by Anne Mather
‘Actually, Howard, I'm here to see your wife. I've got tickets for a concert she particularly wanted to attend.'
Helen's eyes flashed from Keith's flushed young countenance to the cool, dark features of her husband. It was apparent from the cruel tightening of the hard fingers against her arm that Keith's instant explanation had surprised Jake, but he was never disconcerted for long.
‘I see,’ he said now, accepting a cigarette from Giles, who had obviously chosen this moment to offer it in an effort to avoid the possible confrontation that was to follow. ‘And why should you imagine I might not be taking my wife to this concert myself if she particularly wants to go?'
Keith hesitated. ‘I understand from Helen that classical music leaves you cold, Howard,’ he stated distinctly, causing Jennifer to expel the breath she had been holding on a faint gasp.
‘My wife says that, does she?’ Jake bent his head and lit his cigarette from Giles’ hastily proffered lighter, and went on: ‘You must tell me what else my wife says, Mannering. I'd be interested to hear her assessment of my musical appreciation—'
‘Jake, please!’ Helen looked up at him imploringly.
‘Please what?’ Jake regarded her coldly.
‘Please don't cause a scene!’ quietly. ‘I've—I've already told Keith I can't accept his invitation.'
‘Why?’ Jake's eyes were distant. ‘Have I forbidden you to do so?'
‘No!’ Helen looked round almost desperately. ‘Jake, I don't want to go.’ She twisted her evening bag between her fingers, aware of Jennifer's calculating gaze and of Giles’ more compassionate one. Keith himself was looking rather uncomfortable now and she guessed he was regretting creating this situation, but then he had not known Jake would react as he had. He didn't know him like Giles did, like she did!
‘But I insist,’ Jake was saying immovably. ‘After all, if your—if Mannering has gone to the trouble to get tickets, then it's the least you can do. When is this concert, by the way, Mannering?'
Keith thrust his hands into his trousers’ pockets rather jerkily. ‘On Thursday week,’ he replied tautly. ‘The twenty-third!'
Jake frowned. ‘The twenty-third? Ah, yes, I remember now. There's a conference in Paris on the twenty-fourth, so I shall probably be away that evening. I'm sure Helen will be glad of your escort.'
Helen glared at him furiously, hating him for arranging her life for her so carelessly. Why was he doing it? He hadn't liked it when he found she was out with Keith the night he returned from his trip to the States, so why was he pushing her into his company now? It didn't make sense.
Jennifer heaved a rather regretful sigh then, and Giles looked slightly relieved at the peaceful outcome of the exchange. He suggested that they made a move towards the buffet tables and Keith took the opportunity to excuse himself with a casual comment to Helen that he would phone her later.
After he had gone an uneasy silence fell on the group and even when Helen was confronted with the mouth–watering array of food that had been provided she found it difficult to find any appetite. She was intensely conscious of Jake's displeasure, as they all were, and regardless of whether he had chosen to take the initiative in pushing his wife into Mannering's company or otherwise, his ill-humour was patently evident. He assumed a brooding silence, answering only in monosyllables if he was spoken to, and generally creating a tense atmosphere about them. Helen was glad when the Ambassador himself came to speak to them and Jake became more relaxed and talkative in his presence. But then Jake was always pleasant to business acquaintances and from his attitude Helen would have guessed that the Ambassador was making things easy for him by co-operating in whatever scheme he had in mind.
Eventually they left the reception rather earlier than planned, and Jake chose to take a taxi home rather than call out his chauffeur. Helen sat stiffly in her corner of the cab dreading the moment when they would arrive home and she would be alone with her husband.
Mrs Latimer had already gone down to her own apartment when they reached the house and Jake rang down to let Latimer know that he would not be needed any more that evening, while Helen walked nervously into the lounge.
In the subdued lighting everywhere looked warm and comfortable, and Mrs Latimer had left some sandwiches and a chicken salad on an occasional table near the couch in case they were hungry when they got back.
