Escape from Passion, page 14
There was a tension between the two men too obvious to be misunderstood. Hastily Fleur turned towards the house.
“You will excuse me,” she said, “if I hurry on,” and was gone before they could reply.
As she ran across the garden, she felt near to tears.
‘Why am I such a fool?’ she asked herself. ‘Why did I let myself get involved in all this? I hate Anthony Ashwin! I hate all men!’
Then she knocked on the door.
There was no answer and she knocked again. The door opened abruptly and Evans stood there with her finger on her lips.
Before Fleur could speak she came out through the door, closing it gently behind her.
“Don’t make a noise,” Evans said reprovingly. “She’s not awake yet. It will do her good to have a long rest after that bad night and I’m not sayin’ who’s to blame for that either.”
“But I don’t understand. I thought – ”
The words died away. So Mrs. Mitcham had not required her. Sir Norman had come in search of her and told a deliberate lie.
Why?
She asked the question again and again in the privacy of her own room.
What, she wondered, could have been Sir Norman’s motive? Dislike of Anthony?
Surely he would not let such a feeling influence him to the extent of telling a falsehood to one of his employees, a lie that was bound to be discovered?
‘I don’t understand it,’ Fleur thought.
She walked restlessly up and down. She felt that Anthony’s coming had involved her in a chain of intrigue that it would be wiser to escape from once and for all.
Barham knowing that he had come to her sitting room. And Sir Norman discovering them alone in the Temple, it was all unpleasant and so it made her feel undignified and rather degraded.
‘I shall leave,’ Fleur told herself.
Yet she knew that above all things she would hate to leave The Priory. She had not been pretending when she had told Anthony that she loved it.
‘In a month or so I shall be strong enough to do war work, she thought, and then I shall have to leave anyway.’
And yet she knew that Sir Norman could doubtless get her exempted and wondered if he would indeed take the trouble.
Perhaps he was already considering dispensing with her services, perhaps that was why he had deliberately sent her in from the garden, determined that her behaviour should not set a bad example to the household.
And what had he said to Anthony after she had left?
It was like a nightmare, these questions coming one upon another, haunting her, giving her no peace from their insistence. Fleur was thankful when Mrs. Mitcham was awake and Evans came to fetch her. Anything was better than being alone with her thoughts and with the restlessness of her own mind.
She gave the old lady her tea, read to her and then at last it was time for dinner. As Fleur changed, she knew that she was dreading the moment when she would see Sir Norman again.
She half-played with the idea of sending down a message to say that she had a headache, but then, determined not to be cowardly, she forced herself to go downstairs with her head held high.
‘If only Anthony Ashwin was going to be here,’ she thought.
Anything was better than one of those long dreary meals with their awkward silences and now the added trial of wondering what Sir Norman was thinking about her.
To Fleur’s surprise, however, the meal started well. Sir Norman began almost at once to talk about an inspection that was to be held at the Works the following day. The Minister of Aircraft Production was to be present and he was to come back to the house later for a meal before proceeding to London.
There were various arrangements to be made, they discussed them and then Sir Norman went on to speak of how the factory had expanded since the Minister’s last visit.
“In only a few months we have doubled our output,” he stressed, “That is something at any rate and at this rate of progress our returns by next year should be greater than anything the Germans can achieve in a single one of their factories.”
He spoke enthusiastically and Fleur saw for the first time how close to his heart was the business he himself had created.
“What made you think of starting a Works?” she asked him.
Sir Norman looked at her with a faint smile.
“Are you really interested?”
“But, of course,” Fleur replied and with a sudden flash of independence she added, “I should not ask you if I was not interested.”
“I believe that is true,” Sir Norman said unexpectedly and then he started to talk.
He told Fleur how, as a small boy, he had always wanted to own a bicycle. There was something in the idea of propelling oneself along that fascinated him and from attaining one ambition he went on to yearn for a motor car.
Through sheer hard work he became a qualified mechanic and then a partner in a firm of repairers. There were three of them in the business, all about the same age, and they worked eighteen hours a day to keep their heads above water.
It was in the days when motor cars were in their infancy and they thought out various improvements on the cars that were brought in for repair and finally evolved the tremendous idea of building a model of their own.
They worked night and day on this car and when it was completed they realised they had something good and something that was not already on the market.
The main question then was, of course, the finding of capital, but by one of those lucky coincidences, which do happen in real life, they sold their first car to an eccentric exceedingly wealthy old man who took a fancy to the three young men.
He financed them and they started the Mitcham Motor Works. The business was put in Norman’s name because he was the eldest and then, when things were really beginning to get going, the war broke out in 1914 and they all enlisted.
Norman was wounded soon after he arrived in France and was invalided home again. He was in hospital with a badly damaged foot for six months before he was discharged from the Army.
He kept the Works going, but first one partner was killed and then the other. In 1918 he was the sole owner for the ‘three musketeers’ as they might have called themselves, had left their shares to each other.
