by Jane Arbor
She flushed. ‘I was utterly taken aback. It was so unexpected among Madame de Faye’s correspondence.’
He was watching her closely. ‘Unexpected? But not impossible that it should be there? You may even have thought you recognised it—or something like it? Am I right?’
‘In a way,’ she whispered.
Then you knew Barbara has had a succession of these things. Who told you about them? Did she?’
‘No. She’s never mentioned them. Tina did.’
‘Who’d heard of them from?’
‘From—Madame de Faye.’
‘As one who should know—if anyone did,’ Craig murmured significantly. ‘But if all you knew of them was through hearsay from Tina, how come you jumped to what it was when you saw it tonight?’
‘Because I found one by accident and had read it, though knowing I shouldn’t. And because of a chance thing Crispin had said. About—about his stepmother’s practising writing with her left hand.’
‘Tell?’ Craig invited.
She told him—the details of both happenings and of the intuition which had interlocked them in her mind.
‘I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it!’ she pleaded.
‘But have had it forced on you now?’
‘I’m afraid so. It looks like it, doesn’t it?’
He did not reply at once. He took up the envelope, slit it and scanned the paper it contained. ‘If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I must say, anonymity does limit the writer’s style,’ he said with distaste. And then, after a pause, ‘Would it help at all to know that I’d had my suspicions too?’
‘You had? Of—of Madame de Faye?’
‘Though without any proof I could take to Barbara.’
‘She’d told you she was getting them?’
‘After the first one, yes.’ He replaced the sheet in the envelope and put it into his breast pocket ‘All right,’ he told Hope. ‘And thank you. I’ll handle it now. May I drive you home?’
Bewildered, her mind a tangle of questions, she said, ‘No, thank you. I have the scooter and I shall need it in the morning.’ If only he were less non-committal! If only she dared ask him what this had done to his relations with Victoire! On her way to the door she turned. ‘You are going to have to tell Barbara what we’ve learned, aren’t you?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Of course. If you haven’t told her first.’
Surprised, ‘You want me to? I may? Tonight, when I get back?’
‘Surely? In fact, I wonder that, as her friend, you haven’t already told her of your suspicions of Victoire.’
‘I felt I hadn’t the right. You must know why?’ she hazarded.
But he didn’t take up that gage. ‘Well, you have the right now. To tell Barbara the truth with my blessing,’ he said.
More puzzled than ever, Hope stared at him. He sounded completely careless of the effect of Barbara’s being given the means to a strong case of libel against Victoire. Didn’t he care then what happened to Victoire? Wasn’t he perhaps as involved with her as Victoire hoped and as he seemed? And supposing he weren’t, after all?
Supposing—?
She was to have her answer without having to voice the empty, vain hope of that question when Craig spoke, putting a question of his own—‘What would you say, if I told you I was thinking of asking Barbara to marry me?’
CHAPTER TEN
It seemed to Hope that in the few seconds which followed she suffered a world of conflicting emotions, of which the uppermost were shock and a desolate ache of self-pity. Except for his occasional oblique praise of her and some rare overtures of kindness he had never given her the slightest hope that, should he reject Victoire, he had ever thought of herself as any other than the efficient robot he claimed he wanted her to be. For him, as a woman, she lit no spark.
And yet, and yet—her own feelings for him had needed to feed on something, and though her everyday sanity should have known better, it was not always the equal of the imaginary raptures of ‘supposings’ which the memory of one or two special moments could arouse.
Supposing, that first morning in the office, his hand intimately and unnecessarily on her shoulder had meant that he found her a little desirable? Supposing she had not been able to hide from him that in giving him her injured hand to bandage, she had been over-sensitive to the prospect of his touch? Supposing the deliberation of his kiss had been a genuine statement of a love which wanted answering? Supposing his arm about her for the purpose of that non-event of a snapshot had really been a lover’s? Supposing—But now, with the certainty which his question made clear, all the dreams exploded. Of course for him there was Barbara. However she might have misunderstood their differences and parting, there must always have been Barbara. There was going to be Barbara for him again. And she had to try to be glad.
