Where is love ? E-Book

Barbara Cartland

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

Seitenzahl: 375

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Wing commander Fielding had made a solemn vow to a fellow officer, before his death, that he would visit the beautiful Cynthia Standish who had captivated his friend's heart. Yet their meeting could not have gone worse, and Cynthia, outraged by Michael Fieldings arrogance, was determined to get revenge. She would not only attract Michael's senses, she would humiliate him and thwart his dreams. As Michaels political career takes off, Cynthia begins her own campaign. But Cynthia did not understand her troubled heart, nor the devastating appeal of the man she had sworn to hate. As Michael tries to right the wrongs in post war Britain, and the hidden secrets of his past are revealed, will their mutual dislike hinder his plans, or save both of their unsettled hearts? All is told in this fascinating story of hope, romantic intrigue and the power of love to conquer all.

Leseprobe

WHERE IS LOVE?

“I’m seeking Love,Where is he hiding?I’m seeking Love,Where can he be?"

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1

Michael Fielding walked slowly up the wide marble steps, feeling while he did so that his feet were going slower and slower as they echoed his reluctance to reach the top of the steps and touch the big, highly polished silver bell. As he waited, Michael turned round and looked back down the quiet street where there were few passers-by, but where many important-looking official cars were parked.

‘I wish this was over,’ he said to himself, and then smiled, for it was unlike him to feel so apprehensive before going into action.

It was many years since he had felt that queasy, uncertain feeling in his stomach and a slight dryness about his mouth. He had faced death so often without fear, and certainly without this sickening sense of apprehension, yet now he was definitely and genuinely afraid. However, it had to be done, and as the door opened, Michael squared his big shoulders and turned his thin, sunburnt face towards the butler standing there white-haired and impassive.

“I would like to see Miss Cynthia Standish.”

“Yes, Sir. What name, please? Is Miss Standish expecting you?”

“She told me to call this afternoon – Wing Commander Fielding.”

“Very good, Sir. I will see if Miss Standish is at home. Will you come in?”

Michael stepped into the marble-floored hall. It was cold and rather dark and he felt himself react to the atmosphere of gloom.

‘My sense of humour must have taken its day off,’ he thought whimsically as the butler preceded him up the broad carpet-covered stairs and opened the door leading into a long, sunlit drawing room.

It was a beautiful room and was typical of what could be achieved by the lavish expenditure of money. The furniture, the pictures and the carpets were all show pieces, works of art which would delight the heart of any connoisseur.

Michael, however, took little note of his surroundings. As the door closed behind the butler, he went across the room to the window and stood looking out over the small, paved garden in the rear of the house and beyond it to where the trees of Green Park were like an oasis after the heat and dust of the London streets.

But he did not see the loveliness of the green branches, the clear blue of the sky or the languid floating of the Royal Standard above the roofs at Buckingham Palace. Instead he saw the hot, arid plains of India, he felt the tropical heat burning its way through the dry thirstiness of his body, and heard again, as he had heard so often before, David’s voice saying,

“You will go and see her if anything happens to me, Michael, Won’t you? You will tell her that I loved her – always and unceasingly – loved her with every breath I drew, even the last of all. You promise?”

“Yes, David, I promise. But don’t talk like that, you are not going to die!”

“Who knows? Who cares out here? Jenkinson yesterday, Pat the day before! We shall miss Pat, Michael. I wonder if anybody would miss us if...”

“Oh, shut up, David! We are going to come through together, you and I. There is a lot of living and a lot of loving for us to be doing before our number is up.”

Michael spoke roughly because some strange uncanny sense within him had, at that moment, whispered surely and clearly that David would not come through. And Michael’s presentiment had been a true one. David had died, as many other fine young men had died before him, but there had been something unusual about his death – something that had made Michael swear with a bitter, vehement anger, drawn from the very depths of his being, that the person concerned should suffer by learning the truth.

‘Is that why I am here?’ Michael asked himself now, ‘or is it because of my promise to David?’

He had no time to formulate the answer because the door opened and Cynthia Standish came in. She stood for a moment framed against the ivory-and-gold panels of the door. As Michael turned and saw her, he understood for the first time why David had talked almost incessantly of her during those hot, arid nights, why he had been unable to forget her, and why – yes, why, because of her, he had gone to his death.

