Peacock's Walk (14 page)

Jenny looked away quickly from the stark misery in Dilys's eyes. There was nothing she could say to this.

'I could tell,' went on Dilys in a low vibrant

voice, 'that you hadn't liked being dragged out like that, you were trying to make him put you down. I suddenly couldn't bear it! He loves you—and you couldn't care less! And I love him so much—and he c-couldn't care less about me. I ran back to my room.' She swallowed again. 'I had some wild idea of making him come and get me. I wasn't going to come out until he came.' She looked down at the floor again after giving Jenny a quick glance that held a mixture of dislike and yet a kind of plea to understand how it was. 'The rest sort of happened,' she ended simply.

Jenny said nothing for a few seconds to enable Dilys to gain some measure of control over her feelings, then she said quietly, 'I do see how it must have been for you, but you must understand that you can't possibly hold Mark to that promise, the promise he gave you—was forced to give you—under such impossible conditions,' she added gently.

Dilys's quick vehement answer shocked Jenny, who had expected her to agree, be it miserably, with Jenny's summing-up of the situation.

'I can—and I shall! ' she said wildly, turning from the position of a defendant defending her case to a young vixen defending her young. 'Why should you care! I'll make him happy. I know he's absolutely furious with me now for pushing him into proposing to me, but he'll get over it, you'll see. And what's more, we'll be happy, I know we will! '

The last words ended on a desperate note, and Jenny knew exasperatedly that she would be wasting her breath in trying to dissuade the girl from taking

such an irrevocable step. Nevertheless, she had to try—for all their sakes. To say now. that she loved Mark would only make matters worse, and make Dilys all the more determined to embark on a collision course that would only bring more unhappiness in its wake.

She tried the mild approach. 'It's very apparent that you don't know Mark very well, Dilys,' she commented, trying to keep her voice casual. 'I told you once that he was not the type of man that liked having his mind made up for him. Do you honestly believe he'll ever forgive you for blackmailing him into marriage?' At Dilys's painful flush on this bald statement, Jenny gave a slight shake of the head. 'I'm sorry, but it has to be faced, and no matter how much you try to gloss over this fact, it will always be there between you. He would have to love you very much to forgive you—and on your own admission, he doesn't—so why not be sensible about it? Pull out before it's too late. He'll respect you all the more for your honesty.'

'He does love me!' ground out Dilys. 'Only he doesn't know it. If you hadn't let him down, he wouldn't have this thing about you. He thinks it's love, but I believe he hates you for what you did to him. You say I don't know him very well, that's as much as you know. I've known him since I was twelve, and I've never stopped loving him. I cried for a week when I heard he was engaged, and I was so happy when he broke off the engagement. I knew one day he'd turn to me,' she gulped hard. `So it didn't happen just as I'd dreamed, but it happened

—and it's going to go on happening. Sooner or later he's going to realise just what he feels about you. They say hate is akin to love, don't they? Well, he probably hates me now, and I hope he'll go on hating me—it's better than seeing me as the eternal little girl—anything's better than that!'

The slam of the door accompanied Dilys's abrupt departure, and Jenny drew in a breath of silent relief that the embarrassing interlude was over. She had tried, but as she had known it would, her attempt had failed. Dilys's attempt to make her believe that Mark hated her had also failed. It might have worked before the fire—but not now, she thought sadly.

WITH Mark only putting in brief appearances in the office, and Dilys, braving it out, for there was no other way to describe her behaviour, that hovered between a kind of defiance and a bright couldn't
care-less attitude to dumb misery whenever she failed to locate Mark's whereabouts, Jenny soon found herself making plans for her departure from the scene.

There had been one or two occasions when Dilys had taken Mark's removal from her vicinity out on Jenny. She must have some idea where he had gone, etc, good secretaries always knew where their bosses were, didn't they? and so on.

It would not have been so bad for Jenny if Silas and Dilys had taken the accommodation Mark had found for them in his other hotel, but Dilys had dug her heels in and querulously demanded that some other rooms were found for them at Peacock's Walk. Only the first floor had been damaged, hadn't it? and surely they could be found some other accommodation on another floor.

It was obvious to Jenny that in spite of what, Dilys had told her earlier of her determination to

see things through, she was very unsure of her ability to actually carry it out.

What did surprise Jenny was that Dilys got her way, and rooms were found for them on the ground floor. Rooms that would otherwise have been allocated to staff, had the hotel been functioning normally, and as such would not be as large or as luxurious as the guest rooms, but this would not have worried Dilys in the least, who saw her victory as a small ray of hope in her wish for regaining Mark's goodwill.

Jenny, however, saw it as a small concession on Mark's part towards Silas, who must have been blaming himself for what had happened. He had, as he had told Jenny, encouraged Dilys in her quest—or at least, tried to make things come right for her, but he could not have foreseen subsequent events. Jenny had only met him once after the fire, and had not missed the fact that his once ready smile had not been forthcoming. Indeed he seemed, if anything, apologetic towards her, and she had gone out of her way to show him as gently as she could that she did not hold him responsible in any way for what had happened, as she suspected Mark had done, in his own way.

With Dilys encamped in a room only a little way down the corridor from her rooms, Jenny saw the ending of her peaceful evenings, particularly if Mark continued to absent himself from taking dinner with Dilys and Silas, and dining out elsewhere.

It was all part of the lesson he was giving Dilys, and no amount of complaining would make the slightest difference, Jenny knew. Mark could be

cruel, this she also knew, and it was something Dilys would have to face up to sooner or later. Try as she might, Jenny simply could not see the 'happy ever after' ending that Dilys had so defiantly predicted.

