by Lilian Peake
He should not have done it ... He had no right ... It was his fault entirely ... She could not be blamed. She had submitted under duress, he had taken advantage of her vulnerability. She was innocent, he was the one who was going to be married. But what about Mel? She shook her head to throw the thought away.
He responded to the movement and removed his arms. She felt cold, deserted and defenceless. “Back,” he said, rising and hauling her up. “Back to the hotel, my sweet.”
He found her wrap and put it round her, fastening it at the neck. She closed her eyes so that she would not have to look into his and he kissed the tip of her nose. As they stepped down from the platform, Gayle lifted her skirt above her ankles. Then, hands linked, they walked down the hill towards the lights, the movement and the rest of the world.
From nowhere clouds were drifting across the almost dark sky. An omen, a prophecy, perhaps? Why had it happened? she asked herself. Why the kisses, the whispers, the intimacy of his touch? Tiring of her own questions, questions which had no answer, he tried to divert her own thoughts.
“Ewan?” He looked down at her. “It was wonderful up there. The—the view, I mean.” He smiled at her correction. “The moon, the mountains, everything. Thank you for taking me.”
“A memory to treasure,” he said, “when you’re old and grey.”
A cold hand touched her heart. So many years to exist, she, thought, feeling the tears starting behind her eyes, a lifetime in front of me without you ...
“Tomorrow,” he said, “we leave paradise behind. We return to normality and everyday things.”
Was it a warning, a reminder of reality? I kissed you up there, he was saying, but it was part of a dream. I’m under no obligation to you because I took you so possessively into my arms... Was that what he was trying to tell her?
They found the car standing alone. All Pierre’s guests had gone. At the hotel the car was whisked away to be returned to the firm from whom it had been hired.
Ewan said, “A drink, Gayle, before you go to bed?”
In the foyer she gazed-up at him, blinking under the dazzling brightness of the chandeliers. He was calm, collected, no different from usual.
The layer of ice around her heart became a little more intense. So all that had taken place between them at the cafe on the hillside had meant no more to him than a pleasant way of passing the time. But, she chided herself, what other meaning could those kisses have had for him? Another woman was to be his wife. Or had he, egged on by her lack of resistance, been using her, Gayle, as a timely substitute...?
Now her defence mechanisms, instead of condemning Ewan Pascal for his transgressions against her, turned in on themselves and began to indict her for her own actions, her own permissiveness. Guilt flared, flamed and threatened to destroy her.
She had to get away from him, if not herself, put a door between them, a wall, a lifetime ... “A drink? No, thanks, I’m tired.”
“You’re going to your room?”
She nodded and he took her elbow, escorting her there. The key turned, the door swung open and Gayle went into the room. Ewan did not move away. Instead he gazed at her.
Uncertain, out of her depth, she faltered, “Will you—will you come in?”
He closed the door behind him and leant against it. She lifted her hand to switch on the light, but he stopped her. She grew confused, swung her wrap from her shoulders, put it on a chair and walked to the balcony window. As she stared out at the moonlit darkness she heard him move across the room.
Hands settled on her throat again and she shuddered. The hands moved upwards and tipped back her head. “Gayle?” he whispered. He was asking her a question.
Her body leaned against him and he ran his hands over her, moulding her shapeliness beneath them. Now she should be saying no, now she should be pulling away ... She lay there submitting because she could not help herself, his touch was intoxicating her, depriving her of her willpower.
“Gayle?” The question came again. He turned her round, stared into her eyes and as the moonlit shone through the glass on to his features she saw the intense seriousness of his expression. Then he kissed her and still with his lips on hers, lifted her and carried her to the bed.
He pushed her down, leaned over her and kissed her again. Fingers trailed her neck, moved down, down, intimate, practised, assured...
And she cried out in anguish. “No, Ewan, no ... Stop, you must stop!” The hand stilled, the head lifted, the eyes searching at first, narrowed.