She was lovely, arrestingly and spectacularly lovely. Her dark hair was swept back from a perfect oval-shaped face – her eyes were unexpectedly and vividly blue beneath eyebrows delicately winged, like the drawings on an old Chinese etching and her mouth was curved and full. There was something so utterly feminine about it and the lissom grace of her figure that no man could look at Cynthia Standish and forget for one moment that she was an utterly desirable woman. Yet to Michael, standing there grim and stem, she was evil and bad and he hated her.

She moved across the room towards him holding out her hand with a friendly gesture which he ignored.

“You are Wing Commander Fielding?

“Yes!”

There was just a flicker of surprise in her eyes at the tone of his voice and her hand dropped to her side. Then, with a gesture, she indicated chairs on either side of the high ornate mantelpiece.

“Won’t you sit down?”

She sat herself in a high-backed, tapestry-covered chair, but Michael remained standing. There was a moment’s pause and she looked up at him half wonderingly, half questioningly, as though his silence was as unexpected as his attitude.

He was certainly extremely good-looking, she noticed. His features were clear-cut and there was something noble in the breadth of his brow, something strong and determined in the sharp line of his jaw. She guessed that the lines which ran from his nose to his firm lips had been etched by experience rather than age, and she liked the level directness of his eyes even while the steely expression with which they regarded her was puzzling.

“You asked to see me?” she prompted.

“I wrote to you.”

“Yes, I know. You were a friend of David?”

“Yes, a great friend of David.”

“I was sorry to hear of his death.”

“Were you?” The question came like the report of a gun.

Cynthia started, and her long fingers were linked together.

“I had known David for many years.”

“And he had loved you ever since I can remember.”

Now she was still and Michael saw that she drew a very deep breath. There was a long silence, a silence in which even the ticking of the. clock on the mantelpiece was hardly audible.

“Is that what you have come here to tell me?” Cynthia asked at last.

Michael moved impatiently, almost resentfully.

“No,” he answered, “I have come because David asked me, because he had talked of you so often and always he had made me promise that if anything happened to him I would come and see you and that I would tell you he had loved you always – up to the very last moment of his life.”

Cynthia’s hands fluttered, and her head was turned away from Michael towards the window.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said at length, but her voice was not gentle as it should have been. Instead there was another note – a note almost of fear.

“Would you like to hear how he died?”

There was no mistaking now the antagonism in Michael’s voice.

“There was quite a long account of it in the paper,” Cynthia replied. “Was it incorrect?”

“It did not mention the one thing that was really important,” Michael said.

“No?”

“You know what that was.”

“Do I?”

She was fencing with him, but they both knew that the advantage was with him. He was striking at her, well aware that she had no defence.

“Yes, you do know – but perhaps you would like me to put it into words. David died the day he received your letter.”

“Oh!” The exclamation came from her almost like a deep cry.

“Yes, the day he received the letter in which you told him you had no further use for him.”

“That is not true!”

Cynthia jumped to her feet. Now she was no longer afraid, no longer acquiescent. There was a fire in her eyes and steel in her voice which matched Michael’s.

“You did not write a letter saying that?”

“I wrote a letter telling David that I did not love him. He had known it before. I had told him that often, but he would not listen. He wrote me wild letters from India, letters that presumed many things – and I thought it both unwise and unfair to let him go on living in a fool’s paradise of his own making. I told him the truth – that I did not love him, but that I was always anxious to be his friend.”

“Charming and conventional,” Michael remarked sarcastically.

“What else could I say?” Cynthia demanded angrily.

“I have no idea, Miss Standish. I only know that after David received your letter he went out on a particularly difficult mission, from which he did not return. I have the feeling that he was glad to go and that he knew he would not come back.”

Cynthia opened her lips as if she would answer him, and then she turned away suddenly and walked towards the window. She stood there with her back to him, silhouetted against the sun outside. She looked very slim, almost fragile, and yet Michael was conscious of a strength and resilience in her. He had half expected tears, half expected her to crumple up at his accusations and put forward some pitiable defence that she could not help her own attraction. But instead, when at last she turned to face him, he saw that she was still angry.

“This is my answer to you, Wing Commander. I resent both the accusations you have made and your coming here at all. I do not believe for one moment that my letter to David sent him to his death. You believe it did, but then doubtless you were prejudiced by David himself, who was always prone to exaggeration.

