Tears gathered in her throat. She smiled her thanks through a mist of tears.
‘But I should have had more character, more—powers of endurance. It was just plain selfish to run away like that.’
Tom Barclay filled his pipe and lit it. ‘We could all do with more of those things, so I think you’d better stop blaming yourself and tell us a little more about it, especially if it’s going to make you sleep any better.’
Julia leaned back in her chair. ‘The crux of the whole matter is, Father, I’m in love with Roger—but he isn’t with me.’
‘Well, you’re by no means the first person to run away from a situation like that,’ commented her father. ‘But what makes you think he isn’t in love with you?’
Julia stared at him. ‘Wouldn’t he have said so, or have found some way of letting me know it? Besides—’
She told him about Celia, and all the little things which were evidence enough without what Celia had told her in addition.
‘And has he told you his plans himself?’ queried her father.
‘Some of them. He’s going back to London, just as Celia said. In fact, he offered me a partnership. A sort of working partnership on a profit-sharing basis. But he’d be coming down—to the boatyard, I mean—for week-ends and holidays, and bringing Celia—’
‘As his wife. And that’s what you couldn’t stand,’ finished her father for her. ‘And I don’t blame you in the least. I suppose Roger hasn’t got the least idea how you feel about him?’
‘Of course not. I couldn’t possibly—’
‘Tom,’ his wife said in a remonstrative tone, ‘a girl has her pride.’
‘So has a man,’ he answered swiftly. ‘For one thing, what about this Max fellow you’ve been seeing? It’s possible Roger thinks you’re in love with him.’
Julia shook her head. ‘He knows I’m not. I told him myself I wasn’t all that keen on Max.’
‘You did? Oh.’ Tom Barclay puffed on his pipe. ‘I must say I liked Roger Leighton. I wonder what he’ll do about the boatyard now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Julia answered with a sigh. ‘Put a manager in charge, I suppose.’
‘You don’t think he’ll sell it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said again. ‘I hope not.’ She felt sure he wouldn’t sell to Max in any case. But Max could still have it one day by buying it from someone else.
‘Why do you hope not?’ pursued her father.
She frowned. ‘I—suppose because of its associations with David. That’s why I wanted to buy it, if you remember. I couldn’t bear the idea of anyone else having it. Of course once I got to know Roger—’
Tom Barclay nodded thoughtfully, but said no more, and a short time after that they all went to bed.
The following day Julia wrote two letters. One to Mrs. Harris, asking her to pack her clothes and send them on, and the other to Roger. The one to Mrs. Harris was easy to write, but when it came to Roger’s, she tore up first one, then the other.
In the end she wrote a brief formal letter apologizing for leaving so abruptly and told him to keep her month’s salary, which was due, in lieu of notice. She signed her name, then after a moment’s indecision, added the postscript: I wish you and Celia every happiness.
She despatched it by first-class mail, and subconsciously waited anxiously for his reply. But the week passed and she did not receive one. A registered letter came from Mrs. Harris containing the money which had been in her purse, her cheque book and several letters.
A parcel followed in which was packed her handbag and one or two other small items. The rest was to follow by rail. She stopped asking her mother: ‘Any post for me?’ and busied herself in her father’s office and helping to keep an eye on the fruit trees. But somehow she could not settle. She felt restless, as though she was not where she should be, yet she shrank from the thought of ever going back to the boatyard, even if Roger wanted her to now.
On Sunday afternoon she was alone in the house. Her mother and father had gone out to keep an engagement they had made prior to Julia coming home.
‘You won’t be going out, will you, darling?’ asked her mother as Julia saw them to their car.
‘I wasn’t thinking of doing so,’ she answered. ‘Why?’
‘I’m rather expecting someone to call. Someone I couldn’t very well put off.’
‘But who—’ she began through the open window of the car.
Her father pulled the starter. ‘If we don’t get off we shall be late.’
Her mother’s next words were drowned by the roar of the accelerator, and the car made off down the drive in a cloud of dust.
The house seemed strangely quiet. Julia wandered from room to room and found her thoughts straying to the boatyard, wondering how the work on the new auxiliaries was getting along, wishing she could go for a sail, wondering what Roger was doing. She had been wrong to leave. She knew that now. But it was too late. Feeling miserable and unhappy beyond belief she sat down at the piano, but as she played she was thinking of Roger’s house, playing his piano while he was in the kitchen making coffee and listening to her play.
The ringing of the front door bell brought her to her senses with a painful jolt. This would be the caller her mother was expecting. She opened the door, then her eyes widened and she drew in a swift breath.
‘Roger! What—what on earth are you doing here?’
He eyed her uncertainly. ‘I’ve brought your things. It seemed—better than sending them by rail.’
‘Oh, I see. That’s very land of you. Thank you very much.’
His lips curved into a slight smile. ‘There was another reason for my coming. Do you think I could come in and talk to you for a moment?’
She suddenly realized she was keeping him standing on the doorstep.
‘I’m sorry. Do come in, of course. I’m afraid Mother and Father aren’t in at the moment. If they’d known—’
He stepped inside. ‘That’s all right. Perhaps they’ll be back soon, anyway.’
