“Is that why ...?”
“Why I guessed? ... Oh, no, your pretence has been quite creditable on the whole. Just a few slips, but if I hadn’t happened to see the real Erika ... I have a very good eye for faces, though I must say at first you got me puzzled.”
“I am in your hands,” she said, hardly above a whisper.
“And fortunate for you, Erika, that it is my hands you have fallen into ... By the way, what is your real name?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, not really. I don’t want to inquire into your business. I’m not going to ask you why you’re doing it. No doubt you have your reasons which make it worth while, though I must say I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes if you get found out. The Hanbridges are a charming family, don’t you think? But somehow I don’t imagine they would care to be imposed upon. But there’s no reason, of course, why you should get found out—especially with my help.”
“What is it you want me to do for you?” Poppy asked as calmly and coldly as she could.
“It is quite simple. I want you to pay me very marked attention—in fact I want you to go further; I want you to flirt with me; I want you to convey the very definite impression that you have fallen in love with me ... Oh, don’t worry, my dear, I have no designs on you. You are very pretty and very charming but my interests lie elsewhere.”
“In other words you want me to try and make someone else jealous? Who is it?”
“I haven’t asked you anything about yourself.”
“I only asked you so that if I agree to do what you suggest I should know for whose benefit I am to play this part and may therefore make a special effort when she is present.” There was withering sarcasm in her voice.
“Well, I have no objection to telling you. I am more friendly than you, my dear Erika. It is Daphne Cunningham. I wish to marry her. I would go so far as to say that I intend to marry her, but at the moment she is sure of me, which is a very bad thing for a woman to be—from the man’s point of view that is—but she is not one to let a conquest slip through her fingers. She is not going to let me go in a hurry. A girl like you—or rather a girl such as you are pretending to be—could seem a most formidable rival. Jealousy of you could make her forget Romilly. Yes, there is only one thing standing in my way now and that is your precious cousin, Romilly”—a note crept into his voice here which told Erika how desperately jealous he was of Romilly. “She imagines herself in love with him—and that is where you can help me further, by trying to find out all you can about his real feelings for her. They are a mystery to me at the moment, and I believe that they are a mystery to her too, in spite of what she tells me to the contrary...”
“Does she think he is in love with her?”
“She says he is ... Now I haven’t asked very much of you, have I?”
“I suppose you know that there is a very ugly name for what you are suggesting?”
“What is that, my dear?”
“Blackmail.” She did not know how much hardness and bitterness she had managed to put into that one word or into the look of unutterable contempt she had thrown at him.
"Come, come, my dear, rather let us call it mutual assistance.”
“I must consider it.”
“Is there really any need? Can you refuse?”
“Most certainly I can.”
“All right, I won’t press you. I’ll give you until the end of the races today.”
“Will we be meeting enough to make your little plan worth while?” she asked hopefully.
“We shall meet every day this week, and at the weekend. Not only here on the course but at the charity ball at Arundel Castle, and there are always a great many other parties during Goodwood Week ... In fact, I think you will find it rather useful to have me constantly at your side. I might be able to save you from some very awkward situations. You need a friend, you know, my dear...”
“And what if I refuse to do what you ask?”
“I think it would be my duty to go to Lord Hanbridge, don’t you? After all, I am a very great friend of the family.”
He said it quite gently but she was not deceived by his tone. She knew he meant it. He was without mercy.
“The bell has gone,” he said. “We had better be going to the stand or we shall miss the race ... After the last race I shall say goodbye to you. If you say to me then, ‘I hope I shall be seeing you again’, I shall know that you are going to be a sensible girl, but if you don’t say that then I am afraid it will be necessary for me to telephone for an appointment with Lord Hanbridge in the morning.” Poppy did not say anything but turned and walked a little way in front of him to the stand. All the others, together with Lord and Lady Hanbridge, were about half way up the stand and they climbed up to join them.
“What have you backed?” Romilly asked Poppy.
“I haven’t backed anything,” she answered dully. She felt so sick at heart that she was surprised she could find a voice at all.
“Then what have you been doing all this time?”
“I have been pointing out all the celebrities to her,” Arthur answered for her.
Romilly frowned and then lifted his glasses to his eyes as the horses came cantering past towards the starting-post.
Poppy hardly saw the race, was hardly conscious of the people around her except for Romilly of whom she was acutely aware. She longed to be able to sit down quietly and put her head in her hands and think out this terrible new development. What was she to do? Her natural instinct was to confess everything to Romilly at once and thereby put herself out of the power of this awful man, but it was not her own secret; it was Erika’s. If she were found out, if she were given away, it could not be helped, but it was her duty as far as it was in her power to carry through this deception. She had taken money from Erika to do a specific thing and she could not confess the truth now without letting Erika down. There was really no course open to her other than to comply with what this villain had suggested, although the very idea of having to flirt with him went against everything in her nature.
The time between each race dragged endlessly because she was unable to get up any interest in what was happening, and yet she hoped that the last race would never come.
