Anne Mather - The Arrogance Of Love

Susan was shocked. How dare he address Amanda Blake as ‘the old girl'? Who was he?

She turned to go intending to tell Amanda immediately that he was here. After all, she only had his word that he knew her employer at all. But he caught her wrist as she passed him and stopped her.

‘Don't go,’ he murmured. ‘Stay and keep me company. How about getting me a drink?'

Susan wrenched her wrist out of his grasp. His touch had sent the blood pounding through her veins, and she realized with horror at her own duplicity that she had enjoyed the feel of those hard fingers gripping her arm.

‘If you want a drink, you'll have to go in there for it,’ she said angrily.

He grinned. ‘If I remember correctly, A.B. used to keep a bottle of Scotch in the cupboard over the refrigerator, for medicinal purposes such as this.'

Susan clenched her fists. She crossed to the cupboard he had mentioned and, sure enough, at the back stood the bottle of Scotch. Really, she thought, he seemed to know an awful lot!

She lifted the bottle out, took a glass from the drainer and poured him a drink. ‘Ice?’ she queried, in a voice as cold as ice itself.

‘Naturally.'

Susan took the tongs and lifted two large pieces of ice out of the ice container and dropped them into the amber liquid. Then she handed him the glass. The man took it, nodding his thanks. Susan stubbed out her cigarette in the near-by ashtray, and he said:

‘Won't you join me?'

‘No, thanks,’ she replied shortly, glancing at her watch. It was almost seven now.

‘Got a heavy date?’ he asked. ‘You're A.B.'s secretary, aren't you?'

‘Yes, to both questions,’ she answered, acutely conscious of him. She turned to look at him again; she had been avoiding his eyes but suddenly she found her eyes held by his and something seemed to flare in his at the contact. It was fantastic, crazy, and yet she felt drawn to him; something dangerous and exciting and forbidden seemed to be in the room. He must have felt it, too, for his eyes narrowed slightly, and he looked at her through half-closed lids. Susan wondered whether the amount of alcohol she had consumed was clouding her brain. This was all so – so – mad!

She forced herself to look away, and said, breathlessly: ‘I must go back.'

All at once the door from the lounge opened and Amanda stood there.

‘They've all gone now—’ she began, and then stopped in amazement. ‘Dominic – Dominic Halstad!'

The man smiled, his eyes dancing, and Amanda rushed across the room and hugged him warmly. Over her shoulder, the man's eyes sought Susan's and she had to steel herself to force things back into perspective.

For, as Amanda made a fuss of the man, chattering volubly, the name she had used caused Susan no little feeling of trepidation.

Dominic Halstad! No ordinary newspaper man as she had assumed. He was the chairman of the board of directors of Halstad Press Limited, one of the largest syndicates of newspapers and magazines in the country.

If she had not felt so strange she would have felt like laughing. And she had thought he was trying to get an inside story! She turned away and lit another cigarette with trembling fingers. Dominic Halstad! Glory!

Then Amanda was saying: ‘Susan, my dear, come and meet one of my closest and oldest friends, Dominic Halstad. You've heard of him, of course.'

‘Of course,’ murmured Susan politely, flushing as his firm fingers gripped her hand for a moment and then released it again.

‘Miss … er …?’ he began slowly.

‘Stacey,’ put in Amanda swiftly, ‘but I'm sure Susan will do, won't it, darling?'

‘Of course,’ said Susan, again, feeling rather ridiculous because she could think of nothing else to say.

‘Well, Susan has been looking after me,’ said Dominic Halstad lazily. He was completely in control of himself, and Susan thought she must have imagined the look in his eyes a moment ago. Which was just as well, she thought dryly. If his name had told her nothing else, it had at least warned her that he was a married man.

Amanda smiled. ‘Susan's a real treasure,’ she said, putting an arm about her secretary's shoulders.

‘Of course we didn't introduce ourselves properly,’ continued the man mockingly.

Susan felt uncomfortable and as though sensing it, Amanda said:

‘You can get along now and meet that young man of yours, Susan.'

‘Thank you,’ said Susan, with relief. ‘Good-bye, Mr. Halstad.'

She hurried out into the living-room where Amanda's maid and general factotum, Sarah, was trying to create order out of the disorder of dirty glasses and overflowing ashtrays that was left.

‘G'bye, Sarah,’ she called, and, pulling her sheepskin coat about her shoulders, she left the apartment.

She managed eventually to hail a taxi, and giving the address of the coffee bar she sank back against the leather upholstery. Feeling able to relax she found her thoughts turning back to the last few minutes at the apartment and her encounter with Dominic Halstad.

She had treated him like an intruder, and she wondered whether he would tell Amanda how impolite she had been.

He had been attractive though. Susan sighed, and wondered what his wife was like. Although she knew he was married she could not remember ever having read anything about his wife. His name appeared from time to time in the city society magazines, and recently she had read about him in America, but his wife did not seem to accompany him very often.

David was waiting impatiently outside the coffee bar. He was striding up and down, trying to keep warm, for it was a cool March evening. He looked disgustedly at her trews and the sheepskin coat. He did not like to see women in trousers, least of all his fiancée. He was rather old-fashioned, and although at times Susan found it rather endearing, at others it exasperated her.

