The Other Miss Donne

by Jane Arbor

  ‘Then may I come in?’

  ‘Please do.’ As she stood aside for him, Carey was thinking in panic, He’ll tell Denise—in front of me—that I claimed to be keeping a date with Auden Calvin at the villa, and there isn’t any reason why she should ever know! She won’t thank me. She’ll think me mad to try to shield her with such a hopeless ploy. And he—!

  But she was to be spared that ordeal. Randal said, ‘Rosalie phoned you again,’ and she started guiltily.

  ‘Oh, I’d forgotten!’

  ‘Yes, well—I told Reception to ask her to call back in a quarter of an hour, and that’s nearly up. They’re to put it through to my office, where you can take it in private, but perhaps you should check with them that that is understood.’

  Carey said, ‘Thank you, I’ll do that. And afterwards, shall I go back on duty?’

  ‘No, wait for me there, please. I shall be down.’

  So the ordeal not escaped, only postponed! No hope at all that he would not wrest from Denise the truth of her trickery, even if Denise did not volunteer it. And how was he going to see then her own piece of bungled lying? Oh, why had she ever embarked on it—why?

  As she left the room he was telling Denise that with Bob Grainger’s help, he had located the ditched car and it would be collected in the morning. In the lounges and on the patios the Ball was still in full swing. The main foyer was crowded with people; a few collecting their cloaks and leaving, the majority milling about. The reception-desk and the switchboard were very busy and all Carey got in answer to her enquiry about Rosalie’s call was a snapped, ‘Not through yet,’ from the harassed operator.

  ‘Well, when it is—’ Carey began. But the girl was not attending. She had plugged in again—a house-call this time, and as Carey waited she was forced to eavesdrop on this end of the brief exchange.

  ‘Suite Eight. Frau Ehrens? ... Your luggage will be ready for collection at—what time in the morning? I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch—I’m sorry. Ah—eight o’clock? Very good, Frau Ehrens. And your account? I will inform Reception ... And a car for Tangier for nine-thirty? Of course. Anything more, Frau Ehrens? Thank you, and goodnight.’ The circuit was cut.

  Gerda Ehrens—leaving? Surely not? Unless it was a lightning decision, Gerda was so sparkling and remarked a figure that Carey would have expected her departure to be gossiped about by the staff. And if it were true, what did it mean for Randal? But just then the operator signalled, ‘Your call from Ibiza!’ and did not need to be told to put it through to Randal’s room.

  There Carey took his chair, lifted the receiver, and Rosalie came through, as breathless and staccato as always, a-bubble with her news.

  ‘Carey, love, where have you been? This is the third time I’ve rung. To tell you—oh, Carey, what do you think? Martin and I are going to have a baby! Aren’t you surprised?’

  ‘Staggered. Such news from two people, married a few months and by all accounts head over heels in love—the very last I’d expect to hear,’ Carey said, mock-gravely. ‘When?’

  ‘Beast! You’re laughing at me! When? Oh—well, we’re only just sure, so not till the spring. Martin insists I go to England to have it, and I’m willing, because I want you to be with me when I do have it. And you can be—in April—can’t you?’ Rosalie paused. ‘Are you still there, Carey? What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. I’d love to be, I was thinking. But it’s a good way ahead, and I don’t know where I may be by then.’

  ‘Why? Where might you be?’ Rosalie asked blankly. ‘Possibly in America, I should think. You remember I wrote you about that writer, Mrs. Hobart, who badgered me to join her as her secretary? Well—’

  ‘You mean Randal has got you down at last? Oh dear, and we both hoped that you had him tamed. But he isn’t keeping you on after the season, or wanting you for another? Or is it you who has had enough—which? And when will you be free?’

  ‘It can’t be long now, though we haven’t agreed a date yet.’ Carey added on an impulse of decision, ‘When I do leave here, could I come to Ibiza to see you, before I take another job?’

  ‘Could you!’ Rosalie echoed fervently.

  ‘Then I will. Do you want me to tell Randal about the baby? Or does he know?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. I wanted you to be the first person I should tell. Fancy, you’ll be an aunt, Carey! And Randal will be an uncle. Pity you two haven’t made a better go of things than I did with him. If you had, it would have been—well, rather cosy, wouldn’t it?’

