Faster! Faster! (28 page)

Would it be any good, Sal wondered, to ask if Claudia wouldn't take the morning off? She didn't look fit to go to the office.

Better wait, perhaps, and find out her mood. She looked far too tired to offer lucid explanations about the inability of the office to get on without her for the day.

“How was Anna?” Sal enquired.

“Very well, I think. She and Adolf are going back to America after Christmas.”

“Will Taffy go with them?”

“No,” said Claudia, speaking carefully. “Taffy isn't going with them. I quite realize that you think I'm wrong about that, but I've gone over the ground very, very thoroughly, and I'm pretty certain that it wouldn't answer. It's Taffy I'm thinking of. Naturally it would be a great help to me financially, to accept. They've made the most generous offers, and one needn't hesitate about that side of it because Adolf is apparently getting richer every day, and after all, they haven't anybody to come after them. But Taffy's not like Sylvia. She could very easily lose her head completely and get into some silly muddle over there, that Anna might not be able to cope with at all.”

A familiar wave of irritation rushed over Sal.

She forgot all about her compassion for Claudia's exhausted appearance.

“What a very odd reason!” she remarked coldly. “If you call it a reason at all, that is.”

Claudia looked at her without resentment.

“You're quite right,” she admitted, “it isn't really a reason, is it?”

She smiled wanly.

“I might have known I shouldn't get that past you, Sal. No. The real fact is that Anna, poor darling, let loose the repressions of years last night, and told me a good many things that I'm sure she really felt. The fact that they hurt me terribly hasn't got anything to do with it. I'm trying not to let that influence me in any way. But they did prove to me that, holding the opinion she does of me, Anna couldn't be the right person to have charge of my child.”

Sal felt slightly disconcerted.

“I'm sorry,” she said mechanically—and indeed she did feel sorry, for the pain and fatigue evident in Claudia's whole bearing.

It was a relief to be able to exclaim, “There's the postman!” and go down the stairs to get the letters.

There were several for Claudia, sent on from Arling, and one from Copper directed to her at the flat. Sal had learnt the day before of his journey to the Midlands, and its object.

She went upstairs again and poured out coffee whilst they looked at their letters.

Would Claudia say anything?

Sal found it impossible not to glance across at her.

“Copper's been offered the secretaryship,” Claudia said at once, “if he can put up the capital. Two hundred pounds, it is. Of course all the
details are still to be settled and it would be six months on trial to begin with, but his friend Clive Branscombe is evidently anxious to have him, and he's backing the whole scheme heavily.”

“I hope it will be all right,” said Sal simply. “Will the money be a difficulty?”

“It could be managed, I suppose. Copper says he's coming home to-morrow—Saturday—and we shall have to talk it over. He's forgotten that I shall be at Eastbourne till Monday.”

“Couldn't you go home on Sunday evening?”

“Perhaps. We'll see: I can't disappoint Maurice.”

Sal would not dispute the point.

Presently Claudia looked up again.

“I've got a letter from Sylvia. She really is beginning to like Paris and enjoy her work, and she's making friends with one or two people. There are some Americans to whom Anna gave her an introduction who are being very kind to her. I hope—and I'm beginning to believe—that it's going to be a success and give her just the kind of independence and experience that she needed.”

“Don't answer this if you don't want to of course, but I've sometimes wondered why you changed your plans about Sylvia all of a sudden, and sent her to Paris instead of letting her come to London.”

“It was her own decision. I think I actually suggested Paris in the very first instance of all—or perhaps Mother did, I'm not sure—but Sylvia decided she'd go there.”

Sal nodded, wondering if she was to be told any more.

“You've guessed, probably, that there was rather more to it than that,” Claudia said with a smile. “It was that Bank Holiday week-end at Arling—do you remember?—when Andrew Quarrendon was staying with us.”

“I remember thinking that Quarrendon was very much attracted by her.”

