Between Friends (56 page)

‘Come to my rooms,’ he said urgently.

‘Your … your rooms?’

‘Yes. I have rooms at a house in town. We can be alone …’

‘But …’ She lifted a hand to indicate the hangar and the men in it, the gauzy outline of his ‘Wren’, the benches and machinery and in the far corner, the ‘Blériot’ in which he gave flying lessons.

‘I can leave it … for an hour, please Meggie …’

An hour
! He was asking her to slip away covertly and meet him in his rooms where they would spend an hour … an hour …

‘We can talk, Meggie,’ but his burning eyes scorched her face and her breast and his ragged breath tore at something precious inside her and she drew back uncertainly.

‘Godammit, Meg, you love me … I can see it in your eyes! Do
you
know how long I have loved you, do you? I have watched you and waited for you to recognise your feelings because I knew them for I feel them! All this with Tom, it has to come out sooner or later. I wouldn’t have let you go ahead with it, you know that, don’t you? I hoped you would see it for yourself … he’s your
brother
, dammit and you have mistaken what you feel for him as … It’s not a woman’s love for her man, Meg. Face it, my darling! Look at me! That is what you feel for
me
, isn’t it?’

He groaned and turned to stare out over the hangar and every man in it was suddenly busy at whatever he was about but he did not notice them. ‘I see you standing there, telling me that it’s true and I want to leap across the office and put my arms about you and kiss you until you beg me to … Is that wrong, Meggie?’

But she had moved another foot away from him, inching along the desk and when he turned back to her, her face no longer had that bemused, familiar look he had seen on a score of other female faces and he knew she had withdrawn from him.

‘What is it? What have I said? Is it Tom? You’ll have to tell him, you know. You can’t keep letting him believe you’re going to marry him. It’s unfair to us all. The poor sod is besotted with you but …’

His face became sad and his voice sighed out of him and he slumped against the door. ‘It is Tom, isn’t it? And me! I’ve gone too fast, haven’t I? But the sight of you standing in that hangar doorway, the sun shining about you … and that blue thing you have on. I always said you should wear bright colours …’ His voice was soft and Meg wondered at the many facets of this man she loved. He could be fierce, challenging, passionate, a man needing and demanding his woman, sure that he would get her with his wit and charm, and yet he had sensed her withdrawal from an ardour, a sensuality she had no knowledge of. She was ignorant of a man’s body, innocent herself and her resistance to the thought of going to his rooms, to the quite premeditated arrangement of herself and him, alone there, had put a barrier between them.

‘Meggie, I’m sorry, my love, but I am a man and I cannot apologise for the feeling you arouse in me. I’m not ashamed of it. I love you and I want you! I want you in my bed one day! There, I’ve said it,’ but he grinned wickedly now, impudent and loving, and he saw her begin to smile. ‘I really did not mean … well … shall we say, my sweet Meg, that when we find the right place and the right moment I shall kiss you and kiss you until you cannot resist me. Now, before I lose any more production I think you must go. But promise me something.’ He put out a hand and she moved to it unhesitatingly and put her own in his and her face was soft and quite beautiful in her love for him.

‘What Martin?’

‘Promise me you will tell Tom as soon as you get home, and another thing. Take that damn silly ring off your finger! I shall get you a …’

‘It’s not a damn silly ring. Tom paid a lot of money …’

‘Oh God! don’t let’s start again, Meg.’

‘I’m not, but you should not put Tom down like that. He saved up hard and it took all the money he had …’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt it and I’m really not putting him down, sweetheart. I have a strong affection for Tom, you know that but any man is entitled to feel outraged when he sees the woman he loves sporting a ring another fellow gave her. Anyway, that is not the issue here.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and held her gently but he had to restrain himself from giving her a thorough shaking for it seemed she must be forever defending Tom Fraser and he really did get tired of it.

‘No! Then what is?’

‘You know exactly what is to be done and you must find the courage to do it, Meggie, or I will!’

