Lyuda gave a shout of laughter, and abruptly turned from him. 'You like the blinis, Jolene?' she asked, observing her spooning some sour cream on to a most palatable pancake.
'They're scrumptious,' Jolene told her.
'Scrumptious—this is a new word for me,' Lyuda told her, and Jolene spent a few minutes explaining the word. Then Lyuda was anxiously looking at her watch, and as if to put her out of her anxiety Cheyne told her they would see about getting on their way now.
Stepping from the car at the modern conference centre, Jolene could not help but swallow emotionally when, on going up the concrete steps towards the entrance, she saw the large sign, written in English, that read, 'International Conference on Worldwide Economic Development'. Cheyne, her Cheyne, the man she loved, and was in love with, had been invited to speak to this international gathering, and whose heart could help but burst with pride? Even though she knew that Cheyne was not really her Cheyne, nothing could take away that feeling of pride.
Throughout that Monday she tried to behave as she thought Gillian Frampton would, and took down in shorthand anything she thought would be of interest or needed for future reference. The result was, though, that she took down far too much shorthand and was working way past midnight that night to get it all typed back.
She consoled herself that she had just had as good as a five-day break from her typewriter, and told herself that she was here to work anyway. And, having recharged her batteries with a few hours' sleep, she was pencil poised and willing when on Tuesday morning she again took her seat at the conference.
Her insides became knotted up with nerves when the afternoon arrived and Cheyne descended from the auditorium and on to the stage to deliver his speech. Yet, with so many hundreds there to listen to him, she could not see any sign of nervousness about him at all.
Her pride in him seemed out of all bounds as he began to speak. She was monumentally proud of him then— to the point of tears. Proud of him, and proud to be a part of his team. To her mind, and she admitted that she was biased, Cheyne's speech was the best of the lot. He spoke clearly and concisely, got his point across, and then, when the title of his subject seemed anything but humorous, he had his audience laughing at some comical reference he had thrown in.
Jolene's only regret as back in the hotel that night she typed back all that she had taken down was that she had been so engrossed in seeing him tall, relaxed and in command of not only his theme but his audience that she had not written down one word of his speech.
They left Novosibirsk the next day, and Lyuda came to the airport to see them off. 'Goodbye, Jolene,' she bade her, and shook hands with her enthusiastically. Then she was turning to Cheyne. 'I shall see you again,' she told him, and when to Jolene's eyes he seemed to enjoy it rather than object to it, Lyuda went into her cheek-kissing routine.
'I hope so,' he smiled, and as they parted from Lyuda Jolene was set to wonder whether he hoped to see her again because of his other business interests, or the present joint business venture he was hoping to negotiate with her countrymen, or because it was Lyuda personally he was hoping to see again.
Being in love, Jolene thought, as the plane took off for Leningrad, was hell.
It was a four-hour flight from Novosibirsk to Leningrad, but because of the hour time-change from Irkutsk to Novosibirsk, and the four-hour time-change from Novosibirsk to Leningrad, they arrived in that city at the same time at which they had taken off.
They checked into the Hotel Leningrad, and were in the middle of a late lunch when Cheyne told her, 'We're meeting a Mr Novikov at three-thirty, so you'd better be ready at three.'
'We're meeting him in the hotel or at his office?' Jolene queried, wanting, if they were going out, to be already dressed in her top coat at three rather than be late for the appointment by going back to her room for it.
'It'll hardly take you half an hour to get from your room to the ground floor!' Cheyne told her shortly, and as Jolene swallowed down a snappy retort, she wondered how it was that she could at one and the same time look at him and love him with all her being yet in that same moment want to give him a punch on that oh, so aggressive jaw.
At five to three she was down in the ground floor lobby with her hat and coat on. At two minutes to three precisely, Cheyne joined her. Without a word to each other they went to keep the appointment.
