No Heart is Free E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 497

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Tally, Lord Brora, is heartbroken to discover that Amelia Melchester, whom he hoped to marry, has jilted him for Ernest Danks, a man likely to be the next Prime Minister. In a chance encounter, he meets young Jean Macloed, who is in the same unhappy situation as himself. Tally devises a scheme to bring Amelia and Jean's boyfriend, Angus, to their senses.

With the help of his friend Gerald, Tally transforms Jean from a penniless waif to society beauty and takes her to St. Moritz, with his mother acting as chaperone, in a bid to make the love of his life, Amelia, jealous and take him back. All is going to plan until a skiing accident makes Jean realise she no longer loves Angus. In despair she understands that her pretend love for Tally, is the real thing but his heart still belongs to the lovely, but selfish Amelia. She travels back to England to help some friends whose child is seriously ill and discovers a secret that could change the life of Tally’s mother, Margert Melton, forever.

How Tally’s plan unravels and how the revelations of the past come to the surface are told in this magnificently moving story of jealously, sadness and the power of love to heal all. 

Leseprobe

No Heart is Free

©1969

“I have no peace, the quarry I,

A Hunter chases me.

Who can escape? No heart is free

From love.”

EASTERN POEM

1

As Tally turned his car into Chesterfield Hill, he saw Melia going in at the door of No. 96. He noticed she was wearing the bright red coat and feather-trimmed cap over which they had exchanged a few words a few days earlier.

“Why do you want to dress yourself up like a post-box?” Tally had demanded with less tact than usual.

Melia, who had been very pleased with her new winter outfit and was not inclined at the best of times to stand criticism from Tally, had been annoyed.

“I have been much admired in it,” she said, turning round as she spoke to get a better view of herself in the long, gilt-framed mirrors that decorated her mother’s large and usually overcrowded drawing-room.

“I don’t doubt that,” Tally had retorted. He knew that Melia would be admired whatever she put on, for she was at the moment the vogue and everything she did, said or wore became the fashion overnight. Nevertheless, his dislike of the red get-up had persisted. It was too flamboyant. He felt that the colour was too noisy and cheapened the beauty of Melia’s much photographed heart-shaped face and big dark eyes. But he knew that the more he said, the more he was likely to antagonise Melia. She liked her own way, did Miss Melchester, and what was more, she was not going to stand criticism from any of her young men, least of all from the one on whom she had finally bestowed the favour of her affections.

‘Love me, love my coat,’ Tally said to himself ruefully as he drove up the hill and drew up outside No. 96.

The door was shut – the big ponderous wrought-iron door outside which so many young men had kicked their heels despairingly waiting and longing for the elusive Melia. Tally switched off the engine of his car and had begun to unravel his long legs from among the controls when a voice at his side said,

“Buy a bunch of white heather, Guvnor – it’ll bring you luck.”

Tally turned to make an immediate gesture of refusal, caught sight of the face of the man who was bending down to offer him the heather, and smiled, even as the man exclaimed,

“Gor’ blimey if it’s not the Major! How are you, Sir?

“All right, thank you, Simpson,” Tally said, getting out of the car, “but what are you doing?”

The man, a squarely-built, ugly looking fellow, dropped the piece of white heather into a tray full of similar pieces that he held under his left arm.

“I didn’t know it was you Sir, or I shouldn’t have spoken. I don’t like you to see me doing this.”

“I am sorry to see you doing it,” Tally said. “Can’t you get anything better?”

“Had a run of bad luck Sir,” Simpson answered confidentially. Then, looking up into Tally’s sympathetic eyes, he added with a sudden burst of honesty, “Well, it hasn’t all been bad luck. I got a couple of jobs, but I didn’t keep them.”

Tally said nothing, but something in his bearing must have shown that he understood, so Simpson went on,

“You know what it is Sir, everything seems so tame after what we have been through. Bored, that’s what I am! You know as well as I do we didn’t want to drink when things were happening, but now it’s different.”

There was silence for a moment, before he added almost pleadingly,

“You understand, don’t you Sir?”

“Yes, I understand,” Tally replied, “but it is no use Simpson, those days have gone. We had a lot of fun, and we had hard times too.”

“We did an’ all, but they was worth it,” Simpson replied. “Do you remember that trip to Le Touquet, Sir? Lor’, I can see those Jerries’ faces now when we walked into the casino! And the time we smashed up that radar station? Coo, that was a night, that was! I can see you now dealing with three of them, and all three as dead as mutton by the time you had finished with them. Ah, those were the days!”

“Yes, I know, Simpson,” Tally said, “but they are over and we have got to face it. We have got to settle down, all of us. It is not easy, I know that, but it is no use going to pieces. You never know, we might be needed again.”

“Do you think we might, Sir?” There was a sudden light in Simpson’s face.

“Who knows? The world is unsettled enough – but if we are, wanted, it will be the same story over again. We shall not want weaklings or those who have dissipated their strength.”

Tally spoke deliberately, but he did not look at Simpson. He had opened his cigarette case and was choosing a cigarette, but he knew the man had stiffened, his shoulders had gone back and his chin stuck out,

“You’re right, Sir, and I wouldn’t have you leave me behind.”

“Listen Simpson, did you know I had started an advice bureau to help our chaps find the right sort of jobs?”

“No Sir, I hadn’t heard anything about it.”

“Well, I have. I tried to circulate to you all, but some of you had left no address. Here’s a card. Go along to 190 Dover Street tomorrow morning and tell Miss Ames, who is my secretary, that I sent you. She will find you a job that is worth doing, and then, Simpson, it is up to you.”

The man drew himself up.

“I shan’t let you down, Sir, you know that.”

“Yes, I know that. Goodbye, Simpson.”

