I certainly never expected to meet him.
Although I had been about quite a lot during the short time I had been in London, I hadn’t met anyone of any importance.
They were nearly all very young men who wanted to dance and drive fast cars and who talked incessantly about being ‘on guard’ and ‘on parade’ and what the Colonel had said in the mess.
They were very gay and I enjoyed dancing with them, but no one, not even the Vicar’s daughter of Little Poolbrook, would have thought them intellectual.
I thought to myself that David Durham sounded pretty terrifying, but it was very unlikely that I should ever meet him, even if he came to be photographed. If he did, I was quite certain that Melanie would contrive to monopolise him.
Melanie had a way of always getting what she wanted.
She had been determined to go in a smart party to Ascot. She talked about it all the week beforehand and was furious that no one had asked her.
However there was an impecunious Baronet who had been hanging around and somehow through him she managed to meet Lord Rowden and came back absolutely delighted with herself.
“He’s taking a large party,” she said, “and we are going down in a coach – think of that! He’ll have all sorts of rich and exciting guests and I will have to find something very special to wear.”
“You’d better be careful of that gentleman,” Miss Macey said rather sourly.
“Why?” Melanie asked briefly.
“You’ll soon find out,” Miss Macey replied.
“I assure you that I can take care of myself,” Melanie said with an edge on her voice.
“I’m sure you think you can,” Miss Macey replied nastily.
There was no love lost between Miss Macey and the models, but I never argued with her.
I couldn’t bear even to hear the spiteful remarks that she and Melanie made to each other, let alone utter them.
But Melanie had her own way and she went down to Ascot with her smart party and came back having had, according to her, a fabulous time and won over twenty pounds on the races.
“It’s easy to win when you don’t stake your own money,” Miss Macey observed.
“Who’d be stupid enough to do that?” Melanie enquired, putting on her innocent look!
It was the week of the Ascot races that the Meldriths gave one of their much-publicised parties and invited Giles to bring one of his models with him.
On that occasion the party was not given for anyone special and he decided to take me because Melanie was not available and they had seen Hortense before.
“You’ll want a special cocktail dress,” he said. “Better go along to Pacquin and ask them to lend you something outstanding. A Meldrith party is one of the best advertising mediums in London.”
Obediently I trotted off to Pacquin and when I explained what Giles had said they produced the most fantastic outfit. It was in silver lamé with an emerald-green and silver turban to wear on my head and huge imitation emerald earrings, which were part of the get-up.
It seemed to me to be completely fancy dress and I felt very outré and rather shy in it, but Giles was delighted.
“I’ll photograph you in it before you send it back tomorrow,” he said, “it’s just the sort of picture Vogue likes.”
But even his enthusiasm didn’t make me feel any less conspicuous as I walked up the Meldriths’ grand staircase into the huge double drawing room on the first floor.
Although we were fairly early, it seemed to be packed with people and the noise was deafening.
There was a band and, where there were a few inches of room on the parquet floor, people were dancing.
There never seemed to be a time of day in London when people were not dancing. There were even newspaper reports of people dancing at breakfast time.
I myself never saw anyone at breakfast except the other boarders in Mrs. Simpson’s house, most of whom were not the type to dance at any time of the day.
The ‘Bright Young People’ so beloved of the gossip columns apparently danced from the time they got up until the time they went to bed.
I had never been asked to dance before the evening because I was at work all day, but Hortense told me that she had been taken several times to tea dances at the Savoy Hotel and said they were very smart.
Anyway the band, which consisted of a piano, a saxophone and a drum, was playing softly at one end of the drawing room.
People were dancing with cocktail glasses in their hands, which made me at once feel nervous about my borrowed Pacquin gown.
If I looked strange all in silver lamé, the hem of my gown ballooning out like huge Eastern trousers, to be caught at the ankle with emerald buttons, there were other people looking just as strange, including a woman with a whole bird of Paradise on her head.
Lady Meldrith, who is small, vivacious and looks rather like a pretty parakeet, greeted Giles effusively and said,
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve brought your new girl with you. I’ve been longing to see her. Those photographs in Vogue are too, too divine!”
“You flatter me,” Giles replied with delight.
“I could never do that,” Lady Meldrith answered with a meaningful look of her eyes under mascaraed eyelashes.
Giles kissed her hand and then other guests arrived and we moved further into the room.
I looked round. The women were all terribly smart, sleekly brittle types with bored expressions and the men seemed older and rather heavy, as if weighed down with their money.
Giles, of course, knew lots of people and he was soon surrounded by women begging him to photograph them, chirping that they would die of shame if he refused.
Since nobody seemed interested in me, I edged my way towards a window at the end of the further room.
I found it looked out on to a very elaborate formal roof garden.
There were brilliant flowers, including lilies, which I love, a small fountain and seats arranged under orange trees planted in pots.
