The main course of dinner was enjoyably disposed of, and was followed by Heron’s choice of blackcurrant water-ice with raspberries and cream.
‘Very pretty,’ commented her host, and he asked the waiter to bring them brandy, which was like fire on ice.
‘How like you,’ she said. ‘Always the sting in the tail.’
‘Quite.’ A smile flickered across his lean face, with its scarring, its hint of the wicked, and unyielding set to the jaw. The soft gold lights of the restaurant did not soften his face!
They left for the theatre, and it was as they passed through Piccadilly that he leaned forward and locked his fingers about Heron’s wrist. ‘Say my name.’ The harlequin lights of the Circus played over his features, lighting them and then casting shadows, so that the effect was curiously hypnotic. ‘Say it, Heron, or I shall think you’re afraid of being a friend of mine.’
A friend? The word was reassuring, and yet she was far from sure of what he truly wanted of her, this man who came from out of the past and hung in his house a portrait of her mother. Was it a friend that he wanted ... or was it a daughter?
She felt the pressure of his fingers and she told herself that he had the most wicked face she had ever seen ... yet in the course of her work she had seen criminals with cherubic faces! She wanted to pull away from him, but instinct warned her of his strength. He had only to exert himself a very little and she would be in his arms!
‘Thank you for a delicious dinner and for the flowers—Edwin.’ The huge creamy gardenia with a bud attached were pinned to her evening bag; he had brought them for her in the foyer of Guilbert’s. The gesture had been unwanted by her, for there was something romantic about gardenias, and she didn’t feel in the least romantic about Edwin Trequair. She sensed that he might be a lonely man, but everything else about him sent her in retreat from him. She was glad when his fingers slipped from her wrist and he sank back in his seat.
‘And that,’ he drawled, ‘was like wringing wine from an ice crystal. You still don’t like me, do you?’
‘I—I don’t really know you,’ she fenced.
‘Knowing a man and knowing a woman are two different things, aren’t they?’
‘Are they?’ She felt she wanted to look at his face to see what he meant, but she refrained from doing this and assumed a look of cool indifference to the subtle insinuation of his remark.
‘Yes, my dear. So different that you know it, and are made afraid of it. Girls are not like men, and I don’t mean in the obvious sense. They are the centre of things and it frightens them even as it fascinates them. They are the flame and the moth.’
‘And what is man?’ She just had to ask, even as the lights of their theatre flared ahead of them.
‘The guardian of the flame, or the destroyer of it,’ he replied, as their cab came to a smooth halt and he leaned forward to open the door. He stepped out and gave her a hand, which she had to take. She avoided his eyes and went forward to mingle with the other people surging into the foyer. No one ... certainly no man ... had ever spoken to her in the fashion of Edwin Trequair. After the ballet ... after tonight she wouldn’t see him again. She gave a start as he caught up with her in the crowd. ‘We have a box.’ He directed her towards the carpeted stairs, away from the protective crowd, and he gave her the feeling they were like clandestine lovers who must be alone.
‘How very grand,’ she said, with a touch of flippancy. ‘As if we’re a pair of film stars arriving at the ballet and being conspicuously coy about it. I do believe you enjoy a touch of drama.’
‘I enjoy a good seat, and the best stalls were taken by the time I telephoned the theatre.’ As he spoke he took her by the elbow, not exactly hurting her, but his fingers through the silk of her cloak were not gentle. ‘You are the one who dramatizes a situation, and right now you imagine that all those people are picturing you as the reluctant girl-friend of a Byronic rake who must have you to himself, or else!’
‘Oh, what nonsense—’
‘Is it?’
‘Byron, indeed?’
‘Then let’s say Conrad Veidt.’ His smile in that instant was so inimitably rakish that even Heron had to give way and smile as they entered their box. It was above the auditorium to the left of the stage, its seats upholstered in wine-red velvet, with gilded cupids decorating the front of it. It was carpeted and had wine-red curtains, and Heron was quite sure that Edwin Trequair had asked specially for a box; it would appeal to his ironic sense of humour to buy the best seats in the house: just as it had amused him for some sardonic reason to buy the Glass Castle.