It looked as if things were at a complete impasse all the way round the bizarre affair, and if Dilys was feeling the strain, so was Jenny. She wanted to pack up and get out of what was becoming an intolerable position, with not only Mark's silent rebuke and cold attitude during the short space of time that he attended to the office affairs, but Dilys's persistent popping in on her during the evenings.

No matter which way one looked at it, Jenny was being made to feel the villain of the piece. Mark blamed her, even if he hadn't actually said so, and Dilys made no bones about it. It was the usual theme of 'if you hadn't let him down', etc, blaming Jenny for Mark's cruelty to hey. Yet in spite of all this, Jenny found herself unable to break free. It was as if she were caught in a web that held her powerless, even though she knew she had only to put a few things in a case to tide her over, and she could walk out of the hotel. There would be no one to stop her, and if Dilys just happened to be in the foyer, then she would take great pleasure in waving Jenny goodbye.

Her reluctance to do this stemmed from her love for Mark, and she acknowledged this fact without reservation. As Silas Hawter had wanted to see things through, so too did Jenny. So far, no actual wedding date had been fixed, but this had not worried Dilys, who had given Jenny a detailed descrip-

tion of the kind of wedding dress she would wear,

and the trousseau she hoped to be able to purchase.

These sort of confidences would have caused Jenny much pain if she had not realised that Dilys was indulging in a daydream—a dream that had been there for years, always with Mark as the bridegroom.

Because she felt sorry for her, Jenny was able to stand apart and not let her confidences upset her. even while knowing that that was the sole purpose of the exercise.

Within a day, Jenny witnessed a scene that put an entirely different light on the affair, and made her start packing in earnest. If she had not chosen that moment to slip down to reception with the day's mail for Rose to post on her way home, she would not have seen Mark smile at Dilys as they passed each other in the foyer.

The smile he had given her had held the same indulgence in it that Jenny had noticed before, but it transformed Dilys, who turned on her heel and stared at Mark's retreating back as he left the hotel. There had been no conversation between them—not that it was necessary, Jenny thought miserably as she slowly retraced her steps back to the office, not wanting to risk meeting the jubilant Dilys.

As Mark had left the hotel, it did not look as if he meant to be back for dinner, and that meant another evening ruined for Jenny by Dilys's company —and Jenny didn't think she could take any more. It was bad enough listening to daydreams when there was no possibility of them coming true, but

having to listen when the improbability became a

probability was something that Jenny could not do.

The only person it appeared who was daydreaming, was herself, she thought bitterly as she searched out a suitcase and started packing. Mark had been playing with her; her first instincts had been right, and Dilys had seen it, too. She had very probably been right when she had told Jenny that Mark hated her—why else would he have made a bid for the hotel and forced his way back into her life, if it was not for revenge? As for the way he had rescued her on the night of the fire—he hadn't finished with her yet, had he? Like the cat that had cornered the mouse, it had to keep it there, adroitly cutting off all avenues of escape, until it wearied of the game.

Well, this mouse had an escape, and was taking it while the going was good. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was a few minutes past five. That meant she had three hours in which to settle her affairs. Dinner was served at seven, and Dilys usually made an appearance about eight, only this time, Jenny thought grimly, she would have to find some other confidant.

With a calmness that surprised her Jenny finished her packing, then sat down to write Mark a letter of resignation, stating that as there was so little work for her to do, she had taken the opportunity of visiting an elderly aunt of hers in Scotland. This was a blatant lie, and he would be well aware of this, as he knew Jenny had no living relatives, but it would

serve as a useful excuse to remove herself from the scene—as far as po
ssible, Land's End, if need be !
On the surface, it was a perfectly innocuous letter, just right to go down on the file of personnel notices, thus preventing any comeback from Chanter Enterprises or their illustrious boss.

The next item on her agenda was to see Tony and put him in the picture. If he wanted to leave with her, then there was nothing she could do about it
!
Dodie either, come to that, but Jenny did not want an en bloc decampment as she had previously wished for, not after the fire. There was still some cleaning up to be done, and Dodie's services would be needed if hers and Tony's were not.

With only a few residents to provide meals for, Tony was free to talk to Jenny when she sought him out.

The next part was going to be the hardest part, she knew, and past experience told her that she would not be able to deceive Tony as to her real reason for leaving. Now, as she sat facing him in his personal domain in a small pantry off the kitchen, she found she need not have worried, for Tony took her decision with a calmness that shook her. Her surprised eyes widened as she watched him nod placidly when she had finished, showing that he was in complete agreement with her.

There was no suggestion of his accompanying her either, and this surprised her, too, but when he gave a shamefaced grin and said, `Dodie and I have come to an agreement,' she understood.

'Oh, Tony! I'm so happy for you,' she said quickly. 'I don't know why you waited so long,' she added happily, completely forgetting her misery in her joy of his announcement. Tony and Dodie had been 'courting' for almost ten years. Tony had made his interest in Dodie quite plain about a year after she had become a widow, and Jenny had never been able to make out just which of the two of them was dragging their feet on the way to the altar. Perhaps Tony had not liked the way Dodie appeared to have taken to Mark, and male-like had stepped up his advances.

Back to Mark again, her heart whispered as she listened to their plans to get married in six months' time, trying to capture some of her initial pleasure in the subject, but it was too near the core of her unhappiness. First Dilys, and now Tony and Dodie.

She ought to have known that Tony wouldn't let her go without knowing where she was going, and as she hadn't as yet made any definite plans, apart from leaving Peacock's Walk, this was not easy.

'My sister runs a boarding house in Bournemouth,' Tony volunteered suggestively, seeing Jenny's perplexed frown at his enquiry as to where she would go. 'There won't be too many tourists about at this time, and the house is in the quieter section of the resort.' His eyes met Jenny's. 'You'll be well looked after there, and those sea breezes will do you the world of good.'