Hell Or High Water

by Anne Mather

  ‘Except your two selves?’ murmured the housekeeper thoughtfully. ‘And does he care about you?’

  ‘He says he does,’ Helen yielded doubtfully. ‘But it’s not that easy.’

  ‘Why not?’ Mrs Hetherington frowned, and then her face took on a dawning recognition. ‘Ah, I think I’m beginning to understand.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘The young devil! I’d like to give him a piece of my mind!’

  Helen blinked. ‘What are you talking about, Mrs Hetherington?’

  The housekeeper tilted her head. ‘He wants to have his cake and eat it, doesn’t he?’ she declared. ‘He’s quite prepared to cuckold Mr Connaught, so long as he has no responsibilities—’

  ‘Oh, no. No!’ Helen shook her head. ‘It’s not like that, Mrs Hetherington. He—he wants me to break off my engagement to Charles. But he doesn’t want to marry me. Only—only to live with me.’

  ‘Tch!’ Mrs Hetherington was shocked. ‘That’s disgusting!’

  ‘Is it? Is it?’ Helen gazed at her dubiously, and then gasped in dismay when her mother’s voice exclaimed: ‘I should just think it is!’ in shaken, disbelieving tones.

  ‘Mummy!’

  Helen jerked up from her chair as Mrs Chase came into the room, warmly attired in a candlewick dressing gown, her skin still shiny with the cream she had applied the night before. But Helen scarcely noticed her mother’s appearance. Her attention was focussed on her mother’s face and the horrified expression it wore.

  ‘What is all this, Helen?’ she exclaimed, and Mrs Hetherington spread a helpless hand as she left the table to wash their dirty cups. ‘Did I hear aright? You’re saying that Jarret has asked you to live with him?’

  Helen sighed. ‘That’s what it amounts to, yes.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Her mother came towards her briskly, laying a cool hand against Helen’s hot forehead. ‘Why, you’re burning up! You must be having hallucinations. Why on earth would Jarret ask you to live with him?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘He says he loves me. Or—or he did.’

  Mrs Chase looked absolutely staggered, and as if realising how she was feeling, the housekeeper came round the table and helped her into a chair. ‘The kettle’s on again,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I expect you’d like some tea, too.’

  ‘Please.’ Helen’s mother nodded weakly. Then she looked up at her daughter again. ‘You’d better tell me what’s been going on? Are you pregnant?’

  Helen gasped. ‘Honestly, do I look as if I’m pregnant? No, no, of course I’m not pregnant.’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ Mrs Chase spoke half to herself. ‘Jarret would have more sense than to allow that to happen.’

  ‘I haven’t slept with him, Mummy!’ Helen exclaimed helplessly. ‘That’s what all this is about.’

  Mrs Chase sighed. ‘Does this have anything to do with the fact that Jarret didn’t come home last night?’

  Helen nodded.

  ‘Were you with him last night?’

  ‘Part of the time, yes. He—he drove me home from the Connaughts’.’

  ‘But you said Charles had driven you home.’

  ‘No, you just assumed that,’ Helen corrected her quietly. ‘And I didn’t contradict you.’

  ‘And you had a row, I presume.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Mrs Chase looked incredulously towards the housekeeper. ‘I can’t believe any of this.’

  ‘There was no need for you to know, Mummy,’ Helen put in unsteadily. ‘I—I just needed to talk to someone, that’s all.’

  ‘And you couldn’t talk to me?’

  Helen bent her head. ‘You were always so—so convinced that I was biased towards Jarret.’

  ‘You were.’ Her mother shook her head. ‘You still are. Only now you’re not aware of it.’

  Helen shrugged. ‘In any case, it’s all hypothetical. Jarret’s leaving for the States soon. They’re going to film his first book, and they’ve invited him out there to sign the contracts.’

  Mrs Chase showed little enthusiasm. ‘And you? What about you? Are you going with him?’

  ‘He invited me to,’ Helen conceded.

  ‘Oh, God!’ Her mother gazed at her. ‘What about the wedding?’

  Helen felt slightly hysterical. ‘That’s my cue to say—what wedding, isn’t it? Oh, Mummy, how can I marryCharles when I don’t love him?’