An attendant arrived with programmes and boxes of chocolates, and before Heron could protest that she was replete after their rich and varied meal at Guilbert’s, he had bought her a box of Black Satin and placed them on the parapet in front of her seat. The box was rather pretty, with a white swan painted on the lid; a swan gliding on a lake with willow trees along its banks.
‘Are you always this extravagant when you take a girl out?’ Heron murmured, her nose in her programme.
‘Let’s say I’m extravagant because I don’t often take out a—girl,’ he said. ‘Tonight is as much as an innovation for me as it is for you, for we’re both inclined to be lone wolves, aren’t we? When I left England years ago to work in the East, I left my own generation and returned to find that young women I had known were now all married and secure in the bosom of a family of their own making. I found myself out of touch with the friends of my youth, for their ambitions and desires had run in a different direction from mine. We no longer spoke the same language, and so, feeling rather like Ishmael in my own land, I invited you to see the ballet with me. I seem to have retained some of the old romanticism, perhaps because I’ve lived away from the so-called advance of civilization. It quite amazes me to see this theatre so full. Are people actually becoming bored by the timeless tunes and the plotless plays?’
‘Some of them,’ she said. ‘It must have been quite a shock for you to return to a London so changed?’
‘Disfigured,’ he said. ‘Like a charming woman ravished of her grace and made hard and meretricious. A steeple reaching into heaven is one thing, but those monoliths called flats are astounding in their joyless ugliness. The skyscrapers of New York have a sort of mad attraction the way they’re grouped and arranged, but these monoliths rush into the air, here and there, like concrete geysers. They must be designed in dark rooms, by men who dislike the human race.’
‘You sound quite angry.’ Heron looked at her companion in some astonishment, for he didn’t seem to her a man who might be moved by the plight of other people. He seemed detached, almost armoured against the reckless emotions that drove others to tears and kisses ... and then the theatre lights began to dim and her attention was drawn away from Edwin Trequair as the conductor took his place below the stage. Applause greeted him and he accepted it with a bow, and then lifted his baton to begin the overture.
Expectancy stirred through Heron and could be felt like a palpable wave through the theatre. Now everything was quite dim except for the rising of the curtain, and though Heron kept her eyes on the stage she was extremely aware of the man seated beside her, dark and still, and a little more human than she had supposed. Her fingers gripped the glossy cover of her programme, for it was disturbing to realize that he had deep emotions which he controlled and which did not control him, and that unlike a lot of men of his age he had not led a sedentary life and was as hard and lean as Litov, the young Russian who came leaping on stage for the Golden Eagle dance, winged, crested, bare-footed, with barbaric anklets chiming.
Heron had always found ballet the most exciting of the arts, and she had never seen Litov dance before. He was like a barbaric idol come to life, with a power and a passion in his limbs which made his dancing both fierce and moving. He was followed by Gudrun Lewis, the ‘petite cat’ as the critics called her, with her pixie ears and her high cheekbones tapering to a pointed chin. Her eyes were amber and slanting, and her
hair was raggedly cut like an urchin’s. She was gamine, cat-like, small-boned, and swift across the stage. At the conclusion of her dance she was joined by Litov for a pas-de-deux, and Heron had never seen two people so in accord with each other’s movements ... it was like watching a pair of lovers, and yet it was all artistry, for Litov was a devoted husband and father, and Gudrun Lewis was known to be devoted to her career.
So how can we tell, thought Heron; how can we really know if our feelings are real or false?
During the interval Edwin took her to the bar, and it rather amused her that in the crush he had no difficulty in obtaining their drinks. ‘You choose for me,’ she had said, still too bemused by the dancing to be able to make a decision, and he had chosen daiquiris with lime, which looked very fetching in the glasses.
