All I Want Is You (19 page)

‘What?’ he broke in. ‘
What?
’His expression was so bleak I felt almost frightened. ‘Oh, God,’ he said. He dragged his hand through his hair. ‘So you thought that your letters… What nonsense. What sheer, utter nonsense. Do you really believe, Sophie, that you – a scullery maid – could tell me anything I didn’t already know?’

I stared at him.
Beatrice. Beatrice again.
But… ‘I can’t believe anything you say,’ I breathed. ‘You’ve set men to follow me, you – you do
this
to me…’

I was trembling still from the staggering climax of pleasure that he’d released in me, so coolly, so dispassionately. I felt sick with shame. He could control himself, but I couldn’t.
No one. There would never be anyone like him.

He had gripped my shoulders again. ‘Set men to follow you? Is that what you said?’

‘Perhaps you hoped I wouldn’t notice?’ I pulled myself away bitterly.

‘I haven’t told
anyone
to follow you. I swear it on my honour. Are you sure about this, Sophie? What do these men look like?’

It was raining quite steadily now but he didn’t seem to care. I stared up at him defiantly. ‘I haven’t exactly had much chance to inspect them. Would they be doing their job properly if I could?’

He brushed some rain from his angular cheekbones.
Oh, his poor, poor hands.
‘Come with me, Sophie,’ he said at last. ‘Leave that damned theatre.’ He reached out for me, but I jumped backwards.

‘I was a scullery maid, remember? I had to learn to look after myself long ago. The rules for people like you and people like me aren’t the same. And it’s months since I left Belfield Hall – why this sudden concern for me?’

He said, ‘Beatrice told me you’d gone to live with your relatives in Wiltshire.’

I broke in, ‘
What
relatives in Wiltshire?’ but then my voice trailed away.
Beatrice’s lies again.
‘I’ve no relatives,’ I said.

He nodded curtly. ‘So I realised, thanks to Nell. It was she who told me in the end that you were working in a London theatre and I found you as quickly as I could, but I’ve been busy at Belfield Hall as well as in London, dealing with the estate.’

I tried to sound cynical. In control. ‘Counting up your wealth, I suppose?’

‘No. No, actually, I’ve been trying to save jobs.’ He still looked almost dazed. ‘And now I find you here, selling yourself…’

I’m not. I’m not
, I wanted to weep. I wanted to rage at him – but hadn’t I just let him take me up against the wall, like a whore? And I was worn out with denying it – so I shrugged. ‘Why not? All the other girls do.’

‘
Jesus Christ
,’he breathed.

I shook with horror as soon as my words left my lips. What made me say it? I supposed I was desperate with hurt, so I tried to hurt him too; but the moment I said it,
All the other girls do
, I wished I’d bitten off my tongue, because he looked… devastated.

The colour drained from his face. The skin was taut across his angular, beautiful cheekbones, his high-bridged nose. His blue eyes were quite bleak.

‘If you need help,’ he said at last, ‘come to me. Do you understand?’ He was thrusting a card with an address on it at me – not Wilton Crescent, where I’d sent my letters for so long, but Hertford Street, Mayfair. ‘If you need help,’ he finished. ‘That’s all.’

I shrugged. ‘I think I’ve learned to look after myself pretty well, thanks.’ I let his card fall in the gutter.

He didn’t move. ‘I can’t let you go, Sophie. I can’t let you go back to this life you’re living.’ His eyes were wild; he looked distraught, and suddenly I was frightened, terribly frightened, both of him and of my feelings for him. Just then a taxicab went by so I hailed it, stumbling towards it on my high heels. Ash was not far behind, his long strides covering the ground in seconds. ‘Sophie,’ he was calling. ‘
Sophie
…’

I was already scrambling into the back seat. ‘Bayswater, please,’ I said to the driver.

I felt sick inside; I was cold and shaking and shattered from seeing Ash again, from letting him make such savage yet excruciatingly skilful love to me. Cora’s awed words came back to me –
He had that effect on you? He made you come so quickly?

Yes. Yes, he did. And – my chest clenched with pain – he still meant so much to me. He still meant
everything
to me, and that was why I had to get away.