Craig was waiting for her to speak, his look of enquiry intent. She swallowed on a hardness in her throat and managed, ‘I—I’m awfully surprised. And of course, happy for you both. I thought—That is, I—’ She couldn’t go on.
Still watching her closely, Craig asked, ‘Barbara hadn’t told you that when I stopped seeing her regularly, it was she who sent me away?’
‘No. She didn’t say anything about it to me.’
‘You weren’t curious enough to ask?’
‘I thought she would tell me, if she wanted me to know. And when I told you I knew she was unhappy, you snubbed me by saying there was nothing you could do to help her.’
‘Nor was there—then. The help she needed most at that time was the truth about these letters, and about that I knew no more than she did. And she had persuaded me that the only way to kill the scandal which the letters implied was being bandied was for us to stop seeing each other. After Nelson’s death she had rather gone into hiding from her friends, and in order that the gossip shouldn’t have anything to feed on, she cut herself off further from them. And for that alone, I mean to see that Victoire shall answer.’
Hope said. ‘She deserves it. But I thought—Tina said that you and Victoire had an—an understanding.’
‘On the subject of marriage? No way. I took her measure a long time ago, and whatever ideas she may have had about me, mine about her have never seen her as a life partner.’
‘And you’ve been in love with Barbara all along,’ said Hope, testing it aloud for how it sounded to her heart.
‘I haven’t asked her yet to marry me.’
‘But she must know how you feel about her.’
‘I think she does. But if you’re as surprised as you claim, our relationship doesn’t seem to have got through to you.’
‘Only because of the break between you. And when Tina said you would probably marry Victoire if only for the sake of the estate, I was desperately sorry for Barbara, because I thought you’d thrown her over for Victoire, and I was sure, as I am now, that she loves you.’
‘Though supposing when you learned I had no designs on Victoire’s favours, I’d told you I had no intentions in Barbara’s direction either?’
Missing the drift of his question, Hope queried, ‘You mean—instead of telling me, as you have done, that you mean to ask Barbara to marry you?’
‘Yes. Would you then have decided you must cast your matchmaking nets further afield?’
She flushed at the gibe. ‘I wasn’t matchmaking for you. How could I, when I don’t know what other woman— or women—there may be in your world?’
‘So you would just have been sorry for Barbara, and left it at that?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And when I think the time is ripe for my proposing, you’re going to be content to be glad for her?’
‘I’ve told you—of course,’ Hope said, achieving dignity at a cost which only her sore heart knew.
Except for the chatter of the tree-frogs in the darkening garden, there was silence on the verandah of the bungalow after Hope had recounted to Barbara the chance in a thousand which had delivered
Victoire into their hands. But at last, on a long sigh, Barbara said, ‘I suppose I should have known that no one in our set—or in the set Nelson and I used to move in—had as much reason to hate me as Victoire thought she had. But that she herself should actually dare to write the letters threatening me, I can still hardly believe.’
‘But what grounds had she for hounding you as she did?’ asked Hope. ‘You’ve never told me.’
‘No,’ Barbara agreed. ‘And I never understood it until we had most of the picture—or Craig had, when he picked up that man, Solomon Bain, on the night of Vaval, do you remember?’
At Hope’s nod Barbara went on, ‘And I told you about his having made a date with Nelson and Craig at our apartment?’
‘But he didn’t keep it,’ Hope put in.
‘No. But the truth which Craig has wrung out of him now is that he’d hoped to sell information to Roland through Craig about Victoire’s having an affair with a French tycoon and about their meeting at the hotel where this man Bain was a waiter.’
‘Was the story true?’
