The Golden Prince (50 page)

Theo wasn’t so composed. “Good heavens, Rose!” he said, striding to meet her as she entered the drawing room. “Is the telephone line down? Is your grandfather ill?”

“No—and no one else is ill. I need to ask you something, and speaking on the telephone just didn’t seem the right way of going about it.”

“Sit down. Would you like a cup of tea? A sherry?”

She shook her head. “No thank you, Theo.” She sat down, saying apologetically, “I’m truly sorry to be troubling you in this way—and when you know what I’ve come about you’re probably going to think me an awful fool …”

“I know you too well to ever think that, Rose.”

He seated himself in a nearby armchair.

She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, not knowing how to start.

Seeing her dilemma, he said gently, “If there’s anything I can help you with Rose, whatever it is, you have only to ask.”

Knowing that she was going to reveal far more about herself than she could possibly feel comfortable with, but knowing she had no option, she said, “Please believe me that I have a very good reason for asking this—that I’m not asking out of prurient interest—but … is Hal Green married?”

Amused that that was all she wanted to know and even more amused at what he assumed was her reason for wanting to know it, he said gravely, “Hal is a bachelor, Rose. And a very eligible one.”

Her relief was vast. If she had been on her own, she would probably have burst into tears.

“Am I allowed to ask why it was so important for you to know?” Theo asked, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

“A little time ago he invited me to have dinner with him. I didn’t accept the invitation because … well, because romantic relationships aren’t compatible with being a militant suffragette. Earlier today, though, I received an invitation to a party at Lord Westcliff’s. I thought perhaps the invitation was some kind of a joke and rang Hal’s secretary, who explained to me that it was an annual event held for all of Lord Westcliff’s employees. She said that the husbands and wives of employees went as well, but not children—apart from Hal’s adopted daughter, Jacinta.”

“Ah!—and so the conclusion that he could very well be married?”

She nodded.

He smiled. “As you no doubt know by now, Rose, Hal is a very unusual kind of man. Jacinta is Spanish. Her parents were employed by him as a cook and as a chauffeur. Four years ago they were killed in a train accident, and when it was found there was no other family, Hal adopted their orphaned daughter. It was an action entirely typical of him.”

A little while later, as Theo accompanied Rose to the door, he said musingly, “I’m not sure you are right in thinking that romantic relationships are incompatible with being a suffragette, Rose. If two people who love each other espouse the same cause, there is absolutely no telling what they might achieve together.” He smiled at her affectionately. “And in my book,” he added, “men like Hal Green don’t come along very often.”

She knew very well what he was hinting—and she also knew she was going to disappoint him. Her concern with whether Hal was married or not wasn’t because she wanted to become Mrs. Hal Green. It was because she hadn’t been able to bear the thought that he was dishonorable. She did, though, think there could be a little leeway in her principles. Romance didn’t have to lead to the shackles of marriage. If Hal sensed the change in her thinking and was to make a romantic overture to her again, she was going to accept it. And the very best scenario for such an event to take place was at a party.

On the day before Lord Westcliff’s party was to be held, Rose went to a fashion house patronized by her great-aunt and bought herself a ready-made gown of eau-de-nil and a wide-brimmed hat of the same color, decorated with a white rose.

“I hope you are not thinking of traveling to Lord Westcliff’s on public transport,” her great-aunt said to her on the day of the party,
very pleased at how elegant Rose looked. “I shall not be needing the Daimler, and so Surtees will both take you and bring you home.”

Lord Westcliff’s London home was in Hampstead. It was a warm day for April, and when Rose arrived, the party was taking place as much in the large garden as it was in the house. A small orchestra within the house was playing music. Rose thought it seemed that everyone, apart from herself, knew someone to whom they could talk. As waiters served glasses of champagne and glasses of orange juice, scores of small groups chatted noisily together with people constantly drifting, glass in hand, from one group to another.

French doors led from the house out onto a terrace, and she hoped that by standing near to them she could appear to be either on the point of entering the house, or on the point of walking out into the garden, and wouldn’t look to be so obviously unaccompanied.

A waiter approached her, and she put her empty glass of orange juice on the tray he proffered. As she was picking up another one, Hal entered the crowded room and her heart leaped.

Then she saw that he wasn’t alone.

Joy vanished in an instant.

The woman walking closely at his side and laughing at something he had just said was wearing a cornflower-blue silk dress that emphasized her tiny waist and lovely breasts and looked as if it had come from a Parisian fashion house. Instead of a hat, there was a knot of camellias in hair that was as pale as summer wheat.

Hal said something else as he smiled down at her. Laughing again, she hugged his arm.

Not wanting to see any more, Rose turned away so quickly orange juice slopped over her gloved hand.

She met the gaze of a young girl aged about twelve.

The girl said, eyeing her with interest, “You’ve just spilled orange juice on your glove.”

“Yes, I know.” Rose struggled for composure. “It was very clumsy of me.”

“I’m always doing things like that. I’ve just stood on the hem of my dress and torn it. Papa Hal is going to be very irritated.”

She’d known immediately, of course, who the child was, but hearing her speak of Hal in such a way transfixed her.