Tally held out his hand. The other man gripped it and there was something hard and resolute in the handshake, something too, of the comradeship that had been more than a brotherhood all through the war. For the men who had served under him, Tally had shown an affection that was not translatable into a language of peace. He smiled at Simpson. As he turned away, the man mechanically saluted, then turned and walked smartly down the street.

Tally watched him go. He remembered him well. A good lad, but somewhat of a scallywag. At times he had had to be restrained from almost idiotic foolhardiness, but he had come through unscathed, while wiser and better men had fallen. Tally sighed and chucked the cigarette he had just lit into the gutter. It was a gesture as if he would discard his own thoughts of the past. What was the point of harking back? The war had been over for two years. Better forget it. The past was past. He must concern himself with the future.

He reached up, pressed the electric bell fiercely and impatiently. It was some moments before the door was opened slowly, almost it appeared reluctantly, by the grey-haired butler who had never, in Tally’s experience at any rate, been known to smile.

“Good afternoon, Oakes,” Tally said and made as though to step into the house.

“Miss Amelia is not at home, my Lord.”

“Oh yes she is. I saw her come in a few minutes ago. You must have been having forty winks in the pantry or you would have heard her.”

“I am sorry, my Lord, but Miss Amelia is not at home.” Oakes’s tone was so serious that Tally, who was pushing past him, stared at him in surprise.

“Good heavens, Oakes, I believe you mean it. Are you telling me in polite language that she is not at home to me?”

“If you like to put it that way, my Lord.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

Tally looked angry, then he laughed.

“What is it all about, Oakes? Come on, be human for once. Is she angry with me, or something?”

Oakes paused as if he were considering, and then in a tone that, if not exactly human was slightly less aloof, said in a low voice,

“As a matter of fact, my Lord, there’s a letter for you. Miss Amelia informed me it was to be sent round to your club over two hours ago, but I have not been able to obtain a messenger and no one in the house would oblige by taking it.”

“A letter for me? Well, hand it over and let’s see what it says.”

From the depths of a pocket beneath his coat tails Oakes produced an envelope. It was large and blue and ornamented with Melia’s large and distinctive handwriting.

“Now, what have I done?” Tally enquired as he took it.

“Perhaps it would be wiser, my Lord,” Oakes suggested, “if you took it back to the club and read it there.”

“In other words, you want to get rid of me. Not on your life – I will read it here and if I can give you an answer right away it will save me a postage stamp, or rather a telephone call.”

Tally slit open the envelope with his finger and drew out two closely written sheets of paper. Then, regardless of Oakes’ obvious discomfort, he leaned against the doorway and commenced to read. At that moment the telephone bell began to ring.

“If you will forgive me my Lord…” Oakes said.

“Run along and answer it,” Tally replied, “and you can shut the door, I’m in a draught.”

Obviously discomfited by Tally’s persistence, Oakes, after hesitating a moment, finally did as he was bid and shut up the front door, leaving Tally inside, and hurried away to answer the telephone.

Tally read the first page, started on the second, and then with a sudden exclamation that was not unlike a roar of anger he threw his hat down on the chair and went up the stairs two at a time. He flung open the door of a room leading off the first-floor landing with a decision and speed reminiscent of the tactics he had used in the war. In fact, he entered the room with the suddenness and noise of a small typhoon.

Melia Melchester, who had been sitting on the sofa, started to her feet with an exclamation of surprise. There was no doubt indeed that she was a very pretty girl. She had taken off the red coat and feather cap that had annoyed Tally and was wearing a slim black dress, which clung to her figure and showed to advantage the whiteness of her skin. Her dark hair was parted in the middle, and her eyebrows, as so many infatuated young men had told her, were like two delicate wings above the liquid beauty of her eyes.

“Tally!” she exclaimed. “How you startled me!”

Tally pushed the door behind him with a bang and walked across the room. He, too, was extraordinarily good-looking, with his lean brown face and wiry athlete’s figure, but Melia was at this moment obviously too agitated to consider Tally’s good looks. One white hand with its long red fingernails rose as if to quell the tumult of her breasts, while with the other she supported herself against the back of a chair.

“I told Oakes to say I was not at home.”

“Yes, I know,” Tally replied, speaking for the first time, “but I want to know the meaning of this.”

He held out her letter as he spoke, the blue paper rustling in his fingers.

“I thought I had explained myself very clearly,” Melia replied.

“I want to know what it means,” Tally repeated.

Melia took a deep breath and then, as if she were no longer frightened, she looked away from Tally and turned towards the fireplace.

“Tally dear,” she said gently, “it is no use making a fuss. I am sorry, but I do not want to marry you.”

“Why not?” Tally’s question came out like an explosion.

“Because ... well, because…”

“Because of what?” he asked imperatively.

“Well, there are lots of reasons, Tally dear, and it is no use your getting angry with me.”

“Now look here, Melia…” Tally said, walking over to the fireplace and standing towering over her, “I have known you ever since you were a horrible squalling baby in a pram…”

“I was nothing of the sort,” Melia said sharply.

“Yes, you were,” Tally retorted, “and don’t interrupt. What I was going to say was that I have never known you do anything unless you had a very good reason for it. If you want to break off our engagement, then you have got a reason for it and I want to know what it is.”

“But why must I have a reason for everything?” Melia asked.

“Because you always have,” Tally replied. “When I saw you the day before yesterday, you were perfectly happy to be engaged to me. What has happened in the meantime?”

“You thought I was perfectly happy…” Melia corrected.

“What has happened in the meantime?” Tally persisted. “Who have you seen?”

Melia turned away.

“Come on Melia, out with it!”

“Now listen Tally, I don’t think we should be happy if we married each other. I have explained that in the letter.”

“You have explained nothing. You have drivelled a lot about our not getting on together, etc. None of which tells me anything. Damn it all, Melia, you know I love you.”