Vladimir Novikov was a sombre-looking man who, Jolene gathered, worked on a sort of Board of Trade end of things. His secretary Natasha was there too, and from what went on at that meeting it seemed that Mr Novikov was very keen for the joint venture to go ahead. He was more jovial than sombre, at any rate, when at the end of a long meeting they shook hands all round, and she and Cheyne returned to their hotel.
'I've just time to give you some dictation before dinner,' Cheyne told her as the lift stopped at their floor, and they stepped out into the lounge area. 'I'll meet you here in five minutes,' he told her as they went to collect their room keys from the floor attendant.
Jolene took dictation before dinner, ate dinner with barely a word passing between her and Cheyne, and got away from him as soon as she could to go back to her room and again type until past midnight.
When she eventually climbed into bed, it was to recall, sadly, how that morning they had been in Siberia, but were no longer there. How Siberia had been magical for her, but how, now, all she wanted to do was to go home.
After breakfast the next morning she went to Cheyne's room and handed him the pages and pages of neat typing she had completed. But when not so much as a thank-you did she get, she really did want to hit him.
It was touch and go then that she did not fire up with something sarcastic such as 'Don't mention it—it was a pleasure'. Somehow, though, she bit back the tart words, and when he stood at the door of his room looking tough and as if to ask what was she hanging around for, she questioned, 'Do you want me for anything?' not very agreeably, she had to admit.
She felt more as though he had hit her than wanting to hit him again, when, raising one eyebrow aloft, 'Nothing,' he told her sarcastically, 'that I can think of.' Abruptly she turned away, and had taken a couple of brisk paces from him before he called, 'Jolene!' Go to hell, she thought, and with tears in her eyes she kept on walking.
She determined half an hour later that she had had enough of being at his beck and call. So far as she knew, and half an hour ago he had more or less confirmed it, there was nothing more on the agenda for that day other than to catch a flight to Moscow at some time in the early evening.
Donning her hat and coat, Jolene went out into the Leningrad streets, noticed that a thaw seemed to have set in, and hailed a taxi. She was taking the day off— she hoped Cheyne dismissed her for it.
In rebellious mood she told the taxi driver to drop her off in the shopping area, but he could have dropped her off anywhere for all the attention she was paying. By heaven, had she got it wrong to think for even an instant that Cheyne might be prepared to bide his time before he again made an attempt to seduce her! It did not need two guesses to know that when it came to biding one's time, she could bide hers forever and a day before he would want to try anything like that again. From what she could see of it, it seemed to her that, far from his having a penchant for virgins, her inexperience had put Cheyne right off.
Her head was still full of him when the taxi driver set her down in Nevsky Prospekt. She thought she had forgotten Cheyne a little while later when she made her way inside an extensive store which went by the name of The Merchants' Yard, and mingled with the jostling throng. But Cheyne was to enter her mind instantly when she came to a section selling framed pictures. For there before her, to at once transport her back to that happy time at the beautiful village of St Nicholas, was a black and white picture with a trace of grey and brown, which she felt had captured the very soul of the place. It was a large picture showing forested hills in the background, with wooden-built snow-topped bungalows and picket fences scattered in the foreground. And the
re in the middle, to make her feel so dreadfully sentimental that she had to draw on all her powers of self-control, was a wide snowy path that looked every bit as though it led up to the village church.
Her eyes misty, Jolene knew only that she must have this painting that seemed a mirror image of that very special village. How she was going to get the large glass-fronted, alloy-framed picture home was the least of her worries as she found an assistant, and while the assistant wrapped the picture in stout brown wrapping, she went to pay for it. It was unthinkable that she leave the picture behind.
Jolene saw Cheyne eyeing her large, flat, square, brown-paper-covered parcel which she would not let go of as their luggage was loaded into a taxi at seven o'clock that evening.
The painting, she admitted, as they checked in at the airport, was something of a liability in that she preferred to take, it with her as cabin luggage. But she was in no way regretting her purchase, and still considered it unthinkable to go home without her picture when—more ordering than offering, in her view—Cheyne stated, 'I'll carry that.'
