Enemy Lover (4 page)

It was twelve o’clock when she was put into the taxi, and twenty past when she arrived back at the hotel. She hastened upstairs to her room with a pageboy following her into the lift with the greater number of her parcels, and after she had seen them all safely stowed away in the capacious wardrobe space she returned downstairs to partake of a hasty lunch, and then sought the advice of one of the young women behind the reception desk.

She wanted a hairdresser who could fit her in without an appointment. Apparently that was a simple matter with which to confront the receptionist, for an appointment was made for her almost immediately, and she was on her way to keep it before she really had time to realise that for the first time in her life an expert was to take over the arrangement of her softly swinging, flaxen-gold tresses.

Usually she washed her hair herself, but occasionally she paid a visit to a hairdresser. This was no ordinary hairdressing establishment, however, to which she had gained access. It was one of those temples of beauty culture from which well-to-do women emerged sometimes as many as three times a week, all ready for a luncheon engagement, a cocktail party or an evening at the theatre.

Tina had no plans for the rest of the day, and she certainly had no engagement of any kind, but when she finally emerged after Monsieur Andre had worked over her—with the assistance of a couple of pink- robed high-priestesses—she was looking so completely different from the Tina Andrews who had entered the imposing portals that a close friend might have gaped at her.

Monsieur Andre had taken at least three inches off her hair, and it no longer swayed gently against her face with every movement she made but glittered in a golden ‘bob.’ The glitter came from the brightening rinse that had been considered essential, and the ‘bob’ was a little reminiscent of the nineteen-thirties. It suited her as perhaps no other style could have suited her—or certainly not as well; and the make-up experts at Monsieur Andre’s had gilded the lily still further.

They had held a consultation and decided that a very light form of make-up was all she needed—the merest touch of eye-shadow, hardly any mascara because her eyelashes were dusted with gold at the tips, the lightest "dusting of face-powder and a lipstick that glowed as if rose petals were softly lighted from within. She was assured that she must never, never use a really brilliant lipstick, and as for perfume only something really flowerlike would suit her.

She came away with a slim phial of flagrantly expensive flower perfume, and a complete range of the cosmetics recommended by the salon, and hoped that no one would notice any alteration in her appearance when she crept in through a side door of the hotel. She also felt mildly horrified by the amount of money she had spent that day.

But when she went down to dinner that night in her Kensington hotel she certainly merited the looks that were directed at her. Elderly dowagers and elegantly gowned matrons felt inclined to put up their lorgnettes as she made her way—with the same shyness as the night before—to her table in a corner. Tonight she was even more glad that it was in a corner because the interest she had aroused was something that could actually be felt, and unaccustomed to creating anything in the nature of a stir, she felt as if her embarrassment was literally scorching her cheeks.

But if that was so, in actual fact the scorching process in no way

affected the matt smoothness of her

complexion. Her dress of cream wool with an utterly uncluttered line and a slim girdle that drew attention to the desirable small waist was so obviously expensive that it was an excellent choice; and the fact that she wore no jewellery apart from an antique turquoise and silver bracelet—at one time the possession of her mother—was another excellent choice in the way of adornment.

The elderly ladies relaxed and smiled slightly amongst themselves. One or two elderly gentlemen puffed out their chests a trifle ... . The waiters gravitated as if by instinct to her side of the room.

But Tina was concentrating on ordering her meal, and after that she began to tick off various important things that she had to do on her fingers.

Clothes . . . She was temporarily equipped with more than enough. The bank manager . . . Mr. Jasper had arranged to meet her the following morning and introduce her himself. And in the afternoon she planned to look over her house. The keys had arrived, brought round by special messenger, and were lying in a drawer of the writing-desk upstairs in her room. When she touched them for the first time they provided her with an extraordinary sensation, for they were the keys of the first house—indeed, anything in the nature of a home or possible home—she had owned in her life.