Melia’s expression softened for a moment.

“Yes, I think you do Tally,” she said, “but it is no use. I do not love you enough – not for marriage anyway.”

“Melia, it was only on Saturday that we were talking about putting the engagement in The Times and planning the actual date of the wedding. I had to go to the country yesterday to see my mother, otherwise I would have been with you. What did you do yesterday?”

Melia made a gesture of impatience, then suddenly clasped her hands together.

“Don’t be difficult, Tally, please don’t be difficult.”

“I am not being difficult,” Tally said sharply. “Really Melia, you would try the patience of a saint. What I am trying to get at is what has changed your mind since Saturday?”

He tried to hold her gaze but she moved from the fireplace over to the window. There she stood drumming her fingers on the pane and looking out on to the paved courtyard at the back of the house.

“It is no use Tally, I won’t discuss it,” she said at length.

“You will,” Tally said grimly. “You can’t just chuck me over like that and not tell me the reason.”

“I have told you, Tally, I don’t want to marry you, and I would be grateful, yes, very grateful, if you would leave me alone – I hope we shall always be friends.”

Tally was just going to reply when the door was opened by Oakes.

“I beg your pardon, miss, but Mr. Danks is on the telephone from the House of Commons and would like to speak to you.”

“Tell him Miss Amelia is out,” Tally said sharply before Melia could reply.

“No, no, Oakes, don’t say that,” Melia said quickly. “Tell Mr. Danks that ... that I will ring him up in a few minutes. I cannot speak now.”

There was something in her hesitancy and the colour that suddenly came to her cheeks which roused Tally’s suspicions. As Oakes shut the door he wheeled round to her.

“What is all this? Good Lord Melia, you don’t mean to say it’s that chap Ernest Danks. You must be mad!”

“That’s quite enough Tally. Ernest is an extremely clever young man – in fact he will be, and at any moment too, the new Prime Minister.”

Tally stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. He crumpled up her letter, which he still held in his hand, as if the action gave a relief to his feelings and flung it across the room. Then he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets.

“So that’s it,” he said. “You’re going to marry Ernest Danks. Well, I’ll be damned!”

“Now please Tally, it’s a secret for the moment. As you know the Prime Minister is dying – it’s only a question of hours. It would not be a moment for ... for Ernest and me…”

“I understand.” Tally’s voice now was very quiet. So quiet that Melia stared at him in surprise.

“I understand,” he repeated. “I never believed that you really cared only for publicity. I thought there was something better in you than all that craving for notoriety, but apparently I was mistaken. Goodbye Melia, and I hope you will be very happy with your Prime Minister.”

Tally turned on his heel and went from the room. This time he did not slam the door but shut it gently behind him and went down the stairs one step at a time. He let himself out at the front door, got into his car and drove slowly away. Men who had served with Tally in the war would have told Melia that in this mood Tally was at his most dangerous. Naturally buoyant and exuberant, when he was quiet and constrained, it meant that he was angry and that he was planning how to avenge himself.

Tally drove round the park and as he went he thought of Ernest Danks – a man who had risen into political prominence in the last two years. He was clever, there was no doubt of that, but Tally, who had met him on several occasions, had thought him both self-opinionated and a social climber. Apart from the fact that it would be quite natural for him to be in love with Melia, it would be to his advantage to marry someone who could help him socially and from a financial point of view. Melia was rich – no one knew this better than Tally, whose estates marched side by side with her father’s.

It had been suggested in their very cradles that he and Melia should get married. It was the obvious thing – two only children, two big land-owning families. Only Tally the schoolboy had not been interested in girls. But Melia had grown up while he was in the war and he had come back to find her the acknowledged beauty of three seasons and the most sought-after young woman in London.

Tally had sauntered back into Melia’s life with the conquering ease of an old friend and acknowledged suitor. To his surprise he found that Melia had very different ideas. In fact, she had shown him that he had no special place in her affections or her circle of admirers. This had put Tally on his mettle, for in the six years of war he had been trained to believe that nothing was unconquerable and that it was always possible to achieve victory by commando tactics.

He concentrated on Melia as he had concentrated on planning a raid. He was just as successful. Melia surrendered and promised to marry him. Now that he had thought everything was arranged, he had received a setback. He had in the last few weeks come to believe that Melia was really very fond of him. True, she was not a very demonstrative person, but Tally had asked her often enough and believed her when she said that she did love him. Now he felt not only disillusioned but foolish.

There had been no secret about their engagement. All their friends knew about it. It had only been a question of time before the proper arrangements could be made for their wedding. Tally thought of the comments that would be made. “Poor old Tally,” people would say. “But then, after all, a Prime Minister, a young one at that, is a better catch.” He could see from Melia’s point of view what a triumph it must be. It must be years since anyone married a Prime Minister. He could imagine the sensation it would cause. They would be married in Westminster Abbey. The entire House of Commons would be there – and the Lords. Perhaps even the King and Queen. How Melia would enjoy all that!

He thought of the avid interest she had taken in the references in the gossip columns to their own impending engagement.

It is rumoured that the engagement will shortly be announced between the beautiful Miss Amelia Melchester, daughter of Sir Charles and Lady Melchester, and Lord Brora, whose brilliant exploits during the war...

Melia had cut them all out and they had been pasted into her press-cutting books, big volumes bound in pale blue leather and embossed with gold. Well, Tally thought, she would have enough cuttings if she married Ernest Danks. He ground his gears in a sudden fury, turned his car and sped back through South Street towards Chesterfield Hill, then as he got there he changed his mind. Arguing with Melia was not going to do any good, he had got to think things over first – he had got to plan his attack, to work out a scheme.

