“There are only two of us against the world,” Aria said aloud and then, seeing her lips move in the mirror, she gave herself a little smile as if at her own absurdity.
It was hard for her to be depressed for long.
Her spirits were rising again.
She gave the little black hat she wore over her red curls a twist towards her right eyebrow and then took out her vanity case and powdered her nose. It was wisest to look her best before she went up the narrow stairs to the agency.
Who knew what might be waiting there?
She was indulging in what Nanny called one of her daydreams when she heard people coming down the stairs. She looked up to see a man and woman descending.
“The best thing we can do,” the man was saying, “is to give the servants our income and ask them to return us a few shillings pocket money.”
“Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, John!” the woman exclaimed irritably. “You know we have got to have someone in the house. We can’t go on as we are.”
She pushed past Aria with a disagreeable expression on her face, followed by her rather bored-looking husband and the street door slammed behind them.
Aria took one last look at herself in the mirror and climbed the stairs.
Mrs. Benstead’s agency was exactly like all the others she had visited that morning.
There was the same smell of a gas fire and stale tobacco, the same dingy brown walls and peeling paint, the same general air of depression about the whole office.
Aria spoke to an indifferent, rather sulky-looking girl at a desk who, after hearing that she was seeking to be employed rather than an employer in need of staff, appeared a little more interested.
“Mrs. Benstead’ll see you in half a mo,” she said. “Better take a seat.”
Aria sat down on an uncomfortable chair with one leg shorter than the others, which had its back to the wall just inside the door. The girl turned again to her typewriter and rattled away at the keys with an almost derisive sound as if she mocked at anyone for coming to such a place in the hope of finding anything unusual and interesting.
A door at the other side of the room opened and a large flamboyant-looking woman with green feathers in her hat and a particularly virulent shade of lipstick flounced out. She came jauntily across the room, winked at the girl at the desk and said,
“Cheery-bye, dearie. I’ll be seein’ you.”
Then she slammed down the stairs with a noise that seemed to make the whole office vibrate.
A moment later Mrs. Benstead appeared through the door of the inner office. She was a middle-aged woman wearing horn-rimmed spectacles and having a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth.
That this was habitual to her was shown by the bright yellow nicotine stains on her fingers and the fact that the smell of cheap cigarettes in the inner room was almost overpowering.
“I’ll see you now,” she said abruptly to Aria, adding over her shoulder to the girl at the desk, “I’ve sent Lucy Jarvis to see Lady Grimblethorpe. You had better telephone and say that she’s on her way.”
“Lady Grimblethorpe wanted a married couple,” the girl answered.
“She’ll take what we can send her and like it,” Mrs. Benstead replied.
The last sentence was shouted from her desk as she sat down and motioned Aria to a chair in front of it.
“Now, let me see. Have you been here before?” she asked.
“No,” Aria replied.
“In that case, I’ll have to take your particulars,” Mrs. Benstead said grudgingly, as if Aria was putting her to an incredible amount of trouble.
She searched amongst the general debris on her desk until among half a dozen ledgers exactly alike she found the one she required.
“Name?” she enquired.
“Milbank,” Aria replied.
She had decided the night before not to use her own name. Of course it was absurd snobbery, as she said to Nanny, to think that anyone was likely to have heard of her. But still, Charles was a Baronet and their father had known a vast number of people.
She didn’t know why, but she had an absurd reluctance to explain to anyone why she was having to work or to talk of her father’s death.
She would never forget the horror of those headlines and the sensational sordid reports that had filled every paper together with photographs of her father, of the woman he had died with and even of Queen’s Folly.
“WELL-KNOWN BARONET KILLED IN CAR RACE AFTER CHAMPAGNE PARTY.”
She could see the words now spread across the newspaper and many others,
“SENSATIONAL NOBLEMAN PLUNGES TO HIS DEATH.”
“THE LAST OF THE REGENCY BUCKS.”
She had hardly been able to believe what she read.
It did not seem credible that her father, whom she had seen only the night before, was dead. But as the reporters had swarmed into the hotel, the telephone had never stopped ringing and she had been interviewed by the Police, the press, the management and by anybody and everyone wanting to know more and yet more of what had happened, until she had felt that it must be some terrible, ghastly nightmare she could not awake from.
No one would ever know what a relief it had been to arrive back at Victoria Station on a wet misty morning in March to see Charles standing on the platform.
She had thought of him at that moment as someone who would rescue her from her own misery, someone she could cling to for succour and strength. She did not realise that she was to be the one who must be strong and she must be the rock that he would cling to.
Together they had slipped away to the obscurity of Queen’s Folly.
They had left behind the sensational stories of Sir Gladstone’s extravagances, the details of how he won a fortune at Monte Carlo one night only to squander it the next, of his fancy dress parties where fabulous entertainers were brought from all over the world to amuse and delight the guests, of his wagers when vast sums of money changed hands and of his own extraordinary, bizarre personality that made him copy for the press in whatever he did or whatever he said.
“Forget it,” Charles said to her in the train as they journeyed towards Queen’s Folly and she sobbed out her misery and horror of what had happened since the moment that their father’s death had hit the headlines.