  ‘It seems to me you’re in no state to make any decision at the moment,’ her mother retorted recovering slightly. ‘When Jarret gets back, we’ll have this out—’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Helen backed away from her. ‘I—Jarret and I have said all there is to say on the matter. He—I—I won’t live with him, and he doesn’t want marriage. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘And what about Charles?’

  ‘Yes, what about Charles?’ echoed Helen dully. ‘Don’t you see? I can’t go through with the wedding feeling like this. I can’t.’

  ‘But it’s still several weeks to the wedding,’ protested Mrs Chase severely. ‘Why, your dress is made and hanging in the wardrobe. The bridesmaids have all been chosen. Why, even the flowers—’

  ‘Please…’ Helen couldn’t bear for her to go on. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. I—I have to get dressed. Karen’s expecting me at a quarter to nine.’

  It was only as she was dressing that Helen realised her car was out of commission. It meant she would have to ask her mother if she could borrow the Triumph and the implications of that did not appeal to her. However, Mrs Chase had gone back to bed, with a headache according to Mrs Hetherington, and Helen only put her head round her mother’s bedroom door and asked for the favour.

  ‘Do what you like,’ declared her mother tearfully, but Helen refused to be drawn. Closing the door again, she went quietly down the stairs and let herself out of the house.

  As luck would have it, the shop had a busy day, and Helen succeeded in avoiding Karen’s usually vigilant eyes. John Fleming’s arrival as the shop was about to close was another stroke of luck, and Helen willingly agreed to close up alone so that Karen could leave at once.

  ‘We’re going on the river,’ she confessed in the privacy of the back room, outlining her lips with a crimson lacquer. ‘This business associate of John’s has lent him his launch for the weekend, and we’re going to have a look at it tonight.’

  ‘Well, take care,’ said Helen dryly, wishing she was asuninhibited as her friend, and Karen chuckled as she sauntered out.

  With Karen’s departure, Helen picked up the phone. She had called at the garage on her way to work that morning, asking them to tow her car in for a thorough checkover, and they had suggested she rang that afternoon. To her relief she learned there was nothing seriously wrong with it, and she was agreeing to pick it up later when the shop bell rang.

  Replacing the receiver, Helen went to serve the late customer, and then stopped aghast when she saw it was Charles. He was standing in the outer showroom, his usually pleasant features drawn into a tight scowl, and his expression did not alter when he saw her.

  ‘Why, Charles,’ she exclaimed, wishing she had been more prepared for this. ‘What a surprise!’

  ‘I’ve come to take you home,’ he declared, limping as he crossed the floor. ‘It is closing time, isn’t it? I saw that Medley-Smythe woman leaving with Fleming. I see no reason why you should have to carry on if she’s finished for the day.’

  Helen sighed. ‘I offered to stay on,’ she explained. Then; ‘How are you? How’s your leg?’

  Charles thrust his hands into the pockets of his sports coat. ‘My knee is sprained, thank you,’ he asserted. ‘Had Bluthner look at it this morning, but I knew it was nothing serious. No thanks to you.’

  ‘To me?’

  Helen thought he was joking, but Charles was deadly serious. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I’d not have been out there, frightening the animals and bruising my leg.’

  Helen stared at him. She could have said that she had certainly not wanted to ent
er the stables, but there was no point in arguing. He would never listen to her, and besides, it wasn’t worth the effort.

  Instead she said: ‘Well, I’m glad your leg’s all right, Charles, but I don’t need you to take me home.’

  ‘Why not?’ Charles’s scowl deepened. ‘I know you don’t have your car. I saw it in Bethnel’s garage this morning, and I guessed Manning picked you up. He did, didn’t he? And brought you to work, no doubt. Well, I’m damned ifhe’s going to take you home!’

  ‘He’s not,’ retorted Helen, locking the till and the office door. ‘I borrowed Mummy’s car, actually. So I’m independent.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Charles snorted illhumouredly. ‘All right then, I’ll follow you back to King’s Green. I want to have a few words with Manning myself, and now is as good a time as any.’

  ‘You can’t. That is—’ Helen felt an intense weariness. ‘What do you want to say to Jarret, Charles? He’s not to blame for our problems.’

