The House of Discontent

CHAPTER ONE

PATRICIA was afraid now that she would not arrive in London until after dark. The train had been late in starting and had been held up several times, and the light was rapidly fading from the short, wet, dismal January day. At any time she would have been a little nervous arriving all alone in this terrifying city, but to arrive after dark, with no one to meet her and not even knowing for certain where she was going to stay, was intensely frightening.

She had not been to London for ten years, and then it had been as a child stopping there on her way from school for a visit to the dentist, before joining the ship which was to take her on the first stage of her journey to join her father in Hongkong; he had returned after the war to the small trading business which he had there. Then as now she had travelled alone. Her Uncle Peter had seen her on to the boat and had put her in charge of the strange lady who was to keep an eye on her during the voyage out. She and her Uncle Peter had been drawn to each other then, wrapped together as in a black cloak—at one in the dazed misery of their mutual loss, the death of Patricia’s mother (Peter’s only sister). And now, ten years later, her home broken up, her father dead from a sudden heart seizure, she was to go and stay with her Uncle Peter and her Aunt Dorothy in Shropshire.

She had no friends in England. The pivot of her life had been her father. She had been intensely happy keeping house for him. They had got on perfectly together and had always been wonderfully content in each other’s company. There had been between them great friendship, harmony and tenderness— that very special relationship between father and daughter which, when it does exist, is such a particularly happy one. She could not yet quite realize that she would never see him again. She was still suffering from the shock of his sudden death.

She had made up her mind to get a job in England and had cabled to her uncle, Peter Leslie, to ask whether she might stay with him and his wife until she found something suitable. In her heart she hoped that she might be able to live with them and find a job within commuting distance. The brief answer had come back: “Certainly.” She would have felt happier if the answer had been something more like “delighted,” and remembering how kind Uncle Peter had been when last she had seen him ten years ago she was a little surprised as well as hurt by this lack of cordiality.

She could not know that Dorothy Leslie was the ruler of the household and that the word “certainly” was of her choosing.

It had been arranged that Patricia should go straight to London and telephone to the Leslies from there; but she had hoped not to have had to stay in London. It looked now, however, as if by the time they got into Waterloo it would be too late to get to Shropshire that night.

When finally the train drew into the station, there were cries of “Porter” all along the train. Patricia’s compartment rapidly emptied and she was left alone struggling to get her luggage off the rack. By the time she stepped on to the cold, dim platform not only was there no sign of a porter, but there was no sign of anyone. She felt utterly forlorn and deserted, and it was quite impossible for her to carry her two suitcases, her dressing-case and her hat-box all by herself.

A dark figure suddenly came striding past her and she called out frantically, “Could you possibly help me?”

The figure stopped and turned and came back to her. “Why, certainly. What can I do?” It was a charming, educated man’s voice.

“I’m so sorry to have to ask you, but if you could kindly take one of these suitcases for me to the barrier...”

“Of course.” In a moment he had put her dressing-case under his arm and had picked up a suitcase in each hand, and she was left to follow behind him, carrying only her hat-box, hurrying to keep up with him.

He let her pass through the barrier in front of him.

“I’m afraid we’ll have a bit of a job getting a taxi as it’s raining,” he said. “Do you mind sharing one with me?”

“Of course not. I should be so grateful if you could get one at all ... Oh, please don’t go quite so fast, I’m frightened of losing you.”

He laughed.

“I have got some more luggage in the van,” Patricia said apologetically, “but I suppose it would be all right to leave it till tomorrow?”

“Would you mind?” he asked. “We’ll stop and look for it if you like. Is it locked and labelled?”

“Yes, it’s got my name on it. I’ll leave it till tomorrow. There are four pieces.”

“You don’t believe in travelling light!”

“I’ve got everything with me that I possess,” she replied.

“Now, if you’ll wait here I’ll just go and find a taxi,” he said, putting down her luggage.

“You will come back?” she asked nervously.

“Yes, of course, but don’t move from here or I may not find you again.”

“It is kind of you,” she called out after him, but she did not know whether he had heard or not, for he had already disappeared.

She did not have to wait long. Soon a taxi drew up and he sprang out of it.

“I’ve been lucky. Where do you want to go?” he asked. She gave him the name of the hotel where she knew her father had stayed in the old days. “But if you come first let’s go first to where you want to go.”

“No, you come first,” he said. “Get in.”

Patricia got in and he got in after her. “I can never thank you enough,” she began as they drove off.

“It’s not at all pleasant arriving alone on a wet night with a lot of luggage,” he said.

“It is silly to feel so strange and lost,” she said. “I don’t know London at all.”

“Is this your first time here?”

“No, but I haven’t been here for years—not since I was a child.”

“It must feel very strange.”

“It does,” she said with a little laugh.

“Would it be impertinent to ask where you’ve come from?”

“Not a bit—from Hongkong.”

“By the way, I suppose you have got a room booked? I only ask because the hotels in London are full to overflowing just now with the exhibition on.”

“No, I haven’t. Don’t you think I’ll be able to get in?”

“I hope so.”

“It’s only for one night,” she said. “I’m going off to Shropshire tomorrow.”

“Shropshire?” he asked with interest.

“Yes.”

“Do you know it well?” he asked. “Is your home there?”

“No, I don’t know it at all well. I’ve only been there once before in my life.” She was just on the point of telling him that she was going to stay with her uncle and aunt, but suddenly stopped herself, realizing all at once, with consternation, that it was a complete stranger to whom she was confiding so much about herself. Silence—rather an awkward silence—fell between them, and then he said suddenly, “You will like it.”

“You know it, then?” she asked.

“Yes, I live there. Salop we call it.”