“Now?” he breathed. “Now, you tell me to stop? My sweet, you can’t mean it. You’re tantalising me.” His mouth came down again, with even greater ardour.
But she twisted her head and tore her lips away. “You must stop, Ewan. You must...”
“I must?” He rolled on to his side, pulling her with him. “Who’s ordering me? You? You refuse the drink I offer you because you’re in a hurry to get to bed. You invite me into your room, let me make love to you, all the evening you’ve submitted, willingly, eagerly. How am I to interpret all these things except as indications of your wishes?”
Oh, God, she thought, pulling away and covering her face, is that how he saw the situation? He thought she had plotted and manoeuvred to get him here, into her room?
He detached himself from her and stood up. “You get me where you show every sign of wanting me and then—then you have the effrontery to say ‘no’, as if it was I who was forcing myself on you.” He ran his hands through his hair and pushed them into his pockets.
“What the hell do you want? A chaste kiss? Or would even that be going too far? The hypocrisy of it, after your entertainment of Pierre Hirondelle last night! Did you,” he sneered, “enjoy giving him the ‘pleasure’ afforded by an innocent young girl? If Hirondelle last night, why not me tonight? Is it because I haven’t flaunted the promise of gifts in front of your face? Is it something you do only for reward?”
The desire to hit back, if only to retrieve a few crumbs of self-respect, forced her to her feet. “Do you,” she confronted him, “make a practice of seducing all your female buyers when you take them abroad? Do you make a habit of using them—and I mean using them—to fill the void created by your fiancée’s absence when she’s busy elsewhere? The whole time we’ve been away you’ve treated me as an interesting diversion, kissing me, petting me, fondling me...” Her voice cracked, but recovered quickly when she saw how his smile mocked her.
“My female buyers,” he taunted, “are not usually so ready and willing as you’ve proved to be. You put up no barriers. For the whole of these two days when I’ve kissed you you haven’t once—until now—said no. You haven’t made any attempt to hold me off.” He looked her over contemptuously. “You wear a gown that provokes and excites. You not only try to clothe yourself in Carla’s taste in dress, but you try to climb into her personality.
“Tonight on the hill you behaved in such a way as to arouse my expectations, too. You let me make passionate love to you without a murmur of protest and then, when any man would who’s received such encouragement from such an attractive and eager young woman, I try to follow it up, you turn on the abuse, accusing me of questionable motives, seduction, near-rape, the lot.”
He turned away, then immediately turned back, as if a thought had struck him. “All right, so Carla wears my ring. What about you? What about the boy next door? Aren’t you engaged to him? When he passes his exams, you said, you’ll marry. And yet you’ve been behaving with me as though you’re free and heartwhole. Haven’t I a right to criticise you for being unfaithful to your fiancé? Good God,” he turned his back on her and walked to the window, “if you were my fiancée, judging by the way you’ve been going on with me this last couple of days, I wouldn’t trust you out of my sight.”
Gayle stammered, holding her lips because they were trembling, “Ewan, I’m sorry, I d-didn’t know, didn’t realise...”
He said savagely, “Don’t make it worse by playing the innocent. You, an innocent! A
fter what you’ve let me do?”
She sank on to the bed, covering her ears with her palms. She lifted her face, her eyes swimming with tears, and whispered, “Please, Ewan, please stop. I’ve said I’m sorry. What more can I say?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing.” His face was white, his eyes vivid with anger. “All I can say is that you’re lucky, damned lucky you were playing around with me, who possesses some self-control, and not another man who would have laughed at your self-righteous protests and gone on and taken the lot.”
“Ewan!” she cried out. “It was because I—because I—” She couldn’t say the words, she could not tell him her secret, not to this man who had trampled her self-respect into the dust, who had humiliated her as no other man had ever done before.
“Because?” he took her up coldly. “Because? Finish the sentence.”
She shook her head. “Because I—I didn’t know,” she finished feebly.
