by Anne Weale
“You’d better go in now. Goodnight, Jane.”
She hesitated, shaken by the force of her longing to feel his arms round her, his lips on hers.
“Goodnight,” she said huskily.
They did not see Margot again, and for the rest of their stay in Bermuda David’s manner was so normal that Jane began to think she had let her imagination run away with her.
Back in London, her career gathered impetus. Soon, as her days became a hectic succession of bookings at studios all over London, it seemed that David’s judgment had been right, that the gamble was paying off.
The realization that she had ‘arrived’, that her success was no longer in question, came to her one morning when she was having her hair done. Flipping through a new issue of one of the leading fashion magazines, she found picture after picture of herself, both in the advertisement and editorial sections.
I’ve made it, she thought, with sudden excitement. And from that moment on, she no longer had the feeling that it was all some kind of illusion which might suddenly come to an end, like a wonderful dream.
It was from the same moment that she began to grow impatient of playing a passive role in her relationship with David. Nowadays she never saw him except when they were working together. Every time she waited in vain for him to suggest a dinner date or invite her to his flat again. But he never did. She might go on waiting for ever. Obviously it was up to her to make him see her as a woman, not merely his protégée, his guinea-pig. Even with her newly found confidence, it took her a week to commit herself to the tactics she had in mind. Then, one morning while Heather was cooking their breakfast, she shut herself in the sitting-room and dialled David’s number.
It was Mrs. MacDonald who answered the call, and, waiting for David to be fetched, Jane would have changed her mind if she could have thought of some excuse for ringing him.
But while she was still searching for one, she heard him lift the receiver.
“Jane? Is anything wrong?” he asked sharply.
“No, no. I—I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed your breakfast.” She swallowed and moistened her lips. “David, I wondered—if you’re free this evening—if you could come to supper? Here, at the flat.”
“Tonight?” There was a pause. Then he said, “Yes, I can manage that. What time?”
“Oh, about eight, if that suits you.”
Again there was a pause before he answered. “Yes, eight will be fine. I’ll look forward to it.”
“Oh, good. That’s fine. Well, goodbye.” Quickly she replaced the receiver, her tension slackening.
It had been easier than she had expected. He hadn’t asked the reason for the invitation. He hadn’t even sounded particularly surprised.
She had kept the afternoon free, originally intending to spend it packing for her journey to Scotland the following day. If her plans for the evening proved a humiliating fiasco, at least she would not have to face David again until after the Scottish assignment.
Heather was going straight from work to a party on the other side of London, so by six o’clock Jane had everything ready for David’s arrival. She had managed to manoeuvre the table out of the kitchenette and along the narrow passage. Now it stood by the sitting-room window, laid for dinner a deux with a new turquoise linen cloth and a bowl of’ carnations in the centre. A bottle of Montrachet was on ice in the larder, a chicken was roasting slowly in the oven, and a new Nat King Cole album was on the turntable of Heather’s record player.
Jane ran a bath and spent twenty minutes trying to relax in the expensively scented warm water. But already, with more than an hour to go, there were butterflies in her tummy and her heart was beating much too fast.
She had bought the dress hanging on her wardrobe door earlier in the week, when her plan was just beginning to germinate. It was an apparently shapeless slip of midnight blue chiffon, looking nothing on a hanger. But when it was put on...
Heather, when Jane had shown it to her, had blinked and said, “Wow!” I hope you’ve got a licence. That’s dynamite, honeychile.”
Zipping it up, after she had spent another twenty minutes on her face and hair, Jane wondered if she was about to make an utter idiot of herself. She began to feel sick. What if David took one look and burst out laughing? No, he wouldn’t laugh. His eyebrows would lift and then a smile would twitch the corner of his mouth. And she would want the floor to open up and swallow her.
All right—if you’re getting cold feet why don’t you ring up and call the whole thing off? But what have you got to lose ? You can’t live on hope indefinitely. This way, you’ll know where you are. What if he does see through all this? ... the wine, and the mood music, and the femme fatale dress? He’s a man, isn’t he? Secretly, he’ll be flattered.
It was ten minutes to eight when the door bell rang. Jane, who had been pacing nervously about the sitting-room, stood still momentarily paralyzed with stage-fright. Then she drew in a deep breath and forced herself into a semblance of composure. Halfway to the door, she dashed back to switch on the gramophone and set the needle half an inch from the edge of the record.
“Am I much too early? I can stroll round the block if you like,” David said, when she opened the door.
“No, of course not. Come in. I—I was glad you could make it at such short notice. How’s life?”
As he closed the door behind him and she turned to lead the way into the sitting-room, she knew her smile had been too bright, her tone too casual. She would have to do better than this.
David was carrying a bottle wrapped in brown paper and flowers swathed in tissue.
“Sherry.” He put the bottle on the coffee table and handed the flowers to her.
Aware that he was taking in her dress, Jane hurriedly uncovered the flowers. “Oh, jonquils ... how lovely. Thank you. Look, have a drink while I’m putting them in water, will you? There are glasses over there I shan’t be a minute.” Escaping to the kitchen, she found a vase and turned on the tap. She hadn’t expected him to bring flowers. But perhaps he always did when he dined with women. Certainly he couldn’t know that jonquils were one of her favorites. She was sure she had never said so.
