Orphan Bride (24 page)

“You won’t let me do that,” she said sadly. “Julian—I shall go away.”

He looked at her sharply and his eyes narrowed. “You don’t by any chance imagine you’re in love with Luke, do you?”

She shook her head.

“No, I’m not in love with Luke. I’m not in love with anybody.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said dryly. “At least among your other foolishnesses you’ve spared me that aspect of the adolescent.”

H
is voice was still bitter, and she knew an impulse to ease the hurt which Luke had dealt him.

“Julian, I’m sorry
—
” she began, but he broke in, his
hand on the door knob.

“Don’t be. You told me only yesterday that I trusted people either too much or not enough. I don’t know which category referred to Luke and which to you, but I’ve only myself to thank.”

Jennet stared at him. The promise of last night’s new tenderness had indeed fled with the morning.

“Oh, go away, go away,” she
cried, and broke into
desolate weeping.

He stood looking down at her for a long minute, and sadness wiped the bitterness from his dark face, then he
opened the door, without another word, and quietly shut it behind him.

Jennet did not hear him go. She was shaken by her own weeping, blind and deaf to anything outside that suddenly released emotion. She wept for many things; for lost felicity which had been so nearly
within her grasp, for the bitterness behind Julian’s anger, for the knowledge that she could perhaps have loved him. She did not think of the future; she only knew that she must go, not to Pennycross to-morrow at Julian’s bidding, but away from them all, away where they could not reach her and talks about gratitude.

She looked at the clock. It was after twelve. Piggy would be back any time from her morning’s shopping. She must go before
sh
e returned and learnt of Julian’s new arrangements.

Jennet went up to her room and bathed her face in cold water. She packed a small case hurriedly with bare necessities, scribbled a bald little note to Piggy
telling her not to worry, and turned out her handbag for some loose coins. She had enough, she decided
,
a little wildly, enough to get her to the other side of London, to lose herself in the
crowds and become anonymous. She had no though
t
beyond that.

She propped the note up on the mantelpiece in Piggy’s sitting room, then with one last look of distaste at Luke’s expensive flowers, slipped out of the flat and down the stairs. Getting on the first bus she saw she took a six-penny fare.

As the bus rattled along she had time to think more rationally, and the problem of what she was to do next presented alarming aspects. She could not go riding round in buses all day, besides it would use up her few last
coins. She must be housed and fed while she looked for work, and without money neither of these, things were possible.

The conductor was shouting: “Oxford Street! Oxford Street!” and out of the window Jennet saw the bright gold lettering of Sparks & Spicer’s store. Sparks & Spicer
...
Oxford Street
...
that was somehow familiar. Milly! Milly White worked
in
a department in Sparks & Spicer, and Jennet had promised to go and see her.

She picked up
her case and jumped off the bus just as it was beginning to move.

As she pushed her way through the crowds inside the store, she was beset with fears that Milly might have left. It was a long time ago, that meeting back in June. If Milly had gone ... But she was there in the haberdashery, her tight curls gleaming with peroxide.

“Yes
”
she said disdainfully as Jennet approached the counter, then her whole manner changed. “Why, if it isn’t little Jenny-wren! Took your time about calling round I must say! I thought you must have gone high-hat with your posh way of living! How are you, ducks?”

“Milly, I must speak to you—in private,” Jennet said in a low voice. “I—I’m in trouble.”

Milly gave her a shrewd look.

“I should say!
”
she remarked. She leant across the counter, ignoring a woman
impatiently tapping with her purse to attract attention. “Listen. I get out for lunch at one. Meet me at the A.B.C. round the corner. I’ll be along as soon as I can get rid of these old trouts.”

Jennet found the A.B.C. and joined a queue waiting for tables. She was still standing there when Milly arrived, but in five minutes they had a table.

“Not used to this, are you?” she said to Jennet with a grin. “Your fine friends don’t have to queue to get a cold cup of tea and some
salad. It’s funny, you know, when you think you were reared just like the rest of us. Some people have all the luck, and myself, I rather fancied that snooty, high-handed feller with the groggy leg. Has he been making passes at you? Spill your Aunt Milly all the dirt.”

She listened, her eyes opening wider and wider as Jennet unravelled the happenings of the past year, and did not even notice that Jennet only ordered a cup of coffee.

“It sounds exactly like a film,” she said at the end of the recital. “Bloke picking a wife out of an orphanage—if I’d known that when he was looking us all over as if we were
lumps of cheese, I’d
’
ve tried to be more refined. Don’t you want to marry him, then?”

“No,” said Jennet bleakly. “It would be like living with a—a piece of granite.”

Milly laughed.

“Don’t you believe it! That kind’s always the worst once you get under their skin. He’d be no piece of granite, nor an iceberg neither. Oh, well, it’s your funeral. What
are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Jennet in a tired little voice. “I must find work, but I don’t know how. I’m not trained for anything. I thought perhaps you could help me.”

Milly took out a compact and powdered her face lavishly.

“Well, I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I might get you into Sparks and Spicer, but—have you got any money?
”

“No. Only about a shilling.”

“Laud sakes, girl! How do you think you’re going to live? Well, I suppose you can share my palatial attic for a night or two. God, I must scram or I’ll get fired! Meet me here for a cuppa hot at half-past five and I’ll have it all planned out. And here—buy yourself a brace of quails in aspic or something. You look done in. So long!
”

She tossed half a crown on to the table, paid her bill at the desk and wit
h
a wave of the hand was gone.

