Marry a Stranger by Susan Barrie Page B

yes,” she answered. “That is one of its advantages,” and she sounded almost smug.
    He turned to the girl, small and overworked-looking, who was struggling upstairs with the suitcases.
    “Will you bring a tray with a light supper on it upstairs here to Mrs. Guelder?” he requested.
    “ I’ll see to that,” Miss Fountain said smoothly.
    The doctor turned back to his bride of only a few hours. He smiled at her in a way she felt was meant to be reassuring—perhaps heartening—and she tried to smile back at him as if there was no heavy load of apprehension weighing like a stone at her heart, and no chill, shivery feeling of depression and unease communicated to her by the large, gloomy room, and accentuated, no doubt, by the fact that she was very tired indeed. And although he did not know it, it took all her strength of will to prevent her from putting forth her hand and clinging to his coat sleeve and begging him not to leave her alone in that room just yet—not even alone with Miss Fountain!
    Which would have caused Miss Fountain to look very much amazed, of course, and perhaps slightly supercilious. And Martin would probably have felt uncomfortable, and not known quite what to do.
    As it was, he studied her with a certain amount of anxiety because she looked so large-eyed and as pale as a waxwork, and he said gently: “You’ve had an exhausting day, but you’ll feel better in the morning. Have your supper and get to bed as quickly as you can. I’ll come in and give you something that will make certain that you sleep before I go to bed myself, and in the meantime, if you want anything, just ring.” He tested the bell beside the bed. “This does work, I suppose?” he enquired of Miss Fountain.
    “Unless the mice have been at it, it rings like all the others,” she answered, in her remote tones.
    He gave her a curious look.
    “There is one bell which will be certain to ring, and that is in my old bedroom. I think we’d better shift my wife into there.”
    “But it’s not aired,” she said quickly, defensively.
    “Then you can get it aired tomorrow, and tonight, if you want anything, Stacey, I shall be sleeping in the room next door—the dressing room!” Stacey felt tremendous relief well over her.
    “I shan’t want anything,” she assured him. “I shall be quite all right.”
    Miss Fountain’s barely noticeable eyebrows ascended a little.
    “Then, if you won’t be sleeping in this room, you’ll want the bed made up in the dressing room? I’d better tell Hannah Biggs to get on with it.”
    “Do,” he said curtly, and stooped to unfasten Stacey’s suitcases.
    Stacey saw the curious expression that came and went in Jane Fountain’s face. She looked first at the man who had been her cousin Fenella’s husband, with his sleek head, his own carefully controlled expression, and his well-shaped, expeditious hands dealing with the suitcase. And then she looked at Stacey, drooping obviously in the hard armchair, rather like a pale flower that was wilting, and despite her youth, and the smartness of her little silk suit, and the corduroy velvet coat that she wore over it, of the same misty mauve shade as her gloves and the gauzy scarf that was wound about her throat, with absolutely no sign of assurance or confidence in anything at the moment. Even the way she looked at her husband was timorous, uncertain—nothing at all to do with ordinary shyness.
    And he wanted the bed made up in the dressing room!
    Well, if he wanted it made up, she was paid a salary to look after his house in his absence, and she would see to it that he had no reasonable cause for complaint. But as to getting his old bedroom ready for this newcomer! ... This interloper! ...
    Her lips tightened as she went out of the room. Martin Guelder straightened and went over and switched on the bedside light. He smiled at Stacey as the mellow gleam dissipated some of the harshness of the other light.
    “That more cheerful?” he