There was loving indulgence in her voice. It was exactly the way she, and Iris, Marigold, and Lily, often spoke of their grandfather. They did so not because he had done what he felt was right—which was providing them with a roof over their heads—but because he had loved them and cherished them and had never treated them with anything but the most exquisite kindness. In a moment of utter certainty, Rose knew that Jacinta was as fortunate in Hal as she and her sisters had been with their grandfather. She also knew that Theo had been speaking the literal truth when he had said that men like Hal didn’t come along very often.

“That’s Papa Hal over there.” Jacinta gestured in Hal’s direction. “Do you know him?”

“A little.”

The blood was drumming in her ears. If she had behaved differently, there was every possibility she would now be the young woman holding his arm, the young woman who was absorbing all his attention. She didn’t know it was possible to feel such pain, such intense regret, such bitter unhappiness.

Unaware of Rose’s distress, Jacinta said disarmingly, “My name is Jacinta. What is yours?”

“Miss Houghton.”

Panic throbbed high in her throat. She had to leave the party, but she couldn’t cross the room. To cross the room would be to risk attracting his attention.

“I’d like to go home without having to weave a way through all these groups of people, Jacinta. Is there a gate in the garden that leads into the street?”

“Yes, but it is right at the bottom of the garden, at the far side of the shrubbery. Would you like me to come with you?”

“No thank you, Jacinta. I’ll be able to find it.”

Somehow she managed a good-bye smile and stepped out onto the terrace. It was crowded with people, but no one knew her and no one made any attempt to waylay her in conversation. Swiftly she walked down the steps and onto the lawn. Here, too, there were several groups of people, because although it was still only April, the sun was as warm as if it was May.

With tears burning the backs of her eyes, she threaded her way between Lord Westcliff’s guests.

In the house, Jacinta weaved a way toward Hal.

“You’re going to be very cross with me,” she said when she reached his side, knowing that he wouldn’t be, because he never was. “I’ve trodden on the hem of my dress and torn it.”

Hal made a facial expression of exasperation that made her laugh.

“I’ve just been talking to ever such a nice lady,” she said, glad that the blond lady was no longer hanging on to his arm and that she had him to herself. “Her name is Miss Houghton. I would have liked to have talked to her some more, but she said she wanted to go home. She asked if there was a gate in the garden that led into the street. I told her there was, and she walked off so quickly I didn’t have time to say anything else.”

Partygoers hadn’t ventured into the lower part of the garden and as Rose reached it she walked as quickly as her high heels would allow, desperate to be back in her bedroom at her great-aunt’s where, with the door locked, she could give way to her unhappiness.

The shrubbery slowed her down, for the path between the high banks of laurels and rhododendrons was narrow and twisting. Suddenly, with the gate not yet in sight, she realized someone was running after her—and that the running footsteps were far too heavy to be Jacinta’s.

Alarmed, she spun round just as Hal rounded the last corner of the path.

He came to a halt a yard or so in front of her, saying a trifle breathlessly as he pushed an unruly lock of hair back from his forehead, “Jacinta insisted I came after you. Though to be honest, she didn’t have to insist very much. She’s my adopted daughter, but I know she will have explained that. It’s the first thing she tells anyone. What I want to know is, why are you leaving the party before it has scarcely begun? I promised Gerald I’d introduce you to him and he’s on the terrace, waiting for me to do so.”

“Gerald?” She hadn’t a clue as to who he was talking about—and didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was behaving toward her as he had always done and—the blonde notwithstanding—that there was a glimmer of hope their relationship was again on its old footing.

“Gerald,” he repeated with exaggerated patience. “Lord Westcliff. Your host. My uncle.” A thought occurred to him that hadn’t done so before and his eyes darkened in concern. “You’re not ill or anything, are you, Rose?”

“No.” Since it was impossible to tell him the truth—though she rather thought she would one day—she said, “There was no one I knew and I felt out of place.”

Amusement replaced his concern. “Hard-nosed journalists don’t care if they know no one. And—trust me, Rose—they never feel out of place.”

She shot him a wobbly smile. “I’ll try and remember.”

His answering smile melted her bones. “Come back to the house, Rose. Jacinta wants to talk with you some more and my uncle—who is not accustomed to waiting for people—is still waiting for the two of us to put in an appearance.”

He crooked his arm in order that she could slip her hand through it.

She did so, as if doing so was the most natural thing in the world.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask about his blond companion—and then instinct told her that whoever the young
woman was, she no longer mattered. Only the new relationship she and Hal were forming mattered.

As they walked together back to the house she knew that from now on things were going to be all right between them. That they were going to be more than all right. That for her and Hal Green, things were going to be wonderful.

Marigold was in
a depression so deep she didn’t know how she was ever going to claw her way out of it. For everyone else, life was roaring along full of interest and excitement and in her life, all interest and excitement had come to a grinding, stultifying halt.

She was in a cinematograph theater that had been commandeered by Sibyl in order that one of her guests, Mr. Zac Zimmerman, an American director with the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, could give her and her other guests a private showing of his latest film. Everyone gathered there, apart from Marigold, was in a state of excited anticipation.