And then a reprieve, or what she thought might be a reprieve, came to her. There were six races in all and after the fifth Lord and Lady Hanbridge announced their intention of going home. “Oh, might I come with you?” Erika asked quickly.
“Certainly, my dear. Are you tired?”
“Not tired. I’ve enjoyed it all tremendously, but to tell you the truth I got a blister on my heel during our walk yesterday and it’s hurting rather.”
“You poor thing, why didn’t you tell me? Have you got some plaster? ... You shall certainly come home with us and I will treat it for you.”
“You are so kind.” Poppy felt a sudden almost overwhelming desire to cry. What would Lady Hanbridge do and say if she broke down when they got home and told her everything? Somehow she could not imagine this sweet, gentle lady being anything but kind and forgiving. No, it was not Lady Hanbridge whom Poppy really feared: it was Romilly and his father; and besides, as she had told herself so often, it was not her own secret; it was Erika’s. She herself had no free will in the matter.
Arthur Bingle was not present during this interchange with Lady Hanbridge, but Romilly was there and expressed concern for her. “I walked you too hard yesterday,” he said.
“Oh, no. It was my own silly fault for wearing shoes without stockings.”
“Anyway, you must get it well before our walk on the Downs at the week-end.”
“I certainly shall. I’m so looking forward to it.”
By leaving before the last race Poppy knew that she had only postponed the evil moment of committing herself to Bingle, but she hoped that she might have postponed it until the next day at least. In this she was to be disappointed, however. She was in her own room that evening just starting to change for dinner when Florence came
in to tell her that she was wanted on the telephone. She put on her dressing-gown and went down to the telephone in the hall, which was empty, wondering who on earth it could be, and rather dreading that it might possibly be one of Erika’s parents. But it was Arthur Bingle. There was no mistaking that voice which already she had come to loathe. “Erika?” he said. “I was so sorry not to see you to say good-bye, and so sorry to hear you have a bad foot.”
“It is only a blister on my heel and Lady Hanbridge has very kindly given me some ointment and plaster for it.”
“Have you got anything to say to me?” he asked, “or do you want me to come up and have a little talk with Lord Hanbridge in the morning?”
“I hope I shall see you again,” she murmured in an almost inaudible voice.
“That’s a sensible girl ... I shall see you at the races tomorrow, and I gather that we are all to meet afterwards for cocktails at Daphne Cunningham’s ... Well, goodnight. Pleasant dreams.”
As she put down the receiver, the door of the drawing room opened and Romilly entered the hall on his way up to change. “Telephoning?” he asked. “Was it your mother? I hope there is good news of her.”
“No—no. It wasn’t Mother.” She did not say who it was, thus inadvertently giving the impression that it had been a secret call. Romilly did not say any more and they went upstairs together in silence.
CHAPTER FIVE
POPPY was to find in the course of the next few days that instead of being a party of six young people as she had expected they were virtually a party of eight, because Daphne Cunningham and Arthur Bingle seemed always to be with them. Daphne lived in a small white house a few miles from Hanbridge which she had rented for the summer, while Arthur Bingle owned the Manor House near by. They all met each day at the races and afterwards they either went back to Daphne’s house, or else Arthur and Daphne came back with them to Hanbridge Court.
In any other circumstances Poppy would have enjoyed the rush .and gaiety of her present life. It was fun to do things in a party, and she liked every member of it except Daphne and Arthur, and it was also fun living like this at high pressure, but the undertaking she had given to Arthur was so hateful to her that it almost overshadowed the realization that she was only there at all as an imposter.
In all their activities it was Romilly who was the leader. The others looked to him for everything as a matter of course. It was he who decided what they should do and where they should go and how long they should stay in any particular place. They had several cars between them but it didn’t take Poppy long to realize that as far as the girls were concerned, at any rate, Bumble was the favorite. They all wanted to go with Romilly, including herself, but too often Arthur Bingle, by a look or a word, forced her to go with him in his car. Perhaps her anxiety had sharpened her sense of perception, but almost immediately she guessed Philippa’s secret—that she was in love with Dennis—but Dennis also seemed to prefer being in Bumble with Romilly to being in his own car, so naturally Philippa preferred Bumble too.
Poppy watched Romilly and Daphne closely, not so much because Arthur had asked her to, as because she herself was interested. There was no doubt in her mind but that Daphne wished to conquer him, but whether because she was in love with him or because she was piqued that he was not as malleable in her hands as she could have wished, she could not be sure. Nor was she at all sure of Romilly’s own feelings. Certainly he was not under her thumb, but she could not help feeling that he was dangerously attracted by her, nor could she wonder at it. She, Poppy, did not like her but she did see what overwhelming attraction she might have for some men. She was so chic, so sure of herself, so sophisticated. Her small drawing-room seemed to be a magnet for every man in the neighborhood, and this again Poppy could understand. There were always drinks on the side table, always ice in the ice bucket; usually there was soft dance music on the gramophone; there was a plethora of comfortable armchairs and all the latest magazines lying about—and moreover there was always good company. It was more like a very luxurious free club than a private house.
