Sweet Compulsion

by Woolf, Victoria

  `How old is Miss Anthea?'

  `Seventeen, miss.'

  Not much younger than me,' smiled Marcy.

  Anatole, placing a silver dish on the table, glanced at Walters with a saturnine expression. Marcy missed the glance the two men exchanged as she took egg, bacon and kidney from the dish and hungrily began to eat.

  She drank several cups of extremely good coffee, then sat talking to Walters as Anatole prepared the lunch, her laughter ringing out as Walters quietly told her some anecdotes about Anthea Saxton, who, it seemed, was very fond of practical jokes, especially ones which punctured her brothers sense of self-importance.

  `If you had a pack of cards I could tell your fortune,' she informed Anatole with a wicked smile. `There were some gypsies who came to our district every summer, and one of the women taught me to tell fortunes.'

  `I do not believe in fortune telling,' Anatole said loftily.

  `Neither do I, silly,' Marcy retorted. But it's fun.'

  Walters went to a cupboard and produced a pack of cards, giving Anatole a defiant glare. The three of them sat down around the table, and Marcy began to shuffle the cards.

  Returning from his board meeting with a wry smile on his face after a long, incredulous struggle with his fellow directors, Randal let himself into his house, feeling a leap of the heart as he walked into the sitting-room in search of Marcy. Finding no sign of her, he frowned, his blue eyes darkening in disappointment. Had she, after all, gone back to Paradise Street without waiting for him? A sensation of sharp anger made his brows black above the calm mask of his usual expression. He walked to the baize door to open it, intending to shout for Walters, sheer impotent frustration making him too annoyed to ring.

  From below came the soft peal of laughter. His rage vanished and a flicker of surprised amusement came into his face. Softly he crept down the stairs. He rarely ventured into the kitchen domain ruled over by Anatole and it was a long time since he had been down there. At the back of the room he stood

  watching the three heads close together around the table. Anatole was laughing, his normally melancholy glumness banished, his dark eyes snapping. Walters was making soft, smothered sounds closely resembling chuckles.

  `It's all true,' Marcy protested demurely. 'See, it says so in the cards .

  `So,' said Anatole, his usually perfect English deserting him, 'and when my racehorse has won the Derby? Shall I be even richer ?'

  `Fabulously,' Marcy said solemnly. 'You'll make a takeover bid for Saxtons and you'll generously employ Mr Randal as your chef.'

  Anatole's laughter redoubled. He moved backwards, his face writhing with it, and his dark eyes fell upon Randal's cool, satirical face. Horror flashed into Anatole's features and he almost fell over as he jumped up. Walters turned, gasped and went a pale shade of green. Marcy looked over her shoulder and grinned unrepentantly at the new arrival.

  `Come and have your fortune told, Randal,' she offered him sweetly.

  The two servants grew suddenly busy, each vanishing in opposite directions. Randal strolled over to the table and looked down at the cards. 'Later, perhaps,' he said lightly. 'Just now I think we'll let Anatole get on with the lunch.'

  Marcy shrugged. 'It's ready,' she said. 'We're going to have . .

  `Never mind that,' said Randal, his hand lifting her slight body upward. 'Come along, child. Stop getting in Anatole's way.'

  She allowed him to usher her back upstairs into the hall. There she gave him a rueful smile. 'I don't think I annoyed Anatole, really.'

  `I suspect you enchanted him,' Randal observed blandly. 'Especially with your final prediction.'

  She laughed. 'Are you afraid I may have undermined feudal discipline, Randal?'

  `I should have known better than to leave dynamite lying around unattended in this house,' he said drily, but his blue eyes were moving over her in a strangely concentrated fashion, making her curiously aware of him.

  Marcy felt a heat in her cheeks. To cover it, she twirled around in front of him, her arms lifted. 'What do you think ? I hope your sister won't be offended by my borrowing her clothes. I'll have them cleaned for her before I return them.'

  `You look like a boy,' he said softly. 'Just until one looks closer and sees more clearly .

  He was certainly looking closer, she thought in a flicker of rebellion, feeling his roving eyes intensely. He took her hand lightly and pulled her into the sitting-room, pushing her down on to the couch. `Have some sherry ?'

