I don’t remember very much about the next day.
I do remember that before I left the boarding house that morning I telephoned Lord Rowden’s house.
He had said that if I rang early he would answer the telephone himself, but I knew I couldn’t speak to him at the studio because of Melanie, so I decided to pretend to be a servant speaking for me.
However, there was no need to do that because when I looked in the telephone book I saw that he had three telephone lines and one had ‘secretary’ against it.
So I rang that number and when a woman answered, I said,
“Will you please give Lord Rowden a message?”
“Who is speaking?” she enquired.
“I am speaking for Miss Samantha Clyde,” I replied. “Will you please tell Lord Rowden that Miss Clyde is very sorry, but she is unable to dine with him tonight?”
With that I put the receiver down quickly and hurried off to the studio.
“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” Giles asked as soon as he came in about an hour after we had all been waiting for him.
“Yes, thank you,” I answered.
“I hope you persuaded David Durham to have his picture taken.”
I felt rather guilty because I hadn’t thought about Giles or his photographs all the evening.
I didn’t answer for a moment and Giles, realising that it had escaped my memory, said sharply,
“You might remember, Samantha, that it is part of your job to bring in customers and I particularly want to photograph David Durham.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I said meekly.
“Then you’re seeing him again?”
“Yes,” I answered.
Giles gave me a sharp glance, but he didn’t ask any more questions and merely said,
“Good!” and started arranging the lights.
I never knew a day to pass so slowly.
It seemed to me as if every hour crawled past and I must have looked at the clock a hundred times to find it had only moved by a few minutes.
Giles kept me later that afternoon than Melanie and Hortense.
He had a number of photographs to do for a French magazine, but unfortunately he did the day dresses first and the evening gowns last, and nearly all my pictures were in evening dress.
At last when it was after six o’clock he finished and I was just hurrying into my own clothes when the telephone on Miss Macey’s desk rang.
Only a curtain separated the place where we changed and the outer office, so I heard her say,
“Oh, yes, Lord Rowden. I’ll try to find out.”
She put her hand over the mouthpiece and, as I looked round the curtain, she said,
“Lord Rowden wants to know if I will give him your address.”
My first thought was that it was a blessing that Melanie had already gone home and then I knew that I had no wish to see Lord Rowden again or have anything to do with him.
“Tell him you don’t know,” I whispered.
“He won’t believe that,” Miss Macey replied.
“Then make some excuse. I don’t want him ringing me at the boarding house.”
Miss Macey gave me a look to see if I was telling her the truth and then she spoke into the receiver,
“I’m so sorry but I believe Miss Clyde has recently changed her address and we don’t seem to have it. But she’ll be here tomorrow.”
She put the receiver down and I said,
“Thank you. But if he rings again, what are you going to say?”
“I’ll try to keep him away from you,” Miss Macey said in a kinder tone than she usually used. “He’s always running after pretty girls.”
“But he’s quite old,” I exclaimed.
“Age doesn’t stop them,” Miss Macey remarked.
“Hasn’t he a wife?” I enquired.
“Oh, yes, and quite a number of children,” Miss Macey replied. “Lady Rowden lives in Paris most of the time and I expect the children are at school or at his house in the country.”
“Now I think of it,” I said, “I seem to have seen some pictures somewhere of Rowden Park.”
“It’s one of the most famous houses in England,” Miss Macey said, “but if you are wise, Samantha, you will leave his Lordship to Melanie. She should be able to cope with him.”
“I think he’s horrid and I don’t want to see him again,” I murmured.
For the first time I had known her, Miss Macey smiled and said to me pleasantly,
“Sometimes you make a lot of sense, Samantha.”
I didn’t think about Lord Rowden again. I was in such a hurry to get back and change.
I had to wait ages for a bus. Even so, having hurried to have a bath, I was ready for a good quarter of an hour before David arrived.
After the fantastic outfit I had worn the night before, I was determined to look quite different. So I put on a black dress that Giles had chosen for me, which I knew made my hair look fiery and my skin very white.
Made of black chiffon it was very soft and becoming, and designed by Molyneux. I liked it almost the best of my gowns because it was so simple.
I had a black velvet wrap to go with it and I wore no jewellery because I didn’t have any.