Barbara shook her head. ‘We shall probably never know. But there must have been enough in it for Victoire to have feared what Bain might tell Roland. Because he’s told Craig that she made it worth his while not to turn up for the appointment—which he didn’t. But as I told you, Roland never had the chance to hear the story—he and Nelson died that day. But then Victoire, her own reputation saved, turned on me and on Craig, telling anyone who would listen and convincing herself too, I think, that Craig had “murdered” her husband by skulking with me at the flat, when his seamanship which was much better than Roland’s or Nelson’s, might have saved the boat. And then, when she was sure that Bain had earned his money and was well out of the way in Barbados, she found she had another weapon to her hand. Craig and I had cleverly got rid of my husband for the day, hadn’t we? We were together in the flat until midnight, weren’t we? Didn’t even know about the accident until almost everyone else in the island had heard of it, did we? Which, except that we had planned it, was true. And though none of it was actually said to anyone who would admit having heard it, very, very subtly she let the doubt get around, and when the letters started, I was angry for myself and desperately afraid for Craig and Belle Rose. So I refused to let him visit me here again.’
‘You suspected, I daresay, that Victoire would have liked to marry Craig?’ asked Hope.
‘Not until later. I couldn’t believe she could forget Roland so soon. But as I knew she needed to strengthen her hold on Belle Rose, while I wasn’t seeing anything of him, I even feared she might succeed.’
‘Oh, surely not?’ Hope protested. ‘Except that you’d refused to see him, nothing had really changed between you and Craig. You couldn’t have doubted him so.’
Barbara maintained, ‘There were times when I could, and did. And even now the effect of all this leaking out could still be terrible for Belle Rose and for Crispin. Besides, Victoire will still be there.’
Hope said, ‘I think you must leave Craig to strike some bargain which she’ll be only too willing to keep. For instance, in return for her admitting to scandalising you and writing the letters, he’ll probably promise that neither you nor he will make any public move against her.’
‘She must lift her ban on Crispin’s visiting me too,’ said Barbara.
‘I’m sure that will follow,’ said Hope, and Barbara laughed suddenly, happily.
‘Hope dear,’ she chuckled, ‘you can’t know how good it’s going to be, everything back to normal again. Crispin free to come here whenever he wants, and Craig around—as he used to be before all this happened—you can’t know!’
But Hope could—of a friendship and a love which she had watched and envied and suffered with for months. She hadn’t the right, without Craig’s permission, to give Barbara a hint that she knew how things were between them and that he had confided to her that he meant to propose. But in spirit she could share with Barbara all that her marriage to Craig would have for its deep roots—the companionship, the seeking of advice, the arguing, the surprises—all that would go to make the happiness which she herself craved and would not know.
Aloud she told Barbara, ‘I can guess.’
Now the last area of cane scheduled for harvesting had been fired, the crop cut, loaded, weighed and transported to the greedy maw of the mills. Belle Rose’s bonus payments for a heavy harvest had been shared out, and celebratory jump-ups decimated the workforce while the money lasted and the revellers could still stand up and dance.
Hope, who all along had mentally set the end of the spring operation as the limit of her time on Madenina, found it upon her without her having made any move to train another secretary for Craig, or any suggestion from him that she do so. Suspecting that she would only act if her hand were forced, she wrote to her uncle for a ruling on the date he expected her return. Meanwhile she waited for the news either from Craig or from Barbara that his proposal had been made and accepted—a development which, oddly, in the week which had to elapse before she could look for a reply from England, did not come.
Bewildered and hurt that neither of them confided in her, she watched their association pick up its threads again. Craig came to lunch at the weekend, called in for drinks on one or two evenings, kissed Barbara heartily on greeting or parting from her, but either he hadn’t actually proposed yet, or they were taking it for granted that Hope knew it was all settled between them. It was an inexplicable attitude, in face of which she took up a stubborn stand. She would not question Barbara; would not hint nor probe. They must keep their secrets if they wanted to. In any case, it would all be behind her soon. But that thought was less of a defiance than it was an ache which wouldn’t go away.
