“But fascinating?” prompted Enid.
“Yes—I suppose so. I believe lots of people find him very attractive in a—in a rather overpowering way.”
“Well, my goodness, you sound cool enough about it. Do you find him fascinating?”
“Of course,” Hope said rather coldly, and even Enid felt that perhaps that aspect of the subject had been dealt with in sufficient detail.
“Was your Richard Fander frightfully cut up?”
“About what?”
“Why, about your turning him down for someone else, of course. Gracious me, Hope, you might be in a trance for all the attention you seem to be giving to this business! It’s a bit steep to turn anyone down at such short notice. Only last Tuesday—”
“Yes, I know,” Hope interrupted hastily. “I—I don’t know that I want to talk much about that.”
“No, I suppose not,” Enid conceded. “Mind, I think you’re right to be quite frank if you have really changed your mind. There’s no sense in marrying a man just because you’ve agreed to, if you find out in time that there’s someone else. But I suppose however frank and honest you try to be about it, you can’t help feeling a bit of a worm.” Hope murmured something which might be taken to be an admission that she felt a worm.
“Anyway, he’s certainly got something to cheer him up now,” Enid pointed out consolingly. “I shouldn’t mope about him, Hope. Quarter of a million would help to mend the most badly broken heart, I should think.”
“Yes.” Hope roused herself. “Tell me about that, Enid. I haven’t heard about it yet. It all seems so unreal, somehow. Like—like something in a book.”
“It is like something in a book,” Enid assured her. “Only sometimes things do happen that way. Not to oneself, of course,” she added ruefully. “But to other real people. It seems an uncle of his or a great-uncle—”
“You said it was an aunt this morning,” Hope exclaimed a little irritably.
“Well, it was. But I’m going back a little further. This uncle person went out to South America years and years ago. Black sheep of the family and all that, I expect,” explained Enid, who had a rich imagination and never felt that a story need suffer for lack of detail. “And he made a huge fortune—”
“How?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Oil or elephants or gold or something. Whatever they do make fortunes out of in South America. But he seems to have been a simple soul and not enjoyed it much. Then he married quite late in life, and left everything to her in trust, and then afterwards to the descendants of his family in England. And, just imagine, your Richard Fander is the only one. He’d never heard much of the uncle—at least, that’s what the interviews say—and still less of the aunt, because, of course, he’d never even seen her. And the lawyers had a job finding him. And then when they did—well, it was quarter of a million for your Richard.—Oh, really, Hope, I think you ought to change your mind again and have him!”
“I can’t,” Hope said harshly.
“Do you really mean ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’?” Enid enquired with so much interest that Hope felt bound to state categorically:
“It’s Errol I love, and I’m going to marry him.”
“Well, of course, that does rather settle it,” Enid admitted, sucking her underlip thoughtfully. “Would it be indiscreet to ask what made you change your mind so thoroughly?”
“It would be very indiscreet,” Hope assured her, and Enid reluctantly abandoned the subject.
“Well, when are you going to marry your new conquest?” she enquired after a moment’s thought, adding a little maliciously, “Better not wait too long in case you change again.”
“We’re not waiting long. Perhaps about—well, about a couple of months.”
“Before you come of age, you mean?”
“Well—yes. Before I’m twenty-one, as it happens. Why?”
“Oh, Hope, I’m sure he’s putting some pressure on you and behaving like a wicked guardian in a book!” cried Enid.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s not my guardian, wicked or otherwise, and he’s not putting any pressure on me. At least—”
“There!” exclaimed Enid triumphantly. “He is. I knew it.”
“Oh, don’t be so absurd,” Hope said crossly. “Stop being so melodramatic. And stop interfering with what doesn’t really concern you.”
“Well, it’s only for your own good, darling,” Enid explained, very slightly offended.
“Thanks a lot,” Hope retorted rather curtly. “But I’ve chosen to marry Errol and that’s an end of it.”
“Then there’s nothing more to say” Enid faced that unpalatable truth with reluctance, and getting up, began slowly to pull on her gloves. Hope, who felt incapable of carrying the conversation any further, watched her in silence. Then, just as Enid was smoothing down the fingers of her second glove with maddening deliberation, the front-door bell rang sharply. “More visitors.” Enid’s eyes sparkled with interest.
“I don’t know who it can be so late.” Hope glanced at the clock on her way to the door, decided it must be a call from her neighbour across the landing, opened the door—and found herself facing Richard.
“Richard!” The mixture of joy, dismay and alarm in her voice made the romantic Enid give a little skip of joy. But she was perfectly calm and composed by the time a rather pale Hope showed Richard Fander into the room.
Enid accepted introductions with a beaming smile, but, sacrificing even burning curiosity to a genuine desire that the course of true love should run smooth, she added immediately:
“I was just this minute going. See, I’d even got my gloves on, and I’m sure you have heaps to say to Hope.”
“Well”—Richard treated her to what she privately considered a devastating smile, particularly now that it was gilt-edged—“I won’t deny that I have a lot so say to Hope.”
