Eve leapt to meet the ball with her
racket, swinging a graceful, slicing stroke that sent the ball
whizzing past her opponent's shoulder. He laughed even as he
lost the game to her, and ran towards the tennis net that divided
them, the sun agleam on his rumpled dark hair and alight in his
grey eyes. A very attractive young man in his white shirt and
slacks, who gazed across at Eve with an appreciative smile as
she spun her racket in the air and caught it, clad herself in
a white tennis dress that revealed her slim tanned legs.
"Come up to the house, Larry,"
she invited, "and have some tea with me."
"With pleasure!"
He joined her outside the hard court
and they strolled together across the lawn towards Lakeside, considered
one of the most gracious houses in this part of Essex. At the
rear of the rambling, mullioned, red-tiled house was a lake and
a gazebo, and sunken gardens aflame with wall-roses at this time
of the year.
Midsummer, and one of the warmest
England had enjoyed for many a year, so that tennis was frequent
and there was usually a friend or two for Eve to play with.
They entered the lounge through
open glass doors, a long cool room whose walls were silver-grey,
the perfect background for the fine suite of Regency furniture
and the few fine paintings. Eve watched as Larry Mitchell looked
around him, an appreciative gleam in his [147-148] eyes . . .
Eve liked his eyes, and whenever she looked into them she felt
a vague stirring of recollection, as though he reminded her of
someone she had seen and forgotten.
"You live in a nice house,"
he told her. "It suits you, Eve, to have gracious surroundings,
and yet at the same time I suspect you have a streak of wildness
in you somewhere--it comes out when you play against a chap, or
ride that creamy-coated mare of yours. You seem to have two sides
to you."
"Hasn't everyone?" She
pressed a finger to a bell attached to the wall. "We've
all a sunny side and a shadowy one, haven't we? You as a budding
doctor should know about the complexes and traumas that make people
what they are. Are you still enjoying it at St. Saviour's, training
under Clavering? It was he who operated on my arm that time I
nearly lost it."
Larry winced when Eve said that,
and half-shyly he reached out and took hold of her slim left arm,
running his fingers down to the inner part of the thumb where
all that was left of that intricate operation was a white scar.
"It's hard to believe, Eve,
the way you can slam a tennis ball across the net, that you ever
had blood-poisoning so bad that you almost lost your arm--such
nice arms!"
"Are you flirting with me?"
She smiled a little, and found him very attractive and easy to
tease. Larry never lost his temper, and yet she suspected that
he, too, had a certain amount of temperament in his make-up.
He had very definite views about certain things and once or twice
had fallen into arguments with her guardian about the way the
country was being run.
"Rebellion is hard to put down
once it flares," he had [148-149] said the other evening.
"It could happen in England just as it's happened
elsewhere."
"Nonsense." Charles Derrington
had lit a fat cigar and puffed smoke with that self-confident
air of his, as if, Eve thought, Victoria was still on the throne
and England was still a mighty empire with nothing to fear from
anyone. "With all our faults, Mr. Mitchell, we're a civilised
nation of people and could never commit the atrocities on each
other that these--er--foreigners are committing."
"What about Belfast?"
Larry had asked, and Eve had seen a very grim look come to his
face when he mentioned that strife-torn city.
"The Irish are hot-headed,"
her guardian had replied. "Always have been, always will
be."
"I've a bit of Irish in me,"
Larry had said, and Eve smiled to herself as she recalled the
look which her guardian had directed at the tall, dark-haired
trainee doctor, whose eyes of light grey were so darkly fringed.
Since Charles had given in reluctantly to her insistence that
she wouldn't be forced into marriage with James, he seemed to
regard every young man who came to Lakeside as her prospective
bridegroom. He had very nearly lost her to illness eighteen months
ago and since then he had been far less demanding and autocratic.
She was all he had, for Charles Derrington had never felt the
urge to marry, and they had been closer to each other since those
days and nights of restless fever and pain, culminating in a fearsomely
poisoned arm which she had very nearly lost.
She felt Larry moving his thumb
against her skin, and very gently but firmly she drew away from
him. She liked him and was glad they had met at the St. Saviour's
dance, where she worked as a nursing aide, but she [149-150] wasn't
in love with him . . . not yet, at least. Somehow Eve felt no
inclination to fall in love, she merely wanted to be of use and
to enjoy her leisure hours with genial companions.
A capped and aproned maid wheeled
in a trolley, with a silver teapot and bone china tea-service
laid out on a lace cloth. Everything in Charles Derrington's
house was run in a very gracious and conventional manner; in Eve's
eyes the old dear was hopelessly old-fashioned and one of the
few people these days who was able to command absolute old-world
loyalty from those he employed.
"That looks lovely, Hilda,"
she said to the maid. There were thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches,
fruit scones and strawberry tarts. "Thank you."
The maid gave a bob and withdrew,
and Larry stood there shaking his head in amazement. "I
feel each time I come to Lakeside as if I'm transported back into
the Thirties. I believe that's when your guardian decided to
stop the clock."
"It's possible." Eve
gave a laugh and gestured to him to take a seat. "And do
help yourself to sandwiches."
