“Would you be willing to go abroad?” The woman reached for another register.
“Abroad? If it were not for an indefinite period—yes.” She had a ridiculous sensation of deliberately cutting the links with the life she had known up to now.
“Would you go to Australia?” enquired the woman, as one might say “Southend.”
Leila gasped.
“Well—I—In what circumstances?”
“A client of ours—a distinguished woman writer—is going out there for a year. She is busy on a travel book, and her own secretary has fallen ill at the last moment and can’t accompany her,” explained the woman behind the desk, reading out from the file without emotion. “Provided she liked any applicant for the post, she would prefer to take a secretary out there with her, rather than engage someone when she gets there. Would you be interested?”
Leila moistened her lips nervously.
Would she be interested? Could she be interested in any proposition, however adventurous, which would put half the world between her and Simon?
It was a superb opportunity, of course, if she were lucky enough to secure it. Beyond anything she could have planned or hoped for. A completely new life—new interests—new experiences, which could not fail, surely, to help her in her efforts to forget Simon and all he might have meant to her.
“When do I have—to decide?”
“Within the next two or three days. But you won’t be the only one after the job, you know.” The woman gave her a slightly scornful glance over her spectacles.
“Of course. I realize that.”
She ought, she knew, to seize the chance immediately. To rush along and interview the distinguished client now, and try to settle everything before anyone else could forestall her.
But—half the world away from Simon.
It was one thing to determine that one must never see him again—at least very seldom. It was something quite different to make it a practical impossibility to see him for something like a year.
“I’ll—take the particulars, and—go along there when I leave the office this afternoon,” she said.
“Can’t you go along now? Time is probably important.”
“I know. But”—she glanced at her watch—“I have to get back to my present office.”
“Very well.” The woman began to write down particulars on a card. “Don’t hope too much. As I tell you, there will be plenty of others after the job.”
“I know. I’ll go straight away after the office.”
“And it’s all a question of whether she likes the applicant or not. Even if your qualifications are all right, she just might not like you.”
“Of course.” Leila took the card with rising hopes. “She might not like me.”
As she walked back to the office—with plenty of time to spare—Leila told herself that she was being spineless and ungrateful in not trying to grasp this magnificent opportunity with both hands.
She was freer than most to take such a position. No family, no ties—at least, no ties which she could acknowledge—and in urgent need of something which would take her right away from the present scene. She ought to regard this offer as a heaven-sent miracle.
Instead of which, she was wincing before the very thought of the first step which would take her away from Simon.
As it happened, she was not very busy during the first half of the afternoon, and she was able—however unwillingly to follow her own thoughts. A dozen times she made up her mind that she was going to take this chance of a year in Australia, and a dozen times she found excuses for not taking this momentous decision.
She knew they were all hollow excuses. They none of them amounted to any more than the fact that she could not bear to go so far away from Simon.
“But he’s already much farther away than that, in everything which matters,” Leila tried to tell herself.
And just as she thought she had convinced herself he sent for her, and she knew as she looked at him across the desk that, so long as she could see him sometimes, there would always be the fugitive, dangerous feeling, “Perhaps, in some tiny way, he belongs to me. Because I understand him—because I love him—because—”
Fatal line of specious reasoning which could lead only to disaster and unhappiness.
It was strange that, after two hours of complete indecision, she made up her mind in the split second of time which it took for him to reach across his desk for a letter. His hand—that strong, well-shaped, capable hand—came within her range of vision, even though her head was bent over her work. And, at the almost overwhelming impulse she had to put her cheek down against it, she realized all the danger and misery that was going to be hers unless she found the courage for this necessary break.
Almost calmly, she waited for him to finish his dictation. Then, fiddling a little with her pen and notebook, but otherwise showing no sign of nervousness, she said:
“I hope this won’t be a—a shock for you. But I have had an unexpected offer of a—very attractive job, and I want to accept it as—as soon as possible.”
“What did you say?” He looked up from something he had been examining, and there was astonishment and, quite unmistakably, dismay in his expression. “Do you mean you want to leave me?” She thought agitatedly that he need not have made it sound quite such a personal matter. But, guessing that the dismay had something to do with his recollection of the recent crisis, she said quickly and reassuringly:
“The decision hasn’t anything to do with—with our disagreement. Please don’t think I haven’t been—happy here.” She was stretching the truth rather ruthlessly there, she supposed. “But this is a great chance”—she had to speak of it as a firm offer, or else it would carry no weight with him—“and I don’t want to lose it.”
“In what way is it a great chance?” he enquired, and she saw, a little resentfully, that a bleak and disapproving look had come into his eyes.
“It’s a very—interesting job—abroad.”
“Abroad?” She was not sure if increased surprise, dismay or distaste gave emphasis to that. “Where abroad?”
“Australia,” she said rather faintly, because the mention of it seemed already to put miles between her and Simon.