  He was already pouring the amber liquid behind her as she turned her head to refuse, so she took the glass he offered and sipped at it.

  He sat down beside her and turned to look at her, his smooth features unrevealing as he surveyed the frilled white lace of her blouse, the tight-fitting black velvet jacket with its open lapels, the slightly flared black velvet pants. Above, her astonishing hair

  blazed around her face, the fine curls making his fingers itch to touch them.

  `Tell me about the board meeting,' she invited.

  He shrugged. 'No doubt you can remember days in Cornwall when the winds raged, the seas crashed back and forwards and it wasn't safe to put one's head out of doors.'

  `As bad as that?' she asked, sympathetically.

  `I understate the situation,' he assured her wryly. `Poor Randal!'

  He gave her a narrow-eyed look. 'You don't ask who won ?'

  She put her sherry glass down and put her linked arms above her head, stretching lazily. `I'm beginning to know you too well.'

  He put his own glass down, watching the slender boyish length of her extended body out of his sideways glance. 'I'm touched by your confidence.'

  `So this afternoon we can tell Sim ?' she asked.

  He swivelled, frowning. 'If you like,' he said slowly, eyeing her. 'Aren't you warm in that jacket indoors? Take it off.'

  Marcy sat forward. 'It looks so nice,' she said childishly, 'I prefer to keep it on.'

  His smile was indulgent. 'It may look nicer, but your face is flushed,' he said, firmly beginning to remove it.

  She struggled, a queer -panic in her throat. He paused, staring at her. 'Stop running my life, Randal,' she said huskily. 'You make me feel . .

  `What do I make you feel?' he asked as her voice broke off.

  `Threatened,' she said in a low tone. He slid a cool hand under her chin, lifting her face. `Threatened in what way?' `How do I know?' she returned. 'You're too managing, too bossy.' A flicker of thought passed over his face, Just as if, she thought, he were disappointed by her answer. `Keep your jacket on if you must,' he said, releasing her with an abrupt gesture.

  She slid out of it. 'No, you're right. It is too warm.'

  His mouth twisted sardonically. 'You contrary child.'

  `Stop calling me a child!'

  His face moved closer, his eyes riveted on her face. `Do you resent it ?'

  `You treat me as if I were your little sister!'

  `Do I, by God ?' he retorted with a snort of laughter, and her spine suddenly prickled uneasily at something in his tone. She moved discreetly away, watching him cautiously. 'Tell me what really happened at the board meeting,' she invited.

  He slid an arm along the couch, leaning over her, his eyes fixed on her pink mouth. 'Changing the subject, Marcy?' he asked teasingly. 'You issued a challenge just now and you know it . . .' His other hand moved slowly along her arm. She felt the warmth of his palm through the fine lace, and was conscious of a feeling of acute tension, a sensation so new to her that she was taken aback by it.

  Nervously, she asked, 'How long do you think it will take before we, can see the new plans for the development ?'

  Randal's arousing hand had reached her thin shoulder. 'I've already set the wheels in motion,' he told her, staring at the fine shoulder bones his fingers were slowly exploring. 'You're so tiny I feel I could break you with one hand, Marcy,' he said softly.

  There was something insidiously pleasant about his hands touching her. It made her feel acutely nervous. 'I . .
. I wonder how long Anatole will be serving lunch,' she said, turning to glance at the door.

  `You weren't as nervous_ as this last night,' Randal observed indolently.

  Her gaze flashed to his face, wide and startled. `What ?'

  His hard mouth was lazily mocking as he saw the look on her small features. 'In fact, I would have called you very co-operative.'

  Her green eyes searched his blue ones intently. `Oh,' she said, flushing. 'The wine . .

  His hand was winding itself into her wild bright hair. 'Yes,' he agreed blandly. 'The wine, little Marcy.' And then he moved, and she closed her eyes, experiencing the full sensation of what he was doing to her, totally alert this morning, as she had not been the night before,, feeling the gentle, searching sensuality of his kiss in every nerve of her body. Randal made no violent or alarming demands upon her. His hard mouth explored her parted lips, gently caressing them, and she found the sensation so pleasant that her slight body swayed quite involuntarily towards him, and his hands at once pulled her closer.

