There Were Three Princes

by Joyce Dingwell

  Yet when she looked down on Robin, she forgot her own living in Robbie's now apparent less-than-living. Couldn't Adele see that this was no sedation but progressive slackening on her husband's frail grip of life?

  Kissing him gently, she went out again.

  In the flat she analysed her position. She had not accrued even one cent yet in her job, she had not been able to build up any supplies. Well, not to worry. Priscilla, she knew, would forward her some of her wages in advance. She sat down at once and wrote to Mr. Carstairs. She knew he would tell her the position honestly, how far the money had gone down, how long it could hold out. Then ruefully telling herself she would not have minded some of that meal that Bart had pushed away so uncaringly last night, she went to bed.

  The next morning she arrived before Priscilla. At ten o'clock the secretary was still not there.

  At noon Bart came in, asking Verity if she was inconvenienced without Cilla — had the phone been worrying her when she had a customer?

  "Fortunately business has been rather quiet, so I was able to cope. Where is Priscilla?"

  "Laid low," he told her.

  "She's sick ?"

  "Quite, according to report."

  "Oh." It was a blow. Verity had intended to ask Priscilla today. Well, there was always the Castle's tea or coffee and biscuits to eke her out until tomorrow, and at least her rent and fares were prepaid.

  "Looks like you'll be coping for a while," Bart said a little anxiously. "The doc has forbidden her work for ten days."

  "Ten days !" exclaimed Verity.

  "Look, I'll be around." He took her dismay as concern for her ability to manage the business.

  "Yes, I know." She tried to hide a note in her voice she felt sure must be as obvious as a shout, the note of panic at living on a handful of coins and raidings from a tin of biscuits for ten days.

  For she would never ask from Bart.

  She had no groceries in the flat — very unhousewife-like, but she had not been employed long enough yet to collect a supply. She was thinking this as she went home that night. In her bag were some of Priscilla's office biscuits. They had to eke her out for tea and breakfast. She wondered if Bart Prince kept as seeing an eye on the domestic side of the Castle as he did on the business side . . . and the emotional. If he did, she was going to have some awkward explaining to do, for it was a funny thing, she half smiled whimsically, how, like A. A. Milne's bear who had helped himself to ham, jam, plum and pear, that the more you ate the less was there. In this instance, biscuits. She knew she could tell Priscilla later, receive a smile in response, but if Bart Prince kept a petty cash record it was going to be hard.

  The first few days the biscuits kept her going, not very satisfactorily, but she felt little the worse. Then, while she was busy on a rather demanding customer one afternoon, Bart made the coffee instead.

  "The bix are going down," he remarked casually. It was an innocent statement, probably meaning nothing at all, but Verity shrivelled sensitively, finding something implied in it. She was being foolish, her common sense told her that, but that night she took home no biscuits. She went to bed without any sustenance, went to work again the next morning still fasting. She was so hungry at morning tea-time she knew that if she started she probably would finish up the tin's entire contents. So she did not eat at all.

  It wasn't until late afternoon that she found herself feeling weak and giddy. Whenever Bart was not around, she sat down and closed her eyes.

  She had not long to go now. Bart had said casually earlier that Priscilla had phoned to say that she had made a quicker recovery than her doctor had anticipated, and would be back tomorrow. Verity felt she could last till tomorrow. She must.

  Like all fainting attacks, later she could not have said at what precise moment this one occurred. At one moment she was sitting conserving herself, relaxing to try to help herself, to dispel her giddiness, the next moment she was prone and unaware on the floor. She had no memory of anything occurring, no feeling of consciousness returning. All she knew when she fluttered her eyes open again was Bart Prince wavering before her, his face gradually becoming steadier, then at last keeping still.

  "Do you feel better now?" he asked.

  "Yes, thank you."

  "Are you prone to spells like this?"

  "No."

  "Then what brought this one about?" he asked forcefully, probingly, and she remembered his mother saying that he had begun a medical career.

