Agatha Christie - Sparkling Cyanide

Now to consolidate what he had started. For several days after that he haunted the neighbourhood of Kidderminster House. Once Sandra came out with one of her sisters. Once she left the house alone, but with a hurried step. He shook his head. That would not do, she was obviously en route to some particular appointment. Then, about a week after the party, his patience was rewarded.

She came out one morning with a small black Scottie dog and she turned with a leisurely step in the direction of the Park.

Five minutes later, a young man walking rapidly in the opposite direction pulled up short and stopped in front of Sandra. He exclaimed blithely:

"I say, what luck! I wondered if I'd ever see you again."

His tone was so delighted that she blushed just a little.

He stooped to the dog.

"What a jolly little fellow. What's his name?"

"MacTavish."

"Oh, very Scotch."

They talked dog for some moments. Then Stephen said, with a trace of embarrassment:

"I never told you my name the other day. It's Farraday. Stephen Farraday. I'm an obscure M.P."

He looked inquiringly and saw the colour come up in her cheeks again as she said: "I'm Alexandra Hayle."

He responded to that very well. He might have been back in the O.U.D.S. Surprise, recognition, dismay, embarrassment!

"Oh, you're – you're Lady Alexandra Hayle – you – my goodness! What a stupid fool you must have thought me the other day!"

Her answering move was inevitable. She was bound both by her breeding and her natural kindliness to do all she could to put him at his ease, to reassure him.

"I ought to have told you at the time."

"I ought to have known. What an oaf you must think me!"

"How should you have known? What does it matter anyway? Please, Mr Farraday, don't look so upset. Let's walk to the Serpentine. Look, MacTavish is simply pulling."

After that, he met her several times in the Park. He told her his ambitions. Together they discussed political topics. He found her intelligent, well-informed and sympathetic.

She had good brains and a singularly unbiased mind. They were friends now. The next advance came when he was asked to dinner at Kidderminster House and had to go on to a dance. A man had fallen through at the last moment. When Lady Kidderminster was racking her brains Sandra said quietly: "What about Stephen Farraday?"

"Stephen Farraday?"

"Yes, he was at your party the other day and I've met him once or twice since."

Lord Kidderminster was consulted and was all in favour of encouraging the young hopefuls of the political world.

"Brilliant young fellow – quite brilliant. Never heard of his people, but he'll make a name for himself one of these days."

Stephen came and acquitted himself well.

"A useful young man to know," said Lady Kidderminster with unconscious arrogance.

Two months later Stephen put his fortunes to the test. They were by the Serpentine and MacTavish sat with his head on Sandra's foot.

"Sandra, you know – you must know that I love you. I want you to marry me. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't believe that I shall make a name for myself one day. I do believe it. You shan't be ashamed of your choice. I swear it."

She said, "I'm not ashamed."

"Then do you care?"

"Didn't you know?"

"I hoped – but I couldn't be sure. Do you know that I've loved you since that very first moment when I saw you across the room and took my courage in both hands and came to speak to you. I was never more terrified in my life."

She said, "I think I loved you then, too…"

It was not all plain sailing. Sandra's quiet announcement that she was going to marry Stephen Farraday sent her family into immediate protests. Who was he? What did they know about him?

To Lord Kidderminster Stephen was quite frank about his family and origin. He spared a fleeting thought that it was just as well for his prospects that his parents were now both dead.

To his wife, Lord Kidderminster said, "H'm, it might be worse."

He knew his daughter fairly well, knew that her quiet manner hid inflexible purpose. If she meant to have the fellow she would have him. She'd never give in!

"The fellow's got a career ahead of him. With a bit of backing he'll go far. Heaven knows we could do with some young blood. He seems a decent chap, too."

Lady Kidderminster assented grudgingly. It was not at all her idea of a good match for her daughter. Still, Sandra was certainly the most difficult of the family. Susan had been a beauty and Esther had brains. Diana, clever child, had married the young Duke of Harwich – the parti of the season. Sandra had certainly less charm – there was her shyness – and if this young man had a future as everyone seemed to think…

She capitulated, murmuring: "But of course, one will have to use influence…"

So Alexandra Catherine Hayle took Stephen Leonard Farraday for better and for worse, in white satin and Brussels lace, with six bridesmaids and two minute pages and all the accessories of a fashionable wedding.

They went to Italy for the honeymoon and came back to a small charming house in Westminster , and a short time afterwards Sandra's godmother died and left her a very delightful small Queen Anne Manor house in the country. Everything went well for the young married pair. Stephen plunged into Parliamentary life with renewed ardour, Sandra aided and abetted him in every way, identifying herself heart and soul with his ambitions. Sometimes, Stephen would think with an almost incredulous realisation of how Fortune had favoured him! His alliance with the powerful Kidderminster faction assured him of rapid rise in his career. His own ability and brilliance would consolidate the position that opportunity made for him. He believed honestly in his own powers and was prepared to work unsparingly for the good of his country.

Often, looking across the table at his wife, he felt gladly what a perfect helpmate she was – just what he had always imagined. He liked the lovely clean lines of her head and neck, the direct hazel eyes under their level brows, the rather high white forehead and the faint arrogance of her aquiline nose. She looked, he thought, rather like a racehorse – so very well groomed, so instinct with breeding, so proud. He found her an ideal companion, their minds raced alike to the same quick conclusions. Yes, he thought, Stephen Farraday, that little disconsolate boy, had done very well for himself. His life was shaping exactly as he had meant it to be.

He was only a year or two over thirty and already success lay in the hollow of his hand.

And in that mood of triumphant satisfaction, he went with his wife for a fortnight to St Moritz , and looking across the hotel lounge saw Rosemary Barton.

What happened to him at that moment he never understood. By a kind of poetic revenge the words he had spoken to another woman came true. Across a room he fell in love.

Deeply, overwhelmingly, crazily in love. It was the kind of desperate, headlong, adolescent calf love that he should have experienced years ago and got over.

He had always assumed that he was not a passionate type of man. One or two ephemeral affairs, a mild flirtation – that, so far as he knew, was all that "love" meant to him. Sensual pleasures simply did not appeal to him. He told himself that he was too fastidious for that sort of thing.

If he had been asked if he loved his wife, he would have replied "Certainly" – yet he knew, well enough, that he would not have dreamed of marrying her if she had been, say, the daughter of a penniless country gentleman. He liked her, admired her and felt a deep affection for her and also a very real gratitude for what her position had brought him.

That he could fall in love with the abandon and misery of a callow boy was a revelation.