‘You’re enjoying the ballet.’ It was a statement not a question. ‘I had the feeling while Gudrun Lewis danced that you would have made a good ballet dancer yourself, Heron. You have the body and the limbs for it, not to mention the temperament.’
‘I used to take ballet lessons when I was a child,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘I seem to remember that you did—what became of them?’
‘They petered out.’ She stared into her daiquiri and tried so hard not to resent those little things he knew about her in the past; someone who came to dinner and bridge, and who heard about the doings of Ruth’s daughter from Ruth herself. Someone who had gone away suddenly to the Ear East, as if he could no longer stay only to come to dinner and bridge.
‘I see,’ he said quietly. ‘After your mother died.’
She nodded, and was rather glad when someone approached Edwin and spoke to him; a slim, rather good-looking man, wearing a plum-coloured evening jacket. ‘Trequair! It is you, eh? After all this time?’ He had an attractive speaking voice, and it was his voice which made Heron take notice of him.
Edwin gazed at the man for a moment, and then Heron saw his eyes narrow until he had almost a look of menace. For a moment she thought he was going to reject any recognition of the man, and then he said curtly, ‘Yes, Harvey, it’s been a long time. How are you?’
‘Fit as a flea, old chap.’ A pair of sherry-brown eyes flickered over Heron’s face. ‘It would be pleasant if you would introduce me to this lovely lady.’ His smile was quizzical, and charming as his voice, which had a curious seductive quality whose inflections she seemed to recognize. Yet his face was unfamiliar to her, and far too attractive to be easily forgotten.
‘Heron, this is Lane Harvey, who was a conscript in the Army at the same time as myself. Harvey, this is Miss Brooks, who from her slightly perplexed look has probably recognized you.’
‘No—’ She held out her hand to Lane Harvey, who took it and bowed over it in a way that was less English than his looks and his name. ‘Your face isn’t familiar to me, Mr. Harvey, but your voice—’
‘For three years, Miss Brooks, I was the Voice of the Poets on radio. You may have listened to the programme now and again.’
‘Yes,’ she exclaimed. ‘I tried never to miss it! You were really excellent as Shelley, and terribly amusing as Wilde. I was so sorry when you left the programme and someone else took over.’
‘I was offered a part in a play,’ he explained, and still he had hold of her hand. ‘The play ran for a nice long while, and led to my being offered a residency with the Pavilion Players Group at Bridensea—’
‘Incredible,’ she broke in. ‘Why, that’s only a few miles from—’
‘Incredible?’ he grinned. ‘That I should be offered a niche with such a famous group of players?’
‘No.’ She shook her head and broke into a smile. ‘It’s just that I used to live quite close to Bridensea and I know the Pavilion Theatre. I’ve enjoyed quite a few of their plays.’ She glanced eagerly at Edwin Trequair, but his face was without a smile; in fact he looked rather forbidding, as if he had no wish to know that Lane Harvey was connected with a theatre only a few miles from Jocelyn’s Beach. The words died on her lips, and in that moment the bell rang to summon them back to their seats.
‘We must meet again,’ said the actor, looking right at Heron. ‘How about after the show? We could go to a club—?’
‘It will be late,’ Edwin said in a firm, cool voice. ‘Miss Brooks works for her living and can’t spend half the night in a dance club. Goodbye, Harvey.’
He led her away from the other man, and somehow she didn’t have to glance over her shoulder to see that Lane Harvey was staring after her and the tall figure of Edwin Trequair. When they entered their box she pulled away from Edwin and took her seat as the lights began to go down.
‘You were rather abrupt,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you pleased to see him? I thought he was rather a charming man, but you treated him as if you didn’t want to know him.’
‘My dear child, he only wanted to know me because I had with me a young woman who took his eye. Don’t run away with the idea that we were Army buddies. We were merely in the same unit and saw some service together in the Far East. If I’d been drinking at the bar alone he would have ignored me.’
