Orphan Bride

by Sara Seale

  “Not used to this, are you?” she said to Jennet with a grin. “Your fine friends don’t have to queue to get a cold cup of tea and some salad. It’s funny, you know, when you think you were reared just like the rest of us. Some people have all the luck, and myself, I rather fancied that snooty, high-handed feller with the groggy leg. Has he been making passes at you? Spill your Aunt Milly all the dirt.”

  She listened, her eyes opening wider and wider as Jennet unravelled the happenings of the past year, and did not even notice that Jennet only ordered a cup of coffee.

  “It sounds exactly like a film,” she said at the end of the recital. “Bloke picking a wife out of an orphanage—if I’d known that when he was looking us all over as if we were lumps of cheese, I’d’ve tried to be more refined. Don’t you want to marry him, then?”

  “No,” said Jennet bleakly. “It would be like living with a—a piece of granite.”

  Milly laughed.

  “Don’t you believe it! That kind’s always the worst once you get under their skin. He’d be no piece of granite, nor an iceberg neither. Oh, well, it’s your funeral. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jennet in a tired little voice. “I must find work, but I don’t know how. I’m not trained for anything. I thought perhaps you could help me.”

  Milly took out a compact and powdered her face lavishly.

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I might get you into Sparks and Spicer, but—have you got any money?”

  “No. Only about a shilling.”

  “Laud sakes, girl! How do you think you’re going to live? Well, I suppose you can share my palatial attic for a night or two. God, I must scram or I’ll get fired! Meet me here for a cuppa hot at half-past five and I’ll have it all planned out. And here—buy yourself a brace of quails in aspic or something. You look done in. So long!”

  She tossed half a crown on to the table, paid her bill at the desk and with a wave of the hand was gone.

  Jennet looked at the half-crown and wanted to cry again. She shouldn’t be taking Milly’s money. She should be paying for both their lunches. But she was beginning to feel sick for lack of food, so she expended elevenpence on a sandwich and another cup of coffee and put the change carefully away for their evening meal.

  Milly appeared punctually at half-past five, and announced that she had it all fixed.

  “Bert has a pal in the packing-room,” she said. “They’ll slip you in for a few days till we can think of something else, but you’ll have to look slippy—you won’t be on the official payroll. There’s one thing Bert says you must do— write to someone and say you’re staying with friends, or they may put the police on to you if you just disappear. I’ve brought paper and things and a stamp. Do it now, and we’ll post it when we go out.”

  Jennet scribbled a note for Piggy and passed it over to Milly for inspection.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “If you give an address they can just come along and haul you back—at least Aunt Emily could. Of course, Bert says you could apply to the Courts or something for change of guardianship, but it would be a bit difficult to make out a case seeing that they’ve always treated you well, and it isn’t a crime anyway for a feller to want to marry you. Come on, we’ll shove this in a letter box, and then Bert’s going to take us to the pictures.”

  Julian drove straight from Piggy’s flat to Luke’s. The note that Piggy had silently handed him on his arrival in the afternoon had told him nothing, and he had crumpled it up, exclaiming savagely:

  “The little fool! She’s gone to Luke.”

  “I don’t think she would go to Luke,” she said quietly. “What happened this morning? I left Jennet so—so eager for your arrival. She seemed quite different—as if she was beginning to think of you as human at last.”

  “We quarrelled over Luke,” he replied shortly. “He’d been making love to the child behind my back and used the whole wretched business for copy.”

  “Luke always was like that,” Piggy said blandly. “And I can imagine that anyone as sheltered and unspoilt as Jennet must have been irresistible.”

  Julian looked at her quickly.

  “Did you know he was making love to her?”

  Piggy s small eyes snapped.

  “Of course I knew. Sit down, Julian, and stop giving that leg of yours more to do than necessary. The trouble with you is that you never see what’s under your nose. What’s the use of upsetting the girl and yourself over something that’s perfectly natural?”

  Julian did not sit down, but he stopped dragging his lame foot backwards and forwards over the carpet.