She wanted to ask him whereabouts in Salop he lived and whether he knew her uncle, but again she was held back by a kind of shyness and also by a feeling that it was not right to talk freely to strangers. After that they talked casually and impersonally until the taxi drew up in front of the hotel.

“Here we are,” he said; “but I shouldn’t get the luggage taken out before you are quite sure that you can get a room.” He got out and helped her out and, telling the taxi-driver to wait, followed her in through the swing doors.

He guided her over to the reception desk, and as she followed him she noticed that he was tall and blond and walked with a remarkably easy carriage. As she stood beside him at the desk she stole a glance at his face, and as at that moment he was also looking at her, their eyes met. They both looked away again quickly. Each was aware of curiosity in the other, as much as to say, “What sort of person is this that I have been talking to for the last quarter of an hour in the dark?” And she, for her part, was also aware that she could not be looking her best. Her nose was probably shiny and her hat crooked, and she was very cold, and, as she knew, people never looked their best when they are cold. She judged him to be about twenty-six or twenty-seven, but there was a quiet authority about him which, in the semi-darkness, had led her to suppose that he was a much older man. Stealing another quick look at him, she was struck by the bronze of his clear-cut, clean-shaven profile in contrast with the fairness of his straight hair.

The reception clerk had been busy telephoning, but now he was able to attend to them. Patricia asked him a little timidly if she could have a single room for the night. He shook his head at once and said that he was very sorry but the hotel was full up.

“Is there no room at all, not even a small one?” she asked. “My father always used to stay here—Mr. Norton—Mr. Charles Norton.”

“I’m very sorry, miss, but I’m afraid we haven’t even a valet’s room vacant.”

“Come on,” the young man said abruptly. “I know an hotel where I can get you in.”

“You really musn’t trouble about me any more,” she began, but he strode out, not waiting for her protests.

She got back into the taxi again and, giving a direction which she did not hear to the driver, he jumped in after her.

“I’m giving you so much trouble,” she began again. “Let me drop you where you want to go and then I’m sure I shall be able to find an hotel for myself.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said shortly. No remark could have silenced her protests more completely.

The hotel he had in mind could not have been far, because they soon stopped again.

“You wait here this time,” he said, “and leave it all to me. I won’t be long.”

He was back again very quickly.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve fixed everything.”

Patricia began fumbling in her bag but could not find her money in the dark. “I’ll have to wait till I get inside,” she told him. “I can’t tell a penny from a half-crown.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m taking the taxi on.”

“But, of course, I shall pay my share,” she replied.

“You go on in,” he said authoritatively. “I’ll see to the luggage.”

Inside the vestibule of the hotel a man who looked like the manager approached her.

“Miss Norton?” he inquired. “Do you mind coming this way and signing the register?”

Patricia went with him, wondering how he knew her name, and then she remembered that the young man must have heard her mentioning her father’s name to the reception clerk at the other hotel.

When she had registered she went back to the entrance. Her luggage was all inside but there was no sign of the young man. She looked round for him anxiously, and not seeing him anywhere she went out through the doors again. It seemed imperative that she should see him to thank him and pay her share, but the taxi had already driven off. She experienced a sense of acute disappointment as she turned back into the hotel.

Patricia was shown up in the lift to her room. By way of conversation she said, “I understand that London is very full just now.”

“Yes,” the manager replied, “every hotel is packed. It is extremely difficult to get a room without reserving one beforehand, especially as late in the evening as this.”

“Then I have been very lucky,” she said, smiling.

“In having such a friend,” he replied gallantly. “Sir Anthony had reserved this room several days ago.”

“Was he going to stay here himself, then?” Patricia asked in sudden consternation.

“He always stays here when he is in London,” was the reply.

“Then where will he go if he has given his room up to me?”

“He did not inform me. Unfortunately, we have no other room vacant.” She sensed great disapproval in his tone.

She longed to ask him Sir Anthony’s other name, but if she confessed that she did not even know who her benefactor was, she was afraid that his indignation would burst all bounds. Her heart was warmed by the thought of the extraordinary kindness which this stranger had shown to her. Fancy his giving up his own room to her. And then she remembered that she had had no chance to thank him, and immediately a little frown puckered her brows.

The first thing Patricia did when she got to her room was to put through a telephone call to her uncle. There was a telephone by her bed. She had eaten nothing since lunch but she was not hungry. She was conscious only of a great weariness now that the strain of the journey was over. She decided to have some soup sent up to her room and then go straight to bed after a bath in the luxurious bathroom adjoining.

She had not yet taken off her hat and coat, and while she was waiting for her call to come through she could not resist looking at herself in the long glass on the wardrobe door and wondering what sort of impression she would make on a stranger. Accustomed as she was to her own face she turned away impatiently from her reflection, thinking, “I look perfectly awful!”

As a matter of fact, for anyone seeing her for the first time, her appearance was striking. It was true that she did not look her best that evening, for her face was pale and there were weary shadows round her eyes, but no shadows could take away from the beauty of the eyes themselves which were of a dark, sapphire blue, set very wide apart and fringed with black, upward-curling lashes. Her eyes and her level brows and smooth white forehead were her best features. The rest of her face was piquante rather than pretty. The nose was a little too small and the mouth a little too large, but her tall, graceful, supple figure, which her tailored coat beautifully set off, compensated for any facial deficiencies. She was annoyed because she found that her hat was indeed set awry on her dark, curling hair, but had she but known it this gave her a very appealing, albeit forlornly childish look. Her clothes were simple but well cut. There were excellent tailors and dressmakers in Hongkong, and she had spent a great deal of time out there studying the fashion journals. Also smart women had come out from time to time with the latest creations which they had allowed her to copy. Her father had not believed in wearing mourning, and had brought her up to feel the same way, so she had not gone into black after his death.