He drove slowly, turned the corner, and passed the house, but he would not stop. It was as he turned that he saw a taxi draw up at the door and Ernest Danks get out. He was a dark cadaverous-looking young man wearing the politician’s inevitable black hat and carrying the inevitable dispatch case. He paid the taxi-driver and walked up the steps of No. 96. As he did so, the front door opened and Melia appeared. She had been waiting for him, Tally thought, and saw her hold out both her hands in welcome. It was that which both hurt and infuriated him, the gesture of Melia’s white hands being held out to Ernest Danks.

He drove away, angrier than perhaps he had ever been in his life before.

‘If the fellow were really attractive, I could forgive her,’ he told himself. ‘But if he were not going to be Prime Minister, she wouldn’t look at him.’

He knew that for the truth just as he knew that Melia Melchester and Ernest Danks would have nothing in common save perhaps a consuming ambition to be in the public eye.

Tally drove his car across Berkeley Square, up Hay Hill and into Dover Street. He looked at his watch and saw it was after six o’clock. The office would be closed. No matter, he would go there for a moment and give himself time to think. He wanted to be alone. Several of his friends would, he knew, be waiting for him at White’s. He had got to have some sort of story to tell them. He had got to collect his thoughts and his shattered pride.

His office was on the first floor. It was not a big place, but already it had served its purpose. Hundreds of men had come up those stairs despondently and gone down with a lilt in their bearing. A commando was not always an easy man for whom to find a job. Being a tough guy in war did not always make an easy or pleasant employee in Civvy Street. But Tally knew how to talk to them and to get the best out of them now, just as he had got the best out of them when they had had to make an attack. There had been failures of course, a few who really were unemployable, but for the rest it had merely been a case of finding a square hole for a square peg.

He had been lucky in having Miss Ames to help him. She relieved him of a great deal of responsibility, and she had also had a lot of experience in the handling of men. Often when Tally failed to make a man amenable, to make him show the best side of himself to a prospective employer, Miss Ames succeeded. She had also an almost dog-like devotion for him personally and Tally was glad she was not going to be there at this moment. She would have seen that there was something wrong with him. He was, however, quite safe. Mary Ames left the office sharp every evening as the clock struck six. She had a train to catch to Peckham, where she looked after an invalid mother. Nothing short of an earthquake would persuade her to be late.

Deep in thought, Tally walked through the outer office. The typists’ room was empty. Miss Ames’ desk was covered with a sheet of newspaper. It was her usual procedure before leaving so that the cleaners in the morning should not untidy or disarrange her papers. There was a faint musty smell in the room of gas, paper, glue, of tea, India rubber, and of the cheap Virginian cigarettes invariably smoked by the callers. Tally did not notice it. He was absorbed by his own problems and kicking over a wastepaper basket as he passed and spilling its entire contents on the floor, he opened the door of the inner office that led to his own room.

It was only a small place, but he had it furnished more like a sitting room than an office, with two big comfortable leather chairs in front of the fireplace and on the walls several sporting prints that he had brought up from his home in the country. His desk of polished mahogany was by the window. He seldom sat at it, but it was used by Miss Ames when he was out, when someone wanted to talk particularly privately.

Tally entered the room and he was so sure of finding it empty that for a moment he was quite startled when at the sound of the door opening, there was a convulsive movement from the desk. He stopped and stared, for raising her head from her arms, on which she had obviously been sobbing abandonedly, was a young girl. For a moment Tally did not recognise her, then he remembered that he had seen her before. One of the typists in the outer office had left to get married and Miss Ames had told him that she had engaged another. As he looked at the white tear-stained face staring at him in startled horror, her words came back to him.

“She is very young, I am afraid, but girls are very hard to get these days and we must just hope that she will shape up well.”

He had not paid much attention at the time as all such matters were left in Miss Ames’ capable hands. Now he wondered if she had made a mistake.

The girl was hurriedly getting to her feet.

“I am terribly sorry,” she faltered. “I came in here to bring some papers.”

Her voice was very low and muffled from weeping.

“That’s all right,” Tally said. “I am afraid you are upset about something.”

“I am sorry, terribly sorry, it was silly of me. I-I did not expect anyone so late.”

She arranged the papers on the desk and turned towards the door. She wiped her eyes with a ball of a handkerchief, which Tally realised was already soaked with tears. There was something very young and pathetic about her. Instinctively, because he hated people to be unhappy, Tally attempted to be consoling.

“Look here,” he said, “if something is really wrong, can’t I help you?”

“No, thank you, and please forgive me for coming in here. It was stupid of me but I had a shock and…”

“I understand,” Tally said soothingly. “Look here, sit down a moment. You look very white – you might faint.”

“No, I am all right ... really.”

The girl was edging towards the door, but Tally was alarmed by her pallor. He could see, too, that her hands were trembling.

“Don’t go,” he commanded. “I insist that you sit down. Now be a good girl and do what you are told. Don’t argue! I have got something here that will make you feel better.”

He went to the cupboard and opened it with a key that was always attached to his watch-chain. There were several bottles there. He always had a drink ready for the old friend who dropped in to see him and for the men who found it hard to talk without something to loosen their tongues. He scanned the bottles uncertainly. Whisky did not seem very suitable – then he remembered there was a bottle of brandy at the back of the cupboard. He pulled it out and put a little into a wineglass, adding a dash of soda.

“Drink this,” he said.

“I couldn’t, really I couldn’t,” the girl protested.

“You do as you are told.”

Meekly she obeyed him. The spirit made her gasp for a moment and then she drank it down as a child would drink medicine. Her eyes watered, but she smiled.

“Thank you, it is ... rather drastic, isn’t it?”

“Some people enjoy it.”

“It is certainly warming, thank you so much?”

She sat on the edge of the chair as if poised for flight.

“Now relax,” Tally told her, and poured himself out a whisky-and-soda.

He shut the cupboard and sat down on the other chair.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“I must go now,” the girl said uncertainly.