There was nobody in the garden and so, hoping that no one would notice, I walked down the steps from the reception room and stood looking at the lilies.
I hadn’t been there more than a moment when a man and a woman came down the steps behind me.
I moved as far away as I could from them, but it was impossible not to overhear their conversation.
“You said you’d telephone me last night, Ralph,” the woman said petulantly.
“I’m sorry, Elsie, I came back too late from the races.”
“I waited for hours because I wanted to talk to you.”
“I thought that you would be sure to be out and enjoying yourself.”
“That is untrue and you know it. How can you treat me like this? You know how I feel about you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Elsie, don’t make a scene here.”
“I don’t get much chance of making one anywhere else, do I?”
The woman’s voice rose a little.
I felt, although I had my back to them, that the man was looking in my direction and feeling embarrassed.
“When can I see you?” Elsie asked almost desperately.
“I have no idea,” the man answered indifferently. “Sometime, I daresay.”
The woman made an exasperated sound that was half-angry and half-tearful. Then, as if she could not control herself, she turned and ran up the steps and back into the crowded drawing room.
I stood staring at the flowers and hoping that the man would follow her, but he walked across the roof garden to my side.
“I know who you are,” he said, “so may I introduce myself?”
I turned and saw that he was heavily built and much older than I had thought. He had rather a dissipated look about him, but he might have been handsome in his twenties.
“Your face has haunted me ever since I first saw a picture of you,” he said. “My name is Rowden – Ralph Rowden.”
“How do you do?” I said rather nervously.
�
��I had one of the girls who work with you in my party at Ascot yesterday,” he said.
“Yes, of course,” I answered. “Melanie told us you had invited her.”
“I am sure she enjoyed herself,” he said. “Why don’t you come down with me tomorrow?”
“No, thank you,” I said quickly, “I am afraid that I have another engagement.”
I had been in trouble with Melanie already because one of her young men took a fancy to me. I certainly didn’t want to be involved in another row, even though Lord Rowden was not a man you could call ‘young’.
In fact I thought he must be nearly forty.
“Let’s sit down and discuss it,” he said. “I am sure, like me, you dislike this noisy party.”
“I hate cocktail parties,” I answered. “They always seem so pointless.”
“I can think of a far better way for us to become acquainted,” he said. “A quiet little dinner where we can talk.”
I didn’t know what to answer to that so I merely looked away across the roofs.
“What are you thinking, Samantha?” he asked.
I thought it was great cheek of him to call me by my Christian name, but I didn’t quite see how I could stop him.
“I was wondering how soon I could leave,” I answered.
Lord Rowden laughed.
“That’s not very complimentary – unless you are suggesting that you and I should leave together.”
“No, of course not!” I said quickly. “I am here with Giles Bariatinsky and he will take me home.”
“I would like to do that,” Lord Rowden said, “but as it happens, I cannot ask you to dine with me tonight as I already have an engagement that I cannot break. What about tomorrow night?”
I suddenly knew that I did not wish to dine with him alone.
There was something in the way he looked at me – something that made me feel uncomfortable and shy. I had felt shy with other people, but this was a different feeling.
“I-I – think it is – impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible,” he answered. “Not where you and I are concerned.”
I rose to my feet.
“I must go and find Giles,” I said. “He will be very annoyed with me for disappearing. I only came out here for a breath of air.”
“I’ll let you go, as long as you promise that you will dine with me tomorrow night,” Lord Rowden insisted.
I was about to refuse again and then I thought of a better idea.
“May I let you know in the morning?” I asked. “I could telephone and leave a message with your secretary.”
“If you ring before eleven o’clock, you can talk to me,” he said, “or better still, I will telephone you.”
“It might be difficult to find me,” I said evasively. “I’ll telephone you – I promise.”
“Are you a truthful person, Samantha?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” I answered.
“There is no ‘of course’ about it,” he replied. “Most women lie like hell! But funnily enough, I believe you and, if you say you will telephone, you will. What is more, Samantha, I will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”
I was walking towards the steps all the time we were talking and now I climbed up them and saw to my relief that Giles was just a little way inside the window.
“I’ll telephone you before eleven o’clock tomorrow,” I said to Lord Rowden and moved quickly to Giles’s side.
He took no notice of me because he was deep in conversation, but the young man he was talking to looked at me and said,
“Won’t you introduce us?”
Giles glanced in my direction almost as if he had forgotten that I existed.
“Yes, of course! Samantha, this is the famous young writer, whom everyone is talking about and who has confounded all the critics by his unprecedented success. David Durham – Samantha Clyde!”
He was not in the least what I had expected.
For one thing he was taller and more broad-shouldered than I had, perhaps stupidly, expected a writer to be.
He was also very smart with that easy elegance with which Englishmen can wear their clothes and make them seem a part of themselves.
