by Pamela Kent
“What sort of week-end did you have, Melanie?” he asked. “You look a little deflated, somehow.”
“I’m not in the least deflated.” The eyelashes swept upwards, and the grey eyes sparkled as if she was annoyed. “And I enjoyed my week-end very much indeed, thank you.”
Rick’s amused, sceptical smile told her he was not really deceived.
“All the same, I think you might have had a better time if I’d taken you along with me. I don’t know why I didn’t. The old man was a little surprised that I’d condemned you to a week-end in this atmosphere.”
“Mr. Vandraaton is very kind,” she said, “but a secretary doesn’t expect to accompany her employer during week-ends.”
“No?” Once again the quizzical smile disconcerted her. “Well, that, of course, rather depends upon the employer—and the secretary, doesn’t it?” And then as she flushed vividly he repented, and said quickly: “Well, never mind, Melanie, one night this week, when I can feel reasonably free, I’ll take you out and let you sample a little of New York night life. How would you like that?”
“I wouldn’t dream of permitting you to waste a free evening,” she replied at once. “And I’m quite capable of finding entertainment for myself in New York.”
“Are you?” But the smile wasn’t quite so quizzical this time.
“Quite,” with a crispness that matched her dress. “And now, as it’s Monday morning, and there’s a lot of stuff to be dealt with, hadn’t we better get on with the work?”
“We will in a few minutes,” he returned leisurely, and lighted a cigarette with deliberation. His eyes dwelt upon her with a mixture of indolence and thoughtfulness. “You know, I’ve a feeling that you were really upset because I left you behind,” he remarked at last.
Melanie felt color that wasn’t due to embarrassment rise up like angry banners in her cheeks. How dared he! Just because she had permitted him to kiss her, and apparently been quite content for him to do so!
“Mr. Vandraaton,” she said, a muffled note in her voice which suggested she felt like choking with annoyance, “I would like you to remember that I accompanied you to New York for a particular purpose, and for no other reason! I am not dangerously susceptible, and I am not Mrs. Janet Carey!” She held her breath for a moment after she had made use of the widow’s name, not in the least sure what his reaction would be. But when it was not immediate she concluded firmly: “I would like you to remember that in future. And I would like our association to be on a strictly business footing. Otherwise I shall find it necessary to ask to be replaced!”
“Very well,” he said, quietly—so quietly that it sent a chill along all her nerves—and started to read some of the letters.
For the rest of that day he addressed her only when it was necessary, and in connection with her work, and the following day she hardly saw him at all. Both he and Jake were guests at some impressive luncheon, and he didn’t return to his suite in the hotel until some time after she had put the cover on her typewriter.
But Jake did, and as soon as she saw him she knew that he was in one of his most amiable moods. Since the Sunday morning when he had kissed her on the beach on Long Island, and Rick had rescued her from his attentions, Jake’s attitude towards her had been a little reserved—in fact, distinctly reserved at times. Occasionally his eyes reproached her, as if he had not suspected she was quite such a prickly young woman; but occasionally, also, they had been bleak and completely indifferent. Now they had a coaxing gleam in them as he came across to her. “Melanie, you and I have been sending one another to Coventry very hard for the past week and more, but now I think it’s time we called a truce.” He held out his slim and shapely hand to her. “I apologize for adopting cave-man tactics on the beach! I don’t think you realize how delectable you look in a bathing costume—or in everything else you wear, if it comes to that!—and I was a bit carried away. I won’t offend again if you’ll let us be friends!”
There was something almost appealing, as well as coaxing, in his look, and although her instinct was to snub him in the politest manner possible she found that she couldn’t do so. She had already offended Rick, and this was a straightforward apology from Jake.
She let her hand rest in his.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I was rather taken by surprise, that’s all.”
“And I was too enthusiastic.” He smiled at her. “However, you should accept that as a compliment—a compliment to the charm of your appearance! And now how about coming out to. dinner with me tonight?”
She looked a little taken aback.
“Oh, I don’t really know about that...”
“But I do!” His voice was firm. “You’ve been cooped up here all day, and this weather’s enough to get anyone down. You and I are not used to such terrific and unremitting heat, and we need somewhere to cool off. I know the ideal spot ... or spots. A nice quiet little restaurant where we can enjoy a meal, and afterwards one of those skyscraper clubs where we can dance literally beneath the stars. A good band and plenty of room, and no contact with the vulgar earth—only the stars, as I said before! How does it appeal?” He could tell by her eyes that it appealed very much, but she was trying to resist the appeal. He touched her very gently with his artistic fingertips.
“Just to show good faith!” he pleaded. Afterwards she was not too pleased with herself because she had yielded, but when she entered her bedroom and saw the new evening gown in her wardrobe that she had never worn and realized that she could wear it tonight a little surge of pleasure shot through her. It was very plain and simple, with the new short hemline, and the paper-whiteness of it would be quite a foil for her autumn-gold hair, and the touch of sunburn she had acquired during her one visit to the Vandraaton’s Long Island home. Her off-duty hours had been spent carefully maintaining the sunburn, and tonight, she knew, she could appear at her best.