  She could feel one move up along her back, push-frig into her fine hair, stroking her nape with sensitive

  fingers, letting the marmalade-coloured curls entwine around his hand. The effect of what he was doing was very odd, she thought dreamily. Tentatively, half alarmed, she slid her hands up his shirt to his neck, and he made a sound against the soft mouth he was caressing, an odd, muffled sound which surprised her.

  As if her own movement had brought about an alteration in him, the cautious gentleness of the kiss became different. He tilted her head, his hands holding it between their palms, and she felt urgency in the demanding pressure on her mouth.

  Dazed and utterly new to the feelings which she could feel surging through him, she trembled, moved by an inexplicable desire to give him the response he was asking for, kissing him back, her warm mouth tender. Randal began to breathe as if he were fighting for life. His hands left her hair and began to move down her back, shaping her between them in a curiously exciting, alarming fashion. One hand moved over her midriff. Suddenly she felt it close over her small breast, and Randal's heartbeat grew louder. Marcy, shocked out of her trance, pulled violently away from him.

  `No,' she said shakily, putting her hands up to push him away.

  He was very flushed. The blue eyes seemed to flicker with fire. For a moment they looked at each other, then, restlessly, he moved away. 'I'm sorry,' he said after a pause, his voice shaky. 'I lost my head.'

  She looked down, smoothing the black velvet with nervous fingers. 'Randal, I'm only just eighteen. I know that these days girls of my age are often very

  used to kissing and boy-friends, but I've been brought up rather differently, and I feel far too young to get involved with someone like you . .

  `What about Sim?' he asked her, his body rigid, yet filled with that nervous, restless energy.

  She turned scarlet. `Sim?' Dismay filled her eyes.

  His face hardened. He watched her with sudden remorseless closeness. 'I saw him kiss you yesterday,' he reminded her. 'I would say he could give me a few years.'

  `That's different,' she said uneasily.

  `Why is it ?' he asked harshly. 'Are you in love with him ?'

  She looked down, embarrassment in her face. `Randal, I really don't want to talk about it to you. Please, can't you ring for lunch? I'm sure poor Anatole has been waiting downstairs for ages with his marvellous food getting cold.'

  Randal looked as if he wanted to say something explosive, but after, a grim pause he furiously rang for Walters to serve the lunch.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THEY drove back to Paradise Street in the middle of the warm summer afternoon, through London roads jammed with traffic, children eating icecream, perspiring policemen in the crisp dark blue of shirt sleeve order which in England always indicates a swing to hot weather, girls in summer dresses sauntering casually where in winter they would be hurrying with bent heads, and the sudden appearance of icecream vans, soft drink stalls and workmen digging roads in-bare brown-chested cheerfulness. The whole atmosphere of the sprawling city had swung into the summer atmosphere of casual enjoyment of life.

  Randal parked beside the house and the two of them wandered across the garden. A few invisible inhabitants tensed, peering through the pale summer-bleached stalks of grass, bright eyes glinting. Marcy shouted, 'Why aren't you at school? If you get caught it serves you right!' and opened the front door. Randal looked around, having missed the few slight signs which betrayed other presences to her. Then followed her into the grubby, shabby hall.

  `Children ?' he asked.

  She grinned. 'A few of them bunk out when they feel like it . . . they'd bunk out anyway, but having Paradise Street to come to, they make for here now.'

  `Bunk out ?' Randal's fine brows lifted.

  `Skip school . . . play truant.' She gave him her confidential, teasing smile. 'I'll have to give you a vocabulary lesson before I let you loose on the local inhabitants. You're in foreign territory here, Randal.'

  `I'm beginning to realise it,' he agreed. His eyes wandered through the hall, narrowing. 'This could be a very fine property,' he murmured. 'It's been allowed to run down appallingly, but the shell of it is still worth preserving. Did you say the local preservation group were interested ?'

  `Sim roped them in,' she nodded.

  His glance at her was unrevealing. 'Could you get hold of Sim? Ask him to come over and look around the house with me ?'

  `I'll ring him, shall I ?' She moved to the door. 'Why don't you look around the house while I'm ringing his office? I'm not sure he'll be there—sometimes he has to go to court or to visit one of his clients in prison.'