  “I trusted Luke,” he persisted stubbornly. “He was the only man I did trust. Luke’s flirting is always so blatant and open that I never thought it would amount to more than that. But to make a fool of the child, to run the risk of hurting her—I didn’t think he’d do that.”

  Piggy sighed. Men were very blind.

  “I don’t suppose he thought about it,” she said, “except to be intrigued and curious about the whole situation. But it’s quite consistent, Julian. Your toys were always a source of great attraction for him.”

  “Jennet was scarcely a toy.”

  “Wasn’t she? Perhaps Luke could hardly be blamed for thinking she was, or Jennet either for the matter of that.”

  “She told me much the same thing,” said Julian grimly, “and said I had never given her anything that she really wanted. That after a year’s careful planning and scheming for the smallest thing that would ensure her health and comfort.”

  “Oh, my dear boy!” Piggy made a small helpless gesture with her plump little hands. “Can you really deceive yourself, even now?”

  “No,” said Julian abruptly, and passed a weary hand, over his black head. “No, Piggy, I can’t. We none of us gave her the one thing that mattered—affection. Such a small thing to make so big a difference. Well, if she’s gone to Luke, it’s my own fault. Temper—and jealousy—yes, Piggy, I admit it—have always been my undoing. I’ll go and find her.”

  “I don’t think—” Piggy began, but she did not finish. Julian would not find her with Luke, and where then was he to look?

  Luke was typing in his study when Julian walked in, and he looked up in surprise.

  “Hello, Svengali!” he said. “What brings you here at this time of day?”

  “Where is she?” said Julian curtly.

  Luke raised his sandy eyebrows.

  “Where is who? I don’t keep lovely houris hidden in the bedroom during working hours.”

  “Stop fooling,” snapped Julian. “Where’s Jennet?”

  Luke’s bright eyes began to dance. “O-ho! Your foundling’s given you the slip, has she? And why should you think she’s here?”

  “Because you’ve abused your privilege abominably in your unscrupulous search for copy and probably made the poor child think she’s in love with you.”

  Luke pushed back his typewriter.

  “Really, Julian! You talk like a book. Where do you get these rolling phrases from?” he drawled.

  Julian half raised his stick as though he would have struck him, and Luke got to his feet. He was unsmiling now.

  “She’s not here,” he said quietly. “And I haven’t seen or heard from her since the day before yesterday. When did she go?”

  “This morning. I read your cheap little chronicle. It didn’t occur to you, I suppose, that you might hurt her.”

  Luke lighted a cigarette.

  “Did it occur to you that yours might do the same”’ he remarked.

  “That was quite different,” said Julian icily. “At least I was careful not to get involved emotionally.”

  “Too damn careful, if you ask me,” retorted Luke. “A little more emotion and a little less overseeing might have made a hell of a difference. I always told you, Julian, this wouldn’t work. I’m sorry the poor sweet has been driven into running away, but I can’t say I altogether blame her.”
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br />   “In that case, there’s no more to be said,” Julian remarked, turning away. “If you should hear from her, Luke, the least you can do is to let me know.”

  “I certainly will, but in the meantime what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve wired Aunt Emily to see if she’s gone back there, and if she hasn’t, I suppose the only thing to do is put the police on to it.”

  “Not very pleasant, that. I should wait a bit, if I were you. She may come back.”

  Julian turned back, and Luke saw the greyness in his face.

  “How do you imagine I feel knowing she’s probably wandering round London with no money, no luggage, not an atom of experience?” he said.

  “She’s got under your skin at last, hasn’t she?” Luke said softly. “I think, if she’s been as improvident as that, she’ll be back very soon. You didn’t exactly fit her for an independent life.”

  “I hope to God you’re right.”

  “I think so. I’m rather fond of her myself, you know, despite my bad behaviour.”

  “But you wouldn’t marry her?” asked Julian quietly.

  “Good God, no! Jennet’s a perfect pet, but marriage—no, I’m just the cad type, old boy, as you ought to know by now.” He put his head on one side and asked curiously: “But supposing I had wanted to marry her—would you have let her go?”