'I can manage,' she told him stiffly, and when he grunted some sort of couldn't-care-less reply, she knew that the hour-long flight to Moscow was not going to be filled with friendly conversation.
Friendliness awaited her in Moscow, however. For when they landed after a strained flight, it had just gone eleven that night when as she and Cheyne were making their way out of the airport building, they saw that Keith Shaw and Alec Edwards had come to meet them.
'Jo-Jo!' grinned Keith, having taken to her family nickname, as he kissed her cheek and gave her a hug. 'How's it going?'
'Terrific,' she smiled broadly back, and stayed smiling even when she caught Cheyne glowering at her. Something, she gathered, had upset him. Then she forgot him for a few moments, for Alec, having first greeted his employer, was turning to her and was saluting her cheek in the same manner as Keith.
Because Cheyne wanted a run-down on how the engineers had got on in Irkutsk, Jolene sat in the front of the taxi on the way to their hotel while the others sat in the back talking technical problems encountered and overcome, and progress made.
Once at the hotel, however, Keith mooted that there must be a bar open somewhere, and suggested that perhaps all four of them could go. To her surprise, though, not to say astonishment, she heard Cheyne, while not intending to deprive himself of a drink, accepting the suggestion as a good idea on his own behalf, but actually turning down the invitation on her behalf.
'Jolene's had a busy day,' he said, when she had not at all. 'She'll want to get to bed so as to be fresh for our meeting in the morning. Isn't that so?' he turned to her to enquire.
As she looked into his dark grey eyes, the hot rebellious words, 'No, it jolly well isn't!' rose to her lips. Suddenly she noticed the steely glint in his eyes, and the rebellion in her unexpectedly died. All at once, as she looked into those steel-cold eyes, she was hurting inside that, all too obviously, Cheyne did not want her with them.
'A girl needs her beauty sleep,' she took her eyes from him to quip.
'Not in your case, Jo-Jo.' Keith earned himself a laughing smile of reward for applying a small salve to her hurt.
Jolene went up to her room, fixing it firmly in her head that she had not wanted to go for a boring old drink with them anyhow. What were they going to talk about but boring old engineering anyway?
Friday was an action-packed day for Jolene. It started with her sitting in on a meeting which included the Russians they had discussed the proposed venture with when they had first arrived in the USSR. Her afternoon was filled with trying to keep up with her employer, when, as if his head were teeming with a million and one things, he gave her rapid-fire dictation as though wanting to clear his head of everything. She spent the evening typing.
Saturday dawned bright and beautiful. 'Home today,' Alec said happily, their work in Russia done for the time being, and his homing instincts to see his wife and family growing stronger all the time.
'We've got a few hours to fill in first, though,' Keith answered him. 'Our plane doesn't go until half past five. We've ample time to take another look round Red Square,' he stated, and turning to Jolene, 'Fancy coming with us, Jo-Jo? We could take a look at St Basil's Cathedral, and Gums, the enormous store, is not to be missed.'
'I'd love to!' Jolene declared promptly, only to be surprised again by her employer, when he once more prevented her from taking up an invitation from Keith.
'I'm sorry, Jolene,' he cut in smoothly, to her ears not sounding sorry at all. And, when she knew that her work in Russia too was fully completed, 'I've promised to leave a report for collection. If we start now, you should be finished in time to leave it at the desk before we go.'
She realised that her work was not 'fully completed' after all, and there was nothing she could do but go with her employer after breakfast, and take down the most tedious mile of dictation about some piece of machinery which she had ever taken in her life.
She typed it back hoping that the Russian for whom it was intended could make more sense out of it than she could, for even though she read it through a couple of times, she could still not make out what the machine was supposed to do.
With half an hour to spare before they left for the airport, she put the typed pages neatly together, then went to take them to Cheyne.
'As requested,' she said when, so dear to her, he opened his door.