When I looked at myself in the mirror, I thought perhaps I had made a mistake and should have worn something more elaborate. I would have changed everything at the last moment if I hadn’t been afraid of keeping David waiting.
I went down to the hall and the moment I saw his Bentley draw up outside I ran down the steps.
He didn’t seem surprised that I had been waiting for him, he just opened the door and said in his deep voice,
“Good evening, Samantha!”
It sounded quite different from the way anyone else said it.
I stepped in. He picked up my hand and kissed it and I felt a little ripple of excitement go through me.
“You’re absurdly lovely!” he said and now there was a funny mocking tone in his voice, as if he laughed at himself and me.
He started up the car and we drove off.
I hadn’t asked where we were going. It was just so wonderful to be beside him and I knew that was what I had been longing for all day. So much so that I could hardly believe now that he was really there.
One thing I had done during the luncheon break was to buy a copy of his book.
There was a huge pile of them in Hatchards and while I was buying my copy, three others were sold to people picking them up off the counter. I was glad for David’s sake that they were selling so well.
We had been so busy all day that I had not had a chance to read any of the book, but I looked at his photograph on the back and realised it didn’t do him justice.
It was in fact only a snapshot taken against what appeared to be a battlefield.
I read the publisher’s comments, which said,
“This is undoubtedly the most provocative and disturbing novel that has been written in the post-war years. David Durham expresses all the frustrations and the anger of the younger generation against the muddled thinking, the inept attitude of politicians and the grave social injustices that are being callously perpetrated on every side. Never has there been a stronger or more violent clarion call from the youth of this generation for a rebellion against the laissez-faire existing in England today.”
“You’re not going to read that book, are you?” Melanie asked as I turned the pages while I was waiting for Giles to photograph me.
“Why not?” I asked.
“You won’t understand it,” Melanie answered. “Everyone has a different opinion about it. I agree with Lord Rowden who said when I was with him at Ascot that he was fed up with people who complained. There is a lot of enjoyment to be found in life if one looks in the right places.”
I wondered what Lord Rowden considered the ‘right places’. I only knew that if David was complaining he would be quite sure of his facts.
I didn’t understand a great deal of what he had said to me last night. But he had a positive way of speaking which made everything he said seem utterly and completely convincing.
He had not been talking about his book, Vultures Pick Their Bones, but about another book he was starting to write.
As far as I could make out, there were things going on beneath the surface in every country that every right-minded person would want exposed.
“Won’t they hate you for bringing into the open all the things they want to keep hidden?” I asked him.
“Under the circumstances I like being hated,” he had replied.
We were driving now, I realised, not towards the West End, where I had expected him to take me, but out of London.
As if he knew that I was surprised and, without my saying anything he explained,
“I’m taking you to a quiet little place which I think you will enjoy. It’s very difficult to find good food in London these days. This is run by a Frenchman who after being a waiter started out on his own, and everybody who eats there once goes again, so he is making a success of it.”
I was quite content to go anywhere with David – to the moon if he asked me. I looked at him from under my eyelashes as he drove the car and thought how wildly attractive he was and yet quite unlike any man I had ever seen before.
“Have you been looking forward to seeing me again?” he asked suddenly, as we drove through the suburbs.
“Today seemed very long,” I answered truthfully.
He gave a little laugh.
“I have been wondering what your hair is like, Samantha and now I know.”
“Do you like it?” I asked.
“Do you really want me to tell you how much?” he enquired.
“Yes, please,” I replied and he laughed again.
“You are very clever,” he said after a moment, “in managing simultaneously to look one thing and seem another.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“I’m referring to the Samantha poise of looking as if all the erotic secrets of the world lay behind your eyes and being able to speak at the same time with the enthusiasm of a very young girl.”
I didn’t know what to reply to this because I know only too well now what he meant.
How could he possibly know that Samantha from Little Poolbrook had not the slightest idea what was implied by the word ‘erotic’ and that she sounded eager and enthusiastic because everything was so new and unexpected to her?
I took refuge in silence and then, a little while later, we drew up at a small pub.
It looked very old, almost like one of the highway inns that still exist in some of the villages near us at home.
David parked the car at the side and we went in through a small door into a tiny oak-beamed room with a bar that seemed to fill it almost completely.