And so I left Ash, my Mr Maldon, standing there, though I wanted to stop the cab and hurl myself into his arms. I wanted to say,
Please, please keep me with you. I will be your servant, your slave, anything – I don’t care what you do to me, or how, or why…

Whatever he’d done – made money from the war, hired women then paid them to keep his dark secrets – I didn’t care. There would never be anyone else, ever, yet I’d let him think… Oh, you fool Sophie, you stupid, stupid fool. The cab driver said over his shoulder, ‘Are you all right, miss?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, thank you, I’m perfectly all right.’

But I wasn’t. And as I climbed from the cab outside our pitiful little house, I thought again – if Ash wasn’t watching me, then who was?

Cora was inside. ‘I’ve left Danny,’ she whispered to me. She was huddled by the fire. ‘I told him tonight that it’s all over, Sophie. All over.’

She cried and cried.

Cora swore to me she’d finished both with Danny and with the cocaine he gave her, so for the next few days I struggled to get her to bed early and to make her eat properly, and when she told me she couldn’t sleep at night, I took her to the chemist to get her some pills, but they made her feel low, she said. My days were taken up with Cora; but at least it took my mind off Ash, and my heartbreak.

Only you
, I’d wanted to whisper to him.
There’s always only been you.
But oh God, I’d let him think I was a whore.

And then one day, Cora disappeared, just like that. I’d gone as usual to the two o’clock rehearsal and returned home at five expecting to find her waiting for me, perhaps having prepared some tea for us both, but instead she had packed her few pathetic things and left. Our friendly saxophonist had moved on as well, to go touring with his band, and even Fred the cat no longer turned up at our door. I felt lonelier than I’d ever felt in my life.

Since I’d now started looking for a new job rather desperately, I’m afraid I didn’t have much time for Lynton when he came backstage a few nights later with his usual flowers for me.

‘Been meaning to mention to you, Sophie,’ he said with his shy smile. ‘That chap who was here looking for you the other night – do you know, he looked rather like someone who was in the RFC for the first year or two of the war, and gave us younger fellows a few training sessions.’

I’d turned round to him, at a loss. ‘The RFC?’

‘The Royal Flying Corps,’ Lynton explained. ‘That’s the outfit I was in. The man I’m talking about was an absolutely ace flyer.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s quite impossible. He wasn’t in the war.’ Clearly Lynton didn’t know that Ash was now the Duke of Belfield; their social paths couldn’t yet have crossed.

Lynton shrugged. ‘My mistake – must have confused him with someone else. Anyway,’ he gave his endearing grin, ‘I’ve come to ask you if you’ll go on a date with me, Sophie. There’s a bash at the Dorchester next week and I’d be pleased as punch if you’d let me take you.’

‘Lynton, I’m a chorus girl! You’d be a laughing stock!’

‘No I wouldn’t,’ he protested. ‘You’re damned beautiful, and kind as well – that’s what matters to me.’

I shook my head and he sighed resignedly. ‘Maybe someday you’ll change your mind?’

‘I won’t,’ I said gently. ‘I’m sorry, Lynton, but I won’t.’

The theatre kept me too busy to think much, although at night, now that I didn’t have Cora to talk to, I would remember Ash again, obsess about Ash again, until my emotions were raw from going over that last, harrowing evening with him.

Tell me
, he’d urged,
tell me you haven’t been selling yourself.

Why not?
I’d replied.
All the other girls do.

If I’d thought I could help Cora in any way, I’d have searched all of London for her, but I guessed she was beyond my help now. I even asked Pauline Moran if she’d heard anything of her, but Pauline shook her head and said, ‘She’ll be in bad company. Leave her to it – there’s nothing you can do.’

And I was in trouble myself, because I couldn’t afford the rent of the house on my own. I’d got an interview coming up with a new dance troupe called the Sandy Bay Girls, who were based in a Covent Garden theatre, and I was due to meet their manager there at half past four. Our rehearsals usually ended at four but, as luck would have it, on the day of my interview, Cally was late. My heart sank – no doubt we would overrun – but to my relief our pianist Gaye Ronald began the rehearsal without him.

We were preparing a new number and, as I grew more confident with the steps, I found myself humming the words. Gaye Ronald must have heard, because she clicked her fingers and said, ‘Come to the front and sing the song, will you, Sophie?’

So I did, and for just a moment I felt confident and happy in my talent. For a few minutes I even forgot Ash. But then Rupert Calladine came in. ‘Sophie. My office, please.’