She was arranging them, bending to sniff the pale spring-scented petals, when David appeared in the doorway, a glass of sherry in either hand.
“Something smells very good,” he said, nodding at the oven.
“Nothing exotic, I’m afraid. Just an ordinary roast chicken. I haven’t had enough practice to risk anything more spectacular.”
He handed her one of the glasses, and asked the question she had known would come.
“Did you have any special reason for asking me here tonight, Jane?”
Her answer was ready, but she found herself unable to meet his eyes as she said, “Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. There’s never much time to ... to talk at the studio. I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for me, David ... to show that I really do appreciate it.”
“You know now that I was right about you? No more doubts?”
“No more doubts.”
“Well, that does call for a celebration,” he said quizzically. “Let’s drink to it, shall we? To the success of our joint enterprise ... and to bigger and better achievements in the future.”
She had to look at him then. And, as they clinked glasses and drank, some of her inner nervousness dissipated.
He had changed, she realized suddenly. Tonight he was different. No, not different ... the same as he had been when they first met. Friendly, approachable. There was no longer a reserve, a coldness about him. Suddenly the intangible barrier which had been building up between them ever since her arrival in London was gone. At last he was looking at her without that unnerving hint of critical appraisal.
“Let’s go back into the sitting-room, shall we?” she suggested. “I timed dinner for half past eight in case you were held up. Heather’s gone to a twenty-first birthday party. Perhaps she told you?”
He nodded. “You’re off to Scotla
nd in the morning, I hear.”
In the sitting-room, Jane put the vase of jonquils on top of the bookcase. “Yes, tweeds and twin-sets for an autumn catalogue. Then on the way back I’m stopping in York for another Mode job, and the trip winds up with a charity show at some Stately Home in Norfolk. I’m rather dreading that ... I’m not used to ‘live’ modelling. Altogether I shall be away about ten days. How about you? Have you anything special lined up?”
David had poured out two more drinks. As they sat down on the sofa beside the fire, he said, “No, nothing unusual. In fact I’ve arranged to take a week off, the week you come back. I may not get a chance later on.”
“Where are you planning to go?”
“France. Nowhere in particular. I shall drive around, wherever my fancy takes me. I can bring you back some scent if you like. Arpège, or something else?”
“Do you like this one I’m wearing now? Deliberately, she moved closer to him, lifting her hair from the nape of her neck and bending her head.
After a moment David said, “Very nice. What is it?”
Jane straightened and let her hair fall. But she did not move away again.
“Lanvin’s Scandal. I think it suits me better than Arpège—but you’re the expert on these things.”
She gave him the look he had taught her to assume with certain kinds of clothes, a solemn wide-eyed stare with a hint of secret mischief behind the gravity.
It was the first time she had dared to tease him, and she held her breath for a second. Then he grinned, and she relaxed.
“I’d better go and deal with the chicken,” she said demurely. “No, don’t move. I can manage.”
It was dark when they finished the meal. The glow of the electric fire and the single lamp, shining on the table but leaving their faces in a soft half-light, made the room seem smaller, the atmosphere more intimate.
Jane drew the curtains and moved the lamp to the coffee table, but she did not switch on any other lights. Refusing David’s offer to help wash up, she went away to make coffee and retouch her lipstick.
“I mustn’t keep you up too late. What time are you leaving in the morning?” David asked, when she returned with the tray.
She wondered momentarily if he was teasing her. If he knew perfectly well what she was doing.
“Oh, not till half past eleven, and I expect Heather will be out till after midnight,” she said lightly. “Black or white?”
“Black, please. May I smoke?”
“Of course.” She put down the coffee pot and quickly struck a match for him.
Thanks.” He drew on the cigarette, watching her in a way that made her tremble inwardly. But she held his glance for several seconds before sitting down beside him to pour out the coffee.
Soon, too soon, the hands of Heather’s brass carriage clock were creeping towards eleven. The coffee pot was empty. David had smoked and stubbed out a second cigarette. In a few minutes the last record on the gramophone would come to an end, and the silence might prompt him to leave.
Jane began to feel desperate. Perhaps she had only imagined that tonight he was seeing her in a new light. She leaned her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. Oh, please let something happen.
Something did. David’s hand closed over her wrist.
Her eyelids flickered and opened. Her pulses raced.
“Are you trying to vamp me, Jane?” There was mockery in his eyes and in his voice. She attempted to sit up, but his other hand gripped her shoulder and pressed her back against the cushions.
“Do you want to be kissed? It will be a pleasure.” His lips brushed her cheek and her mouth.
All at once it was no longer a game. With a sound that came from deep in his throat, he locked her in his arms and kissed her again.
For one instant, the change in him frightened her. She was conscious of having provoked a situation which, suddenly, was beyond her control. He must have felt her instinctive resistance. His hold slackened, and he looked down into her flushed, uncertain face. Then because, if she had wished it, he would have let her go, the moment of panic passed. This was David. She loved him. She trusted him.
