I could hardly believe that I was speaking in such a manner and yet the words seemed to come to my lips without my really willing them.
I had lost my temper, which after all was not so surprising, considering that I have red hair.
David had never seen me in a temper before and it obviously made him furious.
“You can hardly complain,” he said unpleasantly, “that someone else is taking your place, if that’s what you are inferring. After all, you have made it very clear that your high-flown principles are far more important to you than my feelings.”
He spoke so bitterly that I felt my own anger ebbing away and being replaced by an agony of unhappiness that seemed to hang over me like a black cloud.
“I – thought we – loved each – other,” I said in a very low voice.
“Love! What do you know about love?” David snapped. “What you want, Samantha, is marriage or have you forgotten that? You won’t give your love, you will only sell it for a wedding ring. It’s a form of prostitution, although I cannot expect you to admit it and it’s certainly blackmail.”
“If you think I am trying to blackmail you into marrying me, you are mistaken!” I flared at him.
Now I was angry again.
“You can doll it up with pretty phrases and lots of kisses,” David said sarcastically, “but it’s still blackmail.”
“I loved you! I really loved you,” I said. “But you don’t love me! All you want is that I should give you my – body and then you will be off hunting for another girl with a pretty face who is silly enough to give you her heart.”
“If it comes to that,” David said, “what else have you got to offer me but your body?”
He paused and there was the light of battle in his eye, which I had seen before, a light that meant he was determined to win the argument – intent on being the conqueror.
We were facing each other defiantly and the sun coming through the bedroom window turned my hair into fiery gold.
“You have a pretty face,” he said slowly, making every word a knife thrust. “No one is arguing about that, but you are abysmally ignorant, ridiculously innocent and in consequence a crashing bore!”
I felt as if every word struck deep into my heart and drew blood.
I stood looking at him as the full meaning of what he had said sank deeper and deeper into my consciousness and seemed to swallow me up.
Then I turned and walked out of the room, across the hall and out of the flat.
As I slammed the door behind me, I heard him call my name and started to run.
I didn’t wait for the lift. I tore down the stairs and into the street.
There was a taxi passing slowly by and I pulled open the door while it was still moving, jumped inside and gave my address through the communicating window.
I didn’t look back to see whether or not David had followed me. I knew he wouldn’t be able to if he intended to catch the train at Waterloo.
He had to finish his packing and bring his suitcases downstairs.
I sat in the taxi feeling very cold but not in the least like crying. I thought to myself,
‘This is how people are when they are dead,’ because I was certain that something had died inside me.
When I reached the boarding house, I went upstairs and started to pack. I knew that all my things wouldn’t go into my suitcase, so I got one of the maids to fetch me some big cardboard dress boxes.
I knew that there must be plenty of them stored away somewhere in which the dresses that Giles had bought for me had been delivered.
Finally with one suitcase, four large dress boxes and a bag containing odds and ends, I set off for Paddington Station.
Luckily Mrs. Simpson was out, so I didn’t have to tell her a lot of lies or make excuses about why I was leaving. I just told the girl in the office that I didn’t know when I’d be back and they were not to keep my room for me.
Then I went home.
Reflection 15
“I say, are you all right?”
The voice of the Member of Parliament seems to come from a very long distance.
I suppose it is less than a minute since David came into the room and yet I feel he has been there for ages.
“I think I would like a drink,” I said weakly.
“Of course,” my companion says. “Here, take mine while I try to find a waiter.”
He put a glass into my hand and I drank everything it contained without even tasting it.
I had no idea if it was champagne, a cocktail or sherry, but it made me feel better and now when the Member of Parliament turned to speak to me again I am able to smile at him.
“I expect I’m hungry,” I explain. “We do seem to have been waiting a long time for dinner.”
“I agree with you,” he replied. “I hate people who are late and I like to have my meals on time. Anyway, as I never know when there will be a Division in the House, I eat when I get the chance!”
He laughs and just as if I hear a stranger doing it, I laugh too.
David is shaking hands with one or two people in the room, but he is making no effort to come near me, in fact I am not even certain if he has seen me.
“Dinner is served, my Lady!” the butler’s voice seemed to boom across the room and now, thank goodness, we can go down to dinner.
I wonder if I can slip away when it’s over without anybody noticing.
I can’t meet David – I can’t talk to him – I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to say to him!
Reflection 16
Here I am in the Bentley again.
The car that has meant so much to me in the past that it is almost like coming home, and yet, I am determined not to be anything but cold and distant to David.
I can see his profile out of the corner of my eye and he is just as devastatingly handsome as ever, except that he looks a little thinner.
There is something taut and rather fine-drawn about him, which I can’t remember noticing before.
He is looking straight ahead and he hasn’t said a word to me since he came to my side about half an hour after dinner and said quietly,
“I think it’s time we left, Samantha. I’m going to take you home.”