Larry sat down in a deep armchair
and watched Eve as she poured the tea, adding the cream and sugar
they both liked. The sun through the long windows found red lights
in her hair, which was a careless cascade on her shoulders, a
foxfire contrast to her smooth honey skin. When she handed him
his cup he looked into her eyes, a deep topaz, lovely and seemingly
untroubled.
"Are you Irish on your father's
side?" she asked, leaning back with her own cup of tea, and
feeling very much at ease in his company.
"No, my mother's." He
sipped his tea appreciatively. "She came from County Mayo
and still has a brogue, [150-151] and some of their special sort
of charm with a dash of the devil mixed in. I suspect I have
some of that in me, for I enjoy locking horns with your
guardian."
Eve gave a chuckle. "He's
mellowed with age, believe me. There was a time when he might
have thrown you out on your ear for daring to oppose his conservative
ideas. But I believe he rather likes you, Larry."
"Do you like me?" Larry's
eyes grew beguiling in his lean face. "I've never met a
girl like you, Eve. It isn't only that you're lovely, but you
have a kind of gallantry about you--you don't have to work at
the hospital doing and seeing things that aren't very pleasant,
yet you do it cheerfully and even seem to get a kick out of it.
I believe there's a core of steel inside that sweet cool body
of yours."
"Just listen to the blarney,"
she mocked. "I work because it would drive me mad with boredom
to sit about the house, arrange the roses and go to card-parties
in the afternoons. I need the stimulation of a job, and I once
made myself useful at a mission run by nuns."
"That was out in Africa, wasn't
it?" He bit into a sandwich and regarded her slim, charming
figure with amazed eyes, as if she seemed too young to have packed
into her life that kind of experience, from which she had returned
a very sick person, even yet unable to recall all the details
of her escape from Tanga.
"Yes--Africa." Eve frowned
and felt again that elusive memory that seemed always to be fretting
the edge of her outward content. "I was with the nuns and
somehow we got away--someone got us away."
"It must have been frightening
for you--Eve, what made you go out there in the first place, knowing
there was trouble brewing?"
"A man," she laughed.
"I didn't want to marry him, so [151-152] I ran away--it's
like something out of a true-hearts serial, isn't it?"
"You mean you were expected
to marry him regardless of your feelings--a girl like you?"
Larry's eyes held a sudden blaze. "You'd have to love and
be loved--madly."
"Love?" She nibbled a
scone. "I think love is a barrel of honey and broken
glass."
"How uncomfortable you make
it sound!" Larry gave her a curious look, slightly laced
with jealousy. "Are you speaking from experience?"
Eve stared beyond the windows towards
the trees, for at this end of the lounge they looked on to the
lake and there the tall green and gold willows were thick . .
. almost jungle-thick. "I don't know," she said. "I
have some odd mental blanks left from that time I was ill, and
then I ask myself if it's possible for love to be forgotten if
we've ever experienced it. What do you think?"
"If love had been painful for
you, then you might want to forget it," he replied.
"Yes," she nodded. "Perhaps
the man didn't love me in return, but all the same it's provoking
not to remember. Don't we shut from our minds our unbearable
sins and our equally unbearable sacrifices?"
"Sensitive people might."
Larry leaned forward and searched her face with his grey eyes,
and Eve found herself staring into those eyes and feeling again
that odd, elusive flicker of remembrance. "I think you're
one of the most sensitive girls I've ever met, and possibly one
of the most passionate--curiously enough those two go hand in
hand."
"Passion and sensitivity?"
she murmured.
"The ability to feel a high
degree of emotion either [152-153] way," he said. "The
trouble is I can't imagine what kind of man could let you go if
he knew you cared for him. He'd have to be--ruthless."
"Ruthless," she echoed,
and then she gave a slight, almost cynical smile. "I think
love is a small harbour on the borderland of dreamland, and that's
all I'm doing, I'm dreaming there was something when there was
nothing. Have a strawberry tart. They're homemade and
delicious."
"Thanks," he took one
and bit into it. "Are you happy, Eve?"
She considered his question, slim
legs curled beneath her on the couch. "I think I must be,
Larry. I have a nice home, a guardian who no longer treats me
as if I were an Edwardian box of candy to be handed to the most
suitable suitor, and I'm interested in my hospital work. I think
I'm reasonably content with my life. What about you, Larry?"
"I'm doing the work I've always
wanted to do, and I've had the good luck to meet you, Eve. You
often invite me to Lakeside and I'm wondering if one day you'll
come and meet my people? They live in London, near Regent's Gate,
and they'd be terribly pleased to meet you. I could drive you
up in that little bus of mine, if you'll agree to come."
Eve considered his invitation and
was just slightly worried by it. She didn't want Larry to get
serious about her, yet on the other hand it would seem unkind
if she refused to meet his family.
"Do say you'll come,"
he coaxed. "I have a free afternoon next Sunday and if the
weather stays like this it will make a nice run into London, and
my little bus isn't too bad. I was lucky to get it--had a rather
generous [153-154] birthday cheque all the way from Morocco."