“Why? Does time matter so very much – at the moment?”

She looked at him.

“No, you are right! I don’t suppose it matters one way or another. I don’t think anything matters.”

There was a break in her voice.

“What has happened to upset you?” Tally asked kindly. She hesitated and he sensed that she was anxious to confide in someone. It wouldn’t matter much who it was. Something had happened so overwhelming, so overpowering, that she felt afraid and lonely.

“I have had a letter,” she murmured at last.

“It usually is a letter,” Tally said sympathetically.

“Oh, it is very kind of you to be interested, but it has upset me. You see, it was from the man I thought I was going to marry and now, well, he doesn’t want to marry me anymore.”

Tally stared at her.

“Why not?” he asked.

“He is going to marry someone else.”

“I seem to have heard this story before,” Tally said half to himself, and then, quickly in case she should misunderstand him, he added, “Go on, tell me more.”

“It will sound silly to you, but I had planned everything – my whole life around getting married. I had thought of it for a very long time. It seemed the only thing to do, the right thing. Oh, in fact, everything I wanted in the future. Now I do not know quite where I am. I have got to start all over again. It is like being left alone in the middle of a desert. I don’t know where to begin, or which way to go.”

She clasped her hands together, the knuckles went white, and Tally could see she was fighting against a fresh outbreak of tears that threatened her self-control. He said nothing. After a moment she went on.

“I was so glad when I got this job here. It was better money than I had got anywhere else, but also Miss Ames seemed so kind and the work was so interesting. I wrote to the man I thought I was going to marry and told him all about it. His letter must have crossed with mine.”

Her voice faltered and stopped.

“What is your name?” Tally asked.

“Jean, Jean MacLeod.”

“You’re Scottish?”

“Yes, I come from Glendale.”

“Oh, do you? I know it quite well. It’s not far from my own place in Scotland. My uncle used to have a beat on the salmon river. What made you come South?”

“Because I wanted to make enough money to have some decent clothes, something of my own. If I hadn’t been so proud, I would have been married by now.”

“Perhaps it will turn out for the best,” Tally said, not because he thought so but merely because it was the conventional and almost mechanical thing to say. The words sounded ineffective to his own ears and he added, “But why doesn’t he want to marry you?”

“He has found someone better,” Jean MacLeod said, a sudden sob in her voice. “Someone more important. I know the girl. She meant to get him, and she has succeeded. Well, they are welcome to each other. I wish I could show them that I didn’t care. What I hate is their all being sorry for me, knowing that he has thrown me over for her. It means that I can never go back, never, with everyone commiserating with me that another girl has taken my man while I was away. You won’t understand,” she said suddenly. “It must all sound petty and silly to you, but I have lost not only the man I was going to marry but the whole of my past life as well.”

“I do understand,” Tally said, and something in the misery of Jean’s voice stirred him. “I do understand – in fact, I am in the same position myself. I have just been chucked and for somebody more important.”

“You don’t mean that Miss Melchester...” Jean asked, wide-eyed.

Tally nodded.

“Yes, turned me down.”

“Oh, but how awful! She is so pretty, so attractive.”

“Yes, she is both those things.”

His anger returned to him. Once more he saw Melia standing on the steps with her hands outstretched to Ernest Hanks.

“But how could she?” Jean asked. “I don’t understand it.”

“I can,” Tally replied grimly.

“Can’t you do anything? Can’t you persuade her?” Jean questioned. “At least you are here and you can see her. It isn’t as if you were miles away, like me.”

“I haven’t thought what to do yet,” Tally answered. “It has only just happened.”

“Oh, poor Lord Brora, and everyone knows about the engagement don’t they? What are you going to say to your friends?”

“It is just what I was wondering. Well, Miss MacLeod, we both seem to be in the same boat. Your young man has chucked you for someone more important, and my fiancée has done the same thing. I think the best thing we can do is to drown our sorrows together. What about another drink?”

“Oh, no, thank you, and I must be going.”

Tally turned towards the cupboard.

“No, don’t go,” he said. “You are the only person I feel I could talk to, and I expect you feel the same about me. We are both in the same predicament. That at least gives us a bond in common, even though we haven’t been formally introduced.”

“I feel Miss Ames would be very shocked if she knew that you had found me here, crying on your desk.”

“We won’t tell her,” Tally promised. “Now what are you going to have? There’s whisky, gin, or brandy.”

“Might I just have a little soda water, please?”

“If that is what you really want – I personally am going to have a strong drink and drink damnation to all our enemies.”

He poured some soda water into a glass and handed it to her.

“It’s a poor way to drink to our revenge.”

“I’m afraid that is something we shall never have,” Jean said wistfully.

“Don’t you be too sure,” Tally replied. “We ought to be able to think of something.”

“How could we?” Jean asked. “Oh, it’s all right for you, but everyone at Glendale will be saying, ‘Poor Jean’. How I loathe being pitied!”

There was a fierce note in her voice somewhat out of keeping with her frail appearance.

“And how I hate people saying, ‘Poor Tally’.” Tally raised his glass. “Here’s to our revenge.”

And then suddenly an idea came to him.

“I have thought of something,” he said.

“What?”

“Wait a minute, we have got to work this out carefully. You think that they will be saying ‘Poor Jean’. I know that at any moment now my friends will be saying ‘Poor Tally’. That is what we dislike?”

“Yes, of course, but…”

“Listen. There is one way we can turn the tables – one way we can stop their saying it.”

“Yes, but how?” Jean asked in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Tally went on slowly, putting his drink on the mantelpiece untouched and staring at her as though he saw not her but his plan gradually falling piece by piece into place, “I mean that people are always sorry for the one who has been forsaken, the one who has been chucked, but if we are quick enough, we can get in first.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, yes you do! Can’t you see it’s the perfect plan, the perfect answer?”

