I didn’t argue any more. A dinner invitation was just what I needed at the moment to restore my deflated ego. ‘It’s a deal,’ I said. ‘Name the day.’
Max was delighted. ‘Any chance of making it this evening?’
‘Hold it,’ I cried. ‘Taking me out on your first night back. What about Valerie?’
‘What about her? Val doesn’t own me, you know. We aren’t engaged or anything.’
Not even “or anything”?
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Tonight it is, then. Tell me where to meet you.’
‘Oh no. I’ll wait for you, and take you from here.’
‘But I shall need my car for getting back.’
Max said firmly, ‘I shall drive you back, of course.’
‘All that way? It’s crazy!’
‘When I take a woman out I hope I know how to do it properly.’
When we’d quit work, Max waited in the drawing-room armed with a drink, while I went up to put on my ‘glad rags’. His idea of dining out would be pretty fancy, I guessed. I dug out a dress I’d bought recently. It was figure-hugging in cerise silk with a glitter thread. Over it I slipped my black satin evening coat.
Confident that I looked good, I tripped downstairs.
Max stared at me for a moment, slowly lowering his glass. ‘God, Dulcie my love. You’re a stunner.’
I was a bit surprised to find that we were not to eat out, after all. Max had in mind an intimate little diner à deux at his own apartment.
‘I thought you might prefer it,’ he said. ‘There’s full service here, so it’s just a matter of ordering from the restaurant downstairs.’
His home was fabulous, a luxury apartment in true American style.
‘Well,’ I said slowly, taking it all in. ‘Quite a place you’ve got here, Max.’
‘I like room to expand,’ he said, pleased to see how impressed I was.
I went across to one of the tall windows and pulled back the filmy curtain that filtered the daylight. I looked out over the town.
The carpet silenced Max’s footsteps as he moved, but I could sense he was behind me. For the first time since I’d known him, I was really conscious of Max as a man.
I had taken a beating that day. In the ordinary way I could have laughed at that billy-goat George Leeson, but his crude sexuality, right there in the office, had left a nasty taste in my mouth. And then Ian Hamilton.... But I refused to think of him, his biting disapproval.... I put him out of my mind firmly. I thrust away the image of his lean angry face.
There was a light hand on my shoulder as I stood there at the window. I expected Max to bend and kiss the top of my head, maybe, or twitch my ear. He would make gallant little gestures, pay extravagant compliments, and what woman could resist that?
An evening with Max promised to be an amusing diversion. Mild and harmless flirtation across the dinner table. I was quite sure he’d have all the orthodox trimmings—soft light from a shaded lamp, in spite of the evening sun outside; sweet throbbing music from a muted record-player.
But after dinner, as we were sitting on a low studio couch, Max became less and less the sophisticated man-of-the-world. In fact, his probing questions about other men in my life reminded me of teen-age dates.
‘But surely, Dulcie, in show business there must be heaps of men?’
‘There are heaps of men in show business. And heaps of women, too.’
‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘There must have been special ones ... a special one...?’
‘There have been,’ I said candidly. ‘At college, there were three or four I couldn’t possibly live without. Not all at once, that is—one at a time.’
‘What happened?’
‘I soon discovered that life was quite supportable without any of them.’
He wouldn’t leave it alone.
‘But I mean, later on, and over here in London too. I bet there’s a man right now...?’
‘If there is, I don’t know about it.’
‘Not anybody at all since you came over here?’
‘Oh Max,’ I cried, impatient with him. ‘Be your age. I’m not serious about any man at the moment if you really must know. And just let’s leave it at that, shall we?’
He looked crushed. The effect on his good-natured face was slightly comical. But his next words wiped amusement right out of me.
‘You mustn’t be angry with me, Dulcie. I can’t help being jealous. You see, my dearest, I’m in love with you. Ever since ... well, almost from the first moment I saw you, you’ve absolutely bowled me over.’
‘Max,’ I reasoned, ‘you’re fixed up with a very nice girl.’ I had to allow myself some poetic licence about Valerie, and it didn’t come easily. ‘She’s got everything you could wish for in a woman.’