  "I don't know."

  "Oh, come, you can do better than that."

  "A virus of some sort, I expect. I — probably caught it from Priscilla."

  "Her complaint is an old ankle injury," he said drily. He waited. "Have you any other symptoms? A chill? A headache?"

  "No."

  "Then have you eaten?" He asked it so sharply, so pertinently, so unexpectedly that she knew for all her pallor that her cheeks were reddening.

  "Ah," he said.

  He lifted more than helped her up, then he went and closed the doors of the Castle.

  "Mr. Prince —" she objected, for it was not yet closing time, but he made a dismissive gesture with his hands and left her.

  He came back almost at once, at least in her depletion it seemed at once, but in that brief time he had made strong sweetened coffee. He also had put biscuits at the side of it, the biscuits that today she had not touched.

  Verity tried not to eat eagerly. He must never know the position she had got herself into. But there was no deceiving this man, she thought ruefully. Watching her keenly, he said : "So that's why the biscuit supply has been going down."

  "No . . . I mean . . . that is —"

  "What is it? A slimming project?"

  "No."

  "Some health project, then?"

  "You really are mistaken, Mr. Prince, there's nothing at all."

  "Look, I may not be the doctor of the family, but I still got myself up to the stage of knowing when someone is suffering from depletion. In other words, when they're hungry," he said sharply.

  There was no arguing with him — anyway, she did not have the strength. She did not have the strength either to sit and hear his tirade, but that, she heard thankfully, was not to be. He had got up and left her. She heard his steps in the next room, that slightly dragging gait that marked Bart.

  After that there was silence for a while.

  Then he returned, and there was a noise she could not recognize and was too listless to try to recognize. It came from the office. Then he came back to where she still sat, and, without any preliminary words picked her up bodily and carried her to the office, to a seat at a cleared desk. There he had set a table. When he had gone away it must have been to buy food. With it he had hired the necessary plates and cutlery. He had even brought two napkins.

  "We cut short our meal the other night," he said. "Now let's make amends."

  For a few moments she felt stiff and awkward, and then hunger took over. With cheeks red with embarrassment, Verity ate ravenously.

  To spare her, she suspected, he ate, too. The main course over, he poured a hearty red wine and produced a cheese. Later he brewed more coffee.

  Only then did he lean across to her, and she wondered what it was he would say.

  He said : "Before you explain, which I fully intend you to, let me tell you that if you ever do this again, young woman, you'll answer to me. Is that understood ?"

  "Yes," accepted Verity.

  He had lit himself a cigarette.

  "All right," he said, "why?" When she did not answer, he prompted, "You're sitting there until you tell me, Miss Tyler."

  "I overspent myself," she said with a rush.

  His brows raised. "But weren't you paid recently?"

  "It happened that day," she confessed with pretended shame.

  "So you're a spendthrift," he nodded. It seemed to amuse him, and she was willing for him to be amused with her, until his smile suddenly stopped and he said, "Now start again, and don't lie."

/>   "It's not a lie. I didn't have any money. I'd paid my rent and I'd pre-purchased my ferry tokens, but I had no money. I didn't worry, because I knew Priscilla would advance me some, but Priscilla wasn't here and — and —"

  "And you wouldn't ask me?"

  "No."

  "How long did all this last?"

  "Not long."

  "Priscilla went off last Tuesday. Was it that long?" "Well — yes."

  "You damn little fool," he said.

  There was silence. She could see from the whitened knuckle bones of his long thin hands that he was angry, that he was trying to keep the anger in check.

  "What did you find that was so important that you had to buy it at once?" he demanded at last.

  "I . well ..." she stammered.

  "Yes?"

  "It wasn't like that."

  "I'll believe that. Because you didn't buy anything, did you, you gave something away."

  I "No. No — I didn't. I —"

  "Don't lie. You gave it to your brother."

  "No."

  "Then to Dellie"

  She tried to fabricate, she didn't want this man in this, but she could not find the words.