Sir Norman told the story badly, stating his facts baldly and without theatrical effect, yet even so he could not destroy the drama of it all. Fleur could fill in so much of what was left unsaid, but once Sir Norman reached the start of his great successes after the war, he lapsed into silence.
He made no mention of his personal life, of his marriage to Cynthia Ashwin or even his purchase of The Priory.
It was with an intense feeling of disappointment that Fleur realised that she was to hear no more. Dinner had come to an end.
She rose to her feet as Barham brought in the coffee.
“I must go to your mother,” she said. “Thank you for telling me about the Works. I think it is one of the most exciting stories I have ever heard. Perhaps one day you will let me go round the factory. I should be so very interested.”
For a moment Sir Norman did not answer and then, as she reached the door, he spoke,
“When my mother has been shut up for the night, Miss Garton, I wonder if you would come down to the library for a few minutes. There is something I want to ask you.”
“That will be about ten o’clock, Sir Norman.”
As Fleur went upstairs, she wondered what he could possibly wish to say to her. Could it be about Anthony? And yet, even if he disapproved of her behaviour, what could he do?
When she was off duty, her time was her own.
Besides Sir Norman had certainly not seemed disapproving this evening, in fact, she had never known him more conversational or more interesting.
‘I don’t believe that any of these people have ever allowed him to talk,’ she felt. ‘That is half the trouble. They have let him become so reserved that he finds it difficult to come out of his shell.’
Mrs. Mitcham was waiting for her, the coffee by her bedside.
“You’re late,” she said accusingly. “Who’s been keeping you, the handsome Anthony?”
“No, I have not seen him this evening,” Fleur replied. “Sir Norman was telling me how the Works started. I was very interested.”
“Work and the Works, that’s all he ever thinks about,” Mrs. Mitcham said disdainfully. “At one time it was all motor cars and now it’s nothing but aeroplanes.”
“But still they have certainly served their purpose. Look what Sir Norman has been able to buy with the money he has made from them.”
She could not help letting her glance linger for a moment on the jewels sparkling round Mrs. Mitcham’s withered neck and on her stiff ugly fingers. Against her quilted bedjacket a fine aquamarine brooch, the stones set in a design of flowers and leaves, sparkled and shone.
“Oh, it has its points,” Mrs. Mitcham said and then added unabashed, “I expect you are looking at that brooch. Norman gave me that for my last birthday. Yes, money can buy things like jewels, though, as I told him, he shouldn’t be buying them for an old woman like me but for someone young and pretty.”
“Why should he if he does not want to?” Fleur said and was surprised at the sharpness of her tope.
This eternal harping on sex, she now thought to herself, was getting on her nerves, it was all irritating and unnecessary. Really, when women reached Mrs. Mitcham’s age, it was more natural for them to be concerned with religion or the afterlife than with the lusts of the flesh,
But Mrs. Mitcham was quite unrebuked. She looked at Fleur and chuckled to herself.
“You’re upset and rather irritable. What is it, dearie? You had better tell me. Has young Anthony been making love to you?”
“I should not tell you if he had,” Fleur retorted. “You know too much.”
“So he has!” Mrs. Mitcham said excitedly. “That’s what I expected, but don’t let Norman catch you. He disapproves of Anthony.”
“Why?”
“Well, I’ve always had my suspicions that he encouraged Cynthia to get up to mischief. He was always hanging about the place and taking her up to London when Norman was busy. Of course people said that they were like brother and sister, still one never knows human nature being what it is.”
“I don’t believe that Lady Cynthia liked her cousin that way.”
There was no reason for Fleur to make such a remark, it was just that her conviction was strong that Cynthia would not have cared for Anthony as a lover. He was too obvious and too suave for anyone so intelligent and as lovely as Fleur pictured Cynthia in her imagination.
“And what do you know about it?” Mrs. Mitcham asked.
But while Fleur answered humbly,
“Nothing, of course,” and knew herself snubbed, but she remained completely unshaken in her innermost conviction.
It was after ten o’clock when Mrs. Mitcham was finally shut up for the night. Fleur was just making her way to her room when she remembered that Sir Norman had wanted to see her.
‘I wonder what it can be,’ she thought again as she went down to the library. ‘Perhaps it is the sack after all. Oh well, who cares?’
She had a wild idea that perhaps Sir Norman had discovered that Anthony had come to her room the night before and was determined to prevent him doing so tonight by keeping her out of the way.
There was no reason to imagine such a thing, but Fleur, as she opened the library door, felt small and insignificant like a schoolboy approaching the Headmaster.
Sir Norman was not at his desk, instead, he was sitting in a big armchair reading. He put down the book as soon as she came into the room and rose to his feet.
“Oh, here you are, Miss Garton,” he said. “Did my mother expect me to go up and say ‘goodnight’ to her?”
“I don’t think so,” Fleur answered.