"Morocco?" Eve looked
intrigued. "Have you a relative out there?"
He nodded and his eyes filled with
an eagerness that was boyish. "It's my mother's cousin.
He's been quite a rover in his time, and now he's settled down
to produce citrus fruits on this rather tumbledown estate he took
over about nine months ago. He seems to be making it work, which
doesn't surprise me, for he's that sort of man. Hard in some
ways, but you could trust him with your life. I--I can't help
admitting I'm fond of him, apart from which he helped with my
education--sent money so that my people could let me train to
be a doctor. My dad is a train driver, you see. He loves the
work, but no one pretends they earn a fortune, so the money always
came in handy."
"I think I like the sound of
your family, Larry." Eve had suddenly made up her mind.
"I'd love to meet your parents--I've always been fascinated
by train drivers."
He grinned, a long line slashing
itself in his left cheek, making her stare at him and think how
attractive he was--youthful-looking, of course, but in a few years'
time he'd be quite a man.
"I'll pick you up about noon
next Sunday and we'll go to lunch with Ma and Pa, if you'd like
that. Roast beef, batter pudding and baked potatoes--you can't
do Dad out of his Sunday traditional."
"Sounds lovely," she said
warmly, and leaning forward on impulse she pressed Larry's hand
with hers, moving back adroitly when he would have caught her
fingers to his lips. Eve shook her head at him. "Friends
don't get soppy, and I want us to be friends--for now."
"Leaving me with a little margin
for hope?" he quizzed her.
[154-155] "You're young, Larry,
and the world is full of girls. Some of those nurses at St. Saviour's
are very attractive in their uniforms, especially in that blue
cape with the little chain across the throat."
"None of them can touch you,"
he rejoined, running his eyes over her hair and face. "You
have something extra--a little air of mystery, I think."
Eve laughed and went to the piano,
where she sat down and began to play a dated but still tuneful
melody of a romantic era lost down the pages of time . . . I'll
see you again, whenever spring breaks through again . . .
Eve didn't know why it haunted her, but somehow it did. Then
with a careless laugh, she broke into a more modern tune and said
over her shoulder to Larry:
"If you're off duty this evening
we could go and dance at the Beach Club. At least the band plays
civilised, schmaltzy music."
"I'd like that." He was
standing right behind her and she tensed. "Play that other
tune again--that more sentimental one. It's a Noël Coward
song, isn't it?"
"Yes, and hopelessly
sentimental."
"Rather lovely, I thought.
You often play it, don't you? Is it a favourite of your
guardian's?"
"Good lord, no!" Eve
laughed at the mere idea. "Charles is an ardent fan of Leonard
Bernstein and he deplores my fondness for the light stuff, as
he calls it. Charles likes a full orchestra playing something
very deep and complicated--he considers my taste in music, books
and drama very flighty considering what he spent on my education.
Dear Charles, he really should have had a daughter of his own
who might have taken after him, as it is he's landed with
me."
"He's a lucky man," Larry
murmured, and though she had warned him not to kiss her, he suddenly
leaned [155-156] down and brushed his lips across the top of her
head. "I wish I could take you dancing, Eve, but I've got
to get back and sign in for some emergency duty, and you know
what Saturday night can be like when the football crowds are in
town. But it is definite about next Sunday, isn't it? It's a
firm promise?"
She turned round on the piano bench
to look at him, seeing a lock of dark hair across his forehead
and something in his face that made her study him before she replied,
unaware that a little sadness shaded her mouth for a moment.
"Yes, a firm promise,"
she said. "Have you got to go now?"
He glanced at his wristwatch and
nodded, twisting his mouth and giving her a wistful look. "You're
a temptress, Eve, but duty calls and I've just twenty minutes
to make it to the hospital. Noon on Sunday, and it won't come
quick enough for me!"
"Nor me," she smiled,
and saw him to the front steps, where his small low-slung car
was waiting for him. He swung in behind the wheel and she waved
him goodbye, watching until the yellow car swung out of the gates
on to the main road. It was quiet after Larry had left and Eve
began to stroll in the direction of the garden, where the bright
roses were entangled in rays of sunlight, and where the leaves
scarcely stirred in the warmth of the afternoon. Suddenly she
felt faintly depressed and the scent of the roses seemed to add
to her feeling of . . . now what kind of a feeling was it? She
paused and put out a hand to touch a rose, which broke and scattered
its petals the moment her fingers came in contact with its velvety
loveliness.
She watched the petals drift to
the path . . . love might be like that, she thought. One moment
a glowing [156-157] thing in the sunshine, and the next a sad
little heap of memories.
Loss . . . yes, that was what she
felt. Could it be that saying goodbye to Larry had induced this
feeling in her? Was she growing fonder of him than she had realised,
or thought wise? He was very genuine, good company and most attractive
in a lean dark way, but he was younger than she, not only by a
year, but in other ways . . . emotional ways.
She wandered on towards the lake,
cool and shiimmering and faintly dyed with red as the sun began
to decline in the sky above the willows. She leaned against a
tree and rubbed the forefinger of her left hand against the scar
down the side of her thumb.