“Forget it all and – him!” he added later in a low voice as if he was half ashamed to say the words.
Holding tightly onto her brother’s hand, Aria had believed it was possible.
That was until they arrived at Queen’s Folly. She would never forget the expression on Charles’s face as they walked into the house to find it bare.
“He must have stored the furniture somewhere,” Charles said in a bewildered manner.
But Aria had known the truth even before Nanny, who had remained in the house as caretaker all the years that they had been away, had come trundling down the backstairs to tell them what had happened.
“It went bit by bit, dearies,” she said. “A van would arrive from London and the men would give me a letter from your father to say that I was to hand over the Sheraton chairs or the Elizabethan silver mirror.”
“Has that gone?” Charles asked sharply.
Nanny nodded.
“It was sold at Christies two years ago. It fetched three thousand pounds.”
“I will buy it back!” Charles had shouted. “I will buy it all back. Those were mine, mine – do you hear?”
His voice had echoed round the empty rooms. But Aria had known in her heart that it was just bravado even before the lawyer came down to show them in hard figures how little was left.
“He has made our name stink,” Charles had called out furiously, but there were tears in his eyes.
*
Now with an almost defiant air, Aria spelt out the new name she had taken.
“M.i.l.b.a.n.k.”
“Christian name?”
“Aria.”
“That’s unusual,” Mrs. Benstead said and for the first time sou
nded almost human. “Then we do get some fancy names here. It’s the fashion not to be called anything ordinary and easy. Well, I was christened Gladys and I haven’t bothered my head to think of another.”
Aria said nothing and, after she had finished writing down the name, Mrs. Benstead looked up.
“Secretarial, I suppose?”
“I wanted something – a little different from that,” Aria said hesitantly.
“In what way?” Mrs. Benstead enquired.
“I don’t know exactly,” Aria replied. “You see, I want something that – will bring me in a – good salary. Perhaps I should say an – exceptional one. As I can’t do shorthand, I’m afraid that being a secretary is not exactly a job I should do well.”
“You can’t do shorthand!” said Mrs. Benstead, her voice almost disdainful. “That makes it much more difficult. Even though there’s a shortage, people do ask for shorthand these days. You can’t blame them, it’s speed that counts.”
“Yes, I am sure it is,” Aria said. “I just wondered if there was anything else.”
“What were you thinking of?” Mrs. Benstead enquired. “I have got a woman who wants a social secretary to live in. That means she doesn’t pay much and expects you to help in the house when the other servants are out.” She flicked the book open as she spoke. “Nice address, house in Upper Grosvenor Street. Like to give it a try?”
“No, thank you,” Aria said. “It wasn’t the sort of thing I meant.”
“Let’s see what else we’ve got. Housekeeper to one gentleman. You have to be a good cook if you go to him. He’s ever so particular.”
“I can’t cook,” Aria said. “Not well enough for that, anyway.”
“That’s no use then. Now, there’s a place here – ” Mrs. Benstead paused.
The girl from the outer office had appeared suddenly. She came in shutting the door behind her.
“She’s back!” she said in a low voice to Mrs. Benstead. “He’s sacked her!”
“Not Mrs. Cunningham?” Mrs. Benstead said in incredulous tones.
“Yes! And she’s brought a message from him to say that you are to ring him at Claridges at twelve o’clock.”
Mrs. Benstead looked at her watch.
“It’s after that now.”
“Yes. She said as how her train was late getting’ up to town.”
“What did he sack her for?”
“Need you ask?” the girl enquired, her lip curling. “The usual reason!”
“I never thought that Mrs. Cunningham would be such a fool,” Mrs. Benstead said. “Oh dear, I had better ring him up and promise him someone else. Find the book for me.”
“You needn’t bother,” the girl replied. “There’s nobody on it.”
“Well, we have to do something for him.”
In her agitation Mrs. Benstead was pulling at her cigarette until the smoke from it seemed to envelop her like a cloud. She picked up the telephone receiver and dialled a number and after a moment said,
“Put me through to Mr. Dart Huron.”
There was a pause and then, as she said “hello”, her voice changed to one of ingratiating subservience.
“Oh, good morning, sir. This is Mrs. Benstead speaking. Mrs. Cunningham has just called at the office. I’m ever so sorry she was not satisfactory.”
The voice at the other end seemed to have plenty to say on this point and Mrs. Benstead appeared to be listening attentively.
“Yes, yes, of course, sir. I understand. I’m only so sorry. She was so well recommended. I can’t understand it. Yes, I will do my best – No, no, we are certain to find someone. There is no reason for you to enquire elsewhere. We’ll meet your requirements, as we have always done. Yes, yes, that’s definite. Three o’clock. Yes, certainly, sir. I will try and have someone round by then. Good morning!”
She put the receiver down and slumped back exhausted in her chair.
“That’s torn it!” she said to the girl, who had been bending over the desk concentrating on every word that was being said. “He wants someone else tomorrow. Expects to interview someone too by three o’clock this afternoon. What about Mrs. Jones?”
“She’s in Scotland.”