“Having known him for so long, I claim to have known him better than you, even though you lived and fought beside him through the war. David loved me, it is true, but in a jealous, selfish way that was not really worthy of the name of love...”

“Stop!” Michael stepped forward and put his hand peremptorily on her arm. “I won’t have you say such things. David was my friend. He was as fine and as honourable a man as ever I have been fortunate enough to know. Who are you, living here in softness and security, to know what a man can suffer when he is far away? In Burma, David was magnificent. In India, he did a splendid job, and would, I believe, be doing it still but for your letter.”

“If you believe that,” Cynthia said clearly, “you are more of a fool than you look.”

For a moment Michael gasped. Then the impulse rose within him to take her fiercely by both shoulders and shake her.

There was something in the beauty of her face as she looked up at him defiantly that made him see red. He stood very still and his eyes narrowed a little. He stared down at Cynthia, striving to master her by sheer willpower, striving also to keep control of himself.

There was a vibrating tension between them so strong, so magnetic that it was as if the air around them was charged with electricity. Michael was conscious that his breath was coming quickly, that all his hatred and resentment of this woman, fed by the years that he had passed abroad since David’s death, had come to a culminating point at this moment. There was a fury within him, so fierce and primitive that only conventionality kept it from breaking forth untrammelled, unrestrained.

He looked into her eyes. They were deep wells of darkness – he knew that she, too, was breathing quickly. But she was not afraid of him. His own anger was so devouring, so consuming, that he was surprised that she was not scorched and singed by it – but no, she was not afraid. She faced him defiantly even while her breasts moved beneath the thin silk of her dress

‘I could kill her,’ he thought, and felt some part of him ready for action, ready to translate the poison of his thoughts into deeds. Then the cloud that had weighed down on him for a long, long time lightened – why he did not know – he was only aware of its passing.

Suddenly Michael was conscious that he was gripping Cynthia’s arm so tightly that the skin was white on either side of his fingers. He released her, saw the marks that his fingers had left, but he would not apologise.

“There is nothing more to be said?” His voice seemed to him to come from a long way away – so much had happened since he last spoke – or had it?

“No, I think not,” Cynthia replied.

With an effort, Michael put his hand into his pocket and drew out a little parcel.

“I brought you these,” he said, “But if you don’t want them, I can take them to David’s mother.”

Cynthia made no attempt to touch the parcel or to take it from him. Instead she asked,

“What are they?”

“Photographs of you and some letters of yours.”

“Including the last one?”

“No, he took that with him.”

Cynthia looked down at the small parcel and then up at Michael again.

“I don’t want them,” she said, “but I don’t think David’s mother would want them – she has suffered enough.”

For the first time since the conversation had begun her voice was soft as she spoke of David’s mother, but Michael did not notice it. He slipped the parcel back into his pocket.

“Very well then. I have fulfilled my promise, Miss Standish. Now I will go.”

“There is just one thing before you do,” Cynthia said quietly. “I understand, from the newspapers of course, that you have left the Service. I hope now you have come back to civilian life that you will try, in your contacts with ordinary people, to be more just and more understanding than you have been with me.”

She spoke with a goading bitterness that made Michael feel his temper rising again.

“It is kind of you to take so much interest in me, Miss Standish.”

“I was not thinking of you,” Cynthia, answered, “but of the many people to whom you are a hero, almost a legendary one.”

For the first time Michael looked embarrassed, and as if Cynthia saw her advantage she added,

“People expect better things of you, Wing Commander, than that you should give judgment without evidence or condemn people without giving them the opportunity to speak for themselves.”

Michael looked uncertain.

“If I have...” he began, but Cynthia put up her hand as if to silence him.

“I make no pleasure for myself. I would not stoop to argue with anyone so pig-headed, so utterly and completely biased as to the righteousness of his cause – but in the future you may do harm. I am only thinking of that. Goodbye!”

She dismissed him with an inclination of her head which was dignified and yet in its own way insolent. Michael was well aware that the advantage had passed from him to her. Now Cynthia was in command, and he felt not foolish but irritated, because here was something that he had not anticipated and that he did not understand.