She wished it would all come back
to her, what had happened to her in Africa, but all she knew from
her guardian, and it seemed he had got his information from the
flight crew of the plane on which she had travelled home to England,
was that a rough-looking soldier had carried her through the gunfire
and the burning streets of Tanga and after seeing her safely aboard
the aircraft had vanished into the raging noise and confusion
of a town under siege. He had safety-pinned a note on Eve's shirt
telling the crew her name and where she lived, but beyond this
they knew nothing of the man, and Eve often wished she could have
found a way to thank him. When she had tried to contact Sister
Mercy and the other nuns she had received the shattering reply
that they had been killed when a shell had landed on the mission
where they had been working in Tanga . . . Eve had wept when she
received such sad news about those kind, brave, self-sacrificing
women.
Why, Eve wondered, her gaze on the
darkening lake, [157-158] did kindness and goodness have to be
so cruelly rewarded? Or was it true that the pure in soul found
their haven high up there beyond all the clouds, all the sorrows?
She hoped so, and further hoped that somewhere that rough-looking
soldier was still alive and hadn't perished in the fighting at
Tanga.
Peace was now restored there under
the new President, and Eve hoped it would last and the wild loveliness
of Africa could flourish again and the wonderful birds and beasts
return to their old haunts, to fish and hunt and stretch tawny
in the sun.
Oh lord, she was getting hopelessly
nostalgic and had better return to the house before those silly
tears started up again. She had no reason to cry . . . her guardian
was good to her, and on Sunday she was driving to London with
Larry to meet new people and exchange fresh ideas. Life was good,
and she thrust away from her that strange shadow that sometimes
seemed to haunt her . . . a memory that wouldn't take shape much
as she tried to clothe it, to give it shape and form and words.
She shrugged and entered the house,
to breathe cigar smoke and hear the sound of masculine voices
in the study, where the door was partially open. She peered in
and there was Charles with a couple of his business friends, and
she was about to withdraw when he noticed her.
"Eve, there you are, child.
Been playing tennis, eh? Come along in and meet Stephen Carlisle,
who is over here from New York to buy up all the best paintings
at Christie's. And you know Tyler, of course."
"Hullo, Tyler," she smiled
at one of her guardian's oldest friends, and held out her hand
to the tall American, who had one of those ugly-attractive faces
in the [158-159] Abraham Lincoln tradition. As he shook hands
with her, his brown eyes ran over her slim, white-clad figure
and her hair that had a foxfire gleam under the lights of the
study.
"When I say it's a pleasure
to meet you, Miss Derrington, I mean it."
"Thank you," she said,
wriggling her fingers which he held on to. "But I'm the
ward of the house, not the daughter, and my surname is
Tarrant."
"I see." He smiled, showing
big strong American teeth. "Is that Miss Tarrant?"
"It is." She cast an
appealing glance at Charles. "Do tell your friend that I'd
like my hand back so I can go and change for dinner."
But her guardian chuckled and looked
rather pleased with himself as he drew on his cigar. Ah, thought
Eve, so the American was wealthy and Charles was match-making
again. Well, that wouldn't do, for Eve had already decided that
if she was going to let love into her life, then she couldn't
do better than let her friendship with Larry Mitchell grow into
something warmer and closer. There was something about Larry
. . . the more she saw of him the more he appealed to her. She
wished of course that he was older, but they had plenty of time
to develop their relationship, and with him she'd be a companion
rather than a possession.
Stephen Carlisle looked the type
who would regard a woman as he regarded the paintings he bought,
something to be owned and admired, but whose opinions would be
disregarded. Eve made a determined effort and pulled free of
his handclasp. She saw his thick eyebrows pull together and she
knew she was right about him . . . he was the arrogant, rather
humourless type [159-160] who thought his money made him
irresistible.
"I must excuse myself right
after dinner," she told Charles. "I have a date at
the Beach Club."
"Surely you can break it?"
he said, giving her a slight frown. "If it's with young
Larry Mitchell, then he'll forgive you."
"You underestimate Larry,"
she replied, uncaring that she had told a white lie in order to
escape the further attentions of Stephen Carlisle; she'd drive
to the club, for there was always someone there whom she knew
and could dance with. "Larry is very strong-willed Charles.
He's taking me to meet his parents on Sunday."
Her guardian clamped his teeth on
his cigar and Eve could see that he was none too pleased by her
piece of information. She knew he quite liked Larry, but for
him there was no denying that the young student doctor was poor
and struggling and hardly the auspicious match that he wanted
for his ward. She saw the struggle he was having with his temper,
and then he shrugged his shoulders.
"You're a sensible wench,"
he said. "You'll do the right thing in the end, and I'm
not saying that young Mitchell isn't a rather handsome lad, but
he's far too young for you, Eve, and you know it. I know you,
girl, don't think I don't. You like older men--always have."
"Dear Guardy," she laughed,
"to hear you speak you'd think I was always chasing the local
grandfathers! Larry's a dear--"
"He's a cub, and you'll ring
the Beach Club and tell him you can't make it tonight because
I need you to play hostess to my guests."