He felt her shoulders slump beneath his hands and for a brief moment she allowed him to draw her into his arms. Her own came round his back and she pressed her face against his chest, and the men on the shop floor held their breath as he held her to him, then she stepped away quite briskly. Her eyes were bright with tears for Tom but the strange and lovely joy Martin had roused in her was a promise and he was satisfied.

‘Come back to me when you have told him,’ he said. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’

The low sun shone on the French windows as she drove up the drive towards the house and she stopped half way up it, letting the engine idle as she sat and looked at it. It was a lovely house. The gardens were immaculate now, the slope of the lawn massed with wild daffodils in an undulating carpet of yellow against the green. There was pink campion pressing along the edge of the lake, a willow tree beginning to leaf and at the base of the walls of the house, slashing the grey stone with colour, were hyacinth and narcissus, primrose and anemone. The house was set in grounds of wild beauty, only the area immediately around it tamed so that eventually guests might sit comfortably in the sunshine, or play croquet on the lawns Tom was preparing. The ornamental gardens would be spectacular in their season, a multitude of velvet headed roses in every shade from palest pink to deepest red and all surrounded with a low, clipped box hedge and neat gravelled pathways. There was a conservatory to the side where it would catch the sun and already Tom had magnolia, orchid and gardenia blooming there and a dozen green ferns and even a canary in a cage. There were wicker chairs and tables, a small fountain and a statue or two of cherubs at play.

The sky was high, blue and distant, hazed a little with light cloud but for miles around there was nothing, just high peaks and gentle valleys and the restful peace of the Dovedale Grange. She turned off the engine and slipped down in her seat until her head rested on the back of it, staring up into the tender new leaves of the lime trees which edged the drive. It was so quiet now she could hear the whisper of the breeze in the branches and the high song of a linnet, out of sight in the arch of the sky. She closed her
eyes
and listened and in her head she could hear the laughter of splendid men and women, dressed in white of course, as they moved about her lawn, and the deferential tones of the maids who set out tables and chairs and dainty trays of sandwiches and cakes and tea. There was movement as horses trotted along the path which led down to the river and the sound of the river itself, and behind the house, out of the sight of the guests, chauffeurs lounged whilst the mechanic filled up the petrol tanks of the dozen elegant motors which stood in the yard.

She herself was waiting in the doorway of the house, always there each time to warmly greet a new arrival, delighted to reassure them that Miss Hughes was not only familiar with their names, where they had come from, where they were going to, but within minutes, any likes or dislikes they might have and which would be catered for during their stay in her exclusive establishment.

And the food, they would ask? It could not be bettered in any of the smartest London hotels or restaurants, she would tell them, and would prove it, and was it any wonder the dining-room was filled each lunchtime and evening, not only with hotel guests but with the local gentry, nobility even, who ate there regularly.

She sighed, then smiled a cat’s smile and stretched her limbs and Martin’s eyes grinned lazily at her and she could feel the hot blood begin to surge in her veins and her breath grew quick in her throat. Martin … Martin … Martin …
and Tom!
Dear God, how was she to tell him … Dear God!

There was an irritated honking of a motor car horn from somewhere and she sat up quickly, looking about her for she could have sworn it was close by. She turned and gasped for there was a ‘Silver Ghost’ Rolls Royce directly behind her, chauffeur driven, the sun striking from its polished surface and brass headlamps and as she stared, her jaw slack, the chauffeur switched off the engine and stepped down from the machine.

‘Excuse me, miss,’ he said politely, his eyes admiring ‘will you be long, only we want to get up to the hotel.’

The hotel.
The hotel
!

‘Er … well …’ Her brain appeared to have been deprived of its usual capacity to function and she continued to sit, half turned in her seat then, as though the new electric light which had been installed in every one of the rooms at ‘Hilltops’, even the maidservant’s attic bedroom, had been switched on, her brain
became
alive and bounding with joy. The hotel! They were looking for the hotel. Her hotel!

‘I am sorry,’ she said and her voice took on the warmth and welcome of the professional hotelier. ‘I was daydreaming, but please, follow me and I will lead you up to the reception.’