Crispin came again to spend the day with Barbara—one of the terms which Craig reported he had imposed upon Victoire, as Hope had foreseen—and it was Crispin who first brought news that Victoire was leaving for Paris in the next few days.
This surprised even Barbara, though her comment of ‘So soon?’ showed that it was the tuning, not the fact, that she was questioning.
Crispin said, ‘She’s nearly all packed and ready, and Sinbad and Doria and Dickon are leaving.’
Hope asked Barbara, ‘You seemed to have expected this. Have you?’
‘Craig thought it possible, in view of everything,’
Barbara said, adding to Crispin, ‘What about you? Are you going to Europe too?’
Crispin shook his head. ‘I’m not leaving until I go back to school after Easter.’
‘That’s not yet,’ Barbara pointed out. ‘What’s to happen to you until then?’
But that was a problem which Crispin was prepared to leave to the grown-ups. ‘Belle-mere says Uncle Craig will do something about me,’ he said complacently. ‘Perhaps Sadie and Matthew-John will come back to look after me. I should like that.’
Craig, however, had other plans which he announced to Barbara when he called to take Crispin home that evening.
‘Victoire has swung this on me pretty suddenly, with precious little concern for Crispin,’ he said. ‘And when I told her I thought I could persuade you to take him on, she said she might have expected that I could send him somewhere where he would be thoroughly and finally brainwashed against her.’
‘H’m—polite of her. Remind me to set about a crash course in the brainwashing of minors, will you? Why this haste on her part to be up and away?’ Barbara asked.
‘I think it coincides with the imminent departure of a certain Monsieur Martineau,’ said Craig.
‘Martineau? Martineau?’ Barbara turned to Hope. ‘Yes, that was the big shot Soloman Bain claimed she was dating while her husband was alive. Remember— I told you? He left soon afterwards, but he’s back again, is he?’ she asked Craig, who nodded.
‘On a regular trip, speculating in building land; leaving this week, my spies tell me, and as I imagine Victoire sees no future in letting a wealthy widower escape again, she’s flying to
Paris too.’ Craig looked round for Crispin. ‘Meanwhile, where’s your protégé-to-be? It’s time I took him home.’
‘In the garden, teaching the cat to take a water-jump over a ditch he’s dug. But the water won’t stay in the ditch and the cat isn’t co-operating. I’ll fetch him,’ said Barbara.
And still not a word, thought Hope, about the difference Victoire’s final departure would make in their lives; of the relief for Barbara of not having the menace of Victoire overshadowing her marriage to Craig, as it had threatened her widowhood. Almost, that night, Hope broke her resolve to force Barbara—or Craig—into the open and demand to know why they were holding out on her. But her sore pride held her back.
On the day before Victoire departed for Europe Craig delivered Crispin to the bungalow, and on the next day Hope collected her uncle Lionel’s letter from her postbox.
Its contents were much as she expected. It was indeed time now, her uncle said he felt, that she should broach again to Craig the subject of her training another secretary in her place. Since he had made no move in that direction, it seemed that he was fully satisfied with her. But the unwritten agreement was that her engagement had only been temporary, and while there was no need for undue haste, it would be rather nice if Hope could arrange to be home shortly after Easter.
There followed other news—that Tina had achieved a lightning engagement to a steady young man in Accounts and would be leaving the firm at Easter to collect her trousseau and, with her mother’s help, to furnish her new house in Amersham; Ian Perse was to accompany the Chairman of the company on a major publicity tour; the film brought back by the television crew was apparently a great success and would be shown on the nation’s screens in the early autumn. Lastly, Kathy Tremayne, though an extremely efficient secretary, had become a little drunk with power and was inclined to be bossy. Uncle Lionel didn’t know how she would take her demotion when Hope came back. But that was a bridge to be crossed when they came to it.