There were one or two local people drinking beer and we passed through the bar into a room on the other side of it which had a bow window looking out onto the small garden.
The Proprietor appeared and was delighted to see David.
He had reserved us a table in the bow window. The room was half-panelled with very old oak and there were rafters overhead, which David told me later, were made from ships’ timbers.
“It is very nice to see you, Monsieur Durham,” said the Proprietor, whose name was Henri. “I’m very grateful to you for the people you have sent me.”
“Are you doing well?” David asked.
“Very well and better than I expected, thanks to you.”
“In which case I shall expect a superlative dinner this evening,” David said. “I have brought you the most beautiful lady in London to enjoy it.”
“Enchanté, mademoiselle,” Henri said.
Then he and David went into a long consultation over the menu.
I didn’t mind what we ate. I was just happy to be with David and I felt that he had brought me to this small place because he wanted to be alone with me and not just to show me off as so many other men wanted to do when they took me out.
At last the meal was ordered and David said,
“What would you like to drink, Samantha? I have a feeling you don’t enjoy champagne as much as you might be expected to do.”
“I don’t really like it at all,” I answered.
“You are full of surprises,” David said. “We’ll have a very light white wine, which I’m sure you’ll prefer.”
He ordered it and when Henri said, “an aperitif, monsieur?” David looked at me again.
“Must I have anything?” I asked. “I really dislike cocktails.”
I thought David stared at me rather searchingly as if he hardly believed what I said. But he ordered a martini for himself and a tomato juice for me.
When Henri had gone, he sat back and said,
“Are you happy, Samantha?”
“Very very happy,” I answered. “I wanted so much to see you this evening.”
Only when I had said it did I think that I had been too gushing and maybe too truthful. Perhaps David would think that I was rushing after him if I appeared too eager.
I turned my head away, but I knew that he was gazing at me and after a moment he said,
“There’s something I want to ask you, Samantha. How many men have kissed you?”
It was not a question I had expected and I felt the colour rise in my cheeks.
For the first time I thought how fast it had been for me to allow him to kiss me when we really knew nothing about each other and he had not even said that he was attracted to me.
I had told myself that I would never let a man kiss me until I knew that he was really in love with me.
I felt that was what Daddy meant when he said that I must ‘keep myself for the man who would really matter in my life’.
As far as I was concerned, David was the only person who had mattered, but, of course, I realised it had happened too quickly and I might not matter at all to him.
So I felt ashamed and my cheeks became redder and redder because I really didn’t know what to say.
“You are blushing, Samantha,” David said after a moment in a surprised voice.
Then, as I continued to look away from him across the room, he put out his hand and, taking my chin in his fingers, he turned my face round to his.
“Why should that question embarrass you?” he asked. “Who has kissed you so that you blush to think about it?”
He spoke quite fiercely and, almost as if he compelled me to tell the truth, I said,
“No one.”
“What do you mean – no one?” he asked roughly.
“I-I mean – no one has kissed me – except you.”
He took his fingers from my chin and stared at me.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” I asked.
“Because I don’t believe it’s possible!”
“Why not?”
“Not looking as you look and being one of Giles Bariatinsky’s models.”
“What has that got to do with it?” I asked.
It was rather difficult to talk sensibly because David was looking down at me and it seemed to me as if his eyes were penetrating and at the same time suspicious.
I couldn’t understand why he should think I was lying to him and yet I felt that he did.
I looked away from him again with my eyelids half shut because I was shy. I suppose it appeared to be my enigmatic look. Anyway, just as David was going to say something, the waiter arrived with his cocktail and my tomato juice.
It seemed to break some spell that David had cast over me and then the waiters started hovering around the table, the food arrived and we talked of other things.
At first they were rather trivial and then he began to speak seriously about what he thought and what he felt. I found it absorbingly interesting.
I really knew very little of what was happening outside Little Poolbrook. Daddy took The Morning Post, but I never seemed to have time to read it.
Anyway I found it rather dull, so that I didn’t know about the terrible unemployment there was in the North, the injustice of not being able to take a holiday unless they went without pay, strikes where because their families were on the verge of starvation workmen had to give in however just their cause might be.
David talked of all these things and I realised that these were the sort of subjects that he had written about in his book.