She was exultant! A chauffeur driven Rolls Royce, if you please. She had expected most of their guests would have motor cars when they came, for they were all to be wealthy, though there would naturally still be the occasional carriage, but their very first guests had a Rolls Royce. Surely it was an omen! These were her first guests and they were possessed of a Rolls Royce, the King of motor cars! It must be! It must be an omen!

‘Mrs Marrington, how nice to meet you, and Mr Marrington.’ Meg moved gracefully towards them as the couple climbed down from their motor car and introduced themselves, extending her hand to the portly little man who was entering the hotel. He walked with all the swagger of a bantam cock, and she was momentarily startled by the appreciative gleam in his pale blue eyes as he looked her up and down before turning to the reception counter. She nodded briskly at Tom who stood as though turned to stone, to get the luggage, and just as though she had been preparing for their arrival for weeks, shepherded the stout and overdressed personage of Mrs Marrington through the foyer.

‘Why don’t you sit here and I shall bring you some tea, or would you prefer coffee. Perhaps a sandwich. We have smoked salmon, cucumber, pressed and garnished ham. You must be tired after your journey. You have come all the way from … Bolton … My goodness! What a journey!’

‘Nay lass.’ Mrs Marrington’s florid face beamed, perspiring freely, since, as the day was cool she had put on her new sable collar and she could not bear to be parted from it, even here in the warmth of the hotel. Newly rich was Mrs Marrington and though becoming used to it, she had not yet reached the stage where such things were commonplace to her!

‘We stopped over on’t way,’ she continued chattily for that was how they were in the class from which she had risen. ‘Mr Marrington ’ad a bit of business to see to in Manchester. We’re in cotton, tha’ knows. We put up in a place in Buxton last night. Broke the journey, like.’

She sighed as though in the deepest despair but her face was robustly cheerful and her bright eyes sparkled with humour. ‘That
lad
o’ mine can go nowhere wi’out he does a bit o’ business, even though we’re on us ’olidays.’

As Lancashire as the hot-pot she had used to eat before Albert Marrington made his brass and caring nowt a pound who knew it, Mrs Marrington leaned back in her chair and looked round approvingly at the beautifully furnished, wide hallway which was now the foyer of the hotel, admiring the high polish on the scattered small tables, one at every chair, the electric lamps shaded in pale green silk which stood on them, the deep pile of the dark green and cream patterned carpet and the simple beauty of the fragile, wrought iron staircase which led to the upper floors.

The reception area was what had evidently been a small room off the hall, the wall between knocked down and a wide counter put in. Everything gleamed with beeswax, and flowers made dashes of bright colour on the tables and window sills. The chair in which she sat was of dark green leather and there was a chesterfield to match it on the other side of the open fireplace in which a huge log fire crackled.

There were brass plates on the cream painted walls and copper urns in which dried flowers and grasses had been cleverly arranged, and a painting or two, pretty and easy to understand, of poppies and children and bright meadows. Mrs Marrington thought it ‘right cosy’, she said to the attentive Miss Hughes and in her opinion it would do very nicely for the few days rest she was bent on for her Albert. She could potter in the lovely garden they had driven through and sit with her knitting in the pleasant glassed winter garden she had noticed, whilst Albert did a bit of fishing in the River Dove.

‘You’re a bit quiet, lass,’ she went on, looking about her as she sipped her tea. ‘You
are
open, aren’t you?’ she said, her voice suddenly anxious, ‘only the advertisement in the newspaper said opening shortly and we thought seeing we were in the district – eeh, don’t say we’ve come up all this way for nowt!’

‘Of course not, Mrs Marrington. The season is early yet but we are to be open all the year round if the weather allows! We are very pleased to have you, Mr Fraser and I, and you shall have the best suite in the hotel.’

‘Aye, we ’eard you ’ad suites just like the Adelphi and the Ritz in London. We’ve stayed there, tha’ knows.’ She was visibly proud.