“There can’t be much,” Hope said faintly.
“Of course there is, you silly girl.” Enid frowned at her. “I know friends shouldn’t interfere and all that sort of thing, but as a matter of fact, Mr. Fander—”
“Enid! You’re not to say anything!”
“It’s my duty. No one shall say I kept silent when a friend’s happiness was at stake,” Enid declared, greatly enjoying herself. “Mr. Fander, this silly girl’s got herself engaged to Errol Tamberly—”
“It’s impossible!”
“No, it isn’t. And it’s all because—”
“Enid, will you let me speak for myself, please?”
“No, darling. This is just one of those rare occasions when someone else can speak so much better for you,” Enid assured her with energy. “It’s all because he put some sort of pressure on her. And if you ask me, she doesn’t really want to marry him at all—”
“Of course she doesn’t.” Richard spoke with energy. “Anyway, she can’t. She’s going to marry me.”
“Richard!”
“I knew it,” cried Enid, beside herself with delight and sentimentality. “What a mercy you arrived just at this moment. I’ve been trying to talk sense to her, but she won’t listen. But now you’ve come and I’m sure you’ll be able to put it all a great deal more convincingly than I can.”
“I shall do my best,” Richard assured her with a smile. But Hope stood by pale and wordless, refusing to discuss the matter while Enid and Richard treated the whole thing with such light-hearted abandon. She submitted to being kissed by Enid when that lady finally took her leave, but, as though she had momentarily lost the power of movement, she actually let Richard escort her friend to the door.
During the few minutes that Richard was away, and while the gay voices could still be heard exchanging repartee, Hope sank down slowly in a chair and covered her face with her hands.
What was she to do?
What, indeed, had she already done?
She could hardly have refused Richard admission, of course, but he seemed to take it gaily for granted that, in re-entering her flat, he had a
lso re-entered her life on much the same terms as before.
How was she to convince him that everything was quite finally over? Were there any arguments that would convince him—or, indeed, that would convince her, when every instinct inclined her to listen to persuasion instead?
She looked down at Errol’s ring, and turned it absently on her finger. She thought of his saying, “I’ll try to be patient and—I love you so much.” That came from his heart. She could not doubt it. And she had promised—
He had paid that five hundred pounds on condition that, if it failed in its purpose, she would promise not to see Richard again, and—Not to see Richard again!
Suddenly remembering, with something like a shock, that she had broken her word by even letting Richard into the flat, she jumped up and ran to the door of the room as though to send him away at once.
But, as she did so, he came in from the tiny hall, and catching her in his arms, kissed her before she could prevent him and said:
“What’s all this nonsense about marrying Errol Tamberly? You’re my girl, and you know it, you silly darling.”
“Don’t Richard—please don’t kiss me. And it’s no good—I promised him.”
“Promised?” Richard brushed that aside with scorn. “Promised for his beastly five hundred pounds, I suppose?”
“Richard! How—how did you know?”
“Not a difficult guess, sweetheart. It’s just the sort of thing the Tamberlys of this world would do. Take off his ring and say you’ll marry me. And it will give me the greatest pleasure in the world to send him back his five hundred, the first moment I cash in on my legacy.”
CHAPTER NINE
“IT isn’t as simple as that.” Hope spoke with firmness, because, at the back of her mind, was a faint sense of irritation that Richard should speak as though everything simply depended on his financial position.
“But it is. Just as simple as that,” Richard insisted smilingly. “When we needed Tamberley’s beastly money—”
“Don’t keep on calling it that Richard! We were thankful enough to take it.”
“All right.” He acknowledged that with a good-tempered grin. “But the fact is that when we did need his money so badly, of course he could make his own terms. Now we don’t need his money and can return it as a temporary loan—well, the terms just don’t apply any more.”
“There’s such a thing as giving one’s word and keeping it,” Hope replied a little dryly.
“But your word was given under unfair pressure.”
“No, Richard, it wasn’t.”
“What do you mean?” He looked quite startled for a moment. “You aren’t going to make me believe you agreed to marry Errol Tamberly of your own free will. You practically admitted just now that it was because it was the only way of getting that five hundred pounds. He paid—willingly, I don’t doubt—for the privilege of putting that ring on your hand.”
“No, Richard.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. Please come and sit down. I’ve got to talk to you and—I’m afraid you won’t much like some of the things that have to be said.”
He followed her slowly into the room and sat down opposite her.
“Fire away, then,” he said a little sulkily. But his handsome eyes were fixed on her with a faintly puzzled and lost expression, so that for a moment she just wanted to throw her arms round him and reassure him—to say that after all there was nothing to discuss and that if he now wanted to marry her, then nothing else mattered.
But she knew quite certainly that if she did that, something intangible but very important would go out of life. Something to do with decency and integrity and self-respect.
“Listen, Richard”—she gripped her hands together in her lap with the effort to explain herself—“when I went to see Errol about the five hundred pounds, I had to tell him the exact truth—”
“About me and why I needed the money! Oh, Hope, that wasn’t necessary.”
