The Made Marriage Read Free Page B

TWO
    WITH a little thud a small pile of letters popped through the letterbox and Margot, watching her young cousin closely, saw with renewed misgiving how quickly she laid down the feather duster with which she had been dreamily flicking the window display and, picking up the bundle, hastily extracted an envelope and almost covertly slid it into her pocket. Frowning, Margot returned to her task of making out tiny tickets for the coming sale.
    It had been Kenneth who had suggested that the best and quickest way to dispose of the stock was to mark it down drastically. The practical side that was strong in Margot recognised that in this Kenneth was showing business acumen, yet it was with a sense of sadness that she went about her task. It was a sort of betrayal to part with her treasures at such miserable prices.
    Kate, too, when she had first heard of the coming sale, had been vociferous in her indignation and had been strongly resentful when her favourite, a carved ivory mandarin, had suffered the indignity of having a sales ticket tucked behind his fan. Lately, however, Kate’s attitude had changed : it was as though she had lost all interest in the fate of The Trinket Box and was dreamily absorbed in a world of her own.
    At first Margot had not taken any particular notice of her cousin’s abstraction. Kate, naturally talkative and extrovert, could also be irritatingly vague, but at the same time it was impossible not to notice the lack of involvement she was displaying in their future. Even the interest she had originally shown in helping to choose materials and furnishings for the home Margot would share with Kenneth had evaporated and she listened with only half an ear to discussions of the pros and cons of the various samples of carpeting and wallpaper which were now spread out over every available piece of space in the small sitting-room.
    Gradually it had become impossible to ignore the interest Kate now took in the arrival of the post and her eager scanning of the envelopes before laying them on the counter. It was her cousin’s uncharacteristic air of secrecy that troubled Margot most and it was with dismay she now saw Kate, after a few moments more of dilatory dusting, quickly leave the shop and run upstairs.
    Unaware that she had been observed, Kate, her heart thumping with excitement, crossed to her bedside table and, taking the paper-knife fashioned as a miniature Toledo sword that Margot had presented to her on her last birthday, carefully slit the envelope, extracted its contents, then sat down on the edge of her bed and with trembling fingers unfolded the pale green sheets that were now so familiar.
    At the beginning Owen had made lighthearted fun of his choice of writing material: ‘It’s green, because I’m a broth of an Irish boy’, he had written in his broad slanting script. But that had been in the early days soon after she had sent that first tentative letter and enclosed, with embarrassment, the snapshot Margot had taken of her. It had been touch-and-go whether s he would get to the stage of posting it and for days had carried it around in her handbag feeling progressively more foolish before almost feverishly pushing it into the postbox. Was it really she, Kate Norbert, who was actually answering an advertisement in a matrimonial column inserted by an unknown Irish farmer, probably living in the centre of some almost impassable bog?—yet in spite of the fact that she should be heartily ashamed of herself she could not help feeling excitement and anticipation every time the postman arrived.
    As the days passed and there had been no reply she had felt rather relieved that her foolishness could be forgotten. Then when that first letter had arrived, with her name broadly scrawled on the green envelope, she had opened it reluctantly, almost fearful of its contents, but as her eyes had scanned the slanting strokes gradually her sense of apprehension had been dispersed, for he had assured her that,