“So she is, I had forgotten. Mrs. Harris?”
“Goodness knows what has happened to her. The last letter we sent her was returned, address unknown.”
Aria felt as if she had become suddenly invisible.
The two women not only seemed to have entirely forgotten her presence, but did not even realise that she was still there. Pushing her nicotine-stained fingers through her grey hair, Mrs. Benstead was looking almost wildly through the ledger she had in front of her.
Finally Aria spoke.
“Would you like me to go?” she enquired quietly.
Mrs. Benstead started and stared at her for a moment as if she had never seen her before.
“Yes, yes, of course, Miss Milbank! We’ll let you know if we hear anything,” she said, oblivious of the fact that she had not yet taken Aria’s address.
As Aria rose to her feet, the girl leaning over the desk looked up at her.
“I suppose you can’t speak three languages by any chance?” she enquired.
“I speak French, German and Spanish,” Aria answered.
The words seemed utterly to astonish the two women facing her. It seemed to her that their eyes widened and their mouths literally fell open.
“You do?” Mrs. Benstead said. “How well?”
“Fluently,” Aria replied. “I have visited those three countries for quite considerable periods.”
“Can you write in those languages as well as speak them?” Mrs. Benstead asked suspiciously.
“Yes,” Aria answered simply.
The two women looked at each other.
“Well, I don’t know,” Mrs. Benstead said.
“It does seem a coincidence!” the girl remarked.
“Is that what the gentleman on the telephone requires?” Aria asked.
“Do you know who that was?” Mrs. Benstead asked.
Aria shook her head.
“Why should I?”
“It was Mr. Dart Huron,” Mrs. Benstead said. She paused as if waiting for Aria to give an exclamation or show some recognition of the name.
When she remained looking blankly polite, she repeated,
“Dart Huron. You’ve heard of him, of course.”
“No, I am afraid I haven’t.”
“Well, really, Miss Milfield, I mean Milbank, I can’t think where you’ve been these past years. Why, he’s as famous in America, as well as over here, as – ”
She hesitated for a name.
“As Billy Wallace or Douglas Fairbanks,” the girl put in glibly.
“I think I have heard of them,” Aria smiled.
“I should think you have. What do you read?” the girl asked. “The Church Times?”
“Well, don’t let’s waste time,” Mrs. Benstead remarked sharply. “The position is this. Mr. Dart Huron, who is a very distinguished American gentleman and very wealthy, has arrived in England and taken a house in Surrey. He has come over to play polo and what he calls ‘do the Season’.
“He left it to us to staff his house for him and also to find him a housekeeper who at the same time would be a kind of Social secretary.
“He would have brought his own secretary with him, but she was ill and so he had to leave her behind in New York. The one essential thing is that she should speak German, French and Spanish – Spanish particularly because Mr. Huron has very big interests in South America.”
“What does being a Social secretary imply?” Aria asked hesitantly.
“Well, I can’t rightly tell you that,” Mrs. Benstead replied. “I think she sees to his guests, arranges the rooms and the table and that sort of thing. Mr. Huron’s unmarried, you see.”
She glanced at the girl meaningfully and then looked back at Aria.
“You must have seen about him in the papers lately.”
“Oh, really, I don’t know where you have been living, Miss Milbank. There have been pages about him, literally pages. You see, he was engaged to Beatrice Watton. You know, the richest girl in America, the Oil Queen they call her. But it was broken off on account of Lulu Carlo, the famous film star. You must have seen her in Penny Plain.”
“I have heard of her,” Aria admitted cautiously.
“That’s something, at any rate,” Mrs. Benstead said sarcastically. “Well, his engagement to Beatrice only lasted a week or so and then Lulu swooped down on him and off they came to Europe, leaving Beatrice to make the best she could of a bad job.”
“Is Lulu Carlo with Mr. Huron now?” Aria asked.
“I imagine so because she is making a film over here. You must have read about that. Love on a Windmill it’s called. It’s being made at Elstree.”
“I don’t know that I should be very suitable for Mr. Huron’s job,” Aria said quietly.
She had a sudden horror of being involved with film stars and the type of people who were continually in the columns of the newspapers. Once again she could see the headlines that had heralded her father’s death.
Once again she could remember the feeling of being besmirched and dirty after she had read of the way he had lived and the people he had associated with.
“You don’t know what you are saying,” Mrs. Benstead snapped angrily. “This is the finest job any woman is likely to get this side of the Atlantic, I can tell you that. Do you know what Mr. Huron pays?”
“I really don’t think I should be interested,” Aria said.
“Do you know what he pays?” Mrs. Benstead repeated.
“No, why should I?” Aria answered, merely because an answer seemed to be expected of her.
“Twenty pounds a week,” Mrs. Benstead declared.
“Twenty pounds a week!” Aria ejaculated.
There was no doubt that she was impressed.
“That’s the exact sum,” Mrs. Benstead said. “And you don’t have to pay me any commission either, he pays that. It’s the same salary that he gives in New York and he told me that he wanted somebody good and he wasn’t going to stint the price he paid for her either.”
Love Forbidden Page 3