“What is?”

“That we both of us get engaged first, before the others have time to announce their engagement.”

“Engaged, but how? And who to?”

Tally looked at her and smiled.

“It is so simple,” he said, “to each other, of course.”

2

Without waiting for Jean’s reply, Tally jumped to his feet.

“This is tremendous,” he exclaimed, “but it has got to be properly handled, and I know the very chap to do it, too.”

He took up the telephone receiver and dialled a number while Jean struggled to find her voice. At last she stammered,

“B-but Lord Brora...”

“One minute,” he replied. “Hallo, is that White’s? Ask Captain Fairfax to come to the telephone.”

He smiled at her with the receiver to his ear, and it struck her, not for the first time, how good-looking he was. When he came into the office the first day she had been at work there, she had thought he was the most attractive man she had ever seen. Now she felt that this must all be a dream. This absurd situation could not be real. With an effort ,her good Scottish common sense reasserted itself. She moved across the room and stood beside Tally at the desk.

“Listen, Lord Brora,” she said quietly. “I know this is a joke, but I don’t quite understand. Please let me go now.”

“Joke? It’s no joke,” Tally replied sharply, and then spoke into the receiver, “Oh, hallo, Gerald. No, I wasn’t talking to you. Look here, I want you! Something important has happened and I want your help. Yes, at once! Action stations, old boy!”

He laughed at something that was said and put down the receiver.

“He will be round in a few minutes,” he remarked, then seeing Jean’s troubled, anxious expression, he added more kindly,

“Listen, leave this to me. We are both in a mess. We have both for a moment suffered a temporary, mind you, a very temporary defeat. Well, we are going to win. We are going to come out on top, whatever the betting is against us. Won’t you trust me?”

He smiled at her again and suddenly Jean felt as if it were impossible for her to oppose him. She must just do what he wanted.

“But I don’t understand...” she said uncertainly.

“Yes, you do,” Tally said soothingly. “You are going to make that young man of yours look a fool. Now, when did you get the letter?”

Jean drew it from the pocket of her dress.

“It arrived by the six o’clock post,” she answered. “I was just leaving – in fact, in another minute I should have gone. I stayed late because I promised Miss Ames that I would finish those letters for you to sign tomorrow morning.”

“It’s lucky you did,” Tally said. “When was the letter written?”

Jean drew the sheets of paper from the envelope. Despite an almost superhuman effort she could not keep her hands from trembling or a sudden mistiness from dimming her eyes. Angus’ handwriting stared up at her.

Dear Jean…

She had known something was wrong as soon as she had read those first words, so cold, so formal. She remembered the first time he had written to her. She had been so thrilled to see his writing. Ever since she had come south, she had waited for the posts, waiting and longing to hear from him. The few words of affection he had written had meant so much. And now this – a cold dismissal of all the things she had planned, all that the future was to have meant for both of them. “Dear Jean…” she read again, and with an effort she remembered that Tally was waiting.

“He wrote this on Saturday morning,” she said. “He must have posted it in Glendale about noon. He usually goes into the village on a Saturday for the things wanted for the farm at the weekend.”

“So, he is a farmer?”

Jean nodded.

“And you love him?”

“I suppose so!” She caught back a sob. “I thought it was so wonderful that he should want to marry me. You see, after my father died, I had nothing. He was the minister in Glendale and I’m afraid he was never very practical. Anyway, when he died there were a lot of debts to be met and to pay them off everything had to be sold.”

“What happened to you then?” Tally asked.

“I was only fifteen at the time,” Jean replied, “and I went to live with an aunt, actually she was a great-aunt. She was very strict and not very kind. She made me work very hard in the house and garden and I had no friends of my own age. Then one day I met Angus.”

Her face softened with remembrance. How could she explain to this strange young man what it had meant to her then? To speak with a man, to talk to someone kindly and human who seemed interested in her. It was impossible to describe the harshness of her life with her great-aunt. She was fed, she was clothed, she was given a roof over her head and there was nothing that could be described as real hardship or neglect. And yet it was a house of misery. Never for one moment was she allowed to forget her poverty or her orphan state. Never had she a possession that she was allowed to call her own nor, it seemed at times, even a thought or a feeling that was private or sacred from the prying eyes of her aunt or the sharpness of her tongue. Vaguely Jean sensed then what she was to know later – that there was a reason for the unceasing fault-finding and for her aunt’s desire to crush her spirit until it was too broken or humble ever to rise again.

She had been crying when she first met Angus, and because she was so desperate in her unhappiness she had done a thing she had never done before. She had slipped out of the house when she should have been preparing the evening meal, had gone up on the moor behind the house to find some solace, some comfort in solitude. The sun was sinking and throwing strange lights on the moors and distant mountains, and as he came striding towards her, his hair burnished gold, his neck bare, he had seemed almost supernatural, an immortal from another sphere rather than a harassed farmer in search of some straying sheep.

They talked together only for a few minutes, but in those moments Jean had wakened to womanhood. She was no longer a child, cowed and browbeaten, but a young woman with something alive and virile stirring within her veins.

She had gone back to the house with a smile on her lips, knowing that she would meet him again. It had taken a year for them to get to know each other well, a year in which Jean ran innumerable risks of her aunt finding out that she had made his acquaintance. And in that year she had come to a new knowledge of herself and, she believed, a new knowledge of the world.

It was only when her aunt died that she discovered the reason for many things that had perplexed and surprised her during her childhood. She had learned, too, that with her aunt’s death she was again penniless. The old lady had been living on an annuity. What she was free to bequeath she had left to the chapel. There was nothing for Jean except the knowledge that she was free – free to marry Angus should he ask her.

He did ask her, and then some pride belonging to her Scottish forbears had made her prevaricate. She wanted some time , time to breathe, time to purchase just a few things that she could call her own. Something within her revolted against the idea of going to Angus completely empty-handed – of asking him to pay for the very dress in which she would be married.