For a moment he contemplated asking her for an explanation and then he remembered the memory of David’s stricken face after he had read Cynthia’s letter and the dumb misery in his eyes as he said,

“She has made it pretty clear this time that she does not care for me. She is through, Michael, and so am I.”

He hardened his heart.

“Good afternoon, Miss Standish. It was kind of you to see me. I hope in the future that you will remember that people can be easily hurt, especially those who are foolish enough to love you.”

A faint smile twisted Cynthia’s lovely lips.

“That at least is plain speaking, Wing Commander?

“Which is what I meant it to be,” Michael replied.

He walked to the door feeling that he could stand no more and yet somehow he was reluctant to go. He felt that he had not pressed home his advantage. He had come with weapons which he felt sure would utterly annihilate this woman who had destroyed his friend. Yet she stood there firm and utterly sure of herself.

‘Damn her,’ he thought. ‘What she wants is a good beating. I would like to see her dishevelled and in tears. I would like to break her and know that in being broken she might have the chance to start again as a decent person.’

As if Cynthia half read his thoughts, the faint smile on her lips grew more mocking and the gleam in her eyes waxed brighter. But she said nothing and after a momentary pause Michael crossed the room.

He stretched out his hand towards the door, but it was opened suddenly from the other side. A young man stood there wearing glasses and the harassed expression of one who is perpetually driven almost beyond endurance.

“I say, Cynthia,” he began, “they tell me downstairs that you have got a Wing Commander Fielding with you.”

He saw Michael and stopped speaking and ejaculated suddenly,

“Good Lord!”

“What is the matter?” Michael asked.

“It is you then. I could not believe it when they said you were here.”

“Why?”

“Because we have spent the last two days trying to get in touch with you. The old man heard you were in England and wants to see you. We had no idea where you were and we have been simply scouring the place for you, and now of all places I find you here in the house. It is really too much!”

“What does my father want him for, Toby?” Cynthia asked.

“Lord knows!” Toby Dawson replied. “He may want to offer him the editorship for all I care. But he wants him and we couldn’t find him – which has been enough to drive us all crackers.”

“Well, I am here now,” Michael said uncompromisingly.

“And thank God for that,” Toby Dawson replied. “Come upstairs. I ought to get an increase in salary after this.”

“I will come with you,” Cynthia said.

Michael looked at her. He had half a mind to say something sarcastic, then changed his mind and in silence he and Toby Dawson followed her as she led the way into the lift.

The Tempest was a forceful newspaper with both power and influence. It had been built up, sustained and invigorated almost entirely by the personality of one man – its founder and owner.

As the lift travelled swiftly upwards, Michael tried to recall all he had heard about Lord Melton, but he could remember only that the woman beside him, whose fragrance percolated through the lift, was his daughter.

They reached the top floor of the house, the lift gates clanged to behind them, and Tony Dawson threw open the door of the big sun-filled sitting room, announcing, like a conjurer producing a rabbit out of a hat,

“Wing Commander Fielding!”

Cynthia went into the room first and Michael, following her, was conscious first of all of almost blinding sunlight and then of the familiar, much-caricatured face of Lord Melton, staring at him from the one corner of the room that was in shadow. He was sitting in a great armchair and beside him on a table were at least a dozen telephones. He appeared in no way surprised at their appearance. As they moved across the room towards him he merely raised his thick eyebrows a little and asked,

“Well, Cynthia?”

“Toby said you were screaming for Wing Commander Fielding, and as he was with me, I came up to see what it was all about.”

“Does it interest you?”

The question was sharp and searching.

“In a way,” Cynthia replied. “He is one of the most unpleasant young men I have ever had the misfortune to meet and I wondered what use you were going to make of him.”

Now at last a smile twisted the comers of Lord Melton’s lips and he looked up at Michael.

“My daughter’s recommendation is not very favourable, Fielding?”

“I am content that it should be so,” Michael replied grimly.

The situation seemed to amuse Lord Melton, but he made no comment and merely waved Michael to a chair in front of him, while Cynthia, pushing some of the telephones aside, perched herself on the edge of the desk.

“We don’t want you, Cynthia,” Lord Melton said without turning his head.

“But I want to stay.”

“It would be better if you didn’t. Fielding is obviously on edge because you are here. I shan’t get the best out of him in such a mood.”

Michael could not help but be amused by a conversation which was conducted as though he were not there, but which he felt at the same time was obviously calculated to intrigue him. Cynthia looked irresolute.

