‘You’d better ask Dame Laura.’ He smiled. ‘She’ll give you chapter and verse. A sweet unsophisticated girl – and I broke her heart – putting it in the romantic vernacular.’
‘You seem a bit of a menace to wives, I must say.’
‘I didn’t break my first wife’s heart, I can assure you. Moral disapprobation was her reason for leaving me. A woman with a high standard. The truth of it is, Sarah, that women are never content to marry you for what you are. They wish you to be different. But at least you will admit that I do not conceal my real character from you. I like living dangerously, I like tasting forbidden pleasures. I have no high moral standards and I do not pretend to be what I am not.’
He dropped his voice.
‘I can give you a great deal, Sarah. I don’t mean only what money can buy – furs to wrap round your adorable body, and jewels to put against your white skin. I mean that I can offer you the whole gamut of sensation. I can make you live, Sarah – I can make you feel. All life is experience, remember.’
‘I – yes, I suppose it is.’
She was looking at him, half revolted, half fascinated. He leaned nearer to her.
‘What do you really know of life, Sarah? Less than nothing! I can take you places, horrible sordid places, where you’ll see life running fierce and dark, where you can feel – feel – till being alive is a dark ecstasy!’
He narrowed his eyes, watching the effect on her of his words. Then, deliberately, he broke the spell.
‘Well,’ he said cheerfully, ‘we’d better get out of here.’
He motioned the waiter to bring his bill.
Then he smiled at Sarah in a detached manner.
‘Now I’m going to take you home.’
In the luxurious darkness of the car, Sarah held herself taut and on the defensive, but Lawrence did not even attempt to touch her. Secretly she knew that she was disappointed. Smiling to himself, Lawrence was aware of that disappointment. Technically he knew a great deal about women.
He went up with her to the flat. Sarah opened the door with her key. She went into the sitting-room, switching on the light.
‘A drink, Larry?’
‘No, thanks. Good night, Sarah.’
She was impelled to call him back. He had counted on that. ‘Larry.’
‘Yes?’
He stood in the doorway, his head turned over his shoulder. His eyes swept over her with a connoisseur’s approval. Perfect – quite perfect. Yes, he had got to have her. His pulses quickened a little, but he showed nothing in his face.
‘You know – I think –’
‘Yes?’
He came back towards her. They both spoke in low voices, mindful of the fact that Sarah’s mother and Edith were presumably asleep near-by.
Sarah spoke in a hurried voice.
‘You see, the fact is, I’m not really in love with you, Larry.’
‘Aren’t you?’
Something in his tone made her voice hurry on, stammering a little.
‘No – not really. Not properly. I mean, if you were to lose all your money and – oh, go and run an orange farm or something somewhere, I shouldn’t think twice of you again.’
‘That would be very sensible.’
‘But that does show I’m not in love with you.’
‘Nothing would bore me more than romantic devotion. I don’t want that from you, Sarah.’
‘Then – what do you want –?’
It was an unwise question – but she wanted to ask it. She wanted to go on. She wanted to see what –
He was very close beside her. Now, suddenly, he bent and kissed the nape of her neck. His hands went round her, holding her breasts.
She began to pull away – then yielded. Her breath came faster.
A moment later, he released her.
‘When you say you don’t feel anything for me, Sarah,’ he said softly, ‘you’re a liar.’
And with that, he left her.
Chapter Three
1
Ann had returned home some three-quarters of an hour before Sarah. On letting herself in with her latch-key, she was annoyed to see Edith’s head, bristling with old-fashioned curling-pins, poking out of her bedroom.
Of late, she had been finding Edith more and more irritating.
Edith said at once:
‘Miss Sarah isn’t in yet.’
A kind of unspoken criticism behind Edith’s observation annoyed Ann. She snapped back:
‘Why should she be?’
‘Out gallivanting to all hours – and only a young girl.’