Shyly, she lifted her hand and touched his cheek.
At first, when the door bell rang, neither of them reacted. Then, as it rang a second time, they drew reluctantly apart, and David muttered something under his breath.
“Who the devil can that be?” His voice was a husky undertone.
“I don’t know. Our landlady, perhaps.” As the bell shrilled another urgent summons, Jane got to her feet hastily and smoothed her hair.
As she turned towards the door, David caught her wrist and held her back. “Don’t be too long.” He pressed a swift hard kiss into her palm.
It was not their landlady. It was Heather. As soon as Jane opened the door, she pushed past and dashed down the passage to the bathroom.
When, about ten minutes later, Jane returned to the sitting-room, David was standing by the fire, smoking a cigarette.
“What’s going on?” he asked perplexedly.
“It’s Heather—she’s ill,” Jane said worriedly. “Food poisoning, I think. She’s been vilely sick and looks ghastly. I’ll have to get her to bed.”
“Are you going to call the doctor?”
“Not tonight. It’s so late to drag him out, and I doubt if there’s much he can do. If she isn’t feeling better in the morning...”
“Is there anything I can do?”
She shook her head. “I think you’d better go, David. I—I’m sorry about this.”
He came close and put his hands on her shoulders. “It can’t be helped.” His fingers tightened. “Perhaps it is just as well. Look, I can’t see you tomorrow. I’ve appointments all morning. But when you come back ...” He bent his head and kissed her on the cheek “Goodnight, Jane.”
It was after one in the morning when Jane set her alarm clock and climbed wearily into bed, leaving her door open so that she would hear any sound from Heather’s room The other girl was asleep now, exhausted after several prostrating bouts of sickness.
But although Jane was physically tired, it was some time before she slept. Lying on her side in the darkness, one arm under the pillow, the other tucked round her waist, she relived the last part of the evening before Heather’s return.
Being kissed by David had been all she had dreamed and more. Even to remember those moments made her heart spin. And, recalling how unrestrainedly she had responded to the fierce demand of his lips, her face burned.
Oh, if only Heather had not come back early. If only she could cancel the trip to Scotland. But it wasn’t possible. Somehow she had to live through the next ten days—for surely David wouldn’t go to France now?—before they could be together again. Ten days! It would seem like ten years.
Next morning Heather was better, still pale and i groggy, but no longer racked by nausea.
“It must have been that meat pie I had for lunch yesterday,” she said, when Jane took her some warm milk and water biscuits. “I thought the pastry was stale, and the filling must have been off. I’m sorry you had to stay up so late with me.”
“Don’t be silly. You’d have done the same for me. You must spend the day in bed,” Jane said firmly.
“Yes, I think I will. I still feel horribly limp. Will you ring David for me?”
“He already knows. He was here last night when you came back, so he won’t be expecting you at work today.”
‘Oh, really? What on earth was he doing here so late?” Heather asked, surprised.
“We were talking things over.” The door bell rang, and Jane jumped. “Perhaps that’s him now—looking in to see how you are,” she suggested, on an indrawn breath.
But it was Mrs. MacDonald who was standing outside on the landing.
“Good morning, dear. I’ve come to give you a hand with Miss Heather,” she explained. “Mr. David tells me the poor lassie was taken very poorly last night. Are you fetching the doctor to her?”
“No, she’s very much better this morning, Mrs. MacDonald.” With an effort, Jane masked her disappointment.
“Is she now? Oh, that’s good. Still, with you away to Scotland later on, I think I’d best keep a wee eye on her. It’s not nice to be alone when you’re sick, and it will relieve your mind, no doubt.”
“Oh, it would. Thank you very much, Mrs. MacDonald,” Jane said gratefully.
Later in the morning, while she was finishing packing her case, Heather called out to her.
“What is it?” Jane asked, crossing the passage.
“See for yourself.” Heather handed her the morning newspaper, and indicated an item on one of the inside pages.
“This bit? ... ‘Millionaire Dies In Plane’?”
Jane asked, puzzled.
Heather nodded, sipping the cup of Bovril which Mrs. MacDonald had brought her a few minutes earlier.
The paragraph under the headline was date-lined “Bermuda, Thursday.”
“Lucas Frensham, the 70-year-old engineering magnate, died of a heart attack on a, flight from New York to Bermuda last night, Jane read. “A self-made millionaire—he started out as a clerk in an East End warehouse—he had been married four times, but had no children. His 26-year-old widow, whom he married four years ago, was formerly Margot Chase, a leading London fashion model. His wedding present to her was Horizons, a luxurious 20-room mansion in Bermuda’s exclusive Tucker’s Town colony.
As Jane gave the paper back to her, Heather said sardonically, “What do you bet she comes straight back to London and starts angling for David again?”
“She may try—I don’t think she’ll succeed, Jane said evenly.
She turned away to hide a secret smile. How astounded Heather would be when she learned the truth. Perhaps this time the week after next...
That night, from her room in an Edinburgh hotel, Jane telephoned Heather.
“Has David looked in on you?,” she asked, when Heather had said that she was now completely recovered, and would be back at work the next day.