‘What can I do?’ she asked and felt that she was really playing with the problem.
“I will not marry the Duke! ” she cried aloud.
But she then thought that the solution did not lie in running away, but in facing her father and mother and telling them that she had no intention of marrying anyone she did not love.
Yet even as the idea came to her mind, she knew, looking as she did, that no one would love her and in her mother’s Society love was an amusement that happened after marriage not before.
‘What can I do? Oh! God, what can I do?’ Susanna asked herself again and again.
She put The Times down on her knee. What was the point of searching for a job that did not exist except in her imagination.
Then, as she stared almost blindly at the paper wondering what else could help her, she saw a notice at the top of the Personal Column.
She read it almost without being consciously aware of what it said because her mind was elsewhere,
“Wanted for someone temporarily blind, a reader prepared to travel abroad, who is proficient both in French and Italian. Apply between ten o’clock and noon, 96 Curzon Street.”
Susanna read the notice almost before it finally percolated into her mind. It struck her that this was something that she could do.
She certainly could read proficiently in French and Italian and then another sentence seemed to jump to her mind –
“Prepared to travel abroad.”
If she was abroad, her mother would be unable to find her. She would not meet the Duke and so she would not be forced to marry him.
She read the advertisement again. It was crazy, she told herself, of course she could not do such a thing!
Then Miss Harding’s words came back to her,
“Help will come when you need it.”
This was the help she wanted! And if so, could she be so stupid as to refuse it when it was there waiting for her, even inviting her?
She felt that her heart was beating rather quickly and rose from the chair to walk to the window.
It was raining and the roofs of the houses stretching away interminably into the distance looked grey and depressing.
‘That is the future for me,’ Susanna told herself, ‘unless somehow I can avoid it.’
Suddenly she made up her mind.
‘I will go to 96 Curzon Street,’ she told herself. ‘If they accept me, then it will be meant, the helping hand I am waiting for. If I am refused, then I shall just have to think of something else.’
CHAPTER TWO
Susanna climbed the steps of 96 Curzon Street and saw that it was a tall and imposing building.
The footman who had accompanied her from Lavenham House rang the bell and then stood back.
“Wait outside for me, James,” Susanna told him. “I may be only a minute or I may be longer, I am not sure.”
“Very good, miss,” James replied.
He was a quiet lad from the country and Susanna had been glad that he was on duty when she came downstairs having made her plan of escape from the house.
Her mother never rose early and her father, having had his breakfast, would have already gone. The only danger therefore consisted of Mrs. Dawes, the housekeeper, who would think it extraordinary if she left the house alone and would undoubtedly tell her mother at once.
So Susanna decided that the only way she could answer the advertisement was to be accompanied by one of the footmen.
She had indeed hoped that James would be on duty and, when she reached the hall, she had said to him,
“I have to take a note to Curzon Street and, as it is such a nice morning, I should like to walk. Will you come with me?”
“Of course, miss. I’ll just tell George to listen for the bell.”
He hurried towards the pantry and came back with his high hat that he wore with his livery in his hand.
The Lavenham colours of dark blue and yellow were on his striped waistcoat and the Lavenham crest on the large buttons of his cut-away tail coat.
He looked very smart, Susanna thought, walking behind her and she knew that none of her mother's friends would think it in the least strange that she should be accompanied by a footman rather than an elderly maid.
What would have been scandalous was if she had walked even the short distance to Curzon Street alone and she thought, as she had often done before, how much she preferred living in the country where she could go anywhere she wished without a chaperone.
It was a day of clear sky with a blustery wind that made Susanna hold her fur-trimmed coat with one hand and her hat with the other.
It seemed to have a touch of adventure in it that made her feel that she was not doing anything outrageous but setting out on a voyage of discovery.
Then she told herself sensibly that there was every possibility that the job was already filled.
After all The Times she had read yesterday was a day old and already hundreds of suitable people might have rushed to answer such a tempting advertisement and one of them could have been accepted.
‘Who would not want to travel abroad?’ Susanna asked herself.
She had once been to Rome with her father and mother when they had been invited to stay by the Prince and Princess Borghese, who had children of the same age.
It had been a thrilling experience for Susanna and the Borghese children had shown their English visitors the sights of Rome with a somewhat condescending pride, insinuating that it was better than anything they could produce in England.
May had disliked their attitude, but Susanna had not cared. She had not listened to what the Italians said, as they were escorted round the huge remains of the Coliseum. She had been imagining what it was like when it was built.
There Roman Emperors had sat in all their glory to watch the fights of the gladiators and she visualised them in their graceful robes crowned with ivy and guarded by soldiers wearing the magnificent uniform of the Roman Legionaries.
She had been deep in her daydreams all the time she was in Rome until she was scolded by her mother for being dull and a bore.