Then, when she had seen the house for herself, she had to make a decision about what to do with it. And after that she planned to make a telephone call. Sir Angus Giffard had a flat somewhere in the West End, and she had to see him and discuss this whole matter with him. Since the solicitor could not put things right, someone must help her to do so . . . There had to be a solution.

She was determined to find a solution somehow. And, if not a solution, a compromise . . . Surely it should not be impossible to alight upon a compromise?

CHAPTER FOUR LONDON is full of quiet squares, and some of them are more tucked away and less accessible than others. These are not the fashionable squares . . . certainly not nowadays; and they contain houses that have become faded and forlorn-looking with the passage of time, although frequently there is something extremely dignified about the exteriors. The late Sir Angus Giffard’s house had this air of apologising for present misfortuntes, and inside there was a damp smell of disuse and the absence of central heating.

Such a house needed central heating, with its five storeys—not

including the attics. As Tina’s footsteps echoed hollowly on the stairs she felt as if cold, dank fingers were touching her shoulders and reminding her of days that were gone.

The staircase was a handsome affair, curving upwards to the first and second floors. The stairs above that were narrower and steeper, and made her think of maidservants toiling up them with cans of hot water for the occupants of the bedrooms on the upper floors. The house might now lack life and vitality, but at least there were no weary females answering imperious summonses on bells and darting out of the basement to make up coal fires and carry trays of tea to the drawing-room.

The drawing-room was a splendid apartment that was divided by folding doors and could save the purpose of two rooms, and Tina returned to it when she had completed her inspection of the upper floors, and had satisfied herself that they were much as she had expected to find them.

All the furniture was good, and possibly valuable. The carpets were faded and in many eases threadbare, but the one in the drawing-room had a beauty that delighted her. The damask-covered chairs and stiff little settees delighted her, also, and she wondered whether—if they were really and truly hers!— she could ever bear to part with them. She sat down at a Sheraton corner table and leafed through a family album that stood on it—no pictures of any member of the Giffard family that she could recognise; and then she examined the delicate workmanship of an ivory Swiss chalet, and an ornate musical box that tinkled enchantingly when she lifted the lid.

All items that belonged to the Giffard past, and now seemed to belong to no one. For she couldn’t feel that they belonged to her.

She sighed, and wondered what she was going to do with the house if she finally had to make a decision about it. Impossible to imagine herself living there, and even if she made a small corner of it habitable in a modern way for herself what would she do with the rest of it?

What did one do with a house of this size when one was the owner of it? Let it? Sell it? . . . Why hadn’t old Angus sold it long ago since he declined to live in it?

The house was intensely silent, and it startled her when she thought she heard a small noise in the hall

The drawing-room was on the first floor, and in order to make certain her ears hadn’t played her false she went out and peeped over the balustrade of the staircase. But the hall was empty, and

apart from a slight scampering noise that could have been caused by mice there was nothing there to disturb her.

She returned to the drawing-room and started to wander uneasily about it, touching books and flower vases, even straightening an odd picture on the wall. She ran her fingers over the yellowed keys of the piano, jumped because the rippling chord startled her afresh, and then jumped convulsively and uttered a startled cry as the chains of the grandfather clock in the hall grated horribly, and the timepiece that had been silent when she entered the house emitted a couple of chimes.

This time she fairly raced to the head of the staircase, and as she stood there staring in unbelief Sir Angus Giffard desisted from his attempt to get the clock working normally and looked up at her

calmly.

“Hello,” he said. He said it quite casually—so casually that she wondered whether her eyes as well as her ears were playing her tricks, and he really wasn’t there at all. “Getting the feel of the house, as the saying is? Gloating over all your new possessions?” Tina stood quite still at the head of the stair, unable to move or say a word in answer. The man with the glorious shade of Titian hair in the hall below her, and the hard blue eyes that were not glorious but arrogantly handsome and as coolly watchful as a cat’s, walked to the foot of the stairs and came up them slowly with the careful precision of a cat. He was wearing a dark lounge suit, and his tie had the delicate sheen of pure silk. His head was held arrogantly, and although his hair was fiery it was recently and beautifully barbered.