She wore silver sandals, to match the discreet touch of embroidery on the lightly bloused bodice, and her evening bag was silver mesh; it had been a present from her two sisters on her last birthday.
Jake, when she stepped out of the lift, looked at her with unconcealed admiration. For one moment she wondered whether she wasn’t behaving rather rashly, and with loss of dignity, in going out with him. And then she thought of the lonely evening she would have passed in her room if she hadn’t accepted his invitation, and she knew that almost anything was preferable to that.
And Jake had promised solemnly to behave. From the manner in which he took her arm and almost tenderly placed her in a taxi she felt certain he meant to behave, and to make up for the incident of several days ago.
The restaurant where they dined was more opulent than the restaurant where she had lunched with Rick, but it had all the lush quietness, the coolness and the peace he had promised her. Later they went on to the place where they were to dance, and after an exhilarating ascent in a lift Melanie found herself so close to the sky that pressed upon New York that she felt she had only to stretch forth a hand to touch the earliest contingent of stars as they blazed against a backcloth of deep cerulean blue.
The sun had gone down in breathtaking splendor, and there were still streaks of flame and cerise trailing like pennants against the strange luminosity in the western sky. The stars were like diamonds displayed in a fabulous jeweller’s window, and only the heat made them a little less brilliant than they might otherwise have been.
There were tables and chairs arranged around a kind of roof-garden, and the dance floor was partly protected by awnings, beneath which one or two parties were already seated. There were isolated couples, too, with expressions on their faces which suggested that they really were removed from the hubbub of New York, and white-coated waiters weaved their way amongst them.
The orchestra was playing softly and seductively when Melanie and Jake arrived, and he swung her at once into the rhythm of the dance. Their steps matched perfectly, and he complimented her on the ease with which she moved.
“You’re like a feather in the breeze,” he said. “Or a flower in the breeze!”
The night wind stirred up there amongst the awnings, and the massed flowers and shrubs. Melanie experienced a delicious coolness for the first time that day, and also for the first time that day color came and went in her cheeks, and her eyes lost their lack-lustre look of near-exhaustion.
Jake led her back to their table, and a waiter uncorked a bottle of champagne. Jake toasted her, while the last of the light died out of the sky, and the stars grew that much brighter.
“To us! To our better acquaintance! We really must become better acquainted, Melanie!”
Melanie felt it would be ungracious to dispute this, although something told her quite definitely that she and Jake Crompton had very little in common, and also there was the uneasy remembrance of the note she had found lying like a slight weight at the back of her mind. Whoever “Di” was, she was in love with Jake, and looking forward to the moment when they would be together again. Also she was happy about some plan they had formed.
About an hour after they sipped their first glass of champagne Melanie heard Jake utter a little exclamation, and she looked up to see two people standing quite still in the middle of the floor arid looking at them. One of them was so near feminine perfection that many more pairs of eyes in their vicinity were gazing in unconcealed admiration, and the man could hardly have looked more sleek and arrogant and darkly, disturbingly handsome if he had tried.
“Diane!” Jake exclaimed, and even in those moments of utter surprise the fact registered with Melanie that it was the woman’s name he spoke first. Only as a kind of afterthought—a displeased afterthought—did he add: “And Rick! Now who would have imagined, that the four of us would meet here tonight?”
Diane was living up to Mr. Vandraaton’s description of her as a golden rose. She wore a golden gown, and it was like a metal sheath encasing the entrancing slenderness of her limbs. The star-shine was reflected in it, and a crescent moon made golden cobwebs of her hair. The discreet lighting effects, mostly concealed in plants and trailing vines that embraced pillars, revealed the smooth, masklike composure of her face—until she saw Jake. Then, Melanie could have sworn, the mask came to life, and the eyes lighted up.
“Well, well!” Rick said, in a voice without any expression in it whatsoever when they reached their table. “Well, well!”
He was looking straight at Melanie, and his eyes were derisive and his mouth cold.
“So you meant it when you said you knew how to find entertainment in New York, little secretary Melanie!” he said.
The emphasis on “secretary” didn’t pass her by.
But she wasn’t secretary to Jake! Resentment stirred in her, and her eyes sparkled.
Jake had stood up swiftly, and he appeared to be almost bowing over both Diane’s extended hands. She made no concealment about allowing him to hold them, and her laughter bubbled up like champagne.
“Isn’t it wonderful to be here! Oh, if you only knew how wonderful I find it to be here! In fabulous New York! After so many months of looking forward to it!”
Jake said with a gentleness that was not quite the gentleness he sometimes assumed with Melanie:
“I’m sure it is. But you should have given us warning of your coming. I thought you weren’t expected for another fortnight or more.”
“I know, but Mother suddenly changed our plans for us, and we flew out last night. Of course Rick knew...” She looked at him with laughter lending, her eyes the appearance of blue stars. “Didn’t you, darling? And needless to say he was delighted!”
“Needless to say,” Jake echoed, with an odd, grating note in his voice. And then he suddenly remembered Melanie. “I think you’ve met Miss Blake? At London Airport.”
