No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (17 page)

‘Well – most of it, yes.’

‘As long as she hasn’t been out in this bitter wind.’

‘Only – only very briefly.’

‘She went to the park,’ said Giles. He had been reading in the corner of the day nursery; no one had really noticed him.

‘The park!’ said Dr. Perring.

‘Yes. To feed the ducks. We all did.’

‘Very unwise. Well, I shall certainly come back in the morning. And ring me at once if you’re worried. Now who is going to telephone Lady Celia, Nanny? You or I?’

‘I will,’ said Nanny.

Celia was rather wearily scooping papers into the large leather satchel she used to transport work from Paternoster Row to Cheyne Walk and back again, when the telephone on her desk rang.

‘Yes?’

‘There’s someone here for Miss Lytton, Lady Celia. A gentleman. I told him she’d gone, and now he’s asking for you.’

‘What is the gentleman’s name?’

‘Mr Ford. He’s very pressing, Lady Celia.’

‘Let me speak to him.’

Nanny put the phone down with an expression of great relief on her face. It wasn’t her fault if Lady Celia didn’t answer the phone when she rang. She would try again of course, but just for the moment, she’d have to leave it. She hadn’t left a message because the girl at the office would probably get it wrong. And Barty seemed better, she was lying quietly, half asleep. Coughing now and again, but probably by the time Lady Celia got home, to change and collect her luggage, she’d be asleep. And there’d be no need to worry anyone with it. She was obviously all right. Just a cough, like Giles and the twins had had. They’d been right as rain in a couple of days. Barty would be too. She really couldn’t have Lady Celia missing that ship, just for a cough. And being worried because Barty had been upset, and because the doctor had thought she shouldn’t be taken out. It was ridiculous. She had thought of ringing the doctor again, but now Barty was quiet, it seemed better to leave it for a bit, just let her go to sleep. That was the sensible thing to do. Definitely. Lettie thought so too. And Giles seemed to have forgotten about it, and anyway he’d gone out to tea with a friend. So really it had been a blessing that Lady Celia hadn’t answered.

‘It was just a mistake,’ said the man, ‘a stupid mistake. What she thought. A – a misunderstanding.’

He looked nearly as dreadful as LM, Celia thought. White-faced and unshaven. He was clearly a working man; even though he was wearing a rather nice tweed coat; the heavy boots and muffler and cap told her that. And his accent of course. But he was extremely attractive. There was no doubt about that. Celia felt what she could only define as a stab of admiration for LM. If she could engage the attention of a man like this, not exactly good-looking, but powerfully – well, sensual looking, she must have some extremely interesting depths. Celia thought of LM, of her rather severe clothes, her carefully controlled face, her neatly bound hair, her passion for order, and felt astonished. She had always imagined that any man friend of LM’s would be a rather prissy, intellectual, old-maidish person. Then she remembered the ravaged face of that morning, the voice throbbing with misery, the burning dark eyes, and realised they were symptoms of violent feeling in themselves. Well, good for LM.

‘What sort of misunderstanding?’ she said.

‘I don’t think I could tell you.’

‘Well then I don’t think I can help you,’ she said.

He hesitated. Then he said, ‘I was at my house last night with a – a young lady. I’d told Miss Lytton I wasn’t well. She came round and found us—’

‘Found you?’

He nodded.

‘That doesn’t sound like too much of a misunderstanding to me. I would certainly have reached the same conclusion as she did. With good reason I would have thought.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not good reason. We – we were only working.’

‘Working?’

‘Yes. Well, sort of working. Checking leaflets. For the suffragettes.’ So she’d been right. That had been the link.

‘In your house?’

He nodded miserably. ‘Yes.’

‘Mr Ford,’ said Celia, ‘forgive me. But if all you were doing was checking leaflets, why tell Miss Lytton you weren’t well? Why not invite her to join you, to help with the leaflets?’

‘I didn’t think she’d be too pleased,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Well – the young lady is very pretty. And sort of – well, sort of a bit cheeky. And she implied to Miss Lytton that—’

‘Yes? What did she imply?’

‘That more was going on than there had been.’

‘So something had been going on?’

‘Not – not really.’

‘But something?’

He hesitated.

‘Mr Ford,’ said Celia severely, ‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything. What exactly had been going on?’