"Is that a direct order?"
she asked, standing there in the open frame of the door, her chin
tilted and her eyes [160-161] defiant. She hadn't needed to defy
him in a long time, and that alone told her that he was banking
on Carlisle making an impression on her. Good lord, was he a
millionaire?
"Yes," Charles gave a
curt inclination of his head, "you may take it as an order,
Eve."
"All right." Tonight
she wouldn't argue with him. "But I shan't be letting him
down on Sunday. I'm going to lunch with his people--it's something
I want to do very much."
With those words she left the three
men and walked across the hall to the curving staircase, feeling
the heat in her cheeks as she ran upstairs and hurried along to
her suite. No, she wouldn't let it start all over again, that
coercion into a marriage she didn't want. Life with James would
have been vapid and monotonous, but there was something about
Carlisle's mouth that warned her he was a sensualist as well as
an art collector. She actually shivered when she thought of that
thick mouth with its full quota of hard white teeth descending
on hers ... it reminded her ... Oh God, she raked her fingers
through her hair and tried to pull the tormenting memory out of
her reluctant mind. Something terribly, frightening, which must
have happened to her out in Africa. Had someone attacked her
... had the soldier who had put her on the plane saved her from
that attack?
Eve took a shower and all the time
she was dressing her mind was probing for an answer to that question.
It was awful to have a gap in her memory and to feel that it
was important that gap be filled in.
The mirror gave back her reflection
to her, outwardly poised and composed in a tulle dress in palest
[161-162] green, with eyelet embroidery in the full sleeves.
She sprayed on perfume and stared at the container. Tabu--now
why had she bought that the last time she had called in at the
pharmacy in town? She usually bought Je Reviens, which was slightly
more discreet.
She met her own eyes in the mirror
as she fastened a string of pearls, glossy as satin against her
throat and a get-well present from Charles just after she recovered
from her illness and came home to Lakeside from the hospital.
She smoothed her hair, which fell in a glossy auburn wave down
over her left profile . . . Garbo, she grinned, about to sit among
the men and look like a femme fatale. She must remember
to tell Larry about that season of Bogart films they were putting
on at the Classic cinema . . .
"Here's looking at you,
kid."
Eve raised her hands to her cheeks
and her eyes begged . . . begged for the memory to complete itself.
"Who are you?" she whispered, glancing around her bedroom.
"Why do you haunt me like this? What were you to me . .
. please, please, don't hide from me!"
But all she saw was a lovely,
high-ceilinged
room furnished with a Queen Anne bed, slipper chairs upholstered
in gold with hints of green, a handsome rosewood bookcase that
curved at the sides, and an array of long windows draped in brocade
reaching to a carpet woven with flowers in ivory against
leaf-green.
A graceful, sedate room, where only
two men had ever entered, her guardian and her doctor. The ghost
[162-163] that flirted with her memory had nothing whatever to
do with this room, this house, or any part of Lakeside and its
surrounding country.
It was someone she had known out
in Africa, and as her hand slid down her face, her neck, finding
her heart, Eve knew that he was dead. Yes, she knew the feeling
now; it was an ache, a deep sense of very personal loss, which
meant that she had cared for him. Who had he been . . . what
had he been, that unremembered man for whom, unaware, she wore
Tabu?
She went downstairs and sat composedly
at dinner with the three men, listening politely to their conversation,
and ignoring the compliments that lay in Carlisle's eyes each
time he looked at her. They had fresh local lobsters stuffed
with onions, mushrooms, breadcrumbs and grated cheese, baked to
a golden brown; steamed chicken with melon and shrimp, followed
by iced coffee-cream. Her guardian had once served in a Government
post out in Barbados, and he was still fond of the food and had
it served at Lakeside at least twice a week.
"A most excellent meal, good
sir," Carlisle leaned back in his chair and looked as sleek
and replete as a well-fed wolf, Eve told herself. "If you
and Tyler are going to smoke, may I ask Miss Tarrant to invite
me for a stroll on your lakeside terrace?"
"By all means, Stephen."
Charlies ignored Eve's glance of appeal. "A cigar is the
solace of the middle-aged man, but you're entitled to enjoy the
company of a pretty girl. I believe there's a midsummer moon,
and our lake is a picture you won't be able to buy with your dollars.
Run along, Eve, show our American friend what an English garden
can look like in the moonlight."
[163-164] Eve wanted to run, but
even before she reached the door Stephen Carlisle had his hand
beneath her elbow, his fingers closing upon her arm so that she'd
look undignified if she tried to shake free of him. "You
won't need a wrap, will you?" he murmured. "The night
is warm and I'd hate you to cover up that charming dress."
Eve knew what he really meant, that
he didn't want her to cover up the slim figure which the dress
flattered. "I really would like my cloak," she said
in a cool voice. "Although the midsummer days are warm,
the nights are quite chilly."
"You sound rather chilly
yourself."
He held her under the hall lights and forced her to look at him.
"Don't you like me -- Eve? Women usually do."
"How nice for your ego, Mr.