  She left him walking around the lower rooms and ran to the nearest callbox. It was vandalised beyond repair, so, grimacing, she ran into the betting shop in Crancy Alley, and asked Mr Wills, the owner, if she could use his telephone. His yellow teeth glinting at her, Mr Wills waved a friendly hand. 'Help yourself, darling.' His grandson, Micky, was one of her regular visitors, a boy of eight with a shrewd quick mind who had a natural talent for mathematics and hated school.

  When she had rung Sim's office, and found him absent but expected back any moment, she left a message for him to come to Paradise Street and left

  the shop, smiling goodbye to the men studying form with more passion than they had ever shown their wives.

  Before returning to the house she paused to offer a bag of jelly beans to the still invisible inhabitants of the garden, laying it on the path with a shouted, 'Fair shares and no fighting!'

  Hearing Randal's footsteps on the bare boards upstairs, she stood in the hall, shouting, 'I'll make some tea. Want some ?'

  `Thank you,' he called back. 'I'll be down in a moment. Some of this stuff is incredible!'

  Marcy went into the dark, spider-haunted kitchen and began to make tea. She put out two cups and some shortcake biscuits, then, hearing someone bang on the front door, went to answer it, her slight figure graceful in the black velvet suit, expecting Sim.

  She opened it with a welcoming smile, but her expression changed as she saw Lisa in the doorway. The older woman's face was charged with hostility. Marcy's green eyes flickered.

  `Oh, hello,' she said, a little breathlessly.

  Lisa came into the hall and slammed the door shut. Marcy fell back a pace or two, sensing that Lisa was in a very angry mood. They faced each other in silence for a moment. Lisa's cold eyes moved over the black velvet suit, the lace shirt, the obviously expensive look of the whole outfit. Her mouth took on an acid smile.

  `So,' she said nastily, 'the little girl from Paradise Street wears something better than old jeans and T-shirts now, does she? I wonder who paid for that?

  I suppose it wouldn't have come from my Sim, by any chance ?'

  Marcy's whole body seemed to be covered in heated embarrassment. 'No,' she said indignantly. `Lisa .

  `Don't you Lisa me,' the other snorted. 'Mrs Gold to you.' She emphasised the name
savagely. 'I suppose it should have occurred to me a long time ago, but Sim's always getting involved in some cranky cause or other, and this time seemed no different. When he brought me here I only had to look at you to dismiss you from my mind . . . a scruffy little kid in jeans . . . who'd have thought my Sim would be weak-minded enough to look twice at you ?' Her smooth, petal-soft skin convulsed in a bitter rage. As carefully, expertly made up as ever, in her expensive, well-cut dress, the veneer of cool hauteur had been stripped away overnight and Lisa's acquisitive, possessive feelings for Sim shone through.

  `Lisa; you're wrong,' Marcy said desperately. 'Sim loves you.'

  `Yes,' Lisa hissed. 'And what's more, he's mine I'm his wife, little Miss Paradise Street, and I understand him better than, you ever could. I've known Sim most of my life. My family knows his family. If you think I'll give him up without a fight you're way off course, let me tell you . . . I know the way to keep Sim, and I'll keep him.' A flash of envious, bitter emotion crossed her beautiful face. 'Just because you're a young girl, that's all it is. He feels he's getting older and he wants to prove he can still attract young women. It's just a phase. Once he's got a child

  of his own he won't get wandering eyes again. I'll see to that.'

  `I know Sim wants a child,' said Marcy, half stunned by the torrent of angry words.

  `From me !' Lisa half screamed. 'From me, not you. Oh, he's been looking at you, he admitted as much, but last night he came back to me, Miss Marcy Campion, and I'm going to see he has nothing more to do with you and your -mad schemes. I'll tell the press what sort of girl you are, chasing married men . . . I'll call them and give them the truth about you!'

  Marcy was struck dumb with horror, staring at her. Behind them there was a knock at the door. Automatically she groped for the handle and opened it. Russell and a little band of reporters and photographers stood on the doorstep, excitement oozing out of them as they poured across the threshold. Marcy looked, aghast, at Lisa, her green eyes imploring her. Had Lisa rung them to invite them here to be told her sordid little story? -