Away Went Love (16 page)

“Well, that was wrong.”

“Do you mean you were telling picturesque lies or that you’ve altered your mind?” Enid enquired with more interest than rancour.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“It didn’t take you long,” Enid observed.

“N-no. I—I suppose these things always are very quick when they happen,” Hope said, feeling that she was not carrying this off very well.

“Do you mean that last Tuesday you thought you were in love with Richard Fander, and by Sunday you’d decided you were in love with Errol Tamberly?”

“I know it sounds impossible—”

“It does rather,” Enid agreed.

“But that—that’s how it is.”

“You must be simply
mad
about Errol Tamberly to change so quickly and so thoroughly,’ Enid remarked.

Hope didn’t answer that, so Enid enquired earnestly, “Are you?”

Hope drew a deep breath and then said, “Yes,” with an assurance which surprised her as much as Enid.

There was a slight pause. Then Enid said:

“Of course, in a way, it’s terribly romantic. I mean, you were always so sure you disliked him and all that. You were quite hot about it sometimes, Hope. And now you find you’re in love with him after all. I suppose he’s one of these terrific personalities who sweep you off your feet.”

“He—he’s a very strong personality,” Hope admitted, wondering why it made her faintly uncomfortable to discuss Errol in this heart-to-heart manner.

“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 also 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.”

“I don’t think I’m very much interested in the reaction of the twins towards him,” Richard said dryly.

“No. No, of course not.” Hope was suddenly recalled to the absurdity of what she was saying. “I didn’t really mean that literally.”

“We’re getting away from the point, Hope.”

“Are we?” She pushed back her hair rather wearily. “What
is
the point exactly?”

“The point is—how are we going to break this damned engagement without injuring that extraordinarily tender conscience of yours?”

“Richard—”

“No, don’t tell me again that there’s no way. There must be. It’s ridiculous to think that the happiness of both of us can be ruined for a technical bargain which has no relation to facts as they are. If you won’t just consider it automatically broken by the fact that—”

“But I don’t know that I want it broken.”

“Hope!” He fell back from her thunderstruck.

“I mean—Oh, Richard”—she got up and walked up and down the room in agitation and indecision—“you seem to think it’s so simple so say, in effect, one day that you can’t afford the luxury of marrying me, and then a few days later come smilingly to say, ‘Look, I’ve got some money after all, so we’ll get married.’ I’m not just sitting there waiting to be married as soon as you think you’ve got enough money to afford me. I’ve told you I don’t really blame you for the attitude you took up, but it didn’t exactly increase my admiration for you or—or my trust in you.”

“You mean,” he said quietly, “that it killed your love for me.”

She hadn’t meant that at all, of course. She only wished she could have meant it. Everything would then have been much simpler.

“I don’t
know
what I feel about you,” she cried, and that was the literal truth. “And when in addition I’m tied to someone else—Oh, don’t you see I’m nearly crazy with worry and—and not knowing what is right?”

“Yes, I do see.” He came to her and would have taken her in her arms only she prevented him. Instead, he caught hold of the hand with which she half pushed him away. “What is it you want me to do? I’ll do it, whatever it is.”

“I think,” Hope said helplessly, “that I just want you to go away at the present moment. I can’t decide anything while we—we argue and you plead with me. I must ask Errol—”

“Errol? Do you think he’ll give you better advice than I should? Why should he come into it?”

And Hope suddenly knew the reply, although she refrained from putting it into words.—’Because he will look at the matter honestly and I can rely on what he says.’ The conviction of that fact did more to calm her than anything else could have done.

She could not even have said why she was so sure about it. But she clung to the conviction as the one spar in the sea of her own doubts and Richard’s arguments.

“I
must
have some time to think about everything quietly,” was what she said to Richard.

“And where does Tamberly come into it?”

“Why, I’ll have to speak to him, of course. He—he
is
the third person in this. Maybe if I tell him quite frankly—”

“I shouldn’t tell him too much.” Richard frowned. “You’ll have to leave that to me,” Hope said, and something in her voice must have told Richard that the time for argument was over, because he said:

“Very well, darling. I leave it to you. Only don’t let Tamberly talk you round on the grounds of some sort of fancied responsibility to him”.

“I
have
some sort of responsibility to him,” Hope retorted quickly, unable to let that pass unchallenged, anxious though she was not to become involved in further discussion. “I called in his help when we needed it, and I accepted that help on very definite terms. Beyond that, I find his feelings are very deeply involved and—and that I like and respect him enough not to want to hurt him. You can’t just talk him out of the picture after all that.”

“All right.” With a visible effort, Richard too resisted the desire to prolong the argument. And, taking Hope in his arms, he kissed her good night.

Something in her unresponsiveness made him exclaim, “Why don’t you kiss me too?” But he immediately accepted her almost pleading, “I’m so tired,” and her half-remorseful, half-eager kiss.

When Richard had gone, Hope went straight to bed. She felt too weary even to contemplate doing anything else, although she knew that sleep was out of the question. She had got to decide what she was going to say to Errol tomorrow, to try in some way to rehearse the scene.

It would take place in the office, of course—

And then Hope suddenly decided that she could not bear to have it take place in the office. The idea of staging a difficult and probably emotional scene practically in the Laboratory revolted her. Something else must be arranged. Errol would have to come here. It was the only place she could think of where they could be private and uninterrupted. She would tell him in the morning—Oh, no, that wouldn’t do!

“I’ll ring him now,” Hope muttered. “It’s not half-past ten.” And without giving herself time to change her mind, she jumped out of bed and ran to the telephone.

The connection was made unusually quickly, and she could hear the bell ringing at the other end of the line almost before she had thought what she was going to say. “Yes? Doctor Tamberly speaking.”