  ‘Our problems! What problems?’ Charles glared at her. ‘We don’t have any problems. Only interference.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Helen shook her head. ‘I don’t know if I can go through with our marriage, Charles. I—I don’t love you. I don’t think I ever did.’

  Charles was obviously staggered now, and he gazed at her with disbelieving eyes. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying—’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘—you’re distraught. That business with Poseidon last night—well, I guess I was to blame, but you shouldn’t have pretended you’d got over your fears.’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ said Helen unhappily. ‘We—we don’t think alike—’

  ‘What do you mean? We read the same books. We watch the same television programmes!’

  ‘Oh, Charles, life is more than books and television programmes! There are other things…’

  ‘Sex, I suppose you mean.’

  ‘That, too, of course.’

  ‘It’s the fault of that Smythe woman, isn’t it? She’s been filling your head with stories of her experiences, I suppose. Well, let me tell you most women would be glad—yes, glad I hadn’t made any unnecessary demands on them—’

  ‘Unnecessary demands!’ Helen felt that recurring bubble of hysteria. ‘Charles, sex is not an unnecessary demand! It’s something wonderful—something beautiful! Something two people share—in love—’

  ‘How do you know?’ Charles pushed his face close to hers.

  Helen hesitated. Then she knew she had to go on. ‘I—I know because—because Jarret showed me,’ she said, quietly and succinctly, then staggered backward as Charles’s hand struck her savagely across the mouth.

  ‘You little—’ he snarled. ‘How dare you stand there and tell me that Manning—that you and Manning—’

  ‘Please go, Charles!’ Somehow Helen was amazingly calm. Removing his ring from her finger, she placed it on the showcase beside him, before wrapping her arms closely about herself. ‘I—I was uncertain. I did have—doubts. But—but not any longer.’

  Charles stared down at the ring as if he’d never seen it before, and then he looked at her with disbelieving eyes. ‘You—you can’t do this,’ he blustered. ‘I mean, having an affair with Manning is one thing, breaking our engagement is another. Look—’ He put out his hand appealingly, but she evaded it. ‘Look, don’t be hasty. I mean, I’m prepared to overlook what you’ve just said. I was overwrought, and so were you. It would be foolish to destroy our future over such a—such a paltry thing.’

  ‘You hit me, Charles,’ said Helen steadily. ‘I can’t overlook that. You were provoked, I know, but—striking a woman—I can’t forgive that.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ Charles was cajoling her now, reaching out and shaking her in evident desperation. ‘Helen—well, all right, I’m sorry. Yes, I am, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again—’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ said Helen flatly. ‘Because I don’t want to see you again.’

  Charles’s eyes mirrored his astonishment, but his hands fell to his sides. Then, as if realising he only had one more card to play, he added: ‘You don’t imagine Manning is serious about you, do you? You’re just a little diversion he’s provided himself with for the time he’s here—’

  ‘Go away, Charles!’ Helen didn’t want to listen to him, but he was relentless.

  ‘I know his type,’ he went on, ‘I’ve met them before. Very successful with the ladies, oh, yes, very successful, but no staying power, if you know what I mean.’

  Helen couldn’t bear to listen to any more. Brushing pasthim, she opened the shop door, saying tremulously: ‘Are you going to leave, or do I lock you in for the night?’

  Charles stared at her, his face contorting furiously. ‘You little tramp,’ he muttered. ‘My God, to think I wanted to marry you!’ He snatched up his ring. ‘I must have been out of my mind!’

  ‘One of us was,’ agreed Helen tightly, bending her head as he charged past her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT was the telephone that had awakened her, Helen realised, with a sense of disorientation. The telephone ringing shrilly at six o’clock in the morning, when she had only been asleep since four. Wearily she dragged herself out of bed and down the stairs, wondering why her mother never answered calls at unsociable hours. Perhaps she had taken another sleeping pill, she reflected. She had tried to get her daughter to take one, after all, and although Helen had resisted her efforts, she probably had not.