  Julian was silent for a moment, tracing patterns on the carpet with his stick.

  “Yes,” he said then, “if that was what she wanted.”

  Luke sat down again and pulled his typewriter towards him.

  “You’re an awful fool, Julian,” he said tolerantly. “In all our little dalliances, it was always Cousin Julian who came between. You could have had her in love with you long ago if you’d been clever. Well, I must get on. You ... might return my typescript, by the way. Let me know when the lost sheep returns to the fold.”

  He inserted a fresh piece of paper into his machine and began to type, and Julian turned on his heel and left the room.

  Piggy shared Luke’s view that Jennet would return. “After all, what can she do?” she said reasonably. “She has no friends that we don’t know of ourselves, and she must eat and sleep. She’ll come back when she’s hungry, and when she’s sufficiently ashamed of running away.”

  But she had not come by dark, and Julian, who had telephoned the hospitals late at night, sat up until the small hours resolving to go to the police the next morning. And at breakfast time, Piggy got Jennet’s letter. She rang Julian at once and he went straight round to her flat, but the letter did no more than reassure and puzzle them both.

  “She hasn’t any friends,” said Julian. “I’ve tried everyone I know, and nobody’s seen her. Did she go out with anyone I didn’t know when she was here, Piggy?”

  Piggy shook her head.

  “There was no one except the very few you chose yourself.”

  There was nothing to do but wait.

  And so they waited. But two days went by and they heard nothing, and on the third, Luke called in at Julian’s flat for news.

  He looked at Julian with a certain sympathy. The strain was beginning to tell on him. His skin had a greyish tinge as though he had not slept much, and his leg was clearly giving him a good deal of pain.

  “Nothing, beyond that one brief note,” he replied to Luke’s query. “Aunt Emily’s heard nothing either.”

  “Have you got the letter?”

  “Yes—it’s there on the desk.”

  Luke read it carefully.

  “Friends? What friends?” he asked with a frown.

  Julian moved wearily.

  “That’s what puzzles us. She hasn’t any outside our own circle.”

  “Well, she must have diddled you somewhere. What’s the post-mark?” He turned the envelope over. “Oxford Street. That doesn’t mean a thing, of course. Wait a minute, though ... Oxford Street, that seems to ring a bell somewhere. Oxford Street ... Selfridge’s ... Sparks and Spicer—that’s it! Now you see the advantage of the novelist’s retentive memory for details, my boy. That girl outside the club—Jennet’s old-school-orphan—didn’t she say she worked at Sparks and Spicer?”

  All at once Julian remembered. He had never given Milly another thought, but he remembered now. He had forbidden Jennet to go and see her, and she had accused him of being a snob.

  “Milly White,” he said slowly, and Luke slapped the letter back in its envelope.

  “I bet that’s where she is. The old school-tie orphans sticking together. I’ll lay you ten to one Miss Milly White knows where she is.”

  CHAPTER F I F T E E N

  To Jennet the days passed in a whirl of unfamiliar events. Never had she stood for so long and come home so tired at night. During the day she kept out of sight in the packing room of Sparks & Spicer, running messages and dodging authority. In the evenings she sat in the attic bedroom mending Milly’s clothes, while Bert took Milly to the cinema. She did not like taking Milly’s earnings, but she resolved that when she was properly established she would write to Julian and ask him to do something for Milly.

  She was sitting in the packing-room one afternoon when Milly put her head round the door, grimacing violently. Jennet joined her outside, and Milly said quickly:

  “You’d better scram. I’ve just seen snooty J. Dane, Esquire, limping through the Ladies’ Lingerie looking like the wrath of God. Beat it, if you don’t want to see him.”

  Jennet’s eyes were frightened.

  “But where shall I go? Back to the boarding house?” she asked.

  Milly frowned.