He looked at her in stupefaction.
“I don’t believe it,” was what he said. And she had a wild desire to tell him how right he was, and that she didn’t believe it herself—that it was all an absurd invention, and that nothing would persuade her to go so far away from him.
Instead, she had to say:
“But why shouldn’t you believe me? People do go to Australia.”
“Not you,” was his entirely illogical reply, and he passed his hand over his hair in a curiously bewildered gesture. Why do you want to go, Leila?”
“Well, it’s—it’s a great opportunity.”
“Do you know anyone there?”
“No. Oh, no,” she said rather forlornly, though she was unaware of the fact.
“Are you going with someone you know?”
“No. I just—”
“Yes?” he said, as she hesitated.
Leila gathered her wits together, and determinedly made a coherent story of it.
“I’ve always wanted to travel. I suppose most people do. But there never seemed much opportunity. This—seems the most wonderful chance.”
She appeared to have reached him with her arguments at last. At least he didn’t dismiss them as ridiculous. But nor did he answer them. He sat slumped rather far back in his chair, regarding her with a dissatisfied little frown.
“I thought—” he muttered. “I never imagined—Well, of course it is for you to decide. If you’re absolutely sure that this is what you want—”
She nodded silently, hoping that would do as an assurance that she knew what she wanted.
“When do you propose to leave?” he enquired rather disagreeably.
“I thought—I hoped you would take this as a—a week’s notice.” She thought h
e was going to argue that, too. But, after a moment, he just said curtly:
“If that’s what you really wish, of course I’m prepared to do so. But it all seems extraordinarily sudden and unsatisfactory.”
“These things usually are sudden,” she offered timidly, without being quite able to define what “these things” might be.
“Well, I hope you’ve given the matter some thought, Leila. I hope you’re not doing something you will regret, on the spur of the moment.”
She thought of her afternoon of frantic consideration and doubt. “It isn’t on the spur of the moment,” she assured him.
“Very well.” He made a slight sign to indicate that the conversation was at an end. And Leila, feeling weak and as though she had weathered some tremendous emotional storm, gathered up her things and left.
She worked hard when she returned to her own room. Worked until all the others had gone except one—a gay, rather feckless, but sweet-tempered girl called Felicity Troon, who sometimes reminded Leila, not unpleasingly, of Rosemary.
Felicity was going out somewhere later that evening, and obligingly filled in the time by copying some enclosures for Leila. She had the art—not always appreciated by her associates—of being able to type and talk at the same time, and she threw off odd bits of gossip to Leila now, as she rattled away on her typewriter.
Leila, already struggling with the double demands of her work and her thoughts, would willingly have dispensed with the conversation. But she could not be ungracious to someone who was good-naturedly helping her, and so she obligingly returned comments at intervals, though she was not really greatly interested in the private affairs of other people in the office—a subject which Felicity found absorbing.
Presently, however, when the conversation, such as it was, veered to Simon, Leila’s speed slackened somewhat. She must be careful not to be tripped into saying anything ill-judged or indiscreet.
“You get on very well with him, don’t you?” Felicity said, jerking some sheets of paper out of her machine and rapidly inserting others.
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
“Not ‘of course’ at all,” Felicity assured her cheerfully. ‘He wouldn’t be every girl’s meat.”
Leila was silent, absurdly resenting this criticism of Simon, although she knew it was perfectly correct.
“Not his fiancée’s, for instance,” went on Felicity, a little amused by her own wit.
“We don’t know that!”
“Oh, but we do. She threw him over, you know.”
“She was remarkably glad to get him back again, however,” retorted Leila, a good deal nettled, and also irritated to find that she had made a typing error.
Felicity stopped what she was doing.
“No! Is that true?”
“I—Yes.” Leila' was already regretting her imprudent exclamation.
“I say! I didn’t know you and he talked about things like that.” Leila wanted to say that they didn’t. But that would involve explaining about her being related to Rosemary, and reveal the fact that she had kept all this very much to herself up to now. She would be going soon, in any case. There was no need to enter into further explanations.
But, since Felicity continued to look at her with an interested, enquiring air which more or less turned her remark into a question, Lena felt bound to murmur:
“Oh, he’s quite informal and chatty sometimes, you know.”
“Is that so?”
Felicity took her last page out of the machine and began to check it thoughtfully.
Then Simon’s bell rang, and Leila exclaimed: “Oh, dear!” because she already had plenty to do, and she supposed she wanted to go after that Australian job as soon as possible and—anyway, she felt she could not bear to see him again just now.
“I’ll go for you, if you like,” Felicity said carelessly.
“Oh—would you really? It’s awfully good of you.”
“No, not at all. I’ve still got an hour to fill in, and you seem to have plenty to do,” remarked Felicity, who was fundamentally a good colleague, in spite of her propensity for gossip.