Helen shed her stole and bent to switch on the coffee percolater. These ordinary arrangements, these ordinary tasks, diverted her attention from the slightly ominous atmosphere that Jake was deliberately creating and she stood for a moment schooling herself to remain calm. After all, she had done nothing wrong, nothing to be ashamed of, so why did she feel the guilty party?
Jake came through from making the telephone call, raking a hand through the thickness of his dark hair. He had loosened the jacket of his suit and looked disturbingly handsome. Helen seated herself with apparent coolness on the couch and looking up, said:
‘Do you want some coffee?'
Jake shook his head abruptly, walking across to the cabinet and pouring himself a Scotch. Helen glanced round surreptitiously, but he had his back to her, and suppressing a sigh she poured herself some black coffee, adding only a little sugar before raising the cup to her lips. She had had several champagne cocktails that evening and the strong aromatic liquid was reviving. But she was still on edge, she couldn't deny it, and she tried to calm herself by mentally reassuring herself that she was a match for any ignorant Yorkshireman any day.
But the trouble was, Jake was not ignorant, and she knew it, and having seen the way he could verbally annihilate his business associates she doubted her ability to better that ruthless streak in him should the need arise. The only person who seemed to hold any influence with Jake was a couple of hundred miles away in Selby, and Helen had no desire to appeal to her mother-in-law, who she was quite aware despised both her and her way of life.
Now Helen poured herself a second cup of coffee and Jake moved away from the cocktail cabinet to come and stand before the fireplace. Her fingers trembled as she dropped a lump of sugar into the coffee and she stirred it unnecessarily hard before placing the spoon in her saucer. She was avoiding looking at him. She was afraid of the penetration of those dark eyes, and she had no intention of allowing him to see that he could disturb her in this way. Until now she had coped quite adequately with the situation, but up till now, she reminded herself wryly, she had complied with his every request and had certainly never given him any cause to regard her as anything more than the woman he kept at his London house as a hostess when he entertained there. The fact that she wore his ring meant nothing more than lip-service paid to the social system of the country.
She cupped the fragile china container in her hands and inhaled the aroma of freshly ground coffee. By asserting her right to accept the friendship of another man she had unwittingly destroyed the barriers she had purposely erected as part of their marital structure.
Jake finished his Scotch and she could feel his eyes on her, probing the sensitive skin of her ears.
With admirable composure she replaced the cup in its saucer and rose to her feet, hoping that his silence was to be the only outward sign of his anger. But as she turned, he said harshly:
‘Where do you think you're going?'
Helen put a hand to her temple. ‘I'm tired, Jake. I'm going to bed.'
‘You're always tired,’ he accused her grimly. ‘Particularly if there's something unpleasant to face!'
Helen took a deep breath. ‘I don't see that there need be anything unpleasant said here,’ she returned carefully. ‘I haven't done anything to be ashamed of. I'm not a child, Jake, to be made aware of its shortcomings after an outing. If you're annoyed about that business with Keith then you have only yourself to blame!'
‘Like hell I have! My God, Helen, you're bloody cool! What makes you think I'll take that from you?'
Helen expelled a faint sigh. ‘Jake, don't you think you've humiliated me enough for on
e evening? I don't know what Giles and Jennifer must be thinking!'
‘Don't you?’ Jake raised his eyebrow contemptuously. ‘But then you don't know your friends very well, do you? You only see them as surface people. You never look below the surface, for motivations.'
‘What do you mean?’ Helen was indignant.
‘What I say. Poor old Giles will be wishing he could be half as rude as me and get away with it, and Jennifer will be despising him all the more for showing so little spunk!'
Helen lifted her head. ‘Jennifer wouldn't think anything of the sort. She thinks you're coarse! She dislikes you just as much as I do.'
An unwilling smile touched Jake's lips at her heated words, but it was not a pleasant smile. ‘Like hell she does!’ he remarked succinctly. ‘Don't you know that your friend Jennifer would give practically anything to be in your position?'
Helen stiffened. ‘What does that mean?'
Jake dropped his glass on to the mantelshelf with a noisy clatter. ‘It means, my aristocratic innocent, that so far as I'm concerned Jennifer is easy game, get me? I only have to snap my fingers—'
Helen's breathing was swift and jerky, her breasts rising and falling quickly beneath the soft black material of her gown. ‘You—you're despicable!’ she told him, with repugnance. ‘And I don't believe you. Jennifer's not like that. I've told you—she despises you!'