‘Don’t be absurd, Edith. Things aren’t what they used to be when I was a young girl. Girls are brought up now to look after themselves.’
‘More’s the pity,’ said Edith. ‘And come to grief as a result of it, likely as not.’
‘They came to grief in my girlhood, too,’ said Ann dryly. ‘They were unsuspecting and ignorant, and all the chaperonage in the world didn’t stop them from making fools of themselves if they were that type of girl. Nowadays girls read everything, do anything and go anywhere.’
‘Ah,’ said Edith darkly. ‘An ounce of experience is worth a pound of book learning. Well, if you’re satisfied, it’s none of my business – but there’s gentlemen and gentlemen, if you take my meaning, and I don’t take much to the one she’s out with tonight. It’s one of his type that got my sister Nora’s second into her bit of difficulty – and no good crying your eyes out afterwards when the harm’s done.’
Ann could not help smiling in spite of her irritation. Edith and her relations! Moreover the picture of the self-confident Sarah as a betrayed village maiden tickled her sense of humour.
She said: ‘Well, stop fussing and go to bed. Did you get that sleeping prescription made up for me today?’
Edith grunted.
‘You’ll find it by your bed. But starting off taking things to make you sleep won’t do you no good … Won’t be able to sleep without them, that’s the next thing you’ll know. To say nothing of making you more nervy than you are already.’
Ann turned on her furiously:
‘Nervy? I’m not nervy.’
Edith did not reply. She merely pulled down the corners of her mouth, and retired into her room with a long pronounced indrawn hiss of the breath.
Ann went on angrily into her own room.
Really, she thought, every day Edith gets more and more impossible. Why I put up with it I don’t know.
Nervy? Of course she wasn’t nervy. Lately she’d formed the habit of lying awake – that was all. Everyone suffered from insomnia at some time or another. Much more sensible to take some stuff and give yourself a good night’s rest, than lie awake hearing the clocks strike with your thoughts going round and round like – like squirrels in a cage. Dr McQueen had been quite understanding about it and had given her a prescription – something quite mild and innocuous – bromide, she believed it was. Something to calm you down and stop you thinking …
Oh dear, how tiresome everybody was. Edith and Sarah – even dear old Laura. She felt a bit guilty about Laura. Of course she ought to have rung up Laura a week ago. Laura was one of her oldest friends. Only somehow, she hadn’t wanted to be bothered with Laura – not just yet – Laura was sometimes rather difficult …
Sarah and Lawrence Steene? Was there really anything in it? Girls always liked going about with a man who had a bad reputation … It probably wasn’t serious. And even if it was …
Calmed by bromide, Ann fell asleep, but even in sleep she twitched and tossed restlessly on her pillows.
The telephone by her bed rang as she was sitting up drinking her coffee the following morning. Lifting the receiver, she was annoyed to hear the gruff tones of Laura Whitstable.
‘Ann, does Sarah go out much with Lawrence Steene?’
‘Good gracious, Laura, do you have to ring up at this hour in the morning to ask me that? How should I know?’
‘Well, you are the girl’s mother, aren’t yo
u?’
‘Yes, but one doesn’t catechize one’s children the whole time asking where they go and with whom. They wouldn’t stand for it, to begin with.’
‘Come now, Ann, don’t fence with me. He’s after her, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. His divorce hasn’t gone through yet, I imagine.’
‘The decree was made absolute yesterday. I saw it in the paper. How much do you know about him?’
‘He’s old Sir Harry Steene’s only son. Rolling in money.’
‘And with a notorious reputation?’
‘Oh, that! Girls are always attracted by a man with a bad reputation – that’s been so ever since the time of Lord Byron. But it doesn’t really mean anything.’
‘I’d like to have a talk with you, Ann. Will you be in this evening?’
Ann said quickly:
‘No, I’m going out.’
‘About six, then.’
‘Sorry, Laura, I’m going to a cocktail party …’
‘Very well, then, I shall come about five – or would you –’ Laura Whitstable’s voice held grim determination – ‘prefer that I come round now?’