I’d not wanted to tell him yet about my interview, not until I got a definite offer, but as I followed him I was afraid he’d already heard.

But it was worse than that. He told me I could not work for him any more.

I stared at him. ‘I don’t understand. Why?’

‘Because you’ve been stealing.’

‘No. No.’ I almost laughed. ‘That’s ridiculous—’

He broke in impatiently. ‘Items have been disappearing from my office for a while – pens, some cufflinks of mine, a leather bag of coins for the till. I was reluctant to have the police anywhere near, but now it turns out I don’t have to, because that bag of coins – empty, needless to say – has been found in your locker.’

‘My locker?’ I was incredulous. I never used it; I preferred to take all my clothes and belongings home with me each night. ‘No…’

‘Let’s keep this simple, shall we? I want you off the premises now, Miss Davis.’

‘No! Please, Mr Calladine!’ I was desperate. I’d intended to leave, yes, but not to be cast off like this, without a reference.

‘It’s not something I can discuss,’ he said.

My thoughts flew wildly to Ash. Could
he
somehow have arranged this? He’d told me he didn’t want me dancing in public, but surely he wouldn’t stoop to such a low trick? In complete despair I got all my things together and left without saying a word to anyone, but the sound of Miss Gaye’s piano and the rhythmic tapping of the girls’ dancing feet echoed in my mind all the way home.

No point in going to my interview, not without a reference. The first thing any theatre manager would do would be to contact Cally about me, and that would be it – no job. I remember it was typical March weather, blustery and wet, and I tidied round the little house, made myself a meal I could scarcely eat, then searched through the London newspaper for a job as a shop assistant, a cleaner, anything. I went to bed feeling tired and depressed, and when I awoke an hour or two later, I imagined I’d been disturbed by more rain beating against my window.

But then I heard someone pounding at the door and a voice calling rather desperately, ‘Sophie. Are you there? Sophie, please let me in!’

Cora.
My heart thudding, I pulled on my dressing gown and ran downstairs. She stood there in the pouring rain wearing only a thin, cheap coat, her wet hair clinging to her face, and she flung herself into my arms, shaking with cold. ‘Sophie, it was my fault you got sacked from Cally’s. I know what happened. I-I met Pauline by chance in a bar tonight. It was me who stole that money and the other things, and I used your locker,
and I’m so desperately sorry! And now there are people after me…’

I realised that as well as being terribly distressed, she’d taken something, because her pupils were dilated, her breathing shallow. I tried to make her come through to the parlour – our door was wide open, with the rain blowing in – but she was still clinging to me wildly. ‘Oh, I wish it was like the old days, Sophie! You and I coming back here after the show and talking into the night. With Fred…’

She swallowed a sob, then began to dance in our hallway and sing in a broken voice one of our old routines from Cally’s – ‘I’m Always Chasing Rainbows’. I suddenly realised that underneath her coat she wore nothing but a black brassiere with holes for her nipples, black panties and a garter belt to hold up her stockings. ‘Cora.’ I grabbed at her arm to make her stop. ‘Oh, God, Cora. Come inside and get changed into something warm.’

I glanced at my watch – it was well after eleven. Somehow I got her in and peeled off her wet coat, but then I heard the sound of a car coming to a halt at the end of our road. Running to the window I saw that some men had jumped out of it and were looking up and down the street. Cora was beside me, just in that scanty underwear. ‘Danny’s men,’ she breathed. She clung to me, suddenly trembling again.

I felt quite cold with shock. ‘Why are they after you, Cora?’

She didn’t answer, but she wouldn’t let go of me. ‘All I wanted was love, Sophie,’ she whispered. ‘Please, please help me…’

Tight with fear by now, I managed to pull a warm coat of mine over her and scrambled into some clothes myself. I could already hear someone banging at our front door. ‘We’ve got to get out the back way, Cora. We’ve got to run. Can you make it?’

She pulled my coat around her. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, Sophie, so sorry.’

‘It’s all right.’ I hugged her swiftly. ‘Now, follow me.
Hurry
.’

There was a small yard at the back of the house and I helped Cora to climb the high brick wall into the lane beyond, though she kicked my ribs unintentionally with one sharp heel as she heaved herself over it. Once out on the narrow lane, we ran. I was very afraid we would still be followed on foot, and I knew those men would be much faster and stronger than us. But where could we go, for safety?