‘I daresay,’ she said coolly. ‘You aren’t exactly the most sociable man of the season.’
She felt him glance sharply at her when she said this, but the curtain had now risen on the next ballet and so he withheld his reply, or his rebuke. Feeling pleased at having needled him, Heron settled back in her seat to enjoy the dancing, this time with Litov as the Spectre of the Rose.
It was strange, but Heron had the feeling that Lane Harvey had appeared like a spectre to Edwin ... she had sensed the enmity, the tension, the revival of old, unwanted memories.
When she and Edwin left the theatre, he hastened her into a cab and gave her address to the driver. He didn’t join her in the cab but leaned in to say goodnight to her.
‘I’ll ring you, Heron,’ he said. ‘I hope you had a good time tonight?’
‘Yes—I did.’ There was a note of surprise in her voice which she couldn’t quite conceal. ‘The ballet was perfect, and so was dinner. I do thank you—’
‘Don’t go all polite on me, Heron,’ he growled. ‘Goodnight!’
‘Goodnight—’ The door closed and the cab moved off, leaving Edwin Trequair in the milling crowd outside the theatre; leaving Heron to wonder why he chose not to drive home with her. She rested her head against the back of her seat and her fingers idly fondled the gardenia pinned to her purse. It had been an intriguing evening, but if he did telephone again ... if he did, then she would say she was too busy to see him.
She had rather liked Lane Harvey ... but there was something about Edwin Trequair that played on her nerves and made her too aware of his dark and disturbing personality.
He was generous, cultured, and he made good conversation ... but he had none of the easy charm of the other man. He was not at the mercy of female charms; in his company a woman felt that she was at his mercy, and that all the time he had the upper hand. Heron was too accustomed to the carefree attitudes of her own generation to welcome the dominance of a man who had spent many years in the Indies, the tuan besar whose word had been law, and whose every command had been swiftly obeyed.
Well, she wasn’t at his beck and call like some maiden of the Indies, and with this resolve in mind Heron let herself into her flat and switched on the light. It was as she dropped her key back into her purse that she noticed the gardenia and its bud were missing. They must have become unpinned when she had got out of the cab, and she told herself that the loss of the flowers was an omen that she would not see again the man who had brought them for her. A foot, by now, might have trampled their pale petals.
CHAPTER THREE
A week passed, and then another, and Heron neither heard from Edwin Trequair, nor did she see him. She was relieved, for though he was an intriguing man he was also an unsettling one, and she gave herself to her work and forgot about him.
It was on a Saturday afternoon and she was just about to brew
some coffee when her doorbell chimed. She wasn’t expecting anyone and the sound of the chimes made her nerves tighten. She brushed a hand over her hair and went to the door, and there stood a messenger boy with a package in his hand. ‘Miss Heron Brooks?’ he enquired.
‘Yes.’ She could feel the fast beating of her pulses as she accepted the package and signed for it. When the moment came to open it, she found that her hands were actually trembling. It was a rare occurrence for her to receive a present, and as it was neither Yuletide nor her birthday, then she knew the gift had not been sent by her cousin or her uncle.
The wrapping fell away and a slim ruby-coloured box was disclosed. She lifted the lid, and there against white satin was a delicate, ruby-jewelled wristwatch, so perfect, so charming, that Heron caught her breath and knew at once that there must be some mistake. No one with whom she was acquainted would be sending her a gift so valuable, so the jewellers must have made a blunder in sending the wristwatch to her. And it was in that very instant that the telephone rang! Heron gave a start, and still holding the jewel-box she lifted the receiver and said a rather breathless, ‘Hullo!’
‘Heron, that is you?’
‘Yes—’ She had no need to try and place the voice, for the deep, decisive tones were those of Edwin Trequair. Her fingers tightened about the jewel-box and the lid clicked shut over the tiny face of the watch; in what seemed an endless moment of silence she heard the clock ticking on the bureau, and she almost heard the sound of her own heartbeats.
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