  "I know," he continued, "because Adele also spoke to me." "Spoke to you ?" she gasped.

  "Why not? I told you we were old acquaintances."

  "She spoke to you — regarding money?"

  "Regarding it only. She didn't ask for it. She was very concerned, because nothing had come through. It's a pity" . . . he said coldly . . . "that that pair were not left to manage their own affairs without having to ask you to act for them."

  "If you mean I'm doling out their money, you're very, very wrong. I wasn't aware that they were in the position they are until Adele told me. I — I wrote to the solicitor at once."

  He shrugged meanly at that. "As I said, managing their affairs."

  She decided to pass that. She said stiffly, "I'm sorry Adele bothered you. She should have come to me."

  "She did." A thin reminding smile.

  "But to you, too."

  "I'm not blaming her, when a certain standard of living has been enjoyed it's hard to accept anything less. Besides" . . . deliberately . . . "you hadn't been to see them for some time to know their position." He left it at that, but Verity knew he was telling her silently what that time had comprised. It had been her Peter episode.

  "Well, enough of that," he said presently. "You say you've written to England?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. But until the matter is fixed up, we must not, of

  course, have a repetition of this." He made a gesture to the table.

  "I'll clear up," she began childishly, pretending it was the office disarray he was decrying, but she was stopped by his angry frown.

  "You know what I mean, Miss Tyler, you know I refer to this stupid starvation of yours. You must give me a promise now that you'll never do this again."

  "And if I don't give it?"

  "Then we spend the night here. After all, we have plenty of beds." Now he gave a maddening smile

  Verity looked down. "I know you mean well," she said at last, "but — well, none of this is your affair."

  "Fainting on my floor is my affair, causing me to close early is my affair ! " he snapped.

  "Always business."

  "Why not ?" A small significant pause. "What else is there? But there, I do it again, that self-pity. Please consider it unsaid. And to ease your mind until this remittance detail is adjusted, you must accept this sum to give to your brother."

  "No ! "

  "Have no fears, it will be deducted from your salary," he answered her.

  "No."

  "Then I'll have to offer it to Dellie myself."

  "No." This time Verity spoke with distress.

  "Please yourself," he shrugged.

  "You're sure you'll record this loan?" she insisted.

  "Just you try to get out of it."

  "Then — thank you," she said.

  She watched him as he rose and went to a desk, unlocked it and took out some notes. When he came back he did not hand them to her at once. He sat down and flicked them through his long fingers, not counting them, just flicking them. His eyes held hers. At length he pushed them over.

  "There's a separate bundle," he said drily, "for yourself. Don't give that to the Ramsays as well and so repeat this performance, or I mightn't be as tolerant as I am today."

  "Tolerant?" She said faintly.

  "Tolerant. Then it would really be a case of 'Please, Mr. Prince.' "

  He sat back and watched her go.

  CHAPTER VI

  IN the week that followed Verity had the embarrassment, if not the personal pang, of seeing everything that Bart had said of Peter eventuate.

  As each letter arrived there was a progressive diminishing of Peter's warm interest in her. From the second letter, which still declared that he "saw her face wherever he looked" but no longer talked of any "magic", the correspondence went on, until, with the latest letter, "seeing her" went the same lost way as the "magic."

  Relieved, yet still rankling because of Bart's unerring pre-knowledge, Verity accepted the episode as just one of those things, particularly when the correspondence stopped, only to renew itself with no mention at all of her but a thinly-concealed excitement in a brand-new interest — Cassandra.

  "Talk of coincidences," wrote Peter, "in this bustling city where surely the only way to meet anyone is by rendezvous, I have (at last) encountered the illustrious Cassandra. I say at last because I had heard so much of her. Remember, Verity, I believed you were her.

  "It was unplanned, as I said. I caught my thumb in a car door ... no, no damage . . . and was taken to an outpatients department. Who should deal with me there but Cassandra? Oh, what a girl ! "

  Then came another letter.