“We’re not the only country where these things are happening,” he said. “The greed for money supplants everything else – Statesmen and politicians are the same whether they are in America, England or Timbuktu.”
“I bought your book today,” I told him, “but I haven’t had time to read it.”
“I hope you will like it,” he said. “I wrote it in the form of a novel simply because I knew that an official report or white paper is read by only a handful of people. Novels reach a far larger audience.”
He paused to add,
“There is also the chance that it may be made into a film.”
“That would be wonderful!” I cried. “I do hope it is.”
We had finished dinner by this time and only had two cups of coffee in front of us.
I refused a liqueur, but David ordered a brandy.
“May I smoke?” he asked. “You don’t, do you?”
I shook my head.
“You don’t smoke, you don’t really like drink and you say you that have never been kissed until last night,” he said mockingly. “You are very unpredictable, Samantha.”
I didn’t answer and after a moment he said,
“You also blush. I thought that was a forgotten art where young women are concerned.”
“I can’t help it,” I said unhappily.
“I’m glad you can’t,” he answered. “It’s very becoming.”
He said it in such a strange way that I replied,
“You make it sound as if I do it on purpose.”
“I suppose that would be impossible,” he said grudgingly, “but everything about you is contradictory.”
“I can’t help it,” I said again.
“I don’t want you to help it,” he answered, “but it’s upsetting, for me at any rate.”
“Why?” I asked in surprise.
“Because,” he answered slowly as if he was choosing his words, “when I took you out last night I thought that it would be rather amusing, or rather, shall I say, I thought you would amuse me.”
“And I – didn’t?” I asked.
“Not in the way I expected.”
Again there was a pause and I said,
“Were you very – disappointed?”
He smiled at that.
“No, of course not! I was captivated and entranced in a manner I least expected. This morning I thought I must have been mistaken, but I wasn’t.”
There was something in his voice that made it hard for me to breathe. There was that faint choking feeling again in my throat, but I managed to say,
“I-I don’t think I – quite understand.”
“Perhaps there’s nothing to understand,” he said. “I don’t know.”
He spoke quite sharply and I felt as if he had suddenly thrown a bucket of cold water over me.
I don’t know why, but it was as if I had said or done something wrong and I didn’t know what it was.
David had been talking so animatedly, but now he sat silent just staring at me.
After a moment I said uneasily,
“What’s – wrong? You make me feel – uncomfortable.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” he said. “But if you are really so inexperienced it’s puzzling and upsetting.”
“Why?” I asked. “What were you expecting me to be like?”
He grinned.
“I don’t believe you would understand even if I told you.”
“And you don’t – like me as I am?”
“I like you very much as you are,” he answered, “too much, perhaps.”
“Can one like someone too much?” I enquired.
“I am not sure,” he replied.
I had a feeling that we were saying much more to each other than we were putting into words and yet somehow it was like being in a maze and not knowing the way out.
I felt bewildered and yet at the same time conscious of how wonderful it was to be beside David, to be near him and to be talking to him.
He said he liked me very much. That was something, but I told myself I must be very careful not to let him know how much I loved him.
‘A woman must never make advances to a man.’ I felt sure that I had read that somewhere.
But after all, I told myself, I didn’t make the first advance. David had kissed me and I had not expected him to do so,
Henri brought the bill, then bowed us out with many expressions of gratitude and the hope that we would come again soon.
I looked up into the sky. It was getting dark. The stars were coming out, although there was still a faint glow from the sunset left in the sky.
“It’s a lovely warm evening,” I said and realised that we were both standing beside the car and David was gazing at me.
“Does that mean that you want to go for a drive in the country?” he asked.
“I hadn’t thought of it,” I answered, “but it would be lovely.”
“Today is Thursday,” he said unexpectedly, “tomorrow is Friday. I’ve a suggestion to make to you. Get in.”
He opened the door of the car for me and then walked round and climbed in beside me.
But he didn’t start up the engine.
He sat for a moment looking at me, then he put his arms round me and kissed me.
It had been wonderful last night, but it was even more wonderful tonight. I felt the same marvellous feeling rising inside me, the same ecstasy seeping over me until it was difficult to think and I could only feel.