Jake stood before her, legs slightly apart, regarding her with brooding impatience. ‘Want me to prove it?’ he demanded coldly.
Helen looked up at him for a long moment and then her eyes fell before the anger in his. ‘Oh, no, no, of course not.'
‘Why?’ Jake's eyes narrowed mockingly. ‘Are you afraid I might be proved right?'
Helen shook her head blindly. She didn't want to think. She didn't want to remember that moment earlier this evening, on the stairs, when she had heard Jennifer laughing with Jake. Then she would have been prepared to believe almost anything. But it wasn't true, it couldn't be. Jennifer was her friend…and yet…
She turned away, retrieving her evening bag from its place on the couch. ‘I'm going to bed,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I don't want to talk about it any more.'
Jake flexed his shoulder muscles tiredly. ‘And of course that ends this discussion,’ he observed derisively.
Helen moved towards the door. ‘What more is there to say? I just don't understand you at all. You complain when I happen to be out the evening you returned home from America, and yet now you've practically forced me to go to the concert with Keith—'
Jake uttered an expletive. ‘While I was in the States you went out with Mannering, didn't you? You didn't give a damn what people might be saying. Well, when it gets around that I arranged this meeting with Mannering it will douse some of the speculation about your relationship with him. No one makes a fool of Jake Howard and gets away with it, just remember that!'
Helen halted, turning to face him. ‘What are you saying now?'
Jake lit a cheroot from the carved box on the mantel shelf. ‘You're tired. I won't trouble you with the details.'
‘Oh, Jake!’ Helen stared at him tremulously, hating his mocking superiority.
‘Go to bed, Helen. As you said—you don't understand me. But you will, believe me, you will!'
Helen turned abruptly away. She wanted to face him with his own shortcomings, with the frequent affairs he was reputed to be having, but she found it impossible. It would sound like jealousy, and until now such an emotion had never troubled her. But tonight, after that moment on the stairs, she found the idea of him making love to another woman vaguely distasteful…
CHAPTER THREE
THE restaurant was crowded at this hour of the morning, filled with expensively dressed women taking a break from shopping, all talking and laughing, exuding an atmosphere of casual elegance and exclusive perfume. It was a meeting place for most of the fashionable set and Helen sat at a corner table with Jennifer St John, idly sipping her coffee, her green eyes surveying the room almost cynically as she did so.
Jennifer was in the process of helping herself to a second cream cake, looking down critically at the trim lines of her figure.
‘I really must try and curb this craving for sweet things,’ she remarked complacently, digging her fork into the soft sponge. ‘I should hate to get pleasantly plump. Today's fashions simply don't go well with ample proportions.'
‘I shouldn't think there's much danger of that,’ replied Helen kindly, turning her gaze to her friend. ‘You look pretty slim to me.'
Jennifer raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes, but how long will I stay that way if I continue to eat this kind of thing?’ She sighed. ‘Do you remember when we were at school? We could eat absolutely pounds of fattening things and never turn a hair. I wonder why you begin to pile on the inches as you get older?'
Helen replaced her coffee cup in its saucer. ‘I imagine it's because one gets so little exercise now compared to what we did at school. I recall we used to play quite an energetic game of tennis, not to mention hockey!'
‘Oh, gosh, yes, hockey!’ Jennifer grinned reminiscently. ‘You were rather good, weren't you? I was always afraid someone would mistake my leg for the ball.'
Helen chuckled. Recalling their schooldays like this was reassuring somehow. In those days she and Jennifer had been very close. Surely things should not have changed so much. They were both married now, of course, but it wasn't only that. So often nowadays they seemed to have so little in common.
Conversation lapsed for a while and then Jennifer said, quite out of the blue: ‘How's Jake?’ with casual interest.
Helen lifted her coffee cup again. ‘He's all right, I imagine. Actually, he's away.'
‘Away? Again?’ Jennifer's derision was evident.