“Yes. Well, that wouldn't have mattered but unfortunately he told her so, at the same time giving her to understand that he had no intention of marrying her. Sylvia was a little bit in love with him, odd though it seems, and—it hurt her. That's the whole story, practically. It was much better that she shouldn't take a job in London where there would have been every possibility of their meeting. The Paris idea wasn't at all a new one and it was quite simple to send her over there. I think from the tone of her letters that it's answering very well.”

“Do you ever hear of Quarrendon?”

Claudia shook her head.

“Why should I? You'll grant that I'm not a particularly conventional woman, Sal, but I didn't think Andrew Quarrendon behaved well. It was my own fault, partly, for not realizing that Sylvia had grown up and that one ought to be more careful.”

“Careful about what?”

Claudia looked up in surprise.

“About letting her run the risk of—of pain and disillusionment,” she said.

Sal pushed back her chair.

“Poor Sylvia,” she remarked non-committally.

“She'll get over it. She
is
getting over it,” Claudia asserted. “Mercifully, things don't leave permanent scars at her age as a rule.”

Then I wonder why, thought Sal, you came between her and experience. I don't believe Andrew Quarrendon would have done her harm really, and Claudia of all people has penetration enough to have known that.

She did not speak her thought aloud. It would be of no use, and Claudia looked ill and tired.

“I know it's exasperating to be told so, but you don't look terribly fit this morning. Why don't you stay here and I'll ring up from the office and let you know if there's anything urgent?”

Claudia smiled. It was a grateful, charming smile, but her voice held the old note of inflexibility.

“Thank you, my dear, so much. But I think I must go. I'm all right.”

“Supposing there's nothing that Ingatestone and I can't deal with, couldn't you come back here and rest until it's time to go down to Eastbourne? That is, if you really are going to Eastbourne this evening.”

“I'm certainly going to Eastbourne this evening, and although it's very nice of you, I couldn't ever look myself in the face again,” Claudia declared gaily, “if I did the very thing that I'm always accusing other people of doing—lying down on the job.”

Sal shrugged her shoulders.

These were all sentiments that she had heard before, and she wondered why she had deliberately
given Claudia so good an opportunity for assailing her ears with them once more.

Without wasting further words she prepared to set out for the office.

“What a hell of a day it's been!” pensively observed Miss Frayle, flinging down the last sheet of a typewritten memorandum.

“Are you doing anything to-night, Frayle?”

“‘Friday night's Amami night.' My two step-ins, three pairs of stockings, and one pyjama get their weekly wash to-night and are dried on the hot-water pipes. A home-girl's life is made up of little things.”

“An office girl's life is made up of damned hard work and very little fun, if you ask me.”

“You never spoke a truer word, Collier. I sometimes think I'll go on the streets for a rest.”

“I bet it wouldn't be as strenuous as this office,” Miss Collier grumbled.

“Of course it wouldn't. Trouble is, how does one begin? I must ask Ma Ingatestone.”

“She's forgotten, it was all so long ago.”

“I say, Collier, could you come to the Symphony Concert one night? They're doing the
Eroika
next week.”

“O.K. I'd love it.”

“We shall have to get there early; I can't afford anything but the gallery.”

“Oh, neither can I. Standing's frightfully good for taking off weight, though.”

“How too marvellous!” said Miss Frayle languidly. “I honestly think, sometimes, that I put on a stone a day.”

“I wonder if tea is bad.”

Young Edie came in.

“Mrs I. says I can go off now. Is that O.K. or is there anything I can do for you?”

“O.K. by me, young Edie,” said Frayle. “I'm hoping to get home myself within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Trot along,” Miss Collier benevolently instructed Edie. “How's the great work getting on?”

Edie blushed and giggled.

“I don't get much time for working at it, do I?”

“Well, when it's a best-seller you'll remember us, won't you? I shall want a copy of the first edition, signed and dated.”

“O.K. Miss Collier. G'night.”

“Good-night. I say, is it raining?”