She led him into the sitting room. ‘Would you like some tea?’ she asked.
He sat down. ‘I think I’d rather talk first, if you don’t mmd. I should have answered your letter, but I thought it better to—come and see you.’
‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? I might have been out. In fact, if Mother hadn’t said she was expecting someone to call—’
‘Your letter was so—formal, I thought you must still be angry and might not want to see me,’ he told her with a speculative glance.
She did not answer. Surely he had not come all this way just for a chat with her? But of course not. He had almost certainly been coming to see Celia and had thought he might as well drop in to have a talk about things. But she did not want any recriminations. They had both apologized, so—
‘Are you pleased to see me, Julia?’ he asked quizzically.
She didn’t know how to answer him. ‘I—just don’t see what we’ve got to say to each other, Roger.’
‘You don’t? You mean you’re quite content to let all these misunderstandings remain between us for ever?’
‘I don’t know what misunderstandings you mean,’ she answered without looking at him. ‘If you really believe that I’d plot against you to get rid of you, there’s no more to be said.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said with quiet emphasis.
‘But you suspected me,’ she flashed back at him.
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t, Julia. Not seriously. But if you remember, I did ask you if you knew Sheldrake worked for Max Windham and you said yes.’
‘You didn’t give me a chance to finish,’ she said angrily. ‘I was going to tell you that I didn’t know until the previous evening. In any case—’
‘Did Windham tell you he intended to make me an offer for Wingcraft?’ he asked.
She gave him a startled look. ‘No. No, he didn’t. You didn’t accept his offer?’
‘Would it matter to you?’
She clasped her hands together and lowered her head. ‘Yes. Yes, it would. I wouldn’t want Max to have it.’
‘I suspect that you don’t want anyone to have it,’ he told her quietly. ‘Am I right?’
‘I—I don’t know.’
She couldn’t quite explain even to herself how she felt about the boatyard. Ownership for David’s sake had ceased to matter when she had fallen in love with Roger. Now she could not visualize anyone there but Roger.
He kept his gaze on her face. ‘Would you reconsider my offer of partnership?’
Julia leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes momentarily.
‘Roger, please go away. I’ve told you—’
He stood up, his face taut. ‘All right, I’ll go. I was something of a fool to come. You’ve disliked me right from the start, haven’t you?’
She stared at him. How could a man be so blind?’ If—if I’d disliked you all that much, I wouldn’t have agreed to work for you.’
He turned away from her. ‘Are you sure you didn’t merely tolerate me because you just couldn’t bear to leave the place?’
For a moment she did not answer. Feeling near to tears, she looked at his back as he gazed out of the window, and a feeling of infinite tenderness swept over her. Her pride slowly ebbed away.
‘No, Roger, I didn’t merely tolerate you.’
He swung round. ‘Then why is the idea of a partnership so—so repugnant to you?
‘It’s—not repugnant, Roger, it’s—’ She broke off. How could she possibly tell him?
He caught her expression and came swiftly to her side, bringing his chair close up to hers.
‘I—mustn’t go away without saying what I came to say. The—sort of partnership I had in mind was different from the one I put to you before. I want a different kind of partnership altogether.’
‘You—mean you’d stay and work along with me, not go back to London?’
‘Something like that.’
‘So Celia has changed her mind about living in Norfolk.’
‘Celia?’ he echoed in a puzzled voice. ‘Oh yes, that reminds me, what did you mean by that postscript to your letter?’
She frowned. ‘What should it mean except what it said? I—just wished you both every happiness, that’s all.’
‘But why? Are you under the impression that she and I are going to be married or something?’
‘Why, yes. Aren’t you?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘Where’d you get the idea?’
‘From—from Celia.’
‘She actually said so, did she?’ he persisted.
‘Yes. Surely it was true. I mean—’
‘Surely it wasn’t,’ he answered in a decisive tone. He took both her hands in his. ‘I never even asked her. How could I when it was you I wanted?’
Her heart gave a tremendous leap. ‘Roger! Roger, you don’t mean that.’
‘I most certainly do. But I was willing to—more or less let you have the boatyard, if that was what you wanted.’
She shook her head swiftly and her eyes misted over. ‘I don’t want it, not without you,’ she told him tremulously.
His grip on her hands tightened. He gave a tremendous sigh and cupped her face in his hands.
‘Julia! Oh, Julia, say that again and keep on saying it.’
She blinked. ‘Tell me more about that partnership.’
He looked at her with an expression of infinite tenderness. ‘It’s a sort of life partnership,’ he said softly. ‘You know the kind of thing. There’s a ceremony to which we invite all our friends. We make promises to love and honour and to cling only to each other until death us do part. I slip a plain gold ring on your finger, we sign our names in a book, then live happily ever after. Together, of course,’ he added.
‘I—I think I’d like that,’ she whispered.
He gave her a long look, then brought his lip down on hers in a lingering kiss which sent her floating on a cloud of exquisite happiness.