‘But I want you, Dulcie. Don’t you see, I want to marry you.’
‘Marry me?’ I couldn’t believe that he was serious, but to my dismay Max went on to tell me that ever since I had arrived at Malverton, he had been fighting to hide his passion for me. ‘What was the use of telling you then?’ he said. ‘It would only have made you miserable too. But now that it looks as if you’re going to stay, it’s different. There’s hope for me.’
As a friend Max was fine, but as a husband ... never.
I played it gently. ‘Max, dear, if I do decide to stay, it will be to work for the firm. I’m just not considering marriage at the moment.’
‘But you could if you let yourself, Dulcie.’
I shook my head. ‘No, Max.’
‘Please, my darling, don’t reject me without thinking it over. Don’t say one way or the other—just promise me you’ll give it some thought. Will you do that?’
So what did I do now? To say I wouldn’t even consider his proposal, not for a single moment, was as good as saying I found him repellent. I’d already told him there was no other man in the offing.
It seemed kinder to agree. In a day or two maybe I’d find a way of refusing without hurting him. ‘All right then, I’ll think it over.’
He beamed on me. ‘And think this over at the same time, Dulcie. Just remember that between us we own Drysdale Pharmaceuticals. Isn’t that a good jumping-off point for another kind of partnership? Keeping it in the family.’
I saw my chance to divert this tricky conversation into a safer stream. ‘You and I might own all the shares, Max, but the business really depends on Ian Hamilton. He’s the scientific brains now that my father’s gone. It’s no good kidding ourselves. Neither of us knows a thing about that side.’
Max brushed this idea away. ‘I don’t deny Hamilton’s quite good at his job, but he’s not the only research chemist in the world. We’d be able to replace him easily enough. As a matter of fact, I’ve been wanting to discuss that point with you. I’m none too sure we’d be wise to hang on to him. I know you don’t like the man, and I can’t say I do either. I suggest we think about getting rid of him.’
I was horrified. I cried out, ‘But Ian’s been loyal to us. I mean ... it wouldn’t be fair to fire him just like that. After all, he was Father’s assistant.’
Max eyed me strangely. ‘And he got treated like a blue-eyed boy,’ he remarked nastily. It sounded as though it still rankled with him.
‘But we can’t be so ruthless,’ I went on protesting.
He laughed. ‘I thought you were a business woman, Dulcie. Mind you, I don’t like to see a woman being too hard. But you’ve got to understand that in business the people who count are the ones who own the shares.’
‘I’m sure Father never thought of the firm like that.’
‘Well, maybe not. Anyway, you won’t need to bother your head with it at all once we’re married.’
‘I haven’t said I’ll marry you,’ I pointed out sharply. ‘And you might as well understand this right now, Max. The firm my father started has come to mean something to me. I wouldn’t just abandon it....’
‘Abandon? But it would be in my hands, Dulcie. Anyway,’ he said c
omfortably, ‘you’d have a very full life, I promise you. We would live in Cheltenham, of
course…’
‘Stop it, Max! All this is terribly hypothetical. You’re talking as if I had agreed to marry you.’
He looked contrite. ‘Forgive me, darling. It’s just that I want you so much, you see.’
I’d had enough, and asked him to take me home. Though he drove fast, as always, the journey back to Malverton seemed to take a heck of a time. At long last we swung in through the leaning gateposts, and pulled up outside the quiet house.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
That was the last thing I wanted just then. ‘No, Max,’ I said, keeping my voice light. ‘It’s pretty late, and I don’t think Mrs. Cass would approve at all—even of you.’
I was feeling for the door catch when suddenly, to my amazement, he grasped me in his powerful arms.
‘Dulcie, my darling, I do love you so.’
I struggled to get away. ‘Max,’ I gasped, ‘you mustn’t. It simply isn’t fair....'
‘You can’t blame me, my darling. Perhaps I can make you love me a little.’