“Simply pouring.”

“Oh, hell!” sighed Miss Collier.

Mrs Ingatestone came in as Edie went out.

“Mrs Winsloe will sign the letters now, Miss Frayle. After that we can shut up shop.”

Frayle snatched up her papers and skimmed across the room and up the stairs.

She entered the room of her employer decorously.

God, the woman looks all in! she thought.

“Did those chintz patterns go back to the city all right?”

“Yes, Mrs Winsloe. Edie took them this afternoon.”

After that, the letters were signed rapidly and in silence.

“That's all, Miss Frayle, thank you. I shan't want you again this evening. I'm going down to Eastbourne to-night and I shan't be here again till Monday morning. If there's anything urgent, though I don't see why there should be, take it in to Miss Oliver, and if necessary she can get me on the telephone.”

“O.K. Mrs Winsloe.”

“Good-night.”

“Good-night,” repeated Miss Frayle. And she added to herself, “You look as if you needed it, too.”

The same thought crossed Sal Oliver's mind when Claudia came in to her room to say that she was just going.

Unlike Doris Frayle, Sal spoke it aloud.

“It's a perfectly filthy night, pouring with rain, and the roads will be greasy and the traffic's always bad on a Friday evening. I wish you'd go early to-morrow morning instead. It can't make any real difference to Maurice.”

Claudia gave her a slight, grave smile.

“I've never let him down yet, and I'm not going to begin now. I told him I'd come to-night. Then I can take him out to-morrow morning.”

Sal was on the point of saying, “You don't look fit to drive a car—for goodness' sake go by train.”

But of what use would it be?

Claudia, in the opinion of Sal, would only
derive a perverse satisfaction from hearing, and disregarding, such an observation.

In reality Claudia was much nearer to capitulation than her partner supposed.

She felt far more tired than she could remember having felt for a very long while, and the background to a day of hard work had been the miserable, reiterated recollection of Anna's words of the previous evening.

Whether they were true or untrue it hurt unbearably that Anna should have spoken them, that Anna should believe them true.

Claudia kept on telling herself over and over again in futile repetition that she must face Anna's accusations and examine them impartially. But she was so tired—and there was the drive to Eastbourne—

Perhaps, after all, she could remain in London that night—face her problems alone and in the dark—and go to Maurice on the following morning?

A queer little picture kept forming itself before her mind's eye of herself valiantly driving out into the night, because she wouldn't fail him. She wouldn't let down her job. …

Claudia even smiled a little, recognizing that she was dramatizing the situation.

Not very like me to do that, she thought.

All the time, she was putting away papers, leaving everything in order and ready for Monday
morning's work, and finally pulling on her heavy motoring coat and dark béret.

On the threshold she paused and looked round the room. Then she went slowly back to her desk, took up the telephone, and dialled the number of the Zienszis' flat.

Anna's voice answered.

“Yes?”

“It's Claudia speaking, darling. I'm just off to Eastbourne for the week-end and I thought I'd like to say good-night.”

“Oh, darling, how sweet of you!” Anna's voice, quick and warm, came back instantly. “I'm so glad you rang up. I was going to write.”

“Anna—about yesterday evening—I dare say you were partly right. I'll try and see it—look at it quite straight.”

“I oughtn't to have said it. I've been wretched—I think I was horrible. Please, Claudia darling, forgive me.”

“There isn't anything to forgive. It's all right, truly.”

“You're so generous and good. Thank you for ringing up. Now I shall be much happier.”

“So shall I. Let's see if we can meet when I get back.”

“Ring me up here on Monday morning. Give my love to Maurice. Have a nice time, Claudie.”

“You too, Annie.”

It was their childhood's formula.

“Good-night, darling. Thank you for ringing up.”

“Good-night, darling Anna.”

Claudia hooked up the receiver with a strong feeling of comfort and relief.

She went out to the car.

It was a very dark night and the rain fell steadily.