It wasn’t a question of ‘may I?’ or ‘will you?’ He just stated a fact.
Before I could find an answer, he had taken me across the room and out of the drawing room without our even saying goodnight to Lady Meldrith.
I wanted to expostulate. I wanted to argue with him – but my voice seemed to have got lost and I had a constriction in my throat that made it almost impossible to breathe.
We waited in the hall while one of the footmen fetched my wrap, then we went out into Grosvenor Square. David had parked his Bentley exactly opposite the Meldriths’ house.
He opened the door, I clambered in and only as he turned the ignition key did he ask,
“Where are you living now?”
I gave him the address, somewhat surprised that he didn’t assume I was still at the boarding house.
I wondered if he had tried to find me there and then I told myself that there was no reason why he should have been interested.
The Meldriths’ dinner took so long, although I didn’t taste anything I ate, that it is now quite late and the Bentley is moving very fast through the empty streets.
I have a feeling that David wants to talk to me when we reach my flat and, as I have no intention of allowing him to come in, I’ll do my usual trick of jumping out very quickly as he puts on the brakes.
Here we are!
I expected David to ask if it was the right square, but he seems to know this part of London and now he is drawing up outside my building.
I have opened the door. I am on the pavement.
“Wait, Samantha!” David’s voice is sharp, but I pay no attention.
“Goodnight, David!” I say and run up the steps.
Reflection 17
It all happened so quickly that even now, when I am no lo
nger so frightened and can think more clearly, I can hardly remember what occurred.
I had the key of the outside door of the block of flats ready in my hand. But to my surprise, when I reached the top of the steps hurrying away from David, I found that the outer door was open.
I thought it must have been left like that by the woman upstairs who leaves it unlocked for her young man because she is too lazy to come down and open it for him. He is an actor and therefore keeps most irregular hours.
I went in and, still in a hurry, took out my key to put it in the Yale lock of my own door. Then I realised that it was open too.
I pushed it and at that moment everything happened.
A man who seemed to be enormous, dark and menacing, rushed at me from behind the door, hit me twice and then ran past me into the hall.
Even before he hit me I started to scream and, as I staggered and fell against the wall, I screamed and screamed again.
There was the sound of somebody running up the steps very quickly. Then David’s arms were round me and I was clinging to him but still screaming, except that my voice was muffled against his shoulder.
“What has happened?” he asked. “Who was that man, Samantha?”
“He – hit me! Oh, David – he hit – me!”
“It’s all right,” he said soothingly. “He has gone now. It must have been a burglar.”
“He – hit me!” I screamed again.
I couldn’t believe it had happened. My face was burning from his fist and the other blow had been on my chest.
“There – may be – another – ” I cried in terror, and David reached out his hand for the light.
He switched it on and then said sharply,
“Don’t look!”
But I had raised my head for a moment from his shoulder and had seen the room and the utter confusion.
Everything had been emptied on to the floor – the drawers, my books and boxes. Chairs and tables were overturned and ornaments broken.
It was so horrible that I started to cry!
David picked me up in his arms and carried me across the sitting room and into the bedroom.
The door was ajar and he laid me down on the bed.
He began to take his arms from me, but I held on to him.
“Don’t – leave me! Don’t – leave – me!”
“I’m not going to leave you,” he answered.
“There – might be – somebody in the – bathroom,” I said and thought to myself that my voice sounded hysterical.
The bathroom was little more than a cupboard at one side of the room. David opened the door and switched on the light.
There was nobody there and he came back to say,
“I’m sure there was only one man, Samantha.”
“He might – come – back,” I murmured weakly.
“That’s very unlikely,” he replied, “but I’ll tell you what I want you to do. I want you to undress and get into bed. While you are doing that, I’ll lock my car and the doors.”
“You won’t go – away?” I asked nervously.
“I’ll come straight back and make you a warm drink,” he said. “Now get into bed, Samantha. I shall not be more than a minute or two.”
“Promise – you won’t – leave – me?” I asked again.
“I promise,” he said gravely.
He went out of the bedroom and shut the door carefully behind him, which I knew was because he didn’t want me to see the mess in the sitting room. I didn’t really care what it was like as long as the burglar didn’t come back and hit me again.
I undid my dress very quickly and hung it up in the wardrobe, slipped off my other clothes and put on the first nightgown I could find.
Then I climbed into bed to lay shivering and listening. I was still afraid that David might change his mind and leave me.
I heard him shut the sitting room door and then there was a sound as if he was turning the chairs the right way up again before he switched off the light and came back into the bedroom.
“There’s no sign of your burglar and I’m sure, Samantha, that he is far more frightened of us than we are of him. After all, if we see him again, we can hand him over to the Police.”