  “Better not. He may be on to me. Better keep away For a few days. Here—I can spare you ten bob—it’s payday to-morrow. You can sleep and feed in a Y.W.C.A. if you’re stuck—it’s cheap. But my advice is go back to the Danes. This can’t go on for ever and you aren’t cut out for the struggling life.”

  “No,” said Jennet, looking trapped. “No, I won’t go back.”

  “Okay! Here’s the ten bob, then. Meet me at Lyons’ Corner House in the Strand Sunday at four. It’ll all have blown over by then. So long and good luck!”

  But it was Milly who was summoned to the manager’s office for an interview with Julian. The manager sat behind his desk looking harassed and severe, and Julian himself leant on his stick, and looked at her appraisingly.

  The manager cleared his throat.

  “Miss White, we have reason to believe that you can throw some light on the disappearance of a young lady—a relative of this gentleman, here. It is believed that you are helping this young lady to evade her—her lawful guardians, and as she is under age that is a very serious offence. What can you tell us, please?”

  Milly threw him a withering look. Pompous old fool! “Nothing,” she said, and shut her lips firmly.

  “Nothing? But this gentleman is positive you can tell him something.”

  “I don’t know this gentleman’s relatives, and if I did, they wouldn’t be likely to be calling on me socially,” said Milly with fine scorn.

  “But you knew Jennet Brown,” interposed Julian gently. “You both spent sixteen years at the same orphanage.”

  “Jenny Brown was no relation of yours that I’ve heard of,” said Milly sullenly. The manager was one thing to put in his place but Julian was quite another.

  Julian turned to the manager.

  “Miss Brown was adopted by my aunt a year ago,” he said smoothly. “She deputed me to select a girl from a group of which Miss White was one. We have every reason to believe that Miss Brown has communicated with Miss White during the last few days and that Miss White does, in fact, know of her whereabouts.” He turned back to Milly and his manner altered. “You may not realize, Miss White,” he said, “that it may be a criminal offence to withhold information about a missing person, especially when that person is under age. For your own sake, I advise you to tell me anything you know, for I shall have no hesitation in having you questioned by the police if you don’t.”
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  Milly hesitated and shuffled her feet. Police made everything different. She would lose her job—but that had probably gone anyhow after the way she had cheeked the manager. She took a side-long glance at Julian. If she was Jenny Brown she wouldn’t be running away from this tight-lipped stranger with the dark demanding eyes.

  “I can’t tell you where she is now,” she said at last, and that at least was the truth. For all she knew Jennet was sitting in a bus or an Underground by this time.

  “But you did know?” said Julian quickly.

  “Yes, I did know,” she admitted with a toss of her head. “But I can’t tell you where she is now. She beat it.”

  “Beat it?”

  “Yes. I tipped her the wink when I saw you stalking through Ladies’ Underwear, and she hopped it.”

  “So she was here,” said Julian softly, and the manager fluttered:

  “Here—here? How could the young lady have been here without my knowledge.”

  “Oh, skip it,” said Milly wearily. “She could have been a customer, couldn’t she?”

  “But she wasn’t,” said Julian. “Where do you live, Milly?”

  “No business of yours,” she flashed.

  “The manager will give me your address,” said Julian mildly.

  “Well, you won’t find her there,” Milly told him. “She’ll keep away from me if she has any sense.”

  “I see,” said Julian, and looked thoughtful. “Might I speak to this young lady alone?” he asked the manager.

  The manager left his office reluctantly, casting venomous glances at Julian and Milly.

  “Milly,” said Julian when the door had shut, “did Jennet tell you why she ran away?”

  “She said you wanted to marry her.”

  “Was that the reason she gave for running away?”

  “No-o, I never was very sure of the real reason, only she did say living with you would be like living with a piece of granite, so I don’t think she can have cottoned to the idea very much.”

  “I see.” Julian’s face was expressionless, and Milly looked at him curiously.

  “I don’t know what you’ve done to her, Mr. Dane, but she seems to love you like poison ivy,” she said. “Jenny was always a queer kid—used to talk a lot about affection and belonging some place. Well, we all wanted to belong somewhere, I suppose, but Jenny was different.”