While working for her aunt she had taught herself typewriting and also shorthand by a correspondence course. Her aunt had made her work hard at both, even as she had made her slave in the house, cooking, and scrubbing, cleaning, and mending.

‘I shall make a good wife,’ Jean told herself. But she wanted more than that – a little of the beauty and glamour that she knew instinctively should be part of her youth. She wanted to be young, frivolous, and carefree – all the things she had never been allowed to be – and she wanted to go to Angus not as a poverty-stricken orphan but as a woman able to stand on her own feet and capable of earning money of her own.

Perhaps it had been an absurd idea, and yet it was deep-rooted in a pride that would not be denied, and so, despite Angus’ pleadings and protestations, she had come south to London to get herself a job.

There had been plenty of folk in the strath to tell her she was a fool. Once her aunt was dead she learnt a good many things about Angus – that he was a catch of the neighbourhood,  that all the girls had set their cap at him, one after the other. His had a fine farm, for his father had farmed it before him and his father before that. His family were well-off and Angus had had a good schooling. “Too good,” some people had said, for he had “got a bit big for his boots” and was “after thinking himself the gentleman”. There would have been nothing wrong in that, if he had not cold-shouldered many of the lads with whom he had grown up and tried to be friends only with those who owned the lodges and rented the moors for the season.

“I remember his mother,” one old woman told Jean, “when she was proud to make the best butter of any farmer’s wife up the strath, but Angus is not letting his wife work. Ye’ll be a fine lady while others do the work for ye.”

“I’ll be nothing of the sort,” Jean laughed, but when she had tackled Angus on the subject, she found that his ideas were very definite.

“There will be plenty to occupy your time,” he said sharply, “without you’re doing a servant’s work. Besides, I’m not going to be tied to the farm. We will go down south and take a week or two in Edinburgh from time to time – in fact, we might even plan a trip abroad, who knows?”

Jean knew she ought to be thrilled and excited by such ambitious planning, but there was something self-conscious about the way he spoke, something that told her that his reason for all this was not that they should be amused, but something deeper and more complicated. She was intuitive enough not to press him at the time, but soon she learned what she wanted to know. She learned it with a sudden sinking of her heart when she saw Angus one day talking to some of the people who had come up for the season’s fishing. He was laughing, joking with them, and they seemed pleased to see him. But there was something in Angus’ attitude which made her feel slightly ashamed. There was only one word to describe it. She tried to put it from her mind even while it presented itself, but it persisted. He was ‘toadying’ to them. Yes, toadying to people who he thought were of a better social standing than he was himself.

It was then for the first time that Jean compared Angus with her father and knew the difference. Before that moment Angus had been not only a man, young, virile, and in love with her, but an ideal, someone to be admired as well as adored. Now she saw him for what he was. A man young and virile it was true, but lacking that inner culture, that extra touch of breeding that she had taken so much for granted as part of her own inheritance. Fiercely she told herself she loved him the more because of it. Angrily she derided herself because she could see the difference between Angus, being too effusive, gesticulating a little awkwardly with his hands, and the men who stood listening to him, controlled, self-assured, and friendly without any obvious effort.

It was just before she left for the South, when her great-aunt’s house had been emptied and put up for sale and she had moved into a small croft in the village to stay with old Annie, that she learned about Elizabeth.

“Do ye think ye are wise to leave, Miss Jean?” Annie had asked her.

“Wise, of course I’m wise. You know how I feel about it, Annie, and it won’t be for long. I will make a little money, buy a few things, and come back to dazzle you all.”

“Don’t leave it too long,” Annie said ominously.

“What do you mean by that?” Jean asked.

“Yon Angus is a fine-looking lad for all he knows it,” Annie replied, “and there is another besides yourself that is always thinking of him.”

“Who’s that?” Jean asked.

“Mistress Elizabeth Ross, to be sure. She has to pass the farm every day when she is coming down to the village. Ye may be sure she makes the best of her opportunities.”

“Nonsense Annie,” Jean laughed. “I know who you mean now. Why, she is older than Angus, and besides, Colonel Ross would not hear of his daughter marrying a farmer.”

“When a woman is determined on something it is often the man as has to listen,” Annie said enigmatically, and said no more, but her words stuck in Jean’s mind. She had questioned Angus casually enough, nevertheless there was a little feeling of jealousy behind her questions, and she had known by the way he answered that he was pleased that Elizabeth Ross should be friendly.

“She has been very kind to me,” he said, “and it is due to her that the old man has given me a day’s shooting now and again when he is short of a gun. They are very nice people Jean, the sort of people you and I will want to know when we are married.”

Jean thought privately that Colonel Ross, who owned a large moor and spent only part of the year in the north, would have little time for an ordinary Scottish farmer and his wife. But she was already sensitive enough to Angus’ weakness, not to express her feelings. Yet when she saw Elizabeth Ross in her car in the village the next day she looked at her with curiosity. She was not good-looking, and there was something hard and determined in the sharp red line of her mouth.

Perhaps Jean was staring, anyway Elizabeth turned and looked straight at her. Was it her fancy or did the sharp mouth seem to tighten? Was there a look of antagonism in her eyes? Knowing she was a friend of Angus’, Jean would have smiled, but abruptly Elizabeth turned her head away and starting her car drove off. Jean felt as if a cloud had passed across the sun. She felt depressed for no reason save that she knew that Elizabeth disliked her.

‘She didn’t know who I was!’ Jean told herself soothingly, but she knew that was untrue. Glendale was too small a place for those who lived in and around it not to know everyone, if not indeed to speak to, at least by sight.

She went back to Annie’s croft vaguely perturbed because she could not put her own feelings into words. She said nothing to Angus when he called next morning to take her to the station.