“I don’t – want to tell the – Police what has – happened,” I said childishly.
“We shall have to see if you have lost anything valuable,” David pointed out gravely.
“I don’t have anything valuable to lose,” I answered.
“Then that makes it easy,” he said. “Now, is there anywhere where I can make you something warm to drink? Warm and sweet was what my Nanny always prescribed for shock.”
“There’s a kettle and a gas ring in the bathroom,” I said.
He smiled at me, opened the bathroom door and I could hear him rattling cups and saucers.
It is very small, but it really is rather cleverly fitted up as a bathroom-cum-kitchen. There is even a board that one can let down over the bath, presumably if you had a lot of cooking to do, which is very unlikely in my case, because I have never cooked for anyone but myself.
I lay back against the pillows and now because David was with me I didn’t feel either so cold or so frightened and I wondered why I had been so afraid when he had walked into the Meldriths’ drawing room. The burglar was far more frightening than he was.
He put his head round the door.
“Do you have a hot water bottle?” he asked.
“It’s on a hook,” I answered, “but – ”
I was going to say that he shouldn’t bother to fill it for me, but he had gone again and I felt too weak to shout.
He brought me a cup of cocoa with lots of milk in it and at least four spoonfuls of sugar.
“Drink it all up,” he said in the voice that I always obeyed.
I sat up in bed, took it from him and as I did so he said,
“You’ve got terribly thin, Samantha. What have you been doing to yourself?”
“I look fatter when I’m dressed,” I said defensively.
“I noticed how much weight you have lost the moment I walked into the Meldriths’ drawing room.”
“Were you surprised to see me?” I asked.
“I was relieved,” he replied. “I was sick of dining with the Meldriths and having you chuck at the last moment.”
I was so astonished that I looked at him open-mouthed. But without waiting for me to answer he went back to the kitchen and filled my hot water bottle.
He brought it to me, turning it upside down to be quite certain it wasn’t leaking, then held my cup of cocoa while I put the hot water bottle inside the bed.
“Thank you very much,” I said. “Do you mean that you asked Lady Meldrith to invite me the other times when I threw her over at the last moment?”
“I couldn’t think of anyone else whose invitation you would feel compelled to accept,” he answered. “Even then tonight she had to invite Giles to make quite certain that you would turn up.”
“And – why did you – want to see me?” I asked.
“I wanted to talk to you, Samantha,” David replied in his deep voice.
I felt my heart give a funny jump and then it started thumping wildly and I wasn’t certain if it was because I was frightened or was happy that he wanted to talk to me.
Then suddenly I gave a cry.
“Oh, David, I’ve thought of something!”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I must get up and get dressed at once!”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t stay here,” I answered. “I would be terrified. I’d feel certain that the burglar would come back if I was alone. I must go to an hotel.”
I finished the cup of cocoa and put the cup and saucer on the table beside my bed.
“If I dress quickly,” I said, “will you take me in your car? It would be difficult for me to find a taxi as late as this.”
David did not answer for a moment and then he said,
“Listen, Samantha,
it wouldn’t be easy for a woman alone to get into an hotel at this time of night. They’ll just say that they’re full up.”
“I can’t help that,” I said. “I can’t stay here. I can’t! I can’t!”
My voice rose again, I could feel the pain in my face and in my chest where the burglar had hit me and I remembered how large and menacing he had seemed.
“I shall – never feel – safe – again,” I went on with a little sob.
“I’m going to suggest something,” David said, “but I don’t want to frighten you more than you are already.”
“I know you think it’s foolish of me,” I said, “but I really am terrified. Supposing I had been here alone when that man broke in?”
“I am sure he made quite certain that you were out before he did so,” David said. “Burglars don’t usually leave much to chance, Samantha. But I do understand that you are frightened and that’s why I have a suggestion to make.”
“A suggestion?”
“That I should stay here with you tonight,” David replied. “Tomorrow we will make different arrangements so that you won’t be afraid.”
I looked at him without speaking and he said very quietly,
“You can trust me, Samantha.”
“B-but it will – be – uncomfortable for you,” I stammered.
“I’ve been uncomfortable before,” he said with a smile, “and I can assure you that the floor here would be luxury compared to some of the places where I have had to sleep.”
“There’s no need to sleep on the floor,” I said. “There’s a chair – ”
I looked round the room. I had never realised before how tiny my bedroom was or how much room the bed took up.
David watched me and then he said,
“I could sit in a chair in the sitting room, Samantha. But I would be farther away and you know the most sensible thing would be for me to lie on the bed. I swear I won’t touch you – and it is a very large bed!”
“It came from the Vicarage.”
“I’ll treat it with proper respect,” David said.
Now there was that note of laughter in his voice that I knew so well.
“If you – are quite – sure – ” I said hesitatingly.
Say Yes Samantha Page 11