‘Do you realize it's seven-thirty?’ he exclaimed, by way of a greeting.

‘Yes, darling,’ said Susan, in a mock-subdued tone. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘And I gather, from the way you're dressed, that you haven't been home since this morning.'

‘Correct,’ she murmured. ‘You know I told you that Amanda was having the cocktail party for the new book this afternoon. That's why I'm so late. It's only just broken up.'

David snorted. ‘Susan, you're not paid to attend that woman's cocktail parties!'

‘I know, David, but she does so like me to be there, and I don't like to disappoint her.'

‘It doesn't matter about disappointing me, of course!'

‘Oh, David, don't be silly. I haven't disappointed you. I'm here, aren't I? Come on, let's go in, I'm starving!'

‘We aren't going in,’ he said abruptly. ‘Mother has invited us back for supper. She wants to discuss the wedding.'

He ignored the way Susan's face dropped at this news. Susan and Mrs. Chalmers did not get along very well. Mrs. Chalmers was a widow, and David was her only child. Consequently, she was rather possessive and jealously did not want him to marry and leave her. David was tall and slim and fair, and she had brought him up to despise most of the members of her own sex. He did not smoke or drink and attended church with her twice every Sunday.

When he met Susan, one day in the tube (he accidentally sent Susan's shopping flying when he bumped into her), he found all his mother had told him accounted for little against his own attraction for the blonde, green-eyed creature who thanked him so merrily for picking up her parcels.

He could hardly believe his luck the following evening when they again travelled on the same train, and when he asked to see her again she agreed eagerly.

But when he took her home a few weeks later to meet his mother, he found things were not going to be as smooth as he had hoped. Mrs. Chalmers spent the whole evening sulking and Susan could hardly wait to escape from the close confines of Medlar Grove.

As time went by, and Mrs. Chalmers realized that David was not to be swayed from Susan, whatever she said, she tried to be a little more friendly, and finally decided that if David was to marry Susan, she might as well make the best of it. After all, they could nicely live with her after the event. The house was old and large for one person and that way she would be able to keep David under her roof. Things would not be so different after all.

But Susan soon realized the way things were going and lost no time in saying that she and David hoped to be able to save enough money to put a deposit down on a small house in one of the new suburban developments.

Mrs. Chalmers, however, was no defeatist, and still would not accept that David would agree to such a thing and leave his mother alone. Thus it was that David was being pulled two ways, and was not yet strong enough to defy his mother and make a stand.

Susan herself was hoping that he would not allow his mother to get her own way, as she knew she could never live with Mrs. Chalmers. They were too different, and it would never work out.

Now, Susan merely sighed, and said: ‘Oh, all right, David. But I wish you wouldn't spring these things on me. I've been looking forward all day to this evening alone together.'

David relented a little, and replied, ‘Never mind, Sue darling, we don't have long to wait and then we'll be together for always.'

‘Y … e … s,’ murmured Susan, rather cautiously. Their future had never seemed more insecure. What was wrong with her? Why was she feeling so depressed tonight? It could only be this sudden visit to Medlar Grove. What else was there?

She refused to allow herself to think about that moment in Amanda's kitchen. What was she, that she could allow herself, even for a moment, to respond to the message in another man's eyes? A message which she felt she had imagined anyway.

David ran a small M.G. sports car of almost vintage origin, and they drove in it round to David's home in Shepherd's Bush. Mrs. Chalmers let them in. She must have been watching for them from the window, and Susan shivered at the pictures this conjured up. Pictures of their lives in a few years’ time if they lived here. No, it could never be. And if love was involved, she realized with a sense of loss that she did not love David enough to submit to such a life.

When she saw Susan's trousers, Mrs. Chalmers exclaimed, ‘Dear me, I hope none of the neighbours saw you come in!'

It was on the tip of Susan's tongue to say that if all the street were like Mrs. Chalmers, there was every chance that she had been seen. But respect for David made her refrain and she simply ignored the remark, and walking into the gloomy living-room warmed her hands at the electric fire.

‘Susan didn't have time to change before she came,’ said David by way of explanation when Susan did not answer herself.

‘Why? You're late enough, aren't you?'

David sighed. ‘Susan had to work late.'

‘And have you been standing around in the cold waiting for her? You'll catch your death of cold one of these days, mark my words.'

‘He's not made of glass, you know,’ Susan was stung to reply at last. ‘And I couldn't let him know.'

Mrs. Chalmers shrugged and left them for a few minutes to prepare the supper. Susan took off her coat and laid the table while David switched on the television and began to watch a quiz programme.

Susan looked at him and sighed. He was not a very romantic person, and it had never occurred to him that he had not yet kissed her, or told her he was glad to see her. Unless he was prized away from his mother's apron-strings he never would. This atmosphere was cloying. It sapped all original thought. Mrs. Chalmers was in evidence everywhere. From the ridiculous ‘Home, Sweet Home’ embroidered picture on the wall to the swear box on the mantelpiece.