“Let me stay, Daddy?”

“I would rather you didn’t. Besides, if he is all you say he is, why worry yourself?”

“There is a good deal more I can say about him,” Cynthia said, getting down from the desk, “but you are right. It is a mistake to worry over one’s enemies.”

“So Wing Commander Fielding is an enemy?”

“Most certainly! War has been declared.”

She spoke lightly, but there was nothing light in the look she gave Michael. Then without another word she turned and moved across the room. The door closed behind her and Michael was alone with Lord Melton.

There was a moment’s silence and Michael felt that he was being inspected. Instinctively he resented it. They were a strange pair, this father and daughter, and he was sure of one thing, that he disliked them both.

“I have been trying to get hold of you,” Lord Melton said at length.

“So I understand,” Michael answered. “I am sorry if it was difficult, but I am only in London for a few days.”

“And then you will be going down to Melchester?

“Perhaps.”

“I don’t think there is any uncertainty about it. They will adopt you.”

“You think so?”

Michael was surprised at Lord Melton’s knowledge of his movements, but he was not prepared to say so.

“They would be very silly if they didn’t. You are exactly the type of young man they want to represent them in Parliament.”

“Thank you.”

Lord Melton smiled.

“You understand that I am speaking not so much of your politics, as of you personally.”

“Again I can only say thank you.” Michael replied.

“When I heard you had arrived back in England, I thought you were just the person we needed for The Tempest – to write a series of articles for us.”

“I don’t think I should be able to do that, sir.”

“Why not?” Lord Melton enquired.

“To begin with, I am not a writer and consequently I do not think people would be particularly interested in what I have to say.”

Lord Melton smiled. “Must you be so modest? You have got a pretty big reputation, you know, for what you did in the war. Besides, there is not a schoolboy in England who does not know the story of that particular act of gallantry in Burma and that you refused the V.C. because the twelve other men who were with you could not have it too.”

“I don’t want to trade on that.”

“Nobody is asking you to. I am merely proving that the public would be interested in what you have to say. Anyway, to put it bluntly, Fielding, I want six articles from you. I can commission them now at 100 guineas each, and they should be entitled ‘Why Britain is Losing Her Grip’.”

There was silence for a moment and then very decidedly Michael got up from the chair.

“Thank you, Lord Melton. It is very kind of you to offer me the chance of writing for your newspaper, but my answer is no.”

Lord Melton’s dark eyebrows shot up.

“No?”

“No!”

“And why?”

“To begin with, as I have already told you, I am not a writer, and secondly I do not like your subject.” Michael said.

“You do not think it is correct?”

“Most decidedly not”

“That is interesting. Most people would, I think, agree that Britain is losing her grip on the world.”

“Most people cannot see an inch beyond their own noses.” Michael retorted.

“But surely?”

“Lord Melton, may I speak frankly to you?” Michael replied.

“Of course!”

“Then I would like to say that I deprecate both the tone of your newspaper and of many others. They are too busy telling us that things are wrong, they are too busy showing us the mistakes we have made in the past and pointing out the mistakes we are making now. People need something in which to believe. They do not want to be told they are on the wrong path. They want to be shown the right, they require something constructive, not the everlasting destructive criticism they are being given.

“Give a man an ideal and he will work and die for it. I found that in the war, and I know it is true of all men. What The Tempest is doling out every day is Death. I want to give the people Life – something to live for, something to aim at, something to achieve.”

Michael spoke with fire and there was something extremely virile and magnetic about him. As he spoke the sun behind him touched his hair with a golden glow.

From the shadows Lord Melton answered him,

“It all sounds very well, my boy, but the British people are a tired people. Newspapers are merely mirrors – they reflect what is in the hearts and minds of the people who read them. What you are reading in The Tempest is the truth.”

“It is not!” Michael almost shouted the words.

“In this uncertain, difficult world,” Michael went on more quietly, “I am certain of only two things – my faith in God and my faith in the British people. We have an instinct for what is right and for what is true. It has never failed us in the past and it will not fail us now.”

Lord Melton shrugged.

“I hope you are right.”

“I know I am right. That is why I came out of the Service. I think I can serve this country better in politics.”