She remembered uncomfortably that Evans had said,
“I hope to goodness he doesn’t come up here upsettin’ her again. It’ll take her days to get over that last flare-up. It’s always the same when they have a set-to of that sort, she’ll go on until she’s said her say even if it takes her a month of Sundays.”
“No, I am sure that she did not,” Fleur added, wondering if it would be wiser to suggest that he kept away from his mother until she had forgotten the whole episode.
“I am glad,” Sir Norman said. “It is always difficult to know exactly what my mother will be like on these occasions. Sometimes she forgives me at once and then is furious if I am not there to play the penitent, but at other times I am in her black books for a long time.”
He smiled and Fleur found herself smiling in response.
“It must be difficult,” she agreed sympathetically.
“Will you sit down?” he asked her.
He pointed to the sofa. She sat down rather on the edge, nervously wondering what was coming.
“Do you like being here?” Sir Norman asked abruptly.
The question was unexpected and Fleur found herself hesitating before she found words to reply,
“I admire this house more than I can say,” she began after a pause. “And I do like being with your mother. She is very unlike the average old lady of her age.”
“That is true enough. She has always been original. Sometimes it has its disadvantages.”
Again Sir Norman smiled and there was a twinkle in his eyes.
Fleur looked at him in amazement. Why had he altered, she wondered and what was the point of this conversation.
“I am very glad that you are happy here,” he went on.
He stood up suddenly from his chair and stood with his back to the empty hearth.
“There was something I wanted to say to you.”
Fleur held her breath.
“It is rather awkward for me and I hope you will understand if I seem to be clumsy and untactful.”
Fleur felt that she knew exactly what was coming. She stiffened a little, feeling already a rising resentment within her.
There was silence and then Sir Norman cleared his throat.
“I have forbidden my wife’s cousin, Anthony Ashwin, the house,”
“On my account?” Fleur asked.
“There are other reasons too but perhaps it is the one that concerns us at the moment.”
“I think you have no right to do that,” Fleur said hotly.
“Have I not?”
She felt impotent and ineffective.
“I don’t think I understand. What are you implying by this?”
“I am not implying anything, but I am prepared to state facts. Anthony Ashwin is a rotter and a waster and you are a very attractive young woman. What you do in your spare time is, of course, not my business. As your employer, I am only entitled to ask for your loyalty and your efficiency during working hours.
“But, as that same employer and as your host while you are living under my roof, I have no right to subject you to insult or to ask you to meet people who are undesirable.”
“Don’t you think those are rather strong words?” Fleur asked.
“I could indeed use far stronger words where the gentleman in question is concerned,” Sir Norman replied grimly.
“But you cannot do this. Can you not understand what harm it will do you personally to turn an Ashwin out of the house, especially Captain Anthony who has lived here since he was a child? He knows the place and he loves it, the servants know him and they love him too. It would cause deep resentment, it would make you hated – ”
She hesitated. She had been about to say, ‘ ‒ more than you are already,’ and then she realised not only that she must suppress the words themselves but also that she did not know whether or not they were true.
Was Sir Norman hated? What did the household feel about him? Perhaps, as Anthony had implied, he was just a nonentity, a Midas who everyone laughed at.
She was conscious that Sir Norman was looking at her strangely.
“And would that worry you?”
“Worry me!” Fleur echoed. “I suppose it has nothing to do with me, but since you are talking frankly it is obvious that there is something very wrong here. You have this wonderful house, but you are not happy, anyone can see that. You have given your mother everything that money can buy and yet she would be happier in less luxurious circumstances.
“Perhaps I am talking wildly or perhaps I am being very stupid, I expect you will dismiss me after this anyway, so I may as well speak the truth, but I do feel that there is something wrong in your life and in hers. The only thing that is contented and at peace is the house itself and that is because of its past. It has no present.”
She heard her voice, raised a little and slightly hysterical, die away and then, with what was almost a sob, she added,
“I am sorry, Sir Norman, I ought not to speak to you like this.”
Sir Norman Mitcham walked across the room and back again and then he stopped beside her and stood looking down.
“You are right,” he said, “dead right, I suppose that I am unhappy, I think I always have been. But have you considered the solution?”
“The solution?” Fleur asked stupidly.
“I can think of only one,” he said and it seemed as if a grim humour twisted his lips. “It is, of course, that I should get married, that I should have a child to whom I could leave my much-vaunted millions. Miss Garton, will you marry me?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Are you ‒ crazy?”
The words came stammeringly from Fleur’s lips.
She was conscious of feeling hysterical, of wanting to escape and to run away. This must be a dream, it was so fantastic and unreal.
“You cannot know ‒ what you are ‒ saying,” she heard her voice tremble.
“I am sorry if it appears like that to you,” Sir Norman said quietly and his tone, steady and unemotional, calmed her,
“Then you really mean – ?”
“That I want to marry you? Yes, Miss Garton, and if you will forgive my saying so, I see nothing very strange in the idea. I cannot believe that I am the first man who has proposed marriage to you.”
“No, but – oh, it is just that it is so unexpected, so strange – ”