‘Well, she was after me. I did know that.’

‘Really?’

It was hardly surprising. Any young lady worth her salt would have been after Mr Ford.

‘How – why were you so sure about that?’

‘Because – that is, I thought – well, the other night she – she did kiss me. Just goodnight, really, of course.’

‘She kissed you? I see. And did you kiss her?’ Celia was becoming rather engrossed in this; it was hugely intriguing. She saw him looking startled, said quickly, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just, as I say, I need to have all the facts.’

‘I—I suppose so, yes, I did.’ Humour briefly crossed his face. ‘Didn’t have much choice really. And she had been making it clear she liked , me.’

‘So then you invited her to your house?’

‘Well, in a manner of speaking, yes.’

‘Mr Ford, that’s a fairly clear manner of speaking, I would have thought.’

‘Yes. I suppose so. But it was only to do the leaflets.’

‘Oh really?’

He hesitated. Then ‘I suppose I did want her to come, I liked her. But it was only – oh, dear God, I’m stupid.’

‘It does seem as if you might be. What are your feelings for Miss Lytton? If I might ask?’

‘Oh,’ he said simply, ‘oh, I love her.’

‘You love her?’

‘Yes. Very much.’

‘So you lie to her. You invite another girl to your house, a girl who you know perfectly well finds you attractive, who, I would guess, you in turn find attractive, who will probably cause you trouble . . .’

‘Yes,’ he said, his voice very low, ‘yes that’s all perfectly right, I’m afraid.’

‘But why?’

Jago looked at her.

There was a long silence. Then, ‘For – for fun I suppose,’ he said. ‘Fun? You risk a relationship that’s important to you, for fun?’

‘I – suppose I did. Yes. I – well, I think that’s just about the size of it. She’s – well she’s a wonderful woman, Miss Lytton, but she isn’t exactly fun. And—’ he hesitated.

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘No, please tell me.’

‘Well I’m always the underdog,’ he said finally, meeting her eyes, his own half amused, half embarrassed, ‘she’s got everything, Miss Lytton has, the money, the – the class, the education, the position. I can never win. This other young lady, she thought I was wonderful. It might have been wrong of me, but that was really nice. Just for once.’

She looked at him, suddenly and sharply touched with sympathy. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘yes, I can understand that. I really can. But it was still very wrong. What you did. Wrong and terribly hurtful for LM – for Miss Lytton. And I don’t see what I can do.’

‘Lady Celia,’ he said, ‘Please. I do need your help.’

‘Yes, I daresay you do. But—’

‘Haven’t you ever done something,’ he said suddenly, ‘quite different of course, but still something that you felt you couldn’t help? That you knew you were going to regret?’

‘Possibly,’ she said carefully, ‘but I really don’t think we need to debate that now. It’s hardly going to help you.’

He was silent.

‘What you have to do,’ she said slowly, ‘is go and see her. Tell her everything you’ve told me. Even about – well about feeling you couldn’t help it. Try to make her understand.’

‘She won’t see me,’ he said with a shuddering sigh, ‘don’t think I haven’t tried. All last night, I just sat on her doorstep. And this morning, I was still there. She just stepped over me. She won’t listen to me.’

‘Well I’m hardly surprised,’ said Celia, ‘I’m afraid.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘neither am I. But – well I do love her. And she loves me.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes, she does. And she needs me,’ he added after a moment.

Celia thought fast. That was probably true. LM did need him. He had clearly been making her happy. It might be a long time, if ever, before she found someone else. And she felt instinctively that, in spite of some rather regrettable behaviour, he was actually a good man. Probably because of it. It was a rather sad, poignant story. She didn’t suppose LM was much fun. In the way he meant. He was obviously younger than her, and hungry for pleasure. And it must be very hard, being a man in so subservient a position. There was – or had been – an echo in her own situation, with Oliver.

‘Look,’ she said suddenly, ‘I’ll talk to her. I’ll try and get her to see you.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Oh, Lady Celia, would you? I’d be so grateful to you.’

‘Well don’t start being grateful yet. She hasn’t even listened to me. Let alone you. But I’ll do what I can. Only I have to be quite quick because I’m going away tonight, on a trip.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know, she told me. On the
Titanic
. What an adventure. What I wouldn’t give to go on that.’

