packet of trouble of another kind. But there was no way out.
He said: ‘I wonder, if you’re such a smart girl, that it never occurred to you to play this the other way round.’
‘What way?’
‘I don’t know whether to be pleased or insulted that you didn’t.’
‘Didn’t what? I don’t know what you mean.’
Thank God he pulled abruptly away from the table, his chair creaking, moved across the room with a queer energy. His collar had got untidy as he talked.
‘Next time you stand opposite a glass look at yourself. Have you never had men interested in you?’
‘Yes. Oh yes. But I—’
‘Did it never occur to you that I had lost my wife less than two years ago and, in some ways at least, was a fairly eligible person to become friendly with?’
‘People in the office made remarks.’
‘Did they? Well, putting aside for the moment the fact that you may not have thought much of me as a – as a proposition, didn’t you ever think that if you hooked me you hooked quite a bit more than twelve hundred pounds?’
‘It depends what you mean by hooked.’
‘Married.’
The clock in the hall was striking midnight. It took a long time to strike. Well, it wasn’t like that clock in Mother’s kitchen but it seemed to strike into my spine just the same.
‘That wasn’t possible,’ I said in a panic, in a suddenly stifling smothering panic.
‘Why not?’
‘We come from different worlds.’
‘You’ve got rather old-fashioned notions, melodramatic notions about class, haven’t you?’
‘Maybe I have. Maybe I’m a fool. Anyway it seems less dishonest to me to take money the way I did than to trade myself for money like that!’
‘You dislike me?’
‘No, of course not. That’s not it at all!’
‘Then what is it?’
‘If I—’
‘You said you wanted to get away from me because you were afraid of getting hurt. That sounds as if you were not exactly indifferent. Then in what way would you have been trading yourself for money by marrying me?’
I was cornered – like a rat in a coal bunker. It was a completely new experience for me, because I’ve never been at a loss for an excuse or an explanation or a way out. For the second time that night he seemed to be cleverer than I was, and did I hate it.
To give myself a breather I put my hands up to my face. You’ve only got to think long enough about anything to find a way out. After a minute he came over and put his hand on my shoulder; it was the first time he’d touched me all evening.
‘Tell me, Marnie.’
I said in a desolate voice: ‘How can I tell you what I don’t know? I thought it wasn’t possible. Anyway it’s too late now.’
Even while I took that line I was afraid of what he was going to say, and my God he said it.
‘Doesn’t that rather remain to be seen?’
‘How?’
‘You tell me.’
I knew I had to look at him. I knew that this might be about the last moment to bale out. Yet there wasn’t really any place to go. If I told him no, it was as clear as gin what would come next – the police. It was a ghastly moment. His hand tightened slightly on my shoulder. I looked up, hoping my eyes didn’t show what I was thinking.
‘Mark, I’m a thief. Don’t deceive yourself. There’s no getting away from it. Just – forgive me if you can and let me go.’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘I’m sure it’s for the best.’
‘For whose best? Yours? Mine?’
‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’
‘I differ from that. D’you know, I happen to love you. I suppose you’ve guessed it, have you?’
‘No.’
‘No? Well, that’s really the nigger in the woodpile. I love you, Marnie.’
‘Mark. You’re . . . you’re crazy.’
‘It’s a symptom of the complaint.’
I said desperately: ‘Look . . . be sensible . . . I’ve robbed you and lied to you. That’s no – no basis to build a sparrow’s nest on, let alone a marriage . . . Do you trust me?’
He half laughed. ‘No. Not yet.’
‘You see. How can anything begin like that? Love’s got to be built on trust.’
‘Nonsense. Love grows where it grows. What it builds on is anybody’s guess.’
I didn’t answer. He had me in the corner and I wasn’t even like that rat – I couldn’t bite him.
He said: ‘After following you half-way across England do you think I’m going to let you go?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
So the impossible happened and I went back to work on the Monday as if nothing was different. Nobody said a thing except that one or two asked me if I was better, and Sam Ward looked down his nose a bit more than usual. Susan Clabon was full of the Isle of Wight, and that helped to pass the day. I found in the waste basket all my pieces of pap
er that Mark had snatched out of the pay envelopes and thrown away.