She went out of the room, and for a while Leila worked steadily. In a way, she regretted not having gone to see Simon again. He might have said something important—though she could not imagine what. In any case, there would not be so many more times to go and see him. Perhaps she would be very sorry afterwards that she had sacrificed even one of them.
It was very quiet in the office, except for the sound of her typewriter tapping. Well, she would have to get used to that if she were going to take a job where she worked on her own.
“I may not get it,” Leila told herself.
But she had a sort of helpless feeling of inevitability which told her that she would only have to apply for this Australian post, and it would be hers.
“It’s as though it were meant to be,” she thought unhappily, and tried to think how lucky she was.
Felicity came back quite soon.
“It was only a short letter he had forgotten, but he wants it to go tonight,” she explained, and sat down at her desk.
“I didn’t really miss anything,” Leila thought. But she wished she had gone, all the same.
“I say—you know what you said about Mr. Morley being engaged again—”
Felicity was off on a fresh stream of gossip, while she typed her letter.
“Ye-es.” Leila tried to sound discouragingly busy, for she was not anxious to return to that subject.
“Are you quite sure about it? About his being re-engaged, I mean.”
Leila thought of Rosemary posing in the doorway, wearing Simon’s ring.
“Oh, yes.” She sounded curt, because to re-emphasize the situation by words, hurt a good deal. “Quite sure.”
“Oh.”
Leila typed her last few lines. Then something in the thoughtful quality of Felicity’s “Oh,” seemed to strike her.
“Why, Felicity?”
“Because I thought he looked a bit taken aback when I ventured to congratulate him.”
“You congratulated him!” Leila, to whom the whole subject of Rosemary and Simon was such a delicate one, was astounded at Felicity’s easy assurance. “But—do you think that was very tactful?”
“Reasonably so,” replied Felicity, unmoved. “And I hoped it would draw something.”
“Did it?” enquired Leila, with irresistible curiosity.
“No. Except a very odd look and an economical ‘thank you.’ ”
“I expect he was embarrassed.”
“Why should he be? Lots of people get engaged and dis-engaged, and even re-engaged,” declared Felicity equably.
“Oh, but it was all so—so—”
Felicity waited interestedly to hear more. But Leila groped unsuccessfully after the right word. And, as she did so, the door opened most unexpectedly and Simon stood there.
“Will you please come to my office for a moment, Leila,” he said, much more peremptorily than he had ever spoken to her before.
And then he turned on his heel and marched off down the corridor, leaving the door wide open, as though he thought she had no choice whatever but to follow him.
Felicity opened her lips and her eyes quite wide, to convey to Leila by pantomime that she considered this a most extraordinary performance on Mr. Morley’s part. And, as Leila, trembling a little, brushed past her desk, she whispered:
“Does he always call you by your first name?”
Leila didn’t answer that. She went out of the room, closing the door behind her, and she followed Simon down the corridor, her heart beating fast and her thoughts running anxiously hither and thither in an attempt to discover why he should have summoned her thus.
CHAPTER XIII
AS soon as they reached his office, Simon turned to face Leila.
“What nonsense have you been telling that girl?” was his unpromising beginning.
“Which girl? enquired Leila, with her mind circling uneasily round
the thought of Rosemary.
“Why, Miss—what’s her name?—Troon. The one who came in to take that last letter just now.”
“I haven’t told her any nonsense!” A feeling of indignation was slowly beginning to rise in Leila’s heart. She was rather tired of being catechized and reproved, she decided, and instinctively she squared her shoulders and looked defiantly at Simon. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Of course you do!” He looked a little as though he had had enough, too. “She congratulated me on what she was pleased to call my renewed engagement. And when I asked her who had told her about that, she said you had.”
“Well, why not?” Leila was astonished and dismayed to find that her voice sounded positively truculent. But then she was dead tired and very unhappy. “Is it a forbidden subject?”
He started to say something which sounded very angry indeed and was not phrased in strictly parliamentary language! And then suddenly he stopped.
“Sit down, Leila,” he said, in a much quieter tone. “What is the matter, child?”
“N-nothing,” Leila whispered, and she sat down in the chair he put for her, and thought of nothing at all for the next few minutes except trying not to cry.
He stood and watched her in the utmost perplexity, and after a short pause she felt ready for whatever further unreasonable things he might say about himself and Rosemary getting engaged again. So she raised her head and said: “Well?”
But he didn’t revert to that subject. He just said very unhappily: “Do you have to go to Australia?”
“No, she replied, just as unhappily. “I just thought—it was a good idea.”
“Why, in heaven’s name?” enquired Simon, in the tones of a man who was holding on very carefully to his sanity and his self-control.
“Do you really want to know?” she pleated her dress nervously between her thumb and finger.
“More than anything—almost anything else in the world.”
“Well, it’s just that I feel, if you’re going to marry Rosemary, I’d just as soon be at the other end of the world.” Leila said, and began to cry quietly and very humiliatingly.
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