“You must learn to talk, Susanna,” she harangued her sharply. “It does not matter what you say, but try to make some sort of conversation. Anyone would think you were half- witted, as I am inclined to think you are, the way you just sit staring around you and saying nothing.”
It had been impossible to tell her mother that she was carried away into the past, but she had told Miss Harding how deeply Rome had affected her and she had understood.
The door in front of her was opened and Susanna gave a little start.
A servant stood waiting for her to speak and after a moment’s pause she said in a low voice, hoping that James would not overhear,
“I-I have come in – answer to the – advertisement.”
He looked somewhat surprised and she thought that the reason must be her sable-trimmed coat, which looked too luxurious for someone in need of employment.
But she had nothing else to wear, for her mother had already made her throw away all the clothes she had owned before she came to London.
“This way, ma’am.”
Susanna followed him into a marble-floored hall and up a curving staircase, which led to the first floor.
The servant opened a door and she was shown into an attractive sitting room, which looked out onto a little courtyard at the back of the building that had been converted into a garden although it was too early for any flowers to be in bloom.
“Will you please take a seat, ma’am,” the servant said and left her alone.
Susanna looked round the room. It was well furnished in a somewhat masculine manner with comfortable armchairs instead of the imitation eighteenth-century French style that was found in most London drawing rooms.
One or two pictures on the wall Susanna could see were early Italian.
She wanted to have a closer look at them, but was afraid if someone came in and found her walking about the room they would think that
she was inquisitive or perhaps impertinent.
The door opened and an elderly man came in. His hair was streaked with grey and there was a tired expression about his eyes as if he had been working hard.
As he walked towards her, Susanna rose to her feet.
“How do you do?” he began. “I understand that you have come in answer to the advertisement in The Times.”
“That is right,” Susanna answered, “but perhaps you have already found someone for the position?”
“We have, in fact, interviewed quite a number of applicants, but they were not, as particularly requested, proficient in either French or Italian.”
“I speak both languages.”
“Before we waste any more time, perhaps it would be advisable for you to do a small test. Are you agreeable to that?”
“Yes, of course,” Susanna nodded.
“Then if you will come with me I will ask you to read some extracts to someone who you will not see but who will listen to you.”
Susanna did not reply and after a moment the man added,
“I am afraid that I am somewhat remiss in not introducing myself. My name is Chambers and I am private secretary to a gentleman who has been injured in a motor car accident.”
There was something in the way he said the last words that made Susanna reply instinctively,
“I am – sorry.”
“You will understand that it is very tragic for a young man to know that he may lose his eyesight completely.”
“Your advertisement said – ‘temporarily blind’,” Susanna murmured.
“That is what we hope,” Mr. Chambers replied, “but I can explain everything to you later. Will you please tell me your name?”
“Yes, of course,” Susanna replied. “I am – ”
It suddenly struck her before she actually gave her name that it would be unwise to say who she was. Mr. Chambers and his employer might easily have heard of her father and, as her family name was Laven, it would be easy to connect the two.
“My – name,” she said, “is Susanna – Brown.”
It was the first name that came into her mind and even as she said it, she wished that she had been a little more imaginative.
“Will you come with me, Miss Brown?”
Mr. Chambers opened the door and they proceeded a little way along the passage before they went into another room. It was small and had another door opening out of it, which Susanna immediately suspected was a larger bedroom.
The room they were in, with its walls decorated with an attractive wallpaper and with colourful chintz curtains had been, she was quite certain before the bed had been removed, a dressing room.
Now there were a table and two comfortable chairs, one of which was very close to the communicating door.
She was not surprised when Mr. Chambers indicated it with his hand and said,
“Will you sit here, Miss Brown, and wait a moment.”
Susanna sat down and Mr. Chambers went through the communicating door. She heard his voice speaking quietly to someone in the other room, but she did not hear a reply.
He then came back and handed her a copy of The Morning Post.
“Will you please read the editorial,” he said, “and there will be no need for you to raise your voice any louder than usual.”
He then went back into the other room and Susanna, feeling a little nervous, opened the newspaper and found the editorial on the centre page.
She was not nervous of reading aloud, only of the circumstances that she found herself in.
Miss Harding had always said that to read them aloud was the best way to revise the essays she had written on a number of different subjects.
“One gets the rhythm of what one has written when one reads aloud,” she had told Susanna.
They also often read Shakespeare’s plays to each other, Miss Harding taking some parts and Susanna others.
They later progressed to Milton and to Childe Harold, which Susanna had loved because she found Byron’s verse inspired pictures in her mind.
The editorial she was to read was a warning about the continual efforts of the Germans to out-build the British Navy and an attack on the lassitude of those in Parliament, who were procrastinating in ordering the modern Battleships that the Navy required.
Thanks to Miss Harding, Susanna pronounced her words perfectly and her voice, although she had never thought about it, was deeper than that of most women and had a musical quality.