“Well, you know now.” At the door he turned. “I’ll be obliged if you would give me a wide berth in future. Just do me—and yourself—a favour and keep your distance. And keep me out of your sights. You’ve already got a man lined up willing to marry you. You can’t have two.”
In the night there was a storm. It roared and rumbled through the mountains, lighting up the distant sky. Gayle, who had not slept, opened the glass doors and stepped out on to the balcony. The intensity of the storm frightened her, but she could not cower under the blankets. It was better, she thought, to face it than to pretend it was not there.
It was overpoweringly warm and without extra covering she stood at the rail, shaking and apprehensive. Ewan’s balcony door opened, but she did not turn. The storm advanced along the lake, and even the waters were whipped up by the increasing wind. The thunder rumbled enormously above the clouds, reverberating over the summits and rolling into a hollow, restless silence. The lighting forked and dazzled and in one spectacular exploding flash struck the side of a mountain.
The wind rose and there was a deluge of rain driving in an unexpected soaking sweep over the balcony rail. In a few seconds Gayle was wet to the skin. She gasped and turned her head away under the force of it, but she did not move. Ewan, wearing a short robe over his nightclothes, was leaning against the wall out of reach of the rain. A flash illuminated his face and she saw it was cold, indifferent and staring straight ahead.
The rain pelted down, saturating her hair, washing over her body, making her nightdress cling. In a moment of anguish she wondered, Will it wash me clean? Will it cleanse me of the crime I’m supposed by Ewan to have committed and make him see me with less jaundiced, critical eyes?
There was a blinding flash, followed almost immediately by a booming crash of thunder directly overhead. Gayle gasped and covered her eyes with her arm. It was a moment of truth. She had realised in a few terrifying seconds the full significance of her quarrel with Ewan. It was, for them both, the parting of the ways. Without waiting for the month to pass, she would have to forfeit the rest of her salary and leave her job. It would be impossible to return to Pascalls now.
She turned and ran into her room, threw herself full length on to the soft white goatskin rug on the floor beside the bed and sobbed her heart out. Ewan must have heard, because the storm, having reached its height, was dying away. But he did not come.
CHAPTER NINE
The journey home was nearly over. The June afternoon was cool and there was no sign of the sun. Gayle gazed dully out of the window of the train which was taking her from London to the town about forty miles distant where she lived.
That morning she had breakfasted early in her hotel room. She had not seen Ewan, she hadn’t wanted to, because she had not wished to draw his wrath again, this time through disobeying orders. She had not waited for him as he had requested her to do. Instead she had checked out, walked to Montreux station and taken the train to Geneva. She had slept for much of the flight, having had little rest the night before.
There had been a great deal of time for thinking. There were two things she had decided to do. The first was to break off her engagement—if that was what such an ‘understanding’ could be called—to Mel. The other was to withdraw at once from her job at Pascalls. She hoped she would be able to find work—she did not rule out anything—without too much delay.
Inevitably her mind drifted back, like a boat caught by the currents, to the evening before, when she had watched, with Ewan, the moon rising high over the mountain peaks. She wished she could have those precious moments back again. They were something she would remember all the days of her life. She remembered too the clouds that had started to invade the starlit sky as they had walked back down the hill, and it was almost as if the storm they had foreshadowed had been a kind of omen.
She shivered. After the sunlit warmth of the land she had left behind, the chill of the English summer was a disconcerting contrast. Had she really been away only three days, two nights? Looking back, it seemed a lifetime.
Rhoda met her on the doorstep. There was something different about her—an expansive contentment of which, in her open arms, she was offering a share to Gayle.
Rhoda whispered, “It’s happened, dear. Somehow your father got around to asking me to marry him. Don’t ask me how it came about, because I’m not sure myself!”
Gayle, lifted at once out of her misery, cried, “Rhoda! That’s wonderful! I never thought Dad would—”
”Nor did I!” Rhoda responded. “But he has. He’ll be home soon. I’ve just got in. I saw you get out of the taxi. And Mel—well, he’s got something to say, too, Gayle.”