Then he was kissing me fiercely, with urgent passion. As I twisted my head to escape his lips, he pressed them to my cheeks, my neck, my hair. He held me so tightly that it was a while before I could free myself.
As soon as I felt his grip relax slightly, I pushed away from him. Brilliant headlights swung across us, dazzling in their white intensity. The engine of the other car seemed to pause momentarily, then it revved up and with a spattering of loose gravel it roared away down the drive.
Max had thrown up a hand to ward off the blinding light. He rubbed his eyes.
‘The bloody fool!’
‘But who was it?’
‘It was Hamilton, the idiot.’
‘Ian? I cried out. ‘Oh no! Did he see us, do you think?’
Max gave me a look. ‘Does it matter if he did? But I’d like to know what he was doing here at this time of night.’
I felt terrible. My cheeks burned with mortification. Of all the miserable luck, to be seen by Ian just at that bat-of-an-eyelid moment. What on earth would he be thinking of me?
I managed to mutter something about Ian telling me he would be working late on an experiment, and then I stumbled out of the car. Half-way to the front door, I turned back.
‘You shouldn’t have kissed me like that, Max,’ I said, trying not to make heavy weather of it. ‘Still, let’s try to forget it, shall we?’
‘Forget it, my sweet? Not likely.’
What was the use of arguing with him? ‘Well anyway, thanks for the evening out,’ I said wearily.
‘The first of many, I hope, darling.’
Turning the key in the front-door lock seemed a major task. I felt utterly dispirited, emotionally worn out. I was climbing the stairs when the truth came out of hiding and hit me. I had told Max there was nobody else, no other man. But that was a lie. There was a man. The man who didn’t want me. The man who had spurned me.
I was falling in love with Ian Hamilton. The idea of being close in his arms, the idea of him kissing me, stopped me where I was, breathless. I leaned heavily against the banister rail, yearning....
‘Is there anything you want, Miss Royle?’ The housekeeper’s voice, coming from just below, startled me.
Making an effort, I managed to speak with relative calm.
‘No, thank you, Mrs. Cass; there’s nothing I want. Nothing at all.’
Chapter Twelve
I went on up the stairs, leaving Mrs. Cass staring after me. I felt exhausted, thankful to get to bed. But I didn’t sleep at all well.
The events of the day swirled round and round in my torpid brain. Leeson, Max, Ian… But it was always at the thought of those brilliant headlights that I twitched back into full and flushed wakefulness.
Next morning I felt washed out. Max didn’t turn up all day, but I was used to his casual idea about business by now.
In a way I was relieved. Though I had decided to overlook his forced kiss—it was the only thing I could do—the morning had brought me no nearer a way of letting him down lightly.
Any lingering hope I had that Ian might not have seen me with Max last night was rudely dispersed early in the day. When we passed one another on the laboratory stairs, he gave me the stiffest possible nod of greeting, not troubling to hide his contempt. Miserably I went through the production rooms and saw Leeson glowering at me through the window of his cubbyhole. He made no attempt at all to acknowledge me. Nobody came to my office all day. It was as if I had something catching.
Mrs. Cass too was gloomy that evening. Another brush with Janet, I suspected. Even the Women’s Institute meeting had done nothing to revive her spirits—she appeared and disappeared without speaking, almost like the woman she’d been when I’d first arrived.
Come Friday afternoon I was glad of a job that would legitimately get me out of the office for a while. I had taken over the collection of cash for the wages of the weekly-paid staff. Max had always done this before, but he seemed to take it for granted that the job really came within my province.
I was prompt getting back to the office after lunch. Miss Fenders brought in the cheque on the dot of two o’clock, and I signed it and headed for the bank right away.
I enjoyed the short drive to Lechford in the sunshine. I soaked up the lazy atmosphere of the little market town, sleepily dozing away the fine summer afternoon.
After calling at the bank I strolled down the High Street towards the car park by the market cross. I was attracted by the sweet yeasty smell coming from the bakery. I looked at the array of crusty loaves in the window, and was tempted by the mouth-watering lardy cakes.