Ann capitulated gracefully.
‘Five o’clock – that will be lovely.’
She replaced the receiver with a sigh of exasperation. Really, Laura was impossible! All these Commissions, and Unescos and Unos – they turned women’s heads.
‘I don’t want Laura coming here all the time,’ said Ann to herself fretfully.
Nevertheless she received her friend with every sign of pleasure when the latter made her appearance. She chattered gaily and nervously while Edith brought in tea. Laura Whitstable was unusually unassertive. She listened and responded, but that was all.
Then, with conversation petered out, Dame Laura put down her cup and said with her usual forthrightness:
‘I’m sorry to worry you, Ann, but as it happened, coming back from the States I heard two men discussing Larry Steene – and what they said wasn’t particularly pleasant hearing.’
Ann gave a quick shrug of her shoulders.
‘Oh, the things one overhears –’
‘Are often intensely interesting,’ said Dame Laura. ‘They were quite decent men – and their opinion of Steene was pretty damning. Then there’s Moira Denham who was his second wife. I knew her before she married him and I knew her afterwards. She was a complete nervous wreck.’
‘Are you suggesting that Sarah –’
‘I’m not suggesting that Sarah would be reduced to a nervous wreck if she married Lawrence Steene. She has a more resilient nature. Nothing of the butterfly on the wheel about Sarah.’
‘Well, then –’
‘But I do think she might be very unhappy. And there’s one third point. Did you read in the papers about a young woman called Sheila Vaughan Wright?’
‘Something to do with being a drug addict?’
‘Yes. It’s the second time she’s been up in court. She was a friend of Lawrence Steene’s at one time. All I’m saying to you Ann, is that Lawrence Steene is a particularly nasty bit of goods – in case you don’t know it already – but perhaps you do?’
‘I know there’s talk about him, of course,’ said Ann rather reluctantly. ‘But what do you expect me to do about it? I can’t forbid Sarah to go out with him. If I did, it would probably drive her the other way. Girls won’t stand being dictated to, as you know very well. It would simply make the whole thing more important. As it is, I don’t suppose for a minute there’s anything serious in it. He admires her and she’s flattered because he’s said to be a bad lot. But you seem to be assuming that he wants to marry her –’
‘Yes, I think he wants to marry her. He’s what I would describe as a Collector.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘It’s a type – and not the best type. Supposing she does want to marry him. How would you feel about it?’
Ann said bitterly: ‘What would be the good of my feeling anything? Girls do exactly as they like and marry whom they please.’
‘But Sarah is very much influenced by you.’
‘Oh, no, Laura, you’re wrong there. Sarah goes her own way entirely. I don’t interfere.’
Laura Whitstable stared at her.
‘You know, Ann, I can’t quite make you out. Wouldn’t you be upset if she married this man?’
Ann lit a cigarette and puffed at it impatiently.
‘It’s all so difficult. Lots of men with bad reputations have made quite good husbands – once they’ve sown their wild oats. Looking at it in the purely worldly sense, Lawrence Steene is a very good match.’
‘That wouldn’t influence you, Ann. It’s Sarah’s happiness you want, not her material property.’
‘Oh, of course. But Sarah, in case you haven’t realized it, is very fond of pretty things. She likes luxurious living – far more than I do.’
‘But she wouldn’t marry solely on that account?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Ann sounded doubtful. ‘Actually, I think she is definitely attracted by Lawrence.’
‘And you think money might tip the scales?’
‘I don’t know, I tell you! I think that Sarah would – well – hesitate before she married a poor man. Let’s put it like that.’
‘I wonder,’ said Dame Laura thoughtfully.
‘Girls nowadays seem to think and talk of nothing but money.’
‘Oh, talk! I’ve heard Sarah talk, bless her. All very reasonable and hard-boiled and unsentimental. But language is given you to conceal your thoughts as much as to express them. Whatever generation it is, young women talk to pattern. The question is, what does Sarah really want?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Ann. ‘I rather imagine – just a good time.’