He was obviously a man who enjoyed being thought—and plainly was—a master of the art of sartorial perfection.

“Sorry if I startled you,” he apologised, when he was only a few steps below the spot where she was standing. But there was no apology in his eyes, only quiet, insolent contempt. “I’m afraid I’ve formed a habit of dropping in here occasionally and winding up the clock. It’s a very fine piece of work, that clock— Italian, I think. If you can bear to part with it perhaps you’d let me buy it off you.” There was much dryness in his voice, but she answered mechanically.

“How did you get in? Have you a key?” Obviously he had a key, since he couldn’t have entered the house without one. “The clock is yours, if you want it. In any case, I’ve a lot to talk to you about.” “Oh, indeed?” The finely marked eyebrows that were several shades darker than his hair arched. “And what, I wonder, could a

young woman like you wish to talk to me about? I wouldn’t have said we’d a lot in common.”

She flushed. He was being deliberately unpleasant, and she realised it. But he was also being unreasonable and she resented that.

“I should say we almost certainly have very little in common,” she returned with sudden spirit, “and what little we have won’t be cultivated by me once we have had the talk I mentioned just now, I can assure you, Sir Angus. But you must have some sort of rationality about you, and if you’re nursing a grievance because you believe that your uncle had an affair with a girl of my age while he was lying ill in a cottage, then it’s high time you had it pointed out to you that you must be mad.”

“Thank you.” He smiled tightly. “You can’t have heard of May and December . . . They attract one another, you know. And we must assume that my uncle wasn’t always lying ill in a cottage.” “For the short time I knew him he was ill.”

“And inside the cottage? Who was it tucked him up at night and made him hot drinks, and generally nursed him back to health with beef tea and womanly tenderness? So much womanly tenderness that he would have married you if he could, and if the neighbours wouldn’t have thought it odd when he tottered up the aisle leaning on a stick!”

For a moment her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him. And then with cheeks flaming and biting her lower lip she turned away abruptly and walked back to the drawing-room.

Sir Angus followed.

“Did I hear you playing the piano just now?” he enquired conversationally, as she took up her position in front of the fireplace, hands straight down at her sides and chin a little in the air, as if she was preparing herself for battle.

“No. I can’t play the piano.” “Then you were making a very pleasant noise.” He strolled over to the instrument himself and started to strum on it idly... incidentally, also making a very pleasant noise. Then he glanced at her over his shoulder, and she could tell by the gleam in his eye that something provocative was

coming.

“I see you’ve improved your style of dressing. Must have spent quite a bit of old Angus’s carefully hoarded money ... And I must say that new hair-do suits you!”

He leant back against the piano, and his blue eyes blazed with insolence.

“Sir Angus—” she found it difficult to enunciate clearly, but this was a business that had to be concluded as rapidly as possible, “how much money do you want to leave me alone for the rest of my life, and if possible never to come near me again? You know how much your uncle left, and you know how much I received... According to the will I can’t just hand it all over to you and the other members of your family, because your uncle didn’t want that to happen, apparently, and if I decline to be his leading beneficiary everything goes elsewhere. Some society for the preservation of ancient dialects. ” “I know all about that.”

“Then how much will you take?”

The blue eyes positively glittered. His jaw was as hard as iron. “You mean you’re prepared to buy me out? To buy your way into the good graces of the Giffard family, shall we say?”

“You can say what you like, but all I want to know is how much do you want? There’s nothing to stop me having a Deed of Gift drawn up, and that can be large enough to make some sort of provision for your aunt and your cousin. I understand that they are not destitute, but they probably expected to benefit under your uncle’s will, so now is the time to make up to them for any disappointment they received .”