  They chatted a little more; Martin was called to the telephone for a three-cornered session, and with a ‘Bless you, and take care’ to Rosalie, Carey had just replaced the receiver when the door opened and Randal came in. The moment she was dreading had to be faced.

  He kicked the door to behind him and, hands in pockets, braced his shoulders against its panels. ‘Well, Carey Donne,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MOMENTARILY Carey closed her eyes and swallowed on the painful ridge across her throat. Then, like a child caught out in a lie and playing for time, she heard herself echo stupidly, ‘Why—what?’

  The jerk of Randal’s head was irritable. ‘Don’t fence with me, please. You know I’ve seen Denise. You can’t possibly suppose I haven’t heard from her the truth of your part in this affair—which is more than I’ve had from you. Why did you tell me you were keeping a date of your own with Calvin at the villa tonight?’

  ‘I only told you I was meeting him there. You assumed my guilt of the rest.’

  ‘Bah! Hair-splitting! You allowed me to assume it. With a single word of denial you could have stopped me in my tracks. I accused you of despicable intrigue and disloyalty; even of cheating your way into the villa; of being the gullible dupe of that fellow’s amours, and you—just stood there, taking it from me. Even Denise doesn’t claim to know what it was all in aid of. So why? Or shall we re-cap? I know now that it was wholly her intrigue and plan to elope with the man; that by letting you think you had dissuaded her and by sending you down to the villa to call the whole thing off—as she meant you to suppose—she was free to go ahead regardless—which the young idiot did, though I think it has jolted some sense into her now. But that still leaves your—embroidery. So once again—why?’

  From the distance between them Carey studied the granite planes of his face, her love doing homage to every unyielding muscle and line of it. She said to his eyes, implacably upon her, ‘It wasn’t deliberate—at first. But at the time I believed Denise had listened to me and was safely in the ballroom for the evening. Also that Calvin had backed out, letting her down. And if it were so, on the chance that you mightn’t ever have to learn they had planned it, I let you believe and say what you did. Because if he had backed down, I hoped she would realise just what he was, and the thing would be over without—’

  Randal stared back. ‘Without my hearing it had gone so far? You shouldered all the blame I heaped on you, on the off-chance of shielding Denise from me? You must be crazy!’

  Carey’s head moved slowly in denial. ‘I didn’t think so at the time. It seemed a way out for her, if only I could convince her Auden Calvin was no good for her. I wasn’t to know then that she had already double-crossed me, or that the whole thing would come out when they crashed the car.’

  ‘And my reaction to what I supposed you were up to with Calvin didn’t matter to you at all?’

  If only he knew how much! ‘Once I was launched on deceiving you, I couldn’t afford to let it matter,’ she said. ‘At best, I’d put myself in the wrong by leaving my post in working hours, and once you had decided I had done more and worse than that, I knew I was in a false position I couldn’t hope to retrieve. I should have to leave, I argued. After this, there couldn’t be any living down or glossing over—for either of us—some of the things you had said and thought I deserved. And you must have realised that too, when you said—’

  ‘That I couldn’t stand any more of the sight of you just then, for
instance? Or that pity was about the last thing I felt for you?’ Randal prompted. ‘They both stung?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And were meant to, at the time.’ With a backward thrust of his elbows, he levered himself from the door’s support and moved across the room to stand over her. He waited for her to look up at him and went on, ‘After all, words that bite deep are about the only weapons a man has when he can barely keep his jealous hands off a woman, don’t you realise that?’

  Carey’s eyes widened. ‘J-jealous hands?’ she echoed.

  ‘Off a beloved woman who has made it only too clear that she doesn’t want to know—savagely jealous. Almost berserk. Carey’—he was watching her face intently now—‘you can’t pretend not to understand what I mean. But are you still fixedly looking the other way?’

  She shook her head bewilderedly. ‘I don’t know—Which way?’