“A great many people have believed that they could find their way through the mess and the machinations of a political world,” Lord Melton sneered, “and a great many have been disappointed.”

“If I fail, there will be others who will succeed,” Michael replied quietly. “Goodbye and thank you for your offer.”

“One minute,” Lord Melton said. “I would like you to reconsider that. From what I hear of you you are not rich. You will need the money. Why not try the articles? You can twist them round to your way of thinking.”

Michael stood very still in the sunshine and then he laughed.

“Why are you laughing?” Lord Melton asked.

“Strangely enough,” Michael replied, “I was thinking of a certain episode in the Bible.”

A faint smile altered Lord Melton’s expression. “And the Devil took Him up on a high mountain...” he quoted.

“Exactly,” Michael answered.

“Very well, then,” Lord Melton replied. “Go to the devil your own way. You will find it less comfortable than mine.”

“Probably,” Michael replied, “but I will take the chance.”

The two men shook hands. It was difficult to know whether Lord Melton was annoyed or not. He had lost too many battles in his life to bear malice now. He pushed a bell on the table beside him and the door was opened instantly by Toby Dawson.

The lift carried Michael down to the ground floor. He went through a small lane that led him into the park. There was a faint breeze to offset the heat of the sun, and when at length he found an unoccupied chair in the shade of a big tree he sat there smoking and thinking. The afternoon drew on, children who had been playing on the grass were taken home, picnickers gathered up the remains of their teas, dogs chasing one another were whistled for and put on their leads.

Still Michael sat on, a faint frown on his brows, until the sun sank and the London twilight became blue and luminous and slightly mysterious. At length he got to his feet and walked slowly through the Green Park, across the Mall into St. James’s Park and on to the Embankment. Beneath the shadow of the grey bridge he paused. A barge, heavily laden with timber, was passing up river.

He watched it go and was just about to move on again when something attracted his attention below. To his left there was a flight of steps leading down to the water with locked gates at the top. On the steps, low down, someone was crouching.

For a moment Michael imagined he was mistaken and that it was a piece of wood or bale of merchandise and then, as there came a movement, he thought it was a boy. He looked down again, and now he was certain. With an instantaneous swiftness of action that comes only from men who have lived with danger, he vaulted the iron gate at the top of the stairs and ran down the remaining steps.

He caught the boy’s arm as he was about to spring forward. The impact of his hold and the movement forward coincided, so that the body he touched slipped and fell in a crumpled heap on the steps, his legs in the water.

“You can’t do that,” Michael said, and his words were a command.

In answer there came only an agonised sobbing as from someone who, keyed up to commit an action and failing at the last moment, is overwhelmed by a desperate and almost instantaneous reaction.

“Now stop that,” Michael said, “and I must get you out of this. The police may be here at any moment.”

He lifted the boy up by the arm and started to drag him up the steps. It was only then that he realised that he held not a boy, but a young woman. At the top of the steps a street light fell on her face and Michael saw that she was very young and her face was ashen pale. She was in a state of collapse. Picking her up in his arms he climbed over the iron gate and on to the pavement. He put her down, propping her against the balustrade.

She sank against him and he saw that her eyes were tight closed, but the tears were streaming down her cheeks. She made no attempt to wipe them away, her arms hanging limply.

“Stop crying,” Michael said.

Surprisingly she obeyed him. He waited a moment and finally she opened her eyes and looked at him. She looked desperately white and frightened and he could see that she was very young.

“Now tell me what is the matter,” Michael said quietly.

“I can’t,” she answered. “I can’t. Oh, why did you interfere? I thought no one would see me.”

“If I had not seen you, someone else would have,” Michael replied. “If you want to die, this is not the right place to do it.”

“But I do want to...” she said.

There was something so petulant in her cry that Michael could hardly forbear from smiling.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you. Let me go.”

“I’m not going to let you go,” Michael answered, but his tone was kindly and friendly and somehow infinitely reassuring. “You are wet and you are overwrought.”

He looked down at her feet as he spoke and at the puddle of water which was gradually growing around her. She followed the direction of his gaze and said wonderingly,

“I’m wet.”

“Yes, I know you are,” Michael said, “but you might have been much wetter.”

It was as if his words reawakened her resolution and she gave a cry.

“Oh, please let me go! Please let me go!”

Her face turned in a haunted manner towards the river.