It was as if David carried me up to the stars and we were lost in the sky and there was nothing left of the world but ourselves.
It was so marvellous, so magical that when he set me free I could only lie with my head against his shoulder for a moment.
Then I turned my face to hide it against his neck.
“Darling!” he said. “Darling!”
“I love – you!” I whispered. “I – love you!”
He drew me a little closer.
Then he said,
“Do you mean that, Samantha?”
“I mean it!” I answered, “and it’s so wonderful – so unbelievably – exciting!”
I lifted my face up to his and he was kissing me again.
They were hard possessive kisses, which seemed to draw my heart from between my lips and make it his.
I was his!
I felt that I belonged to him and I knew that there could never, never again be another man who could ever mean anything in my life.
After a long time, when David had kissed me again and again until I knew that I had reached the very zenith of perfect bliss, his hands touched my hair.
“I still cannot believe this is happening,” he said. “Do you really swear to me, before God, Samantha, that you have never kissed anyone else before?”
“No one!” I answered. “Oh, David, it’s very different from what I thought it would be like.”
“What did you expect?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered, “but I didn’t expect to feel that I – belonged to you, that I was – part of you, as I do – now.”
“My darling!” he said.
Then he was kissing me again until I could no longer think or speak. I could only feel my body vibrating to his.
How long we sat outside the little pub, I don’t know.
The only light came from the windows. Later on they went out and we were completely in the dark except for the stars overhead.
“I must take you back, Samantha,” David said, and his voice sounded low and husky.
“Must – I leave – you?” I asked foolishly.
“Not for long, my precious,” he answered. “Tomorrow is Friday, as I told you. I’ll arrange something, just leave it to me.
He kissed me again.
Then he drove back to London very quickly, although my head was on his shoulder and he had one arm round me.
When we reached the boarding house, I said,
“I don’t want to go – in. I feel as if we shall lose – something – something wonderful and precious we found tonight.”
“We won’t do that,” David answered, “I promise you.”
He kissed me very gently, first my mouth, then both my eyes, the tip of my nose and then my mouth again.
“Goodnight, my little love!” he said. “Go to bed and dream of me.”
“How could I dream of anyone else?” I asked.
“I should be very jealous if you did,” he replied and now the laughter was back in his voice.
“When shall I see you again?” I asked.
“What time can you get away from the studio?”
I thought for a moment.
“Usually early on a Friday,” I answered. “So with any luck I should be back here by about a quarter past five.”
“I’ll pick you up at half past,” he said. “Pack some things for the country.”
“For the country?” I repeated. “That will be exciting! It will be lovely to get out of London.”
“It’ll be lovely anywhere with you,” he answered.
He kissed me again, a quick rather hard kiss and then he jumped out of the Bentley and walked round to help me onto the pavement.
“Goodnight, my precious!” he said.
“Goodnight, David,” I answered.
I wanted to tell him what a perfect sublime evening it had been and thank him for my happiness, but there were no words.
Instead I walked up the steps to the boarding house feeling as if I floated on air, that the whole world was golden, wonderful and indescribably perfect.
When I reached my bedroom, I sat down on the bed and found myself thanking God because I was so grateful for David.
Suppose, I said to myself, I had never found him? Suppose I had never known that love was like this? Suppose I had let one of those other stupid young men kiss me?
I was so lucky – so incredibly lucky to have found love, real love, just as Daddy had hoped I would.
Perhaps it was his prayers, I thought, that had brought David to me. I would write and tell him and I knew how pleased he would be.
I climbed into bed and began to plan how we would be married in the little Church at home. The flowers would hide the ugliness of it inside, but I knew that any place would seem beautiful if I was marrying David.
I supposed we should have to invite Lady Butterworth and all the people in the village who had known me since I was a child, but they would not really matter.
There would be only one person in the Church as far as I was concerned and that would be David.
I felt myself thrill at the thought of how he would slip the ring on my finger, how Daddy would say, as I had heard him say a dozen times before,
“Repeat these words after me – with this ring I thee wed – with my body I thee worship – ”
I would be David’s wife.
Burying my face in the pillow I hoped that we would not have to wait very long. I wanted him – I wanted to be close to him.
I wanted him to love me – to go on loving me – not only in the daytime but at – night.