  ‘Oh, not at Calvin. I’m satisfied as to your haywire reasons for all that. No, you must know I mean—away from me. Nothing I’ve said or done or looked has penetrated those reserves you wear like an ice-cap, that near-zero cool you keep! As a boss and a colleague you’ve had to keep me in focus. But nothing more from me to you has got through?’

  (‘Beloved.’ Had she really heard the word—of herself?) She said shakily, ‘I don’t understand. What—should have got through?’

  ‘How I’ve wanted you ... loved you. What else?’

  Then he could have said ‘Beloved’ if—! But fearful still of believing it, she evaded, ‘Wanting and loving aren’t always the same thing.’

  ‘They are, when they’re both for one woman—for the woman, the only one.’

  ‘But I can’t be that one for you. There’s Frau Ehrens. She said herself—And she told Denise—’

  Carey watched Randal’s mouth harden. ‘Yes, I’ve just heard from Denise the lies Gerda Ehrens told her. So what did she tell you about her relations with me?’

  ‘It wasn’t only what she said. When you sent me to Tangier to buy—this’—Carey’s hand plucked at the skirt of her dress—‘I made time to see Madame Seid and Absalom, and she told me you had assured her that the woman you meant to marry would be bringing you a good dowry—’

  Randal nodded confirmation. ‘Exactly. The polite lie one is entitled to, when it’s more likely to please one’s hearer than the truth. Surely you realise that by Madame’s code, a man’s choice of a mate without a dowry simply isn’t done? And how was I to know she would tattle to you and that you would take it as a pointer to Gerda for me?’

  ‘You’ve courted Gerda, and at least once Denise saw you take her in your arms.’

  ‘H’m. Scurvy of me to say so, but “at least once” she slinked into them, and don’t all the rules of business tact advise against slapping down the overtures of the well-heeled guest?’

  The hint of a laugh behind his tone did something for the torment of Carey’s fears. Then you weren’t—?’ she began. ‘I mean you haven’t wanted Gerda Ehrens either for love, or because she’s rich and could help you with the airport project?’

  ‘With that? My dear girl, what drop in the ocean would even Gerda’s money be for anything of that scope? I remember telling you myself that it needs the size of the finance it’s going to command from Calvin Holdings before long.’

  ‘But Denise said your negotiations with Auden Calvin had broken down, and that was why he was leaving.’

  ‘That’s his story. In fact, Top Brass Theodore Calvin had dealt him a sharp rap on the knuckles for trying on the Calvin crown before the king was dead. Though I didn’t know it, Auden had no authority to open talks with me on the matter. But when I found out, I called them off; friend Auden was instructed to pack his bags, and now Theodore C. is all set to handle the thing himself. It’ll go through—’ Randal broke off to shake his head at Carey. ‘All this—about it, and about—! Denise said this ... Denise told you that ... Gossip! Hearsay!’ Taking her by both hands, he drew her to her feet. ‘You can listen to all this and get it all wrong. But did you even hear or heed what I said to you just now—that I love you, want you. Either or ... both?’

  ‘Yes, I—heard,’ she said softly, shyly. ‘Both.’

  ‘And wanted to?’

  ‘So much. So much—’

  ‘Then what are we waiting for? Come here.’

  The kiss which first found her lips was feather-light, a touch, a question, no more. But it turned urgent, searching, hotly demanding her response to it; to all those which followed it with a rough hunger which her own pulsing need understood only too well. For the same hunger was hers, the wanting shared, her surrender to the embrace which made almost one person of them, complete to a point of sweet, poignant danger—With a little half-caught cry she broke free.

  He let her go to arm’s length. His eyes were still afire and his breath came thickly, uncontrolled. But he had understood. As her hands went to her flaming cheeks he reached to take them down, but only held her gently off from him as he said, ‘You’re as wise as you’re lovely, my Carey. You’ve said it—We have to be content with the loving for now. The wanting must wait.’ Very gently and rhythmically his thumbs stroked the backs of her hands. ‘I’ve asked you all this before—you must know when I mean? Why didn’t you give me the same answer then?’ he urged.

  ‘You weren’t asking me the same thing then. You were just sparring with me. You said so.’