“I wish you weren’t going,” he said to her when they were waiting for the train, and Jean, treasuring his words in her heart, felt as if she must change her mind. It was not too late. She had only to say the word and Angus would put her small suitcase back into his car, drive her home to Annie and she could be married the following week. She felt the words were on the end of her tongue, and yet something prevented her from saying them. Something told her that she could not go empty-handed to the man she married.

Like a ghost from the past she could hear her great-aunt’s sharp voice.

“If I hadn’t taken you in, penniless and without means of support, you would be in an orphanage. What else would you have done if I hadn’t fed and clothed you? The least you can do is to show your gratitude by working for your keep.”

No, no, she would never put herself into that position again, never, never.

The train was signalled. Her eyes were misty with tears so that as the train came slowly into the station to carry her south, it seemed to come winged around with a thousand tiny rainbows…

*

Angus’ letter was still in her hands. Jean realised that her thoughts had led her away into the past and that Tally was still waiting for her to speak. His brows knitted a little as if he concentrated intently on what she had to say.

“I am sorry,” she stammered. “I was thinking for the moment – remembering.”

“There is nothing to be sorry for. We have got to get down to immediate action. Now, does your young man say that he is going to announce his engagement?”

“No,” Jean answered. “He merely says that Elizabeth Ross wants to marry him.”

“Good,” Tally said, ignoring the break in Jean’s voice as she said the last few words. “What we have got to do is to announce your engagement before they get the chance to announce theirs.”

“But it’s absurd, impossible,” Jean protested.

“Is it? Now listen to me. Do you mind your people being sorry for you – do you think they will be sorry for you if you announce your engagement to me before your young man has time to tell them that he is going to marry – what did you say her name was – Elizabeth Ross?”

“No, of course not, but...”

“There are no buts,” Tally said abruptly. “Now the point is this. We will send your friend a telegram, telling him that you are engaged and that a letter follows. You will pretend that you have not heard from him. Sit down and write to him tonight and date it yesterday. With any luck he won’t be sharp enough to look at the postmark, and if he does, he won’t be certain that you have got his letter. After all, it might easily have arrived tomorrow morning, the posts being what they are.”

“But what can I say in the telegram?” Jean asked.

“Oh, I will write that for you. Where’s a piece of paper?”

Tally turned over one of the letters that Jean had typed for him to sign the following morning and started to write on the back of it.

“What is his name and address?” he asked.

She told him and then waited in silence because she could think of nothing to say – her thoughts were chaotic and had no form or sequence.

“There, what do you think of this?” Tally exclaimed at last, and read aloud,

Angus McTavish, Moor Farm, Glendale – Am announcing my engagement to Lord Brora. Deeply regret not being able to inform you of this sooner. Please forgive me. Letter follows. Jean.

“I like the ‘Please forgive me’, don’t you?”

“But you can’t send that!”

“Why not? If I know anything of the local post office, the whole village will know all about it long before your friend Angus gets the telegram. Whatever they may think or guess about his acquaintance with Elizabeth Ross, this will certainly take the wind out of their sails.”

“Yes, that’s true!” Jean said slowly.

At that moment there was a sound outside and the door opened.

“Hallo, Gerald,” Tally called out, and a young man, fair and broad-shouldered, came into the room.

“What on earth are you doing in the office at this time of night, Tally?” he inquired.

“Plotting and planning,” Tally replied cheerfully. “And we want your assistance, old man.” He turned to Jean. “Let me introduce an old friend, Gerald Fairfax – Gerald, this is Miss MacLeod.”

“How do you do?” Gerald said politely, throwing his hat down on the desk and seating himself in one of the armchairs. “Well, what’s up, Tally?”

“I wish to announcement my engagement,” Tally answered. “I want it done in a really sensational manner.”

“Good heavens, you don’t mean to say you have dragged me round here just to tell me that,” Gerald said disgustedly. “Why, Melia will have all the press hounds in Europe sitting on her doorstep. There’s no chance of anyone like me getting a new angle on it.”

“I am not announcing my engagement to Amelia,” Tally said quietly.

“What?” exclaimed Gerald, dropping his cigarette case on the floor with a clatter as he sprang to his feet. “But, good Lord, what do you mean? Not going to marry Melia?”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to marry her. I merely said I was not announcing my engagement to her. You must learn to be accurate, old boy.” He turned to Jean. “Gerald is in the advertising business. Nice chaps, but they never get their facts right.”

“What is all this about?” Gerald asked impatiently.

“Well, if you’ll listen, I’ll tell you. Miss MacLeod and I wish to announce our engagement to an astonished world!”

Gerald’s mouth shot open, then he closed it again. He looked across at Jean and it was quite obvious that he took notice of her for the first time since he entered the room.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said slowly.

“You are not being over-polite, old boy!”

“I’m sorry,” Gerald said hastily, “but it really is a bit of a shock. I don’t think I have met Miss MacLeod before, but she must forgive me.”

“It’s all right,” Jean said quietly. “It’s just about as much of a shock to me. You see…”

“You had better let me tell him,” Tally said. “I suppose you will have to know the truth, but you are the only person who will. Cross your heart and swear to die if you tell a living soul what we tell you. Swear?”

“Of course I do. You had better tell me the whole story. You know you’ll only get into a mess if you try to carry off too much on your own bat.” And then to Jean aside, “I’ve known Tally since we were at Eton together. He always has been an impetuous sort of chap. I have to keep an eye on him.”

“Stop talking and listen to me,” said Tally. “What has happened is this. Melia has turned me down to marry Ernest Danks.” Gerald whistled. “Yes, she thinks he is going to be the next Prime Minister. Is the old boy dead yet?”

“No, but the last bulletin issued this afternoon seemed to think that the doctors had given up hope.”