I had my hand on the shop door when it was opened from the inside, and I found myself face-to-face with Gillian Hayes. This was an encounter I could happily have skipped.
‘Why, hello Dulcie,’ she said, smiling at me in her sweet-little-girl way. ‘What brings you to Lechford?’
I was suddenly struck by an avalanche of jealousy like nothing I’d ever known before. It was Gillian, pretty, innocent-looking too-good-to-be-true Gillian who stood between me and the man I loved. It cost me an almighty effort to speak to her without being downright rude. I escaped to the car, quite forgetting the lardy cakes, and drove back home in a green fury.
Just before I turned in at the gates of Malverton, I noticed a small blue car parked at the side of the road, half-hidden by overhanging bushes. As I watched, it pulled out and passed me.
I could see the driver quite plainly—it was Eric Reade, the man from the drug-store at Lechford. He must have seen me too, but pretended not to.
If he’d wanted to talk to his girlfriend Janet, why hadn’t he driven right up to the house? Because Mrs. Cass would have shown pretty violent objections, I guessed.
I must have been gone for something like an hour—hardly more. But when I reached the office again, Miss Fenders told me that Max had been in and had already gone again.
‘Mr. Tyler seemed rather flustered. He said I was to tell you he was sorry to miss you, but he had to go to London again right away.’
‘Did he say when he’d be back?’
‘No, Miss Royle. Just that he had to go at once.’
I handed over the wages money for her to make up, and immersed myself in work. There were a few letters for me to sign at five, and I felt cross with myself that I hadn’t got my fountain-pen with me. I valued it because it had been a present from Edwin, and it was a rather good one. This was the second time I’d mislaid it—I was getting careless.
I quit sharp at five-thirty. I usually did, or Doris Fenders would feel obliged to stay on too. As I opened the door communicating with the house, I heard a slight rustling sound, as if something was caught against it. I found a small envelope—the cheap buff kind. It was simply addressed “Miss Royle—Private”. Who on earth would send me a note when they could perfectly easily come and see me in the office?
As I was looking at the envelope, mystified, Mrs. Cass came into the hall.
‘I’ve just found this pushed under the door,’ I said. ‘Have you any idea who put it there?’
She shook her head. ‘It could have been anybody in the laboratory.’
I slit it open as I went upstairs to my room. Inside was a flimsy sheet of paper, which I recognized at once as one of the firm’s analysis forms. On the unprinted side was some typing.
The trouble with you is that you don’t know who your friends are, it read. If you want the low-down on your Scottish heart-throb, meet me at ten tonight up at Crofter’s Point. But don’t tell anyone about this, or you’ll get nothing out of me. G.L.
George Leeson!
It was a trick—a trick to get me into a lonely place so he could try making a pass at me again.
My first reaction was to screw up the note and toss it into the waste basket. Then I had second thoughts. I picked it out and smoothed the paper on my dressing table.
How could Leeson know about my feelings for Ian? How could anybody know? Had I given myself away so easily, been so gauche, with love shining out of my eyes like an adoring teen-ager?
I grew hot at the very thought. Had Ian noticed too...?
What could Leeson possibly have to tell me about Ian that would be to his discredit? Stories of his love life? But surely Leeson of all people wouldn’t imagine that such tales would shock me? I’d been around, and I didn’t expect that a normal healthy young man would have lived a monastic life.
But what if Leeson meant something else? I remembered the scene at Father’s desk. A startled Ian, caught-out rifling through the drawers. Had my hasty theory about stealing a secret formula been so melodramatic after all? Everything that I knew about the peculiar thefts of Physolaria had been suggested by Ian. But what if it were he himself, and not George Leeson, who was up to something?
I didn’t believe it. But the tiny scratch of doubt itched. I had to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Meeting Leeson up on the Beacon was quite out of the question, of course. He just couldn’t be allowed such a triumph. But how else would I ever know what he had to tell me? I could never ask Ian himself. And discussing it with Max, even if he had been here, would seem like a betrayal of Ian.
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