“Now listen,” Michael said, “if you want to kill yourself there are far better ways of doing it than jumping into the river – and if I don’t rescue you, the police will, in which case you will find yourself in very serious trouble. Now I am going to take you home to have a hot drink and change your shoes and stockings. Then we can talk things over. Is that all right with you?”

For answer she started to cry again.

Michael looked at her and then without another word put his arm round her shoulders and led her forward to the edge of the pavement. Standing there, he waited to signal a passing taxi.

2

In the taxi the girl sat for several seconds staring ahead of her, then she covered her face with her hands. She was crying, but not so desperately, or with such utter abandon as she had cried a few moments before. Michael said nothing, feeling that the tears in themselves might bring some relief.

They drove on through the darkness for some way until at last the girl spoke, straightening her shoulders and making what appeared to be an almost superhuman effort at control.

“Where are you taking me?”

Her voice was low and educated.

“To someone who will help you,” Michael answered, “someone who has mothered not only me all my life, but hundreds of other people. She is a very sweet person and you will feel quite safe with her.”

“But why should you do this?” the girl asked, and Michael noticed that there was fear in her voice.

“Suppose I ask you a question,” he replied. “What is your name? Don’t tell me if you would rather not.”

“My name is Mary Rankin,” she answered.

“And mine is Michael Fielding. Now we are formally introduced.”

He spoke lightly and easily, but she gave a little gasp as though he had hurt her.

“What must you think of me?” she said. “I don’t know what came over me, but I just felt that I must escape. Everything was too much too…”

Her voice broke.

“Don’t think about it,” Michael said soothingly. “It is all over now. We all have desperate moments in our lives and in this case there is no harm done, except that I’m afraid you are going to catch a frightful cold.”

Mary Rankin looked down at her wet feet, then raised her eyes to Michael’s face, which she could dimly see from the passing street lamps.

“I am so ashamed of myself,” she said, and there was something childish and rather pathetic in the words.

Michael smiled at her.

“Forget about it.”

“I wish I could.”

“Can’t you?” he asked.

“You see…” She hesitated as if the explanation were difficult to put into words.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“I’ve – I’ve been such a fool!”

“Aren’t we all at times?”

“I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “I am afraid I know very little about other people, but a great deal about my own foolishness.”

The taxi stopped for a moment in a traffic jam and Michael could see her quite clearly. Her profile against the window was delicate, her features well formed and pretty in a somewhat indecisive manner.

He could see a little pulse beating in her throat and the quivering of her fingers as she interlaced them nervously together. Her breath was coming quickly, and he noticed for the first time that her clothes were of good material and were doubtless comparatively expensive. At the same time Michael’s kindness prevented him from being too curious. He felt only a surging sense of pity for this poor waif for whom life had become too big and too frightening.

He saw her lips trembling as she sought for words to explain herself, so he said quickly,

“Don’t try to talk. You have had a nasty shock. Try to relax – think about something quite different.”

“But I want to tell you,” she insisted. “You are only a stranger and so I can talk to you. Perhaps if I had had somebody to talk to I should not be here at this moment.”

It was the eternal cry of loneliness and Michael could not help but respond to it.

“Tell me,” he said gently “We have got quite a little time ahead of us. The person to whom I am taking you lives some way away, but I will explain about that later.”

“I lived in Devonshire…” Mary began, and Michael knew that she was determined to give him her confidence. In war he had known it happen often enough for a man who had been through a tremendous shock, to lay bare his innermost feelings to anybody whom he could find to listen.

As Mary went on speaking, Michael knew that to her he had no personality but just a lay figure to whom she could speak of the fullness of her heart.

“I have not travelled much and I have been away from home very little,” Mary said. “My father is dead. He was in the Navy, and as he died soon after he retired, my mother and I had grown used through the years to being alone and being sufficient in ourselves. We had friends of course, in the village, but not very intimate ones, for we were very poor and could not entertain much.

“Then three months ago the most amazing thing happened. A film company started to make a film along the coast. We got to know some of them and amongst them was a man called Charles Marsden.”

Mary drew a deep breath and Michael thought grimly that here was the villain of the piece.

“Charles was not an actor,” Mary went on. “I think he called himself a producer, although he was not producing that particular film. Anyway, he was very important and had a lot to do with the running of it. He often used to drop in for an evening at the cottage and sit with my mother and me.