Carlisle," she rejoined. "But I happen to have a rather
nice young man who works very hard for his living, and it would
be unfair to him if I allowed other men to get the idea that
I'm--free."
"Your guardian has assured
me that nothing of a definite nature exists between you and this
young man, and even so, Eve, I wouldn't be put off by even a
fiancé
if I felt strongly enough attracted to a girl, and you're very
attractive." His eyes slid over her. "It really is
true, isn't it, that English girls have an outward air of coolness,
even aloofness, but they smoulder beneath it. I came to England
not only to buy works of art for my house in Manhattan, but I
came in search of a wife--"
"Mr. Carlisle," Eve pulled
forcibly away from him, "I am not in the marriage market,
no matter what my guardian might have implied. I am not up for
auction like some--some damned painting! I live my own life [164-165]
and I choose who I want to care for, and you are not the type
of man I could ever imagine myself caring for!"
"How your eyes take fire when
you get aroused," he drawled. "Funnily enough, I like
you better for not falling into my arms right away, for when a
man is rich there are too many women ready to throw themselves
at his head. You really intrigue me, Eve. You really make it
sound as if you prefer some impecunious medical student to a man
of considerable means--what are you, honey, some kind of
romantic?"
"Perhaps I am." She tossed
her hair and it gleamed with deep tawny lights. "I expect
we're a dying breed in this age of meretricious love
affairs."
"More and more do I like you."
A smile curled around his heavy mouth. "Little did I realise
when I accepted an invitation to Derrington's house that I'd find
a gem of a girl in his collection of rare stones and coins, which
was my direct reason for coming here. Now aren't you going to
show me the lake from the terrace?"
"I'll fetch my cloak."
Eve walked across to the big oak closet in the hall which contained
odd coats and wraps. The cloak she wanted was an old black velvet
one with a cowl, and as she took it from the closet she could
feel Stephen Carlisle staring at her and moving his gave up and
down the silken fall of hair over her left eye. She swung the
cloak around her and quickly covered her hair with the cowl, and
she saw his teeth show hard and white against his tanned skin
as he studied her.
"Are you hoping that outfit
makes you look like a nun?" he enquired.
Eve disdained to answer him and
moved across to the small flight of curving stairs that led to
the terrace. She opened the glass doors and stepped out into
the night, [165-166] moving to the curved parapet, built like
this long ago to accommodate the wide crinolines of the era in
which Lakeside had been erected.
She stood tensely by the balustrade,
aware of Carlisle's tall figure behind her. Above them was the
milky radiance of the midsummer sky at night, with a glittering
shell of a moon reflected in the still water of the lake. The
reeds in the shallows were softly rustling and the willow leaves
were whispering . . . it was a glorious night and Eve could feel
that ache in her heart that Larry Mitchell was possibly too young
to assuage, and this man Carlisle too self-centred to ever
understand.
"Your guardian is right about
his lake," he murmured. "It really is a picture that
would be hard to put upon canvas with any justice. Tell me, Eve,
has he never wanted to have your portrait painted?"
"When I was eighteen,"
she said, "but I didn't like the idea. Portraits should
only be painted after people have really lived--and
suffered."
"So that they have character,
eh, and don't resemble birthday cards." He stepped round
to her side and leaned an elbow on the parapet, the moonlight
on the angular planes of his face. "This is how I would
have you painted, Eve, clad only in this cloak with the cowl thrown
back on the nape of your neck, your eyes upon that glimmering
lake as if you see there what other people haven't eyes to see.
What is it, I wonder? The golden sword of some knight in shining
armour?"
"What nonsense!" she scoffed,
even as her fingers clenched the stone balustrade. "I'm
not that foolishly romantic, Mr. Carlisle."
"Won't you call me
Stephen?"
[166-167] "What would be the
point?" she asked coolly. "I shan't be seeing you again
after tonight."
"From any other girl I would
construe that remark as a hook doing a little fishing."
He leaned nearer to her. "I very much want to see you again
and I shall let your guardian know this quite frankly. He knows
your worth, Eve. He won't allow you to throw yourself away on
a medical student who even when qualified will earn barely enough
to support a wife--least of all a young woman who has been accustomed
to the kind of life Charles Derrington has provided for you here
at Lakeside. Could you really live in a cramped apartment, making
ends meet on a few pounds a week? Could your romantic feelings
survive on that kind of love?"
"I imagine real love could
survive any kind of odds," she rejoined. "If I married
Larry I'd go on working so that we could pool our earnings. I'd
be his partner, not his possessions [sic]."
"My dear Eve, you were made
to be a man's possession," he laughed, softly and sensuously.
"Come, be honest with yourself. You know in your heart
that you don't want a boy but a real man, one who has had experience
of life, who can show you the world, and bring out all the glowing
woman in you. There is such a woman in you, coolly restrained
at the moment, held in chains that need to be broken by a strong
man. Then what a change in you, running madly to him with your
hair like a vixen's in the sun."
Eve stared at him and felt a sudden
throb of the heart. Why did his words strike her as familiar
. . . a vixen in the sun he had called her, but it wasn't the
first time a man had said that to her.
[167-168] "That is the colour
of your hair, isn't it?" he drawled. "Vixen red?"