As the weather continued to be gloriously fine and warm, the door stood permanently open to the garden, and outside on the brick terrace there were luxurious garden chairs by the side of a grass tennis court.
Poppy’s own feelings were a strange medley. In spite of her invidious position, in spite of the hateful bargain she had entered into with Bingle, in spite of her general state of anxiety and sense of guilt, there were moments when she found herself exquisitely happy—and those moments were when she was close to Romilly. When she was near him she was apt to forget everything but his presence, and when he was away from her it was exactly as if the sun had gone in.
Had she been accustomed to falling in love she might have understood sooner what was happening to her, instead of which she accounted for her feelings by telling herself that his conversation was so much more intelligent and interesting than anyone else’s, and his gaiety and high spirits so infectious.
As it happened Poppy had never been in love in her life before and therefore she did not recognize the symptoms. She did not know that this extraordinary sweetness in the mere presence of another human being, this sense of being more alive when he was close to her, this joy she experienced in the tone of his voice, this strange fondness for the clothes that belonged to him however ordinary in themselves (even the dullness of mackintoshes can take on a magic because it is impressed with the magic of a personality)—she did not know that all these unaccountable sensations were the first symptoms of a dangerous malady which might later turn her into the happiest or the most miserable of mortals.
Several men had been in love with Poppy at various times, and she herself had been attracted to a few, but when she had applied to them a certain test in her mind she had found them all wanting. She had asked herself, “Would I like this man as my life-long companion, day in, day out? Would I like him as a permanent guest in my home?” The answer had always been no, and because it was no she had realized in time that far from love it was merely a superficial attraction that she felt, and thereafter she had been very careful in her behavior towards that particular man for fear of leading him on to have false hopes. But where Romilly was concerned she did not ask herself these questions because it did not occur to her that she could be such a fool as to allow herself to have any particular feeling for him one way or the other. She did think once or twice what a pity it was that Erika had fallen in love with Lew, because otherwise she might so easily have found happiness with Romilly—that was, of course, if Romilly’s affections were not already engaged by Daphne.
Arthur Bingle questioned her closely on this point on Wednesday at the races. Had she been able to find out anything yet?
“How can I find out anything?”
“You could have a talk to Philippa. She’s very dose to him. She may know something.”
“I couldn’t possibly do that. I’m not in the least intimate with Philippa.”
“Well, become intimate with her. She’s your cousin, isn’t she?”
“You can’t force intimacy even with a relation.”
“You can foster it ... Anyway, what do you yourself think? What does your precious feminine intuition tell you?”
“I have hardly seen them together.”
Arthur Bingle stuck close to her all the afternoon, and though she did nothing to avoid him, it was more than she could do actually to flirt with him. At another moment when he had her alone he complained of this. “I want you to play an active, not just a passive, part,” he scolded.
“It would be ridiculous. I’m not the flirtatious type,” she replied.
“Well, at least evince some positive pleasure in my attentions.”
“I am doing my best.”
“Then your best isn’t good enough. You’ll have to do better than this.”
She was thankful to find that he did not wish to be alone with her more than was necessary to give her instructions. He wanted as much as po
ssible to be under Daphne’s eyes, and as Daphne clung to Romilly, Poppy’s behavior could not escape the latter. That second day at the races it must have appeared to Romilly that she liked Arthur Bingle very much, to say the least of it, but he could not have accused her of definitely flirting with him. Later it was different, however, as Poppy, under Bingle’s threats, began to show a more and more marked preference for him.
After the races that day they all went back to Daphne’s house for a late tea. Several other people dropped in so that they were quite a large party. Daphne put on the gramophone, willing hands turned back the carpet and some of them danced. Bingle danced with Poppy, and when, during a slow waltz, he put his cheek against hers she did not withdraw it although everything in her rebelled against this contact with him.
When finally they left to return to Hanbridge Court for dinner, Poppy was so thankful to get into Bumble beside Romilly that she sank back with her eyes closed.
“Tired?” Romilly asked her.
“Yes, I am a little.”
“But your heel’s better?”
“Oh, yes, thank you. It’s quite all right again, thanks to your mother.”
“It must be all right for the ball tomorrow.” He was referring to the annual ball at Arundel Castle for which they had tickets.
“More important still to be all right for our walk,” she said. “I would like to buy a pair of proper walking shoes.”
“I’ll take you into Chichester tomorrow to buy a pair.” When Romilly told Philippa the next morning that he was taking Erika into Chichester to buy a pair of shoes, she exclaimed, “What, another pair? She can’t possibly want another pair. She’s got about a hundred already!”
“But apparently none that she can walk in.”
This conversation took place up in Lady Hanbridge’s bedroom where the family met each morning to discuss plans for the day.
“Do you know what, I believe she has fallen for Arthur Bingle,” Philippa said. “I don’t know how she can.”
Once You Have Found Him Page 7