As she finished the editorial, she folded the newspaper back into shape and as she did so, Mr. Chambers came back into the room.
He smiled at her as if reassuringly and handed her a book. She took it from him and saw it was Voltaire’s Candide, which, as she had read it with Miss Harding, she felt was an old friend.
“Read any part you like,” Mr. Chambers told her and again left her alone.
She opened the book and chose a passage that had always amused her and read it with an elegant Parisian accent that her mother considered was so essential.
She had only read half the page when Mr. Chambers reappeared.
Susanna looked up at him, wondering if he had already decided that she was no use and did not wish her to waste any more of his time.
Before she could say anything he handed her another book saying,
“Your French is exceptional. Miss Brown, as I expect you have been told before.”
“I am so glad you should think so,” Susanna smiled.
“And we would now like to hear your Italian.”
Mr. Chambers gave her a book that she did not know, but found when she opened it that it was a criticism of the Italian Classic Operas, comparing them unfavourably with the German.
Susanna did not agree with anything that the author said and she could not help her voice becoming somewhat critical and questioning as she read out what was written.
Again Mr. Chambers stopped her before she had read to the bottom of the page.
“Thank you, Miss Brown, that was excellent. Now Mr. Dunblane would like to meet you.”
Susanna rose to her feet and followed Mr. Chambers through the open door to the next room.
As she had expected, it was a large bedroom. Two windows were hung with claret velvet curtains and the bed was upholstered in the same colour.
In the bed, lying back against a pile of pillows, was a man who appeared to be completely covered in bandages. He was almost like some mummy in an Egyptian tomb, Susanna thought, except that the bandages were white and new.
They gave him a strange appearance of being unreal or a creature from another Planet in an H. G. Wells novel.
Mr. Chambers walked towards the bed and, as Susanna followed him, he said to the man lying on it.
“I have Miss Brown with me, to whom you have just listened.”
“You read well, Miss Brown,” Mr. Dunblane said in a hoarse voice.
“Thank you,” Susanna replied.
“I need someone to read to me as I cannot read for myself, being unable to see a damned thing!”
Susanna was startled both by the swear word and the bitterness in the bandaged man’s voice.
“I am – sorry.”
“I don’t want pity!” Mr. Dunblane retorted almost rudely. “All I want is to be kept informed of what is happening outside the darkness that I am incarcerated in.”
“Miss Brown understands,” Mr. Chambers interposed soothingly, “but naturally she would like to know whether you are prepared to employ her.”
“Of course I am prepared to do so,” Mr. Dunblane replied sharply. “I could hardly be expected to tolerate those other idiots who could only speak the French of the gutter and the Italian of some ice cream merchant!”
Although he was speaking so scathingly, Susanna could not help giving a little chuckle of laughter.
“I amuse you, do I?” Mr. Dunblane asked. “Then I am glad that someone is amused. If you want to know what hell is like, try these bandages and learn what it is to sit in utter da
rkness.”
As Susanna had no idea how to reply, she looked appealingly at Mr. Chambers.
“I will take Miss Brown away now, Mr. Dunblane,” he said, “and arrange for her to accompany us when we leave tomorrow.”
Susanna drew in her breath.
“You had better warn her what sort of person I am and that she must learn to put up with me!” Mr. Dunblane pointed out.
“I will do so,” Mr. Chambers answered and moved towards the door.
As Susanna started to follow him, the man in the bed said unexpectedly,
“Goodbye, Miss Brown. I like your voice, which I suspect is more than you could say of mine.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Dunblane, and thank you for employing me. I will try not to sound like an ice cream merchant!”
It was impossible to know whether she amused him or not, but she felt when she joined Mr. Chambers in the next room, that he was pleased with her.
They walked back to the sitting room that Susanna had been shown into originally.
“Will you sit down, Miss Brown,” Mr. Chambers asked. “I feel that I should ask you a few particulars about yourself, although it is quite obvious that you are eminently suitable for the position.”
“Thank you,” Susanna said. “Are you really intending to leave London – tomorrow?”
“1 would prefer to do so,” Mr. Chambers said, “for the doctors have ordered Mr. Dunblane to a warmer climate.”
He saw the question in Susanna’s eyes and added,
“He has a Villa outside Florence. He will be quiet and comfortable there and we can only pray that the operation which took place a few days ago will prove successful.”
“What happened?” Susanna asked.
“Mr. Dunblane was involved in a motor car accident in America.”
“In America!”
“He is, in fact, American.”
“I had no idea. He speaks like an Englishman.”
“Shall I say that Mr. Dunblane has had a cosmopolitan education?” Mr. Chambers replied with a smile. “English people always expect Americans to talk through their nose with a nasal accent, but as it happens Mr. Dunblane was at Oxford University and since then has lived more in Europe than in his own country.”
202. Love in the Dark Page 3