“Yes, it was. He guessed most of it and in the end there was nothing much to do but make a clean breast of it.”
“No wonder he drove a hard bargain,” Richard exclaimed rather bitterly.
“That isn’t fair,” Hope said quietly. “And I won’t have you say it. But the point is this. Errol believed that, once you knew I wasn’t a rich girl, you wouldn’t want to—well, that you wouldn’t want to marry me. I—didn’t agree with him. At that time, I didn’t realize that money entered into it at all.”
“It didn’t really,” Richard protested eagerly. “I was just mad that evening we discussed things.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, Richard. We never shall know now, shall we?” Hope said soberly, and when he tried to interrupt again she silenced his protests with a little gesture of her hand. “No. Let me finish. Errol gave me the five hundred and said that if I was right in my—in my estimate of you, there were no conditions at all attached to the gift. Your debt was to be paid and he would make no objection whatever to our marriage—”
“Very good of him, since it was not his business!”
“We had rather made it his business,” Hope reminded him quietly. “But he said further that if events proved that he was right and that you’d only wanted to marry me for my money—”
“Hope!”
“He was entitled to put that construction on it, you know. Then in those circumstances he would expect to receive something for his five hundred, and that something was—”
“You!”
She shrugged.
“If you choose to put it that way.”
“I do choose to put it that way. And it’s just as I said—making you agree to his terms under pressure.”
“No.”
“What else could you have done, I should like to know?”
“I could have refused to gamble on my faith in you,” Hope said rather deliberately, and immediately there fell between them a terrible and pregnant little silence.
She saw Richard whiten slowly—perhaps with the sharpest realization of his own weakness that had ever come to him.
“My God,” he said softly at last. “That was just what you did. Gambled on your faith in me. And I let you down absolutely and completely.”
She bit her lip.
“I told you—I don’t exactly blame you. I do understand that to you certain things matter very much and—”
“Don’t, darling!” He came and knelt beside her, putting his arms round her and leaning his head against her. “There isn’t an excuse in the world for me. Don’t try to make any. Only tell me—why on earth didn’t you let me know what hung on it?”
“That was part of the bargain, Richard. There wouldn’t have been any—any test involved if you’d known what it was meant to demonstrate.”
He didn’t answer that, but she saw that, reluctantly, he realized the justice of it.
Again there was silence—this time a long one.
Then he spoke at last, with more grim determination than she had ever heard from him.
“Well, there’s only one thing that matters now. How to free you from this cursed tangle I’ve brought on you. You aren’t under any obligation that this fellow can hold you to, are you?”
“Not legally, if you mean that. But I promised—”
“Hope darling, if I give him back his five hundred pounds, so that we’re under no sort of debt to him, except that he lent us the money for a week, what in God’s name is his claim on you?”
“For one thing,” Hope said slowly, “he loves me very much.”
“But”—Richard looked bewildered—“what on earth has that got to do with it? If he hadn’t been in the position to drive an unscrupulous bargain, you would never have got further than turning him down pretty flat whenever he did offer marriage—or whatever he intended to offer.”
“Richard! There was never any question of his offering anything except marriage.”
“Very well. But with that sort of man—”
“I don’t think you have
the least idea what sort of man Errol is. You’re as bad as Enid—imagining him some sort of villain of melodrama.”
“Well, he’s played rather that role, you know.”
“Oh, I know. But his motives—”
“Darling, you aren’t going to lecture me on the purity of Errol Tamberly’s motives, are you?”
“No, of course not. And it’s ridiculous that I should be forced into the position of defending him. Only, I think I know why he blundered into doing something that looks so bad on the surface. In a way, I’m very sorry for him because—”
“You women!” exclaimed Richard. “You’re all the same. Any skunk has only got to start telling you he loves you, and you feel sorry for him and look on everything he does with a lenient eye.”
“Nonsense.” Hope flushed. “That’s not it at all. But it’s perfectly true that he does love me. Sometimes I’m a little frightened to realize how much, because it makes me see how much I can hurt him. And when he made this bargain his first idea was to keep me away from someone he thought—I’m sorry, Richard!—someone he thought unworthy and not likely to make me happy. And then, in addition, in a sort of sprit of bravado I think, he made this rather melodramatic bid to—to put himself on the map so far as I was concerned.”
“You have a very tolerant way of describing his misdemeanours,” Richard said, with a slight, reproachful emphasis on the “his.”
“I try to be tolerant to the faults of anyone I’m fond of,” Hope retorted quickly.
“Fond of?” Richard caught up her words immediately. “You aren’t going to suggest you’re fond of Errol Tamberly, are you? I thought you disliked him.”
“I thought I did too,” Hope said slowly. “But”—her eyes widened slightly—“I know now that isn’t true. I suppose I’ve got to know him very much better in the last few days. I don’t know—No, of course I’m not fond of him. Only”—she stopped again, and then added irrelevantly, “I wish you could see how the twins trust and believe in him.”
Away Went Love Page 13