"I--I suppose it is. If you've
seen enough of the lake, shall we--"
"No." His hand closed
over hers, tightening those big, well-manicured fingers about
hers. "I like your company, Eve, and I don't want to lose
it. Allow me to book seats for the theatre, and afterwards we
could go on to a supper club. Allow yourself to get to know me.
Some of the greatest love affairs have evolved from antagonism
at first."
"You're very sure of yourself,
aren't you?" Eve exclaimed. "I've only ever known one
other man who--" There she broke off, glancing away from
him towards the lake. She listened to those mysterious night-time
sounds that the water made as it rippled around the reeds and
moved the willow tresses. She stared at the water and she did
seem to imagine that someone might come moonlit out of the lake,
shaking the drops off black hair, tough and primitive as some
animal of the jungle. Eve shivered, for his ghost was walking
again, but when she peered forward across the balustrade there
were only trees at the edge of the lake and nothing tangible for
her to reach for.
As she sighed, Carlisle's fingers
tightened painfully on her hand.
"Who was this man you speak
of? He was important to you, eh?"
"I think he was--"
"Where is he now? Do you still
see him?"
"You--" Eve turned her
head to look at the American, a stranger to her until tonight.
"You have no right to question me about him. You have no
hold on me, so don't go assuming one!"
[168-169] "No hold, you say,
eh?" Abruptly he pulled her to him and was bringing his
lips down to crush hers when she swiftly turned her head and his
mouth descended on the velvet cowl and she heard him curse.
"Let me go, Mr. Carlisle, or
I shall let loose a scream and tell my guardian that you tried
to rape me--our rape laws in England are still rather grim, especially
if the ward of a local magistrate should be involved."
His arms fell away from her and
he forced a smile to his face, even though his brows were meshed
together above thwarted eyes. "You've quite a sharp little
tongue on you, haven't you, Eve? You're overdue for a bit of
taming, that's your trouble. Is that how you lost the first man,
and why you're now running around with a bit of a boy? Does it
frighten you when a man exerts his strength?"
"Any bully can show his muscles,"
she said scornfully. "When a woman wants to be kissed she
enjoys that superior show of strength--"
"You mean you've actually enjoyed
being kissed?" he sneered.
Eve didn't even bother to reply
to him but walked away down the steps to the hall and across to
the drawing-room where she looked in to say goodnight to Tyler
and to wonder as she wished her guardian goodnight how he could
thrust her on to someone like Carlisle and assume that she'd be
dazzled by his money and ignore his arrogance with regard to
women.
"Where's Stephen?" Charles
enquired and a little hard glint came into his eyes, such as she
remembered from the days when she had fought not to be thrown
into marriage with James. Oh God, she thought tiredly, how mistaken
you could be about those who were supposed to love you, or at least
care what became of you.
[169-170] "Gone to the devil
for all I care," she said, and there was a chill little note
of disillusion in her voice. "And you might as well know,
Guardy, that he won't be putting in a bid for me--he's found out
that I don't go for the branding-iron type of charm. I'm my own
person, Charles. I earn my own living and I stay under your roof
because I thought you wanted my company, but if we're back to
the old system of selecting a rich man to keep me in heart-rotting
idleness, then I pack my bag and leave in the morning.
Goodnight!"
Eve went upstairs, feeling unhappy
and nervy. She clung to the thought of Larry . . . he at least
wanted her for herself, with none of this bartering her body and
soul for the sake of a socially acceptable and financially suitable
match, regardless of whether it made her happy or miserable.
Inside her bedroom, with the door
firmly closed, she lay stretched along the length of her bed,
her face buried deep in her arms. She didn't weep but felt waves
of grief and hopeless longing sweep over her. She wanted love
. . . the love she had lost somewhere on the other side of the
earth . . . somewhere on the other side of heaven. It was an
active pain deep inside her and she knew . . . knew with every
fibre of her body and heart that she loved the man and she was
never going to see him again. And he had cared about her . .
. cared as no one else ever had, and her fingers clenched the
bedcover and she felt as if never again would there be anyone
in her life who would love her so selflessly.
"What was your name?"
she whispered. "Why can't I remember your name or the way
you looked when I remember with my heart that you loved me?"
She sat up, staring into the wash
of moonlight [170-171] through the windows where the drapes were
open to let in the air. Her heart was beating fast and she was
seeing the flames of a burning town, hearing the gunfire, feeling
the hard clasp of arms as she was carried through the streets
to the airfield. A rough-looking soldier, they had said, who
placed her in the care of the stewardess and then vanished back
into the flames and the fighting.
A soldier, torn, grubby, unshaven,
making sure she got to safety, and then turning back to face the
bedlam . . . and to be killed.
He was dead, otherwise he'd have
come to her, found her again, put those hard arms around her and
made her safe for always. The hot tears filled her eyes, and
she was crying her heart out when Charles Derrington came into
her room and switched on the light.
"Good heavens, child!"
He drew her against his shoulder and stroked her tousled hair.
"Are you feeling ill?"
She fought with the tears and shook
her head.