‘Do you love me, Julia?’ he asked, searching her face.
She gave a little smile. ‘Need you ask?’
‘Yes, and I need to be told. In fact there are one or two things which need clearing up before we go any further.’ He pulled her to her feet. ‘Come and sit beside me and let’s talk a little.’
They sat on the long settee and he put his arm around her. ‘I love you, Julia. I just want to be sure that there will never be any ghosts between us.’
‘Ghosts?’ she queried, running her fingers down his cheek.
He nodded. ‘I realized quite early on that I’d nothing to fear from Max Windham. You were not in love with him, and never could be. I had a much more serious rival.’
‘You mean—’
‘I mean David. He was the reason for your wanting to buy the business, wasn’t he? You couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else taking his place. I thought you might gradually recover from that, but instead it seemed to get worse. You kept talking about going away. The very mention of his name caused you pain. I love you, Julia, and I want to marry you, but I couldn’t bear it if I thought you were still in love with somebody else, that every time you looked at me or saw me around the place you were wishing I was another man.’
She turned to face him and put her arms about his neck. ‘Darling Roger, it’s you I love—and only you. I was in love with David. Of course I was. But that was nothing compared with what I feel for you. It’s—true that I wanted to buy Wingcraft because I couldn’t bear the thought of a stranger having it, and of course David still meant a great deal to me. But, darling, David has gone. Where, I don’t know, but gone he has. There’s only you, and what I feel for you is a far bigger, far deeper thing than I ever felt for David.’
His arm about her tightened so that it almost hurt.
‘You’re sure? Really sure?’
‘I’m very, very sure. Far from merely tolerating you, I liked you from the morning of our first interview.’
His eyes widened. ‘You had a very odd way of showing it.’
‘I fought against it. Celia was always there. She was much more real than David’s ghost. You drew her face in your doodlings, you carried her photograph in your pocket, you left your father’s business because of her and—’
He stared at her. ‘What a fearful imagination you have!’
‘You mean it’s not true?’
‘Not a word of it. I left the oil business because I just couldn’t stand the cut and thrust of big business any longer. And that wasn’t Celia’s face I was drawing. I always draw faces when I’m doodling. As to the photograph, I’d forgotten it was there. Celia put it into my pocket one time. She was my secretary, that was all. At a risk of sounding conceited I think she did rather want to marry me. Not because she loved me or because I’d ever given her any encouragement. It was money and position she wanted, and she considered I had it. And don’t forget,’ he said with a grin, ‘you invited her to stay at the houseboat, not I.’
‘I did it to please you, then spent every minute regretting it,’ she told him. Then: ‘By the way, did you know that she and Max had met each other before—’
He nodded. ‘I’ve had a very busy week finding out things. I went to see Sheldrake and threatened to put the police on to him if he didn’t tell me the truth. Then I went to see Windham and scared him half to death, and finally I got a few things out of Celia.’
‘Mm. A very determined man, weren’t you?’
‘That was me all right, after I’d come to my senses. It’s been a pretty fair conspiracy. Windham and Celia met one day in town, it seemed, and thoroughly got their heads together. She wanted to get me back to London with the hope of becoming wife of the heir to the oil company, he wanted Wingcraft. At first he had hoped to get possession simply by marrying you. He hadn’t enough money to buy it himself.’
‘Sounds feasible. I know he was fed up with working for his father.’
‘It’s true. I got that much from Celia. When he realized th
ere was nothing doing as far as you were concerned he promised to help Celia to try to get me so fed up I’d leave and go back to London. Celia suspected how I felt about you which made her all the more anxious to drive a wedge between us. In fact, Celia promised Max a considerable sum of money once she had my ring on her finger. I suspect one idea was to make it appear that you were keen on him by various means. But those antics failed miserably. You told me you didn’t particularly care for him, in any case. I believed you, but it only confirmed worse suspicions. That you were still in love with David’s ghost.’
Julia clung to him. ‘Silly! But they very nearly succeeded in one way, didn’t they? I really thought you intended marrying Celia, especially when you said you were going back to London, and I couldn’t bear the thought of you bringing her back to the boatyard—and the house—after you were married. That’s why I ran away.’
He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. ‘Darling girl, I had that house done up for you. I had every intention of asking you to marry me one day, until—’ She silenced him by putting her lips on his. Then after a minute or two:
‘Did you find out who had monkeyed with the design for the new yachts?’
He nodded. You remember the Sunday when the cruiser got stuck on Breydon Water? Windham rang Sheldrake—and by the way, he’d been paid to come and try to sabotage the business so that I’d get fed up and pack it in, and by bringing down the reputation of Wingcraft, Windham hoped to get it cheaper. Anyway, that Sunday Windham kept Bob Winters talking while Sheldrake photographed the design. Then they got a tracing done and altered the figures. It was easy for Sheldrake to make the exchange without the design ever being missed. But, sweetheart, I didn’t mean what I said that morning. I was so wretched because I thought you wanted to get rid of me. Promise you’ll never, ever run away from me again, for I just couldn’t live without you.’
The Man in Possession Page 18