On the Thursday he drove me to Swindon and the other places where I had left the money, and I drew it out. On the Saturday he asked me to marry him.
It had been coming at me of course ever since Sunday night like a railway train, and me on a level-crossing. But I was tied there and there was no way of dodging it.
There was just no way.
He wouldn’t say how he’d traced me, so I didn’t know what mistake I had made. All I knew was that if he looked too hard the way led from Cirencester, clang, right back to Mother like one of those old-fashioned cash systems they used to have in shops. I had to go on lying to him about my mother being dead because if he once knew she was alive it was all up. If Mother knew I was a thief and had been keeping her on stolen money she’d froth at the mouth. In fact I knew it would kill her: she’d never be able to swallow the disgrace. If he ever met her the whole story of Mr Pemberton and his millions came crashing down, and then in no time they’d both discover I had been taking money for three years. Then as well as Mother having a stroke or something I would go to prison quick. Even marrying him was better than that.
So I had to stop him probing too hard, and the only way I knew was to let him think I loved him. Many of the things I’d told him were true – except that I’d left gaps – so I went painstakingly about getting him the proof he wanted. If I could get him proofs of what was true – birth certificate and the rest – he might not dig into what was not true. In fact he took a lot on trust. Perhaps he thought he ought to if he loved me, even though he’d said he would not.
He seemed pretty crazy about me. So I didn’t say no to him, though by turns I fumed and shivered at the thought of it. But I kept thinking, there’s months yet – something’ll turn up. If I shut my eyes and think and wait, something’ll turn up.
He said not to tell at the firm for the time being, and that suited me. But he wouldn’t let me take my holidays, so I went on working right through October. He said he wanted to keep me under his eye. The way he said it was like an officer putting an Able Seaman on probation. He ought to have stayed in the Navy, I thought, that suited him, and I wished to Heaven he had.
Yet sometimes in fairness you had to admit he did his best to be nice. There weren’t many men who would have done what he did, have found out about a woman what he had found out, and then said marry me. The most the average man would have suggested was a flat in London somewhere to visit when he wanted, and me installed there terrified to shift in case he set the police on me. I wondered why he hadn’t suggested it. Terry would have, first go. He was a fool not to have tried that first anyhow and fallen back on marriage if he found there was nothing doing.
But every now and then, just when you thought he was being rather stupid about something, he’d say something that suddenly showed he was still a jump ahead of you, and that was what I liked least of all. I could have managed a man who was really dumb. But Mark I could never be sure of. I hated that. It was a nasty trick not telling me how he had found out. I wondered what he was going to spring on me next.
In October he said he wanted me to meet his mother, so I said all right, because what else was there to say; and he picked me up and we drove into London on a Sunday afternoon. While we were driving through Regent’s Park he told me he thought we should be married in November.
I got heartburn at that. ‘Oh, Mark, that’s crazy! We’re not officially engaged yet!’
‘There’s no such thing,’ he said in his quiet downright way. ‘My mother knows. Who else is there?’
‘I – have to get some clothes.’
‘All right, get them. Give in your notice next week, leave at the end of the month, that will give you two weeks to get ready.’
‘Are you really satisfied?’ I said. ‘Satisfied that you really want to marry a thief and a liar?’
‘I’m satisfied I love you. Anyway, who hasn’t been a thief and a liar to some extent at some time of their lives? It’s only a question of degree.’
‘Yes, but . . . be reasonable. We’ve only known each other a month or two. It’s too soon.’
‘We’ve known each other seven months. Do you mean you’re not sure yourself yet?’
‘Oh, it isn’t that,’ I said, uneasily.
‘Well I’ve been in love with you pretty well since the day you came about the interview, so I don’t see there’s any need to wait.’
‘Not since the interview.’
‘Yes. Sam Ward and I had already agreed to engage the girl we’d just interviewed, when you came in. He was going to tell you that but I stopped him. He didn’t want to change his mind, but I persuaded him.’
‘As you – persuade most people.’
‘I also persuaded him to send you that day with the programme when there was the thunderstorm. I suppose you guessed that.’
