Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

He found Fay just where he had left her, standing in the middle of the room staring at the door, waiting for him to come back. The end of her cigarette had scorched her thin green dress. A faint smell of burning crept through the smell of her cigarette.

Car was glad enough to have something to be angry about.

“Good Lord, Fay, what are you doing? You’ll be on fire in a minute!”

She dropped the cigarette then, as she had dropped the book, just opening her fingers and letting it go.

“Now!” he said. “What’s the meaning of this? What did you do it for?”

Fay began to cry. Quite gently and slowly the tears brimmed up in her eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. It was an immense relief. Car was always sorry when she cried, and if he would only be sorry, it would be all right. The worst of being very frightened was that you couldn’t always cry.

“What on earth did you do it for?” said Car in an angry, puzzled voice.

“You,” said Fay with the tears running down her face.

Car made a violent movement.

“What are you talking about?”

“You,” said Fay again.

He actually shook her a little then, lightly, and let go of her in a hurry because the impulse came on him to shake her harder, harder, harder.

“What are you talking about? What in heaven’s name made you do such a thing? Were you engaged to Peter?”

She shook her head dumbly.

“Did he ever make love to you?”

She shook her head again.

“But, good heavens-are you mad? It’s sheer raving lunacy! What was the good of telling me you and Peter were married-what was the point? It’s so utterly crass!”

Fay shook her head again. She gathered her hands up under her chin. She stood there drooping, weeping, not saying a word.

Car felt a primitive desire to beat her. He took a hasty step back towards the door. It was beastly to be so strong and to want to beat people.

“Why did you do it?” he said in an exasperated voice.

Fay, seeing him recede, found her voice. She was still frightened, but there was a sort of delicious thrill about being frightened of Car. She didn’t at all want him to go away. In a voice full of tears she said,

“I did it for you.”

Car felt as if he had been struck again.

“For me? I suppose you’re mad.”

She shook her head.

He thought if she shook her head again, that he would probably throw something at her. He drove both hands deep into his pockets and glowered.

“Will you kindly explain-all right then, I’m going.”

Fay sprang forward.

“Don’t go, Car! I did it for you-I really did! I don’t care twopence for Peter! He asked me to go out with him, and I went, because sometimes you were there too. It was the only way I could get to see you. And when the smash came and Peter went to the States, I thought I should never see you any more.” The words came tumbling out half choked with sobs.

“That’s enough,” said Car. “Don’t talk like that!”

He reached for the door handle, but she caught his arm with both hands.

“Car-listen! Don’t be angry. It was for you. I thought I’d never see you again, and I was desperate. And I knew you’d look after me if you thought I was Peter’s wife, so I said I was.”

“Yes,” said Car-“beautifully simple! I see. Let me go, Fay.”

“Car!”

“You’d better let me go. I might”-he took a deep breath-“I might-hurt you.” Then with a sudden jerk he had the door open, pulled free of her, and was gone.

She heard the front door slam so violently that the house shook. She put her hand on her own door and pushed it to. She was sobbing as she whirled round and ran to the hearth.

Peter’s photograph looked down at her. She snatched it and flung it across the room. It struck the window-sill and fell with a tinkle of broken glass.

Fay began to laugh.

Car Fairfax ’s Diary:

September 23rd-I think Fay’s mad. She’s simply been lying all this time. She’s no more married to Peter than Mrs. Bell is. She must be off her head, because it’s the most absolutely pointless show. They weren’t engaged-he didn’t even make love to her-they just went about together a bit. And when he’d gone, I suppose she thought she was going to be at a bit of a loose end, so she said they were married.

She said she thought I’d look after her if she was Peter’s wife. It’s absolute lunacy.

Corinna and I went to see her. She gave the whole show away at once. After Corinna had gone, I lost my temper and came away too.

I’ve been looking through Peter’s letters. He says things like, “You and Fay seem to be seeing quite a lot of each other,” and, “Fay says you’re looking after her.” I can see now that he must have thought I was getting keen on Fay myself. Of course he’d think that, when I kept writing about how she looked and what she was doing. It makes me boil to think of the rot I’ve written to poor old Peter just because I thought he must be dying to know everything I could tell him about Fay. I used to think how grateful I should feel if any one would write to me and tell me all the little everyday things about Isobel, and then I used to fire away. Poor old Peter must have been bored stiff.

Well, I slammed out of Fay’s room and out of the house, and went for a walk to get myself in hand. I’ve got a beastly temper.

On the way home I began to think about Fay. I’d been a bit brusque with her, and it worried me in case she got worked up to the point of doing something silly. She must be a bit mad, and it’s no good going off the deep end because a crazy person does a crazy thing. I wasn’t a bit keen on seeing her again, but I thought I’d better just blow in and make sure she was all right. After all, I’ve been looking after her for three years, so it’s got to be more or less of a habit.

I knocked at the door, and nothing happened. It was getting darkish, because I’d been a good long way. I could hear Mrs. Bell striking a match to light the hall gas, but I couldn’t hear anything from Fay’s room. I got the most awful panic and fairly banged on the panel. And then I felt like a fool, because the door opened, and there was Fay, got up to the nines and all ready to go out. She’d drenched herself with scent, and she’d made up her face till she looked like one of those dummy figures they put clothes on in shop windows.

“Were you coming to see if I was dead?” she said.

I said, “Don’t be an ass, Fay!” and she laughed.

“Have you come to console me for being divorced from Peter? Have you, Car?”

“I wish you’d talk sense, Fay,” I said.

Well, that just seemed to set her off. You wouldn’t have thought any one could talk such rot, even if they were balmy. I felt as if my temper might go again, so I thought it would give it a safety-valve if I put it across her a bit about the harm she might have done Peter, and the mischief she might have made by pretending to be married to him like that.

She jerked and flounced, and lit cigarettes and threw them about, like she does when she’s annoyed. She kept trying to speak too, but I was determined to let her have it, so I just went on. When I stopped, she asked me if Corinna was going to marry Peter. It’s extraordinary how women’s minds work. I said I didn’t know, but I hoped so.

“I don’t mind if she marries Peter,” she said. She edged up to me.

One of the things that has always annoyed me about Fay is the way she tries to flirt. It drives me wild. She does it because she thinks she can get round me that way. It’s a most extraordinary thing that most women seem to think that they can get their own way by wriggling their shoulders and doing tricks with their eyelashes. I suppose it gets round some people. It makes me angry. Fay’s most awfully bad about it.