“You can imagine how fascinating it all was and how exciting for me. At last, when the film was nearly finished, he told my mother that he had a proposition to make. At first neither of us could believe our ears when he said that I had the making of a film star. He wanted me to come to London and he would give me my chance. He told my mother that he was certain that within a year I should be famous. Can you imagine what this meant to us?”

Mary made a gesture with her hands as she spoke, and then for a moment raised them to her eyes.

“I have a good idea,” Michael said. “Won’t you go on?”

“It was like a bombshell,” Mary continued, “and yet at the same time it was so exciting, so astounding, that we could hardly believe our good luck. For a long time my mother and I had been wondering what I could do to earn my living.

“I had learnt shorthand from a correspondence course and I could type, but nobody wanted a secretary in our village and I think we were both too shy and apprehensive of failure to suggest that I should go further afield to look for work.

“But this was different. This was a ready-made opportunity – here was an easy road to success. By the time we had taken in exactly what Charles meant, the whole village knew of his suggestion and were almost as thrilled as we were.

“I don’t think until that moment we knew how many friends we had. There was hardly a soul in the village who did not contribute something to my trousseau. They all realised that on the tiny pension on which my mother lived, she could not provide the proper clothes for me to go to London.

“Even the schoolchildren hemmed me handkerchiefs in their spare time, and when I left home a fortnight later I did so amidst such a shower of good wishes that I might have been a bride going away on her honeymoon.”

Mary paused a moment and then she repeated in a dull voice,

“Yes, a bride! That is what I might have been.”

There was another moment’s silence before she went on,

“We came to London. Perhaps you have already guessed the end of the story. I was so stupid, so dense, that I did not understand, not even after Charles moved me out of the lodgings to which he first took me, into a flat which he said was owned by his sister, who was away.

“It was true he gave me a few film tests, but I am quite certain they were hopeless even if he bothered to look at them. There was only one thing he wanted, and that was not connected with the films.”

“You were not in love with him?” Michael asked.

Mary turned her face towards him and he knew that her eyes were wide and surprised.

“...In love with him?” she repeated. “Such an idea never entered my head. To begin with, he seemed to me awfully old. He was bald and slightly pompous in his manner of speaking. It was interesting and exciting to listen to him, but I never thought of him as a man – not in that sort of way.”

She shuddered, and Michael guessed the shock it had been to her when she learned that Charles Marsden was very much a man, and a particularly unpleasant one at that.

“At first,” Mary went on in a quiet voice, “I did not understand what he was talking about. But he laughed at me and said I might be innocent, but not as innocent as all that. He accused me of knowing what he wanted all the time, and when I said that I would have nothing to do with him, he said that I would soon come round to his way of thinking.”

She gave a little sob.

“He banked, you see, on my being too ashamed to go back to the village – and how right he was! I am ashamed, too ashamed to go home and admit what a fool I have been.”

She gave a deep sigh that was almost a cry and then said,

“I have fought him for a whole week. This afternoon he lost his temper with me and was ready to turn me out into the street. He said I would have to go home unless I agreed to what he wanted. I have tried to find other work.

“These past few days I have answered advertisements and been to agencies, but they had nothing to offer me. I think Charles must have known what I was doing, for he said, ‘Go home then, go back and tell them that you are a failure. You, the village belle, of whom they were to be so proud.’

“I begged him to give me a real chance. I said I would scrub out the studios if only he would leave me alone.

“‘There is only one thing you are fit for, my dear,’ he laughed.”

Mary’s voice grew faint at the memory, and then she whispered,

“I think I went mad. I ran out of the flat. I don’t know where I went or what I did. I walked about – it must have been for hours – found myself by the river, and...”

“And then I came along and found you,” Michael interrupted. Well, all’s well that ends well. I will find you something to do, I promise you that. You need not go home, and I will deal with your friend Mr. Charles Marsden.”

Mary looked at him as though she was not certain that she had heard aright.

“You will find me something to do,” she repeated, “something decent?”

“Something decent,” Michael promised gravely.

At that moment the taxi stopped. Mary looked out of the window and then gave an exclamation.

“But where have you brought me?” she asked.

“Don’t be frightened,” Michael answered. “We are down in the heart of Dockland. You will understand why in a few minutes.”