‘No, why should I?’
‘Well, we don’t usually employ cashiers as messenger boys even when we’re short staffed.’
I swallowed my spittle. ‘So I suppose that meeting in the rose show wasn’t accidental then?’
‘No.’
‘It must have been a double shock that morning, when you found I’d gone.’
‘It was.’
‘What did you do – I mean when you had finished the pay packets?’
He wrinkled his forehead at me teasingly. ‘I set about finding you.’
‘Did you know where to look?’
‘No.’
‘Then? . . .’
‘I’ll tell you on our honeymoon.’
I’d thought of Mrs Rutland as tall and dignified and grey-haired – like one of those illustrations in the fairytale women’s magazines – but she was a short stout twinkling woman with spectacles and beautiful small hands and feet. I didn’t think she’d ever been particularly good looking but you could see that she had had a slight figure that had thickened as she got older. Her colouring was the same as Mark’s, olive skin, dark brown eyes, thick dark hair.
I don’t know what she felt like but I know what I felt like at the meeting: like a caged cat pretending to be a blushing timid canary. I wonder what she would have thought as I shook her hand and smiled at her if she had known that I was no more in love with her son than I was with a jailer.
I must say, though, that we both got through it fairly well; she was neither patronizing nor too anxious to please, and in a way I liked her better than Mark. Or perhaps it was just because battle and strife didn’t come into it. She talked to me as if she’d known me half her life, and I answered and smiled and looked at her and looked round the flat, which was simply beautiful. You didn’t have to know about furniture to admire the colour of the mahogany and the curve of the chair backs and the tapering legs and the oval table and the Regency sofas.
We stayed to tea and talked about her family and she carefully didn’t ask about mine – so I suppose Mark had primed her a bit – and it was pleasant enough in its way. I think if I had come into these surroundings differently I should have enjoyed them; they were what I should have got for myself if I had ever had the money. It was right in the centre of London but very quiet, and the rooms were high and the windows tall and looked over a small square where the leaves were just falling, and we drank out of cups that showed the shadow of your fingers through them, and Mark watched us while pretending not to. After tea he wandered round the room while we talked, and once I glanced up at his face as he bent to light his mother a cigarette and I thought, my God, he’s happy. And just for a moment then I nearly got up and ran.
But in this life it’s Number One that counts most, and after all it was his own fault for pinning me here, and if he got hurt, well, so should I, but not as much as by going to prison; so I stuck it out.
And anyway there was still three weeks.
I thought of Forio, eating his gentle beautiful proud head off at Garrod’s and waiting for the touch of my hands. Whenever I was in a spot I thought of him.
/> When we left I went out to the car first and sat in it while Mark had a word with his mother. Presently he came down and we drove away.
I said: ‘She’s not as terrifying as I expected.’
‘She’s not terrifying at all. I was watching you both and I think you’ll get on together.’
‘I think we shall, Mark.’ I meant that I thought we should have if we had met any other way.
‘What does she do with her time?’
‘When my father died she sold up his house in the country because she said she wanted the minimum of personal possessions. She does a lot of welfare work and sits on various committees.’
‘I thought she had lots of personal possessions. Far more than my mother ever had.’
‘Oh, in a small space, yes. My father was a great collector and she kept the best.’
‘Don’t you think you’re cheating her taking me like that and passing me off as a – as a normal person?’
‘Aren’t you a normal person?’
‘No.’
‘Marnie, you’re awfully anxious to keep on beating yourself. Give your conscience a rest.’
‘I think you should tell her about me before we marry.’
‘Well, that’s my problem, isn’t it.’
I wondered if I should go to see Mrs Rutland in private and confess what I was, in the hope that she would stop the marriage. But it was too risky. She might have a social conscience.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.
‘I’m thinking what it must be like for her, welcoming another girl as a daughter-in-law so soon.’
‘It’s the crowning tragedy for every widow that she can’t be her son’s wife.’
I looked at him, and I knew suddenly again that he’d gone deeper than I could go. In some way what he said seemed to strike at me specially.
I said: ‘You’ve never told me anything about Estelle.’
‘. . . What is there you want to know?’