“Oh, yes, I do remember.” But Diane’s coolness was completely dismissing. It was just as if she pulled a shutter over her face in order to cut off from Melanie the brilliance and the sparkle and the gay, infectious laughter, and let her see only the proud patrician elegance that was Miss Diane Fairchild when brought into contact with someone whose social status was far below her own. “Aren’t you the little junior typist Rick coughed up from nowhere to replace his secretary who is getting married, or something?”
She looked inquiringly at Rick.
“Quite right,” he agreed. “But you mustn’t make even a junior typist feel more junior than she is by referring to her in that way. And Miss Blake has done so well that she will never again be a junior typist.”
“Oh, indeed?” But Diane’s interest had evaporated altogether, and she turned with relief to Jake. “Why do you have to kill time in this way? Rick tells me you’ve both been terrifically busy.” Jake pulled out a chair for her, although the hovering waiter was most eager to do so. He received instead an order for more champagne, and Rick sank into a chair beside Melanie.
“Don’t look as if a trifling snub can put you off your evening so easily,” he said, in a voice that was meant to reach only her ears. “Diane doesn’t mean to be offensive; it’s just her English way. And as you’re English yourself you ought to be capable of swallowing it.”
Melanie didn’t reply, but for her the final shred of pleasure had vanished from the evening. She had really been enjoying herself for a short while, and then the sight of Rick had acted like a douche of sudden down-to-earth-ness. Rick was a person she had to forget all about if she wanted to be carefree; but when he appeared on the scene even a mildly carefree state seemed to become a virtual impossibility. And on top of that to make the discovery that Diane had arrived in New York, and to be dismissed by her as someone of no importance whatsoever—someone whom Rick had “coughed up out of nowhere”—made her wish that she had the power to become really insignificant, and to fade away altogether.
“You looked as if you were having quite a good time when we arrived,” Rick said. “Although I was surprised to find you were putting all your innocent trust in Jake again.”
The band had started to play a samba, and Diane stood up.
“Come on, Jake!” she invited gaily. “Rick has just told me he’s in no mood for dancing, and I know you always are. Let’s have this one together!”
Quite obviously nothing loath, Jake accompanied her on to the floor, and Rick’s expression grew enigmatic. So enigmatic that Melanie stared at him as if it would afford her some satisfaction to know what was behind it, and his black eyes glinted strangely.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not feeling deserted.”
She colored for no reason at all.
“I don’t suppose you are,” she said. “But I was wondering why you didn’t feel like dancing.”
“Put it down to the heat,” he returned drawlingly. “Or just plain disinclination.” His eyes seemed to challenge her. “But the disinclination is passing. Would you care to dance?”
“I—”
“Diane won’t mind,” he assured her, in the same half-insolent fashion. “And I am not yet entirely her property, anyway.” He stood up, and there was nothing she could do but follow his example. “In any case, she’s simply bursting to extract from Jake all the information that she can about the Nonpareil, and Papa’s reaction to my mismanagement. She feels she’ll get the truth from Jake.”
“I see.” But as his arm went round her she was hardly capable of seeing anything. “Has it been seriously said that you’ve mismanaged the Nonpareil?”
“No, but that’s the general consensus of opinion.”
“Surely Miss Fairchild won’t share that opinion?”
He laughed, and it was such a cold little amused laugh that she wished she hadn’t said anything at all.
“My dear child, you’re either naive, or else you’re unpractical. I’ve taken so little interest in the Nonpareil that almost anyone could have done better than I’ve done, and Diane isn’t one of those young women who see even the loved one through rose-tinted spectacles. She’ll get the truth, and then she’ll try and ge
t me to reform ... Or that will be the general line to be followed. And now let’s enjoy this floor. It’s better than I remembered.”
They, too, danced as if they were in perfect accord, but it was even more perfect accord than that which she had experienced with Jake. Jake danced as if he was a finished dancer; but Rick danced as if it was his natural element. That feline grace of his when he merely walked across a room, or leapt sinuously opt from behind the wheel of a car, was explained when a Latin rhythm started up. Melanie felt she wanted to shut her eyes and forget everything but the magic of the moment, particularly when his arm tightened about her, and then tightened still more, so that she couldn’t possibly be imagining it.
“You look very charming in that dress,” he told her, with curious soberness. “It’s a pity you had to waste it on Jake.”
Melanie said nothing. What was the use of discussing Jake, or anyone else, when he was in any case quite unimportant—so far as she was concerned, at any rate—and these were moments of breathtaking importance? The memory of them something to comfort her in after days.
The band was playing a lilting melody, and the words were entirely appropriate to the hour and the spot.
“...Heaven waits for those who dare to climb the stairway of love!...”
She opened her eyes, and Rick smiled down at her twistedly.
“Do you believe that?” he asked, and his voice wasn’t cynical. “Do you believe it, Melanie?”
Her eyes gazed back at him, enchanted and misty, like grey smoke. Yes; she believed it, but she couldn’t tell him so.