Gayle’s heart plummeted. Was she too late? Had events progressed too far in her absence for her to be able to say to Mel, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s no use...’?
As she unpacked her clothes she heard her father’s voice. She ran down the stairs, “Dad!” she exclaimed, hugging him. “Rhoda told me...”
“So you don’t mind if I give you a stepmother?” he asked gruffly, kissing her cheeks.
“Mind? It’s something Rhoda and I have been hoping for for years!”
He smiled happily. “So the two of you ganged up on me!”
Rhoda, who had come in, laughed. “We didn’t really, Herbert. In fact, we’d both given up hoping, hadn’t we, Gayle?”
Herbert’s arm went round his future wife. “Between the two of you, you might have thought up some way of giving me a push in the right direction. I’d often thought about it, but I’ve got little to offer a woman. Just myself, and that’s not worth much...”
Rhoda shook his arm. “A typical Herbert remark,” she laughed. “Undervaluing yourself as usual. Just like Gayle. She’s always underestimating her own value. You see,” she put her other arm round Gayle so that they stood in a circle, “I know my future family already!”
“You’ve always had a place in it, Rhoda,” Herbert said simply.
Gayle thought it an appropriate moment to go upstairs. She sat on the bed, chin in hand, and thought, ‘Things are going to be more difficult than I feared. Somehow I’ve got to let Mel know I can’t go through with our marriage. I couldn’t marry him. It would be impossible, loving—” she closed her eyes, ‘loving Ewan Pascall’. It wouldn’t be fair to Mel.
But Mel, it seemed, had other ideas. So had his mother. The two families shared the evening meal in Herbert’s house and afterwards Rhoda told Gayle and Mel, pushing them out of the kitchen, that she and Herbert would do the dishes.
“I know you want to speak to Gayle, dear, so get on with it. You know what they say about striking when the iron’s hot!”
So Mel ‘struck’ and to Gayle it was something in the nature of a blow. From his pocket he pulled a small box. He flicked it open, displaying a diamond and sapphire engagement ring. “It’s not new,” he said, “but it’s good. I made sure of that. Come on,” he felt for her left hand, “try it on.” When she held back he commented, “No need to be shy, love. You know me too well for that.”
Shy? Was t
hat what he thought was wrong? The eyes she lifted to his were like those of a trapped animal, distressed and in torment.
Taken aback, Mel asked, “You like it, don’t you, Gayle? If not, I’ll get something else—”
”Like it?” She forced a lightness into her tone. “It’s beautiful, but—”
”Afraid it won’t fit you? Don’t worry, the assistant said we could have it adjusted if necessary. Come on,” he coaxed, “try it.”
So the ring was pushed into place and fitted perfectly. After that, there was no retreat from reality. She could not say, I’ve decided I don’t love you, Mel, so I don’t want to marry you after all. She would have to play for time. Engagements can be broken, she told herself feverishly. Marriage still isn’t inevitable.
Rhoda, drying her hands, said, “Let’s have a look. It’s wonderful on you, dear. Herbert, our children are engaged. This is a day! Herbert’s bought some champagne to celebrate. Get it. It’s in the sideboard. We’ll drink our healths and happiness all round.”
The cork popped, the liquid bubbled. There was laughter and kisses and hugs. The more Gayle’s lips smiled, the more her heart cried out, This can’t be true, it mustn’t be true I can’t do it!
“We’ve made our plans,” Rhoda said later. “Herbert and I have decided to postpone our wedding until you two are married. Then when we marry a few days later, all we need to do is to change houses. I’ll move in here. Gayle, you can move in with Melvin.”
“Excellent arrangement,” said Herbert.
“Suits me fine,” said Mel.
Only Gayle was silent.
Next day was Friday. To the rest of Pascall’s employees it was an ordinary working day. To Gayle, entering the building was like walking, unarmed and unprotected, into enemy territory. If she had been gunned down she would not, in her terrified state of mind, have been surprised.