only fair to her. He couldn't risk bringing unhappiness on her. She didn't understand – and so on and so on.
It was all over – he must make her understand that.
But that was just what she refused to understand. It wasn't to be as easy as that.
She adored him, she loved him more than ever, she couldn't live without him! The only honest thing was for her to tell her husband, and for Stephen to tell his wife the truth! He remembered how cold he had felt as he stood holding her letter. The little fool! The silly clinging fool! She'd go and blab the whole thing to George Barton and then George would divorce her and cite him as co-respondent.
And Sandra would per force divorce him too. He hadn't any doubt of that. She had spoken once of a friend, had said with faint surprise, 'But of course when she found out he was having an affair with another woman, what else could she do but divorce him?' That was what Sandra would feel. She was proud. She would never share a man.
And then he would be done, finished – the influential Kidderminster backing would be withdrawn. It would be the kind of scandal that he would not be able to live down, even though public opinion was broader-minded than it used to be. But not in a flagrant case like this! Good-bye to his dreams, his ambitions. Everything wrecked, broken – all because of a crazy infatuation for a silly woman. Calf love, that was all it had been. Calf love contracted at the wrong time of life.
He'd lose everything he'd staked. Failure! Ignominy!
He'd lose Sandra…
And suddenly, with a shock of surprise he realised that it was that that he would mind most. He'd lose Sandra. Sandra with her square white forehead and her clear hazel eyes. Sandra, his dear friend and companion, his arrogant, proud, loyal Sandra. No, he couldn't lose Sandra – he couldn't… Anything but that.
The perspiration broke out on his forehead. Somehow he must get out of this mess. Somehow he must make Rosemary listen to reason… But would she? Rosemary and reason didn't go together. Supposing he were to tell her that, after all, he loved his wife?
No. She simply wouldn't believe it. She was such a stupid woman. Empty-headed, clinging, possessive. And she loved him still – that was the mischief of it.
A kind of blind rage rose up in him. How on earth was he to keep her quiet? To shut her mouth? Nothing short of a dose of poison would do that, he thought bitterly.
A wasp was buzzing close at hand. He stared abstractedly. It had got inside a cutglass jampot and was trying to get out.
Like me, he thought, entrapped by sweetness and now – he can't get out, poor devil.
But he, Stephen Farraday, was going to get out somehow. Time, he must play for time. Rosemary was down with 'flu at the moment. He'd sent conventional inquiries – a big sheaf of flowers. It gave him a respite.
Next week Sandra and he were dining with the Bartons – a birthday party for Rosemary.
Rosemary had said, 'I shan't do anything until after my birthday – it would be too cruel to George. He's making such a fuss about it. He's such a dear. After it's all over we'll come to an understanding.'
Supposing he were to tell her brutally that it was all over, that he no longer cared? He shivered. No, he dare not do that. She might go to George in hysterics. She might even come to Sandra. He could hear her tearful, bewildered voice.
'He says he doesn't care any more, but I know it's not true. He's trying to be loyal – to play the game with you – but I know you'll agree with me that when people love each other honesty is the only way. That's why I'm asking you to give him his freedom.'
That was just the sort of nauseating stuff she would pour out. And Sandra, her face proud and disdainful, would say, 'He can have his freedom!'
She wouldn't believe – how could she believe? If Rosemary were to bring out those letters – the letters he'd been asinine enough to write to her. Heaven knew what he had said in them. Enough and more than enough to convince Sandra – letters such as he had never written to her –
He must think of something – some way of keeping Rosemary quiet. 'It's a pity,' he thought grimly, 'that we don't live in the days of the Borgias…'
A glass of poisoned champagne was about the only thing that would keep Rosemary quiet.
Yes, he had actually thought that.
Cyanide of potassium in her champagne glass, cyanide of potassium in her evening bag.
Depression after influenza.
And across the table, Sandra's eyes meeting his.
Nearly a year ago – and he couldn't forget.
Chapter 5
ALEXANDRA FARRADAY
Sandra Farraday had not forgotten Rosemary Barton.
She was thinking of her at this very minute – thinking of her slumped forward across the table in the restaurant that night.
She remembered her own sharp indrawn breath and how then, looking up, she had found Stephen watching her…
Had he read the truth in her eyes? Had he seen the hate, the mingling of horror and triumph?
Nearly a year ago now – and as fresh in her mind as if it had been yesterday! Rosemary – that's for remembrance. How horribly true that was. It was no good a person being dead if they lived on in your mind. That was what Rosemary had done. In Sandra's mind – and in Stephen's too? She didn't know, but she thought it probable.
The Luxembourg – that hateful place with its excellent food, deft swift service, and luxurious decor and setting. An impossible place to avoid, people were always asking you there.
She would have liked to forget – but everything conspired to make her remember.
Even Fairhaven was no longer exempt now that George Barton had come to live at Little Priors.
It was really rather extraordinary of him. George Barton was altogether an odd man. Not at all the kind of neighbour she liked to have. His presence at Little Priors spoiled for her the charm and peace of Fairhaven .
Always, up to this summer, it had been a place of healing and rest, a place where she and Stephen had been happy – that is, if they ever had been happy?
Her lips pressed thinly together. Yes, a thousand times, yes! They could have been happy but for Rosemary. It was Rosemary who had shattered the delicate edifice of mutual trust and tenderness that she and Stephen were beginning to build. Something, some instinct, had bade her hide from Stephen her own passion, her single-hearted devotion. She had loved him from the moment he came across the room to her that day at Kidderminster House, pretending to be shy, pretending not to know who she was.
For he had known. She could not say when she had first accepted that fact. Some time after their marriage, the day when he was expounding some neat piece of political manipulation necessary to the passing of some Bill.
The thought had flashed across her mind then: 'This reminds me of something. What?' Later she realised that it was, in essence, the same tactics he had used that day at Kidderminster House. She accepted the knowledge without surprise, as though it were something of which she had had long been aware, but which had only just risen to the surface of her mind.
From the day of their marriage she had realised that he did not love her in the same way as she loved him. But she thought it possible that he was actually incapable of such a love. That power of loving her was her own unhappy heritage. To care with a desperation, an intensity that was, she knew, unusual among women! She would have died for him willingly; she was ready to lie for him, scheme for him, suffer for him! Instead she accepted with pride and reserve the place he wanted her to fill. He wanted her co-operation, her sympathy, her active and intellectual help. He wanted of her, not her heart, but her brains, and those material advantages which birth had given her.
One thing she would never do, embarrass him by the expression of a devotion to which he could make no