Dame Laura shot her a quick glance.
‘You think she’s happy?’
‘Oh, yes. Really, Laura, she has a wonderful time.’
Laura said meditatively:
‘I didn’t think she looked quite happy.’
Ann said sharply:
‘All these girls look discontented. It’s a pose.’
‘Perhaps. So you don’t feel you can do anything about Lawrence Steene?’
‘I don’t see what I can do. Why don’t you talk to her about it?’
‘I shan’t do that. I’m only her godmother. I know my place.’
Ann flushed angrily.
‘I suppose you think it’s my place to talk to her?’
‘Not at all. As you say, talking doesn’t do much good.’
‘But you think I ought to do something?’
‘No, not necessarily.’
‘Then what do you mean?’
Laura Whitstable looked thoughtfully across the room.
‘I only wondered what was going on in your mind.’
‘In my mind?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nothing’s going on in my mind. Nothing at all.’
Laura Whitstable withdrew her glance from the other side of the room and gave Ann a quick bird-like glance.
‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
‘I don’t understand you in the least.’
Laura Whitstable said:
‘What’s going on isn’t in your mind. It’s farther down.’
‘Oh, if you’re going to talk nonsense about the subconscious! Really, Laura, you – you seem to be accusing me in some way.’
‘I’m not accusing you.’
Ann got up and began to pace up and down the room.
‘I simply don’t know what you mean … I’m devoted to Sarah … You know how much she’s always meant to me. I – why, I’ve given up everything for her sake!’
Laura said gravely: ‘I know that you made a big sacrifice for her two years ago.’
‘Well?’ demanded Ann. ‘Doesn’t that show you?’
‘Show me what?’
‘How absolutely devoted I am to Sarah.’
‘My dear, it wasn�
�t I who suggested that you weren’t! You’re defending yourself – but not against any accusation of mine.’ Laura got up. ‘I must go now. I may have been unwise to come –’
Ann followed her towards the door.
‘You see, it’s all so vague – nothing one can take hold of –’
‘Yes, yes.’
Laura paused. She spoke with a sudden startling energy.
‘The trouble with a sacrifice is that it’s not over and done with once it’s made! It goes on …’
Ann stared at her in surprise.
‘What do you mean, Laura?’
‘Nothing. Bless you, my dear, and take a word of advice from me – in my professional capacity. Don’t live at such a pace that you haven’t time to think.’
Ann laughed, her good temper restored.
‘I shall sit down and think when I’m too old to do anything else,’ she said gaily.
Edith came in to clear away and Ann, with a glance at the clock, uttered an exclamation and went to her bedroom.
She painted her face with special care, peering closely in the glass. The new hair-cut was, she thought, a success. It certainly made her look much younger. Hearing a knock at the front door, she called out to Edith:
‘Any post?’
There was a pause as Edith examined the letters, then she said:
‘Nothing but bills, ma’am – and one for Miss Sarah – from South Africa.’
Edith put a slight stress on the last three words, but Ann did not notice. She returned to the sitting-room just as Sarah entered with her latch-key.
‘What I hate about chrysanthemums is their beastly smell,’ Sarah grumbled. ‘I shall chuck Noreen and take a job as a mannequin. Sandra’s dying to have me. It’s better pay, too. Hullo, have you been having a tea-party?’ she asked, as Edith came in and gathered up a stray cup.
‘Laura’s been here.’
‘Laura? Again? She was here yesterday.’
‘I know.’ Ann hesitated a minute, then said: ‘She came to say that I oughtn’t to let you go out with Larry Steene.’
‘Laura did? How very protective of her. Is she afraid I’ll be eaten by a big bad wolf?’
‘Apparently.’ Ann said deliberately: ‘It seems he has a very unsavoury reputation.’
A Daughter's a Daughter Page 13