She looked at him and smiled for the first time.

‘I hope you’d give up this other young lady,’ she said, ‘for a start. But yes, it should be wonderful. I do know how lucky I am. Now you go and sit downstairs, and I’ll telephone Miss Lytton and see what I can do for you. I’ll come down when or if I have some news.’

It was twenty minutes later that she found him, with his head in his hands, sitting in reception. She put out her own hand, touched him gently on the shoulder.

‘If you go up to Hampstead straight away, she will at least see you. I can’t promise any more than that. Now I must go. I have a boat to catch.’

‘She’s dreadfully hot,’ said Lettie, ‘and her pulse is that fast. Breathing funny too. I don’t know that we shouldn’t get the doctor back.’

‘She’s perfectly all right,’ said Nanny, ‘she’s asleep isn’t she? Best left. We shouldn’t worry Lady Celia. It wouldn’t be right. Spoil her trip.’

‘But Nanny—’

‘Lettie, she’s no worse than Venetia was. Look what happened to her. Forty-eight hours, and right as rain. You’ve really got to trust my judgment on this.’

‘Yes, all right, Nanny. Oh, there’s her car now. You don’t think we should tell her?’

‘No, Lettie, I don’t.’

‘You may come in, just for a moment,’ said LM, ‘but I have only five minutes. I really am extremely busy.’

Her voice was cold, detached; she looked at Jago as if he was a stranger, a travelling salesman come to waste her time. He stepped inside.

‘Could we – could we sit down somewhere?’

‘I don’t see any real necessity for that. Since it will be such a short conversation.’

‘Meg—’ His voice was heavy, shaky with emotion.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m so – sorry.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes. Very, very sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

‘I should have thought,’ said LM, ‘that was rather obvious. From what I saw, at any rate. A young, rather attractive woman. Overcoming you to a considerable extent. Well, I suppose it was natural, after all.’

‘Yes,’ said Jago, taking a deep breath, ‘yes, it was. Natural, I mean.’

LM physically blenched. She went very white.

‘I think you should leave at once,’ she said, ‘if that is all you can offer me. By way of explanation.’

‘It is,’ he said, ‘yes.’

She stood up, walked over to the front door, opened it.

‘Good evening,’ she said.

‘Meg! Meg, don’t. Don’t be like this.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said, a red flush rising now in her pale face, ‘how do you expect me to be? Forgiving? Understanding? I’m sorry, Jago, but you read me very wrongly if that is the case.’

‘I don’t expect that, of course,’ he said, ‘but I – hoped for it.’

‘I daresay you did. Well, you are to be disappointed, I’m afraid. Please leave.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I won’t leave. Not till I’ve had my say. Then I’ll go. Shut the door, Meg. If you will.’

She looked at him; he seemed more authoritative suddenly, less demeaned. She shut the door again. ‘Go on then,’ she said, ‘have your say.’

‘It was – natural as you say. None the better for it. I don’t feel any less ashamed. But that was what it was. She was pretty and scheming and she got the better of me. It didn’t change how I feel for you, Meg. It didn’t make me love you less.’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ she said, ‘what am I supposed to do now? Give you my blessing, send you off to see her whenever you want to?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘no, of course not. Just – see it my way. Not the – the being unfaithful. It was only a kiss and a cuddle, mind.’

‘Jago, I don’t want this sort of detail.’

‘You do,’ he said, ‘well, you should. It’s important. I would never bed another woman, never ever. I couldn’t. Not after you, not after knowing you. It would be unthinkable. Horrible.’

‘I see,’ she said. She sounded grim; but there was a gleam of something forming in her dark eyes: humour? Understanding? He took courage from it.

‘No. But I can’t help finding someone – attractive. That’s what’s natural. No one can help that.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Well – no one but you,’ he said and risked a grin. She stared back at him, stony-faced. Too soon to grin. He hurried on. ‘But what I did, inviting her to my place, the lying, that was unforgivable. I could help that. And for hurting you, making you so unhappy. I feel so ashamed, Meg. So very ashamed.’

She looked at him, said nothing.

‘I love you,’ he said, ‘hard for you to believe it, just at the moment, but I do. I love you like I never loved anyone. Well, there’s not been many of course. But – more than – more than anyone. Ever.’