  ‘I said—! My dearest girl, in those first overtures to his woman a man is still unsure of his ground, needing to test it first, to feel his way. That’s the beginning of the chase. The rest follows—or it doesn’t, and that night I meant it to follow for me. I was saying to you then all that I’m saying now.’

  ‘And then Gerda Ehrens came upon us.’

  ‘Showing a deplorable sense of timing. But supposing she hadn’t, would you have listened to me, Carey?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’d have ached to, but I wouldn’t have believed you. And I was determined not to be another—Jeanne-Marie Coppard.’

  Randal frowned, then laughed. ‘The little head-in-clouds Coppard, who was less up to her job even than your sister—which is saying something! My word, the gossips have had you by the ears, haven’t they? I couldn’t tell you now even what the child looked like; I never laid a finger on her and—does this prove anything?—I’ve never sent anyone but you a poor little gift of myrtle, only to have it completely ignored!’

  Carey protested, ‘I didn’t ignore it. I wore it all that day, and I have it still.’

  ‘You kept it? Why? You evidently didn’t get the message I meant by it.’

  ‘Just because you had sent it to me; the only thing you would ever give me, I thought.’

  ‘And I thought that even if your sentimental education was lacking, out of curiosity alone you would give me an opening to explain about myrtle; about its being the classic emblem of love. I told myself we could go on from there.’

  ‘Myrtle? A symbol of love?’ Carey searched her memory for long-forgotten nursery tales. ‘Oh yes, there was Aphrodite, wasn’t there, the goddess of love? And when she was born of the sea, didn’t the Hours gather round to escort her, and they wove her a mantle of myrtle leaves?’ she supplied eagerly.

  ‘Exactly. And there’s more to it than that. Did you know too that if a couple of lovers crush a myrtle leaf in their palms, and it crackles, they’re going to be faithful to each other for the rest of their lives?’

  ‘Well, that’s all right,’ Carey dimpled. ‘Ours will crackle. It’s dry already, pressed in a book. Or doesn’t it count, unless it’s a fresh leaf that crackles?’

  ‘Fresh or dry, it’ll crackle for us. It had better. My bit will, I know.’

  ‘Mine too.’ As Carey spoke she was wondering how he came by such snippets of folklore, and went on from there to think how little she knew of him yet; how much she still had to learn about the man she had come to love from the little she did know. She moved closer and leaned gratefully against him. His arm went round her. �
�Gerda is leaving us, you know,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘I didn’t, until I heard her giving the desk directions about her luggage. Why is she going—just now? Will she be coming back?’

  ‘I gather her plans don’t envisage her coming back. And “just now” is the operative phrase. Could be, I think, she decided to go after hearing from me tonight that I meant to ask you to marry me.’

  Carey looked wonderingly into his face. ‘Tonight? Before you came and found me at the villa?’

  ‘Before. I’d made up my mind without a shadow of a doubt when I first saw you in this delicious Victorian get-up.’ He fingered a button at her waist. ‘Where on earth did you find it? In your great-grandmother’s hair-trunk?’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll wish I had, when you get the bill on my expense account!’ Carey’s eyes shadowed as she added, ‘And then you came to the villa—’

  ‘Yes, though not before Gerda had told me I was a fool; that for all your dutiful airs you knew very well what you were about where men were concerned, and hadn’t I taken any warning at all from what she had told me about your carry-on with Calvin in the writing-room. Hadn’t that told me what you were? she wanted to know.’

  Carey said slowly, ‘So it was she who saw us—who told you. But why didn’t you ask me to explain myself at the time? Instead, you began to keep me at bay in everything, as if I were a stranger.’

  ‘If that were true of you, you were a stranger—not the blade-straight, honest Carey I thought I knew. But I wasn’t going to accuse you merely on Gerda’s evidence. I told myself I must rely on my own experience to prove things one way or another. I’d know, anyway, when I’d brought myself to the point of asking you to marry me. But it wasn’t until tonight when, whatever you were or whatever your answer—I was there, at the point.’

  ‘And then, at the villa, I let you think it was proved about Calvin and me. When you weren’t surprised to find me waiting for him, obviously someone had told you about the writing-room scene. Perhaps I should have known it would be Gerda.’

  ‘Why should you?’ Randal queried.