'Thanks,' he said coolly, although suddenly, as she looked in his eyes, Jolene thought his eyes were anything but cool, and she had the most urgent feeling then that he was about to tell her something of great importance. Indeed, it even seemed to her in the corridor lighting that a dull flush was creeping up under his skin, and suddenly her heart was pounding in the most crazy fashion. She thought he moved half a pace towards her, and then, as she grew taut with tension, the floor attendant walked by—and Jolene knew she had imagined the whole of it, as all Cheyne had to add of such 'great importance' was an equally cool, 'You'd better take charge of your passport,' and after a second or two spent back in his room he returned to the door to hand it to her.
All the way on that flight back to England Jolene upbraided herself. While owning that falling in love seemed to have removed some of her natural intelligence, she was feeling quite alarmed inside that she had imagined Cheyne had been about to confide something of great importance, purely because she had wanted to imagine it.
She was still inwardly disquieted when the plane landed in England. Because, surely, to have started reading nonsense things in just a suspected—but probably imaginary—warm look in his eyes must mean that she was not safe left alone with him.
'That picture must be a Van Gogh at least, the way you've been lugging it everywhere with you,' Alec teased as they cleared Customs.
'It's a Rubens, actually,' she laughed, but she was crying inside. For instinct was telling her that she would be wise never to see Cheyne again, and she knew she was going to have to act on that instinct. Not that he looked as though it would break his heart to say a permanent goodbye to her.
From what she could see, he was looking heartily relieved to be back in England where, their mission over, he could concentrate on his next project.
'Miss Frampton will have arranged transport for you,' she heard him confidently telling Alec, as they made their way to the outside of the building. But when, as if right on cue, Frank, the company chauffeur Jolene had met before, drew up in one of the company cars, Cheyne surprised her by swinging round to her. 'I've my car here, I'll give you a lift,' he told her abruptly, and added as an afterthought as he cast his eye over the trolley-load of luggage, 'The three of you and your chattels will be a mite crowded in one car.'
'I shan't take up much room,' she told him quickly, and, afraid that her weak longing to spend some more time with him might yet see her giving in, she swiftly took her flight bag, portable typewriter, and her brown paper-wrapped picture to the offside of the company car.
'Sui
t yourself,' he shrugged, and showed how badly he wanted to give her a lift home by turning to have a few last-minute words with Alec Edwards.
Knowing herself immediately forgotten, Jolene was too proud to so much as glance his way again. Stubbornly she refused to take part in the general handshaking that went on. It hurt that Cheyne could so easily forget her, and as the car dropped off first Keith and then Alec, she wished she could so immediately forget Cheyne.
Having bade an affectionate farewell to the two engineers and with Frank ready to talk but, taking his cue from her that she wanted to be quiet, concentrating instead on his driving, Jolene went through a silent hell of knowing what she should do, but wanting with all she had not to do it.
By the time Frank was pulling up outside her bungalow, she had found, lost, and found again some of the will she needed to set out on that long tortuous road to forgetting him.
'Can I leave the typewriter for you to take in for me?' she asked Frank with a smile. 'It will save me...'
'With pleasure, Miss Draper,' he agreed cheerfully as her voice faded.
Jolene knew when she awakened on Sunday morning that she was not going to return to Templeton's to work. She probably did not have a job to go back to anyway, she mused glumly. She had only been filling in for Mr Hutton's secretary anyway, and she must be back from her sick leave by now. And if she was not, then someone in the efficient personnel department would have found Mr Hutton another temporary secretary to fill her place.
Her thoughts went from there to how one temporary secretary's job for her had been replaced by another. With warmth in her heart her eyes lit on the picture she had last night unpacked from its brown paper wrapping. As she looked at the picture, memories flooded in of Lake Baikal, Listvyanka, the village of St Nicholas and her happiness there when she had been temporary secretary to Cheyne.
Frozen Enchantment Page 13