Helen ran her finger round the rim of her cup. ‘He's in the north of England,’ she explained, with reluctance. ‘He's gone to the chemical complex at Lees Bay—in Northumberland.'
Jennifer listened intently. ‘I see.’ She studied Helen rather thoughtfully, and then said: ‘What happened the other night? After the Embassy reception? Was he terribly annoyed about Keith turning up like that?'
There was an avid kind of curiosity in her eyes now and Helen was loath to satisfy her inquisitiveness. After what Jake had said about Jennifer, no matter how she might deny its logic to herself, she felt slightly wary of the other girl, and she wondered whether this had been Jake's intention. Divide and conquer? She shook her head and replaced her cup in the saucer. She was becoming fanciful. Jennifer was interested, that was all.
Now she considered carefully before she said with deliberation: ‘How could he be annoyed when he arranged that I should go to the concert with Keith himself?'
Jennifer looked vaguely dissatisfied. ‘You mean he wasn't annoyed?'
Helen sighed. ‘I didn't say that exactly. I said he ought not to have been, as he arranged it.'
Jennifer extracted a slim gold cigarette case from her handbag and offered it to Helen, who refused. As she put one between her lips, she said impatiently: ‘I think you allow him to get away with murder, I really do. I wouldn't let Giles dictate to me!'
Helen ran her tongue over her dry lips. ‘Jake doesn't dictate either. Our arrangement works very well, I think.'
‘What? Him away all the time, and you twiddling your thumbs at home?’ Jennifer snorted. ‘Do you think I'd let Giles go to all those exciting places alone?’ She drew deeply on her cigarette. ‘I would not! I'd insist on going with him.'
‘You're in a slightly different position from me,’ remarked Helen quietly. ‘You love Giles—and he loves you.'
Jennifer tapped ash into the tray, twisting her lips rather ironically. ‘I'm not so sure that's true any more,’ she said sharply. ‘Oh, it was once. Our reasons for getting married were real enough, but it doesn't last, you know. Once the glamour of the honeymoon has worn off, what are you left with? A day-to-day existence with a man who imagines making love is something you do at night, and always
in the dark!'
‘Jennifer!’ Helen was shocked and it showed in her voice. However unhappy her own life had been she had always thought Giles and Jennifer ideally suited, and for Jennifer to speak so callously seemed completely out of character.
Jennifer gave an impatient shrug of her shoulders. ‘Honestly, Helen, don't look like that! It's not the end of the world! I haven't suddenly discovered how I feel. I've felt like this for years now. It's just now and then I feel like breaking out, and you just haven't been around on those other occasions when I've been foolish enough to speak my mind.'
‘But—but why?’ Helen couldn't understand. ‘Heavens, you've got everything, Jennifer. A lovely home, your own car, plenty of money, a husband who loves you—'
‘But I'm bored, Helen!’ exclaimed Jennifer irritably, leaning across the table towards her. ‘Bored! Can you understand that?'
Helen shook her head and lay back in her chair. ‘You've been married five years, Jennifer. It's time you had a family—'
‘Oh, how parochial can you get!’ Jennifer made a gesture of disgust. ‘A family! My God, do you think I want some screaming infant in the house? Do you think I want any more responsibilities than I already have?'
Helen bit her lip. ‘I never dreamt you felt this way.'
‘I don't—most of the time, anyway. Which is fortunate, don't you think?’ Jennifer lay back in her chair, inhaling deeply. ‘Shall we have some more coffee?'
‘What?’ Helen was absent. ‘Oh—oh, yes, of course.’ She leaned forward and took charge of the pot, pouring coffee into both cups. Then she managed a faint smile as she pushed Jennifer's cup towards her. ‘However did we get into such a morbid discussion? I'm sure there are more pleasant subjects—'
‘We were talking about your husband's shortcomings!’ observed Jennifer, in a brittle voice. ‘Which even you must agree are many and varied!'
Helen flushed. Just occasionally Jennifer got under her skin, and this was one of those occasions. She wished she had not agreed to meet her for coffee. But the morning had stretched ahead of her aimlessly and she had been glad to get out of the house.