"Then why are you upsetting
yourself like this, talking about packing your bag and leaving
me? Tyler gave me a ticking-off, d'you know that? Said I was
pushing you again and you aren't a girl to be pushed on to any
man--look, what is it, my pet? Do you want to marry that young
doctor, is that it? Think I won't approve? Well, if that's what
you want, Eve, then maybe we can see about making him some kind
of an allowance so that he can--well, I don't want you living
in rooms somewhere, going hungry, or anything like that--"
"Guardy," she drew away
from him, her face tear-streaked and the tip of her nose pink
from weeping, "I--I don't want to marry anyone--not yet--maybe
not [171-172] ever. Don't you understand? There was someone--someone
I loved so much that it still goes on hurting a--and I don't--can't
put anyone in his place. He loved me and saved my life,"
the hot aching tears fell again from her eyes and burned against
her lips. "He's dead and I can't stop my heart from aching
for him, a--and the awful part is that I can't remember the very
last thing he said to me--the very last time he kissed me. I
just know he loved me and I--I want him--I want him, Guardy, and
he's dead!"
She was weeping unrestrainedly now,
trembling and grieving for what she had lost. Charles soothed
her as best he could, but now she had given way to the pent-up
emotion she couldn't seem to restrain it.
"Why couldn't I die with him?"
she sobbed. "Why must I go on alone?"
"Who was this man, Eve?"
Her guardian made her look at him through her wet, unhappy eyes.
"Why haven't you mentioned him before?"
"I--I think my mind found parting
from him so unbearable that it didn't want to remember, but now
I know--it was the soldier who put me on the last plane out of
Tanga, that awful day when the insurgents took over and the fighting
was so bad. He made sure I was safe, that I'd be brought to England,
and then he joined in the fighting a--and got himself
killed."
"My dear child, how can you
be so sure he was killed? What was his name? We can check with
the War Office--"
"He was a mercenary and I--I
can't recall his name. I only knew we were madly in love with
each other--"
"That rough-looking soldier?"
Charles looked at her askance.
[172-173] "Wouldn't you look
rough, Guardy, if you were fighting your way through the smoke
and blood of an uprising?" Eve made a determined effort
to pull herself together, wiping her face with the handkerchief
Charles gave her and taking a couple of deep breaths to calm herself.
"I know in my heart he was the most gallant man I ever met
. . . I shall never know another like him."
"Eve, you're young and you
mustn't talk like this--there's every likelihood that if the fellow
isn't dead and you saw him again, in ordinary circumstances, you'd
realise that the glamour and danger of being rescued by him made
him seem like--like some bold knight who snatched you to safety.
War has that effect on people. It heightens all the emotions
and a meeting that in normal circumstances would seem fairly mundane
takes on dimensions out of the ordinary."
"No," Eve shook her head
and in her heart was very certain of what she had felt for her
unknown soldier. "He was very special to me, Guardy, and
that's why I'm so impatient with men like Stephen Carlisle. He's
so full of his self-importance, and if danger ever threatened
him, he'd stamp all over those who got in his way to the safety
exit. Guardy, would you really thrust me on a man like
that?"
"It seems you wouldn't let
me." Charles gave her a quizzical smile and stroked the
hair from her brow. "You've a mind of your own, and it seems,
a heart. What about young Larry Mitchell? You are aware that
he's fond of you?"
"I like Larry enormously, but
I'm not thinking in terms of marriage, Guardy. It will take him
several years to become fully qualified, but in the meantime I
[173-174] enjoy his company, and I've agreed to meet his parents.
I'm looking forward to Sunday."
"They're Londoners?"
Eve nodded. "They live near
Regent's Gate, though his mother came originally from County Mayo.
They sound very nice."
"Then you go and enjoy yourself."
Charles pressed his lips to her forehead. "And I'll promise
not to invite Carlisle to Lakeside any more. A pity he's not
your type, my pet. Seems he has enormous holdings in land and
property--"
"Oh, Guardy!" Eve had
to laugh. "You'll always harbour the Edwardian idea that
marriage is made in a bank and not in heaven. My dear, marriage
means living with a man in a way more totally personal than any
other kind of living, and I couldn't give myself if I didn't respect
and admire beyond all others the man I married. Call me hopelessly
romantic if you like, but that's the way I'm made. Love means
more to me than money ever could--I believe I could live in a
mud hut on real love."
Charles, who loved his cigars and
his comfortable home, gave Eve a perplexed look. "That's
easily said, my child, but if you ever tried it you'd soon change
your tune."
"But I have tried it,"
she heard herself say, but she spoke so softly that Charles didn't
really catch what she said, and was rising to his feet with a
yawn.
"Get a good night's rest,"
he said. "You'll feel more yourself in the morning--it's
only at night when the ghosts walk, eh?"
Eve nodded, and when he had gone
she lay for some time on her bed, visualising a future that would
never hold again the love she had found in Africa. It was lost,
but very gradually the memories were coming back to her and one
day soon she would remember everything . . . she would see again
in her heart the face she had loved.
Hear again that beloved voice .
. . "Here's looking at you, kid . . ."