He had dark penetrating eyes under winged eyebrows and a mouth that seemed to have a cynical twist to it.
It was a strange face, almost sardonic and it had a mocking, somewhat raffish look, as if he was prepared to dare anything and laugh at himself while he did so.
He held my hand for what seemed to me to be a fraction longer than was necessary and then – I don’t know how it happened – Giles seemed to move away and we were in a corner of the room, David Durham and I, with a cocktail I didn’t want in my hand.
“Tell me about yourself,” he began.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I answered. “You are the one who has a lot to say.”
It must have seemed quite a sophisticated amusing retort, because he laughed.
“What I said in my book had to be said, sooner or later,” he explained. “I was just fortunate to be the first one to say it.”
As I had not read his book and had not the slightest idea what it was about, I was not certain what to reply, so I merely asked,
“Do you enjoy being a success?”
“Enormously,” he answered. “Don’t you?”
“I am not a success, as myself,” I answered, “but because I am a ‘Giles Bariatinsky model’. That’s a very different thing. I haven’t achieved anything.”
“Except an unforgettable face,” he answered.
“I think that is a compliment to my father and mother.”
“I’ll send them a bouquet tomorrow,” he answered.
“Make it of evergreens!”
It seemed to me that I had never been able to talk so lightly or gaily to anyone before.
It was almost like drinking champagne and feeling it go to one’s head.
We talked for what must have been a long time and then he said,
“Let’s go somewhere more comfortable. I always talk best with my elbows on a table.”
I looked at him tentatively.
“I am suggesting,” he said as if I had asked him a question, “that you should come out to dinner with me.”
“I don’t think I – ought to,” I said a little nervously.
“I never do things I ought to do,” David answered. “I do what I want and I most positively and definitely want to be with you, Samantha.”
I knew then that I had no choice in the matter.
I just had to do what David wanted.
Reflection 10
Nothing I had ever known in my whole life had prepared me for David Durham.
I suppose, like all lonely children, I had invented a fantasy world of my own which had gradually evolved into the love-imaginings of an adolescent.
I had expected men to be strong and masculine, authoritative but tender, and rather respectful where women were concerned.
Of course, I must have based my conception of a man in love on the way my father treated my mother and his obvious adoration of her.
I had never imagined that anyone could be as vitally and irresistibly attractive as David Durham.
He took me to a small quiet restaurant where there were very few other people. The head waiter was pleased to see him and we were shown to a secluded sofa table in an alcove.
He ordered food for both of us and I was given champagne, although I didn’t ask for it.
Then David put his elbows on the table and talked.
I cannot remember now what we talked about. I only knew it was fascinatingly exciting and I must have sat like a mesmerised rabbit with my eyes on his face, trying to understand what he was saying to me.
But, of course, I didn’t look stupid, ignorant and bemused, as I in fact felt inside. I looked enigmatic, exotic and doubtless very sophisticated in the silver lamé with the long emerald earrings swinging against my white skin.
When dinner was finished, a man star
ted to play the piano very softly at the other end of the room.
David rose to his feet and said,
“I want to dance with you, Samantha.”
When he put his arms round me, I felt a strange feeling in my throat. I couldn’t explain it, but at the same time it was wildly exciting.
He held me very close and, although there were only two or three other couples on the floor, he moved very slowly in the manner of people who dance when there is hardly room to move.
“I like your scent,” he remarked after a moment.
It was difficult for me to remember what it was.
At the shops where we gave dress shows they often had their own make of scent and sometimes, if they were feeling generous, they gave us a small bottle, hoping we would recommend it.
I thought I might be wearing one of Molyneux’s, but I wasn’t really certain. When I was dressing I used the first bottle that came to hand.
“I am glad,” I said after a moment.
“Are you?” David asked. “Are you really glad, Samantha, that I should like your scent and everything else about you?”
“You don’t know me well enough to say that,” I answered.
Equally I felt very thrilled at his words. I wanted him to like me.
He was quite the most exciting person I had met since I came to London. At the same time he frightened me.
He knew so much. He seemed so sophisticated that I felt it was only a question of time, perhaps an hour or so, before he would realise how little there was about me to get to know and how inadequate I was in every way to be his companion even for dinner.
As we left the Meldriths, I had told Giles that we were leaving.
When he saw who I was with, there had been a look of amusement on his face.
I thought perhaps it was because he thought that there was something incongruous about me, the girl he had discovered in Little Poolbrook wearing the wrong sort of clothes, going out with someone as famous as David Durham.
“You are a very mysterious person,” David was saying in my ear as we moved slowly round the polished floor. “What are you thinking about behind that Sphinx-like expression in your eyes?”
I had heard this type of remark before from other men, but somehow it had quite a different significance when David said it.
Say Yes Samantha Page 5