  Helen hardly knew. She felt she hardly knew anything any more. It was four nights since Jarret’s departure, and neither of them had slept well since. Mrs Chase’s disappointment at her daughter’s broken engagement had added to her emotional upheaval, but the fact that there had been no word from Jarret, no call to say how he was or where he was staying, had gradually superseded all other considerations. Neither of them had felt able to make the enquiries necessary to find out where he was, and in consequence Mrs Chase had acquired some sleeping tablets from the doctor, and Helen continued to have sleepless nights.

  Now she padded barefoot across the hall, her toes curling against the polished wood. She had not bothered to stop and put on her dressing gown, and the tail of her nightshirt flapped coolly against her thighs, but she was hardly aware of it. She was only intent on lifting the telephone receiver and stopping the awful din.

  ‘Hello?’

  Her voice was husky, still drowsy from the deep slumber she had been dragged out of, but unmistakably feminine.

  ‘Helen?’ The response was energetic and masculine. ‘Is that you, Helen? Thank God! I thought for a minute it was your mother.’

  Helen blinked, rubbing one eye with the tips of her fingers. ‘Vincent?’ she exclaimed, hardly believing it. ‘Vincent, what are you doing ringing at this hour of the morning? Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a little after six,’ he retorted, sounding impatient. ‘I had to ring at this time. I wanted to catch you before big brother catches me!’

  Helen sank down wearily on to the chest beside the telephone. ‘Big brother?’ she echoed. ‘Charles? What has Charles got to do with it?’

  Vincent made an expressive sound. ‘What has he not?’ he exclaimed. ‘Helen, stop asking questions and listen to me. Will you go and see Jarret?’

  Helen was glad she was sitting down. If she hadn’t been, she most likely would have collapsed in a heap on the floor. ‘Jarret?’ she said faintly, trying to gather her composure, and Vincent confirmed what he had just said.

  ‘That’s right. I know it’s not an easy decision, but honestly, Helen, if you don’t—well, I won’t answer for what happens.’

  Helen was disturbed now. There was an anxious note in Vincent’s voice that bore little resemblance to his normally casual way of speaking, and his words were strange and unnatural. Helen, striving for command of her own feelings, had little left to spare for his, but she sensed he was concerned and that filled her with alarm.

  ‘He hasn’t—he isn’t—I mean,
he didn’t have an accident, did he? Jarret, I mean,’ she hastened anxiously, and Vincent broke in to deny this.

  ‘You mean when he left the other night, don’t you?’ he demanded heavily. ‘No, he didn’t have an accident.’

  ‘Then what?’ Helen was growing impatient now. ‘Vincent, for goodness’ sake, what is all this about?’

  Vincent hesitated. ‘Helen, I’m worried about him—’

  ‘Worried about him?’

  ‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘Look, I don’t know how you feel about him, but I guess you feel something, despite what Chas says.’

  ‘Charles?’ Helen drew an uneven breath. ‘What does Charles say?’

  ‘Oh, you know what Chas is like. He’s so tied up with those horses of his, he hardly knows what’s going on around him. So far as he’s concerned, you’re engaged, and that naturally precludes—’

  ‘But we’re not!’ Helen interrupted him. ‘Engaged, Imean. I—I broke it off three days ago.’

  ‘You did?’ Vincent sounded at once astonished and relieved. ‘But he’s never said a damn thing. And neither have you.’

  ‘Oh, Vincent!’ Helen shook her head. ‘Since—since Jarret left, we’ve been—I don’t know—in a state of upheaval. Mummy’s refused to see anyone, and seems to think if she doesn’t discuss the matter, it will all go away. I thought Charles—’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t. Not a goddamn word. That’s why I’m ringing you at this unearthly hour. I got back from London last night and—’

  ‘Jarret’s in London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘At his apartment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh,’ Helen’s voice was flat, ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’ Vincent didn’t sound convinced. ‘He’s in Kennington, actually. At his stepfather’s house in Lambeth Terrace.’

  Helen gulped. ‘But I thought—’

  ‘I know what you thought. Some female, right? You don’t know him very well, do you? It’s you he’s crazy about.’ He paused. ‘And I was all ready to blow you up for making a fool of him!’

  Helen trembled. ‘But you’re worried about him, aren’t you? Why?’ Her brow furrowed. ‘He didn’t catch pneumonia the other night, did he? He was soaked to the skin when he left here.’