Jennet looked at the half-crown and wanted to cry again. She shouldn’t be taking Milly’s money. She should be paying for both their lunches. But she was beginning to feel sick for lack of food, so she expended elevenpence on a sandwich and another cup of coffee and put the change carefully away for their evening meal.

Milly appeared punctually at half-past five, and announced that she had it all fixed.

“Bert has a pal in the packing-room,” she said
. “
They’ll slip you in for a few days till we can think of something else, but you’ll have to look slippy—you won’t be on the official payroll. There’s one thing Bert says you must do— write to someone and say you’re staying with friends, or they may put the police on to you if you just disappear. I’ve brought paper and things and a stamp. Do it now, and we’ll post it when we go out.”

Jennet scribbled a note for Piggy and passed it over to Milly for inspection.

“That’s all right,” she said.
“
If you give an address they can just come along and haul you back—at least Aunt
Emily could. Of course, Bert says you could apply to the Courts or something for change of guardianship, but it would be a bit difficult to make out a case seeing that they’ve always treated you well, and it isn’t a crime anyway for a feller to want to marry you. Come on, we’ll shove this in a letter box, and then Bert’s going to take us to the pictures.”

Julian drove straight from Piggy’s flat to Luke’s. The note that Piggy had silently handed him on his arrival in the afternoon had told him nothing, and he had crumpled it up, exclaiming savagely:

“The little fool! She’s gone to Luke.”

“I don’t think she would go to Luke,” she said quietly. “What happened this morning? I left Jennet so—so eager for your arriva
l.
She seemed quite different—as if she was beginning to think of you as human at last.”

“We quarrelled over Luke,” he replied shortly. “He’d been making love to the child behind my back and used the whole wretched business for copy.”

“Luke
always was like that,” Piggy said blandly. “And I can imagine that anyone as sheltered and unspoilt as Jennet must have been irresistible.”

Julian looked at her quickly.

“Did you know he was making love to her?”

Piggy s small eyes snapped.

“Of course I knew. Sit down, Julian, and stop giving that leg of yours more to do than necessary. The trouble with you is that you never see what’s under your nose. What’s the use of upsetting the girl and yourself over something that’s perfectly natural?”

Julian did not sit down, but he stopped dragging his lame foot backwards and forwards over the carpet.

“I trusted Luke,” he persisted stubbornly. “He was the only man I did trust. Luke’s flirting is always so blatant and open that I never thought it would amount to more than that. But to make a fool of the child, to run the risk of hurting her—I didn’t think he’d do that.”

Piggy sighed. Men were very blind.

“I
don’t suppose he
thought
about it,” she said, “except to be intrigued and curious about the whole situation. But it’s quite consistent, Julian. Your toys were always a source of great attraction for him.”

“Jennet was scarcely a toy.”

“Wasn’t she? Perhaps Luke could hardly be blamed for thinking she was, or Jennet either for the matter of that.”

“She told me much
the same thing,” said Julian grimly, “and said I had never given her anything that she really wanted. That after a year’s careful planning and scheming for the smallest thing that would ensure her health and comfort.”

“Oh, m
y
dear boy!” Piggy made a small
helpless gesture with her plump little hands. “Can you really deceive yourself, even now?”

“No,” said Julian abruptly, and passed a weary hand, over his black head. “No, Piggy, I can’t. We none of us gave her the one thing that mattered—affection. Such a
s
mall thing to make so big a difference.
Well, if she’s gone to Luke, it’s my own fault. Temper—and jealousy—yes, Piggy, I admit it—have always been my undoing. I’ll go and find her.
”

“I don’t think
—
” Piggy began, but she did not finish. Julian would not find
her
with Luke, and where then was he to look?

Luke was typing in his study when Julian walked in, and he looked up in surprise.

“Hello, Svengali!” he said. “What brings you here at this time of day?”

“Where is she?” said Julian curtly.

Luke raised his sandy eyebrows.

“Where is who? I don’t keep lovely houris hidden in the bedroom during working hours.”

“Stop fooling,” snapped Julian. “Where’s Jennet?”

Luke’s bright eyes began to dance.
“O-ho! Your foundling’s given you the slip, has she?
And why should you think she’s here?”

“Because you’ve abused your privilege abominably in your unscrupulous search for copy and probably made the poor child think she’s in love with you.”

Luke pushed back his typewriter.

“Really, Julian! You talk like a book. Where do you get these rolling phrases from?” he drawled.

Julian half raised his stick as though he would
have struck him, and Luke got to his feet. He was unsmiling now.

“She’s not here,” he said quietly. “And I haven’t seen or heard from her since the day before yesterday. When did she go
?
”

“This morning. I read your cheap little chronicle. It didn’t occur to you, I suppose, that you might hurt her.
”

Luke lighted a cigarette.

“Did it occur to you that yours might do the same
”
’ he remarked.

“That was quite different,” said Julian icily. “At least I was careful not to get involved emotionally.”

“Too damn careful, if you ask me,” r
eto
rted Luke. “A little more emotion and a little less over
seei
ng might have made a hell of a difference. I always told you, Julian, this wouldn’t work. I’m sorry the poor sweet has been driven into running away, but I can’t say I altogether blame her.”

“In that case, there’s no more to be said,” Julian remarked, turning away. “If you should hear from her, Luke,
the least you can do is to let me know.”

“I certainly will, but in the meantime what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve wired Aunt Emily to see if she’s gone back there, and if she hasn’t, I suppose the only thing to do is put the police on to it.”

“Not very pleasant, that. I should wait a bit, if I were you. She may come back.”

Julian turned back, and Luke saw the greyness in his face
.