  "You have met Cassandra, haven't you? The Prince legend

  is that she's for Matthew, but, as Cassandra has pointed out, not that you would notice. My eldest brother must be a damn fool. She's glorious.

  "She's as pleased as I am for us to be getting around together. I think that lovely girl is a bit confused with her world, and I intend to spare her any more confusion."

  Later that week there was a further letter.

  "Verity, I really have fallen for Cassandra. I've never felt like this before in all my life, and I'm certain she's feeling the same about me. It's just too bad for old Matthew, but anyone who would hold up a girl like Cass doesn't need any sympathy. As for me, I'm a free agent." — Oh, Peter !

  "Anyway, old girl, I wanted you to know." — Old girl !

  "Old girl." It was Priscilla, and she was standing at the door; she was watching Verity reading the letter, and she was wearing an enigmatical smile.

  Caught out, Verity folded the letter and said, "You seem to know the drill."

  "It's always the same with Peter," Priscilla said, and her tone conveyed nothing at all. "One attack follows the other. It chronic. I'm sorry if you're hurt, Verity, but somehow I don't think you really are."

  "Not hurt," Verity confirmed, and waited.

  After a few moments, Priscilla said, "One day there'll be no more of this. Peter will be different. He'll settle." There was a note in the secretary's voice that Verity could not quite place. Several times Priscilla had puzzled her with her concern for Peter. It had seemed more than the usual sisterly concern, since sister to Peter was what Priscilla would be on that day when Bart overcame whatever it was that stopped him now and instead married his Cilla, for at no time had Verity credited Bart's statement that he alone of the Princes remained not yet accounted for.

  "Was it —" Priscilla paused. "Was it just a falling out once more that Peter wrote about ?" Now there was a slightly strained note in her voice, a frown on her serene brow.

  "No. A new face for Peter — Cassandra's."

  "Cassandra ?" Priscilla, who had turned to leave, whipped round again. Now she looked really upset. "Of course . they're both in Me
lbourne," she recalled, "but how —"

  "Peter had an accident. No" ... as Priscilla stepped quickly forward . . . "only a minor one. It was Cassandra who attended him."

  A few moments went by, then Priscilla said flatly, "Yes, that's just what would happen. Peter draws pretty girls to him like a magnet. But Cassandra isn't just pretty, she's —"

  "Glorious," said Verity for her. She added : "Peter's words."

  Mr. Carstairs had not replied to Verity as promptly as she had thought he would. She knew the solicitor well, and had expected he would write at once, perhaps cable. However, no news was good news, and when an answer did come, it would probably be an assurance that some minor detail had held the money up.

  But when Verity saw the bulky air letter the following evening after work, she knew that the solicitor's time in replying had been because he had been taking the trouble to account in detail to her. And, as she flicked through the sheets reporting the different expenditures to see the final figure, the sum total was anything but good.

  She went out that night to Robin's flat. Robin was up and at first glance seemed a little better. But Verity, experienced now, looked to the dulled eyes, the lacklustre general tone.

  "What's got into Carstairs, V ?" Robin complained testily. "The cheque was right down this time."

  "Oh, you got one, then?"

  "You didn't think," cut in Adele, "that we were still living on what you handed out?"

  Robin looked upset over that, but years of only bothering about himself made his concern transitory.

  "Write to him again, will you, Sis, explain to him what a foul run I've had, how I can't be put around like this. I'd do it myself, only I just can't seem to concentrate lately. Another aftermath, I suppose."

  "And until we get satisfaction," said Adele, "can you —" "Yes," said Verity, and handed across the notes that Bart had given her.

  She left soon after that. She felt very disturbed.

  She was glad that the work at the Castle completely absorbed her. Without it, she would have had time to brood, to worry herself more than she had time to worry now. She was glad, too, when Bart announced the winning of a contract to decorate the whole of a new multi-storey government building, adding that not only would he be away for a week to assess the situation but that he would require Priscilla for note-taking.