It all happened so quickly that even now, when I am no longer so frightened and can think more clearly, I can hardly remember what occurred.
I had the key of the outside door of the block of flats ready in my hand. But to my surprise, when I reached the top of the steps hurrying away from David, I found that the outer door was open.
I thought it must have been left like that by the woman upstairs who leaves it unlocked for her young man because she is too lazy to come down and open it for him. He is an actor and therefore keeps most irregular hours.
I went in and, still in a hurry, took out my key to put it in the Yale lock of my own door. Then I realised that it was open too.
I pushed it and at that moment everything happened.
A man who seemed to be enormous, dark and menacing, rushed at me from behind the door, hit me twice and then ran past me into the hall.
Even before he hit me I started to scream and, as I staggered and fell against the wall, I screamed and screamed again.
There was the sound of somebody running up the steps very quickly. Then David’s arms were round me and I was clinging to him but still screaming, except that my voice was muffled against his shoulder.
“What has happened?” he asked. “Who was that man, Samantha?”
“He – hit me! Oh, David – he hit – me!”
“It’s all right,” he said soothingly. “He has gone now. It must have been a burglar.”
“He – hit me!” I screamed again.
I couldn’t believe it had happened. My face was burning from his fist and the other blow had been on my chest.
“There – may be – another – ” I cried in terror, and David reached out his hand for the light.
He switched it on and then said sharply,
“Don’t look!”
But I had raised my head for a moment from his shoulder and had seen the room and the utter confusion.
Everything had been emptied on to the floor – the drawers, my books and boxes. Chairs and tables were overturned and ornaments broken.
It was so horrible that I started to cry!
David picked me up in his arms and carried me across the sitting room and into the bedroom.
The door was ajar and he laid me down on the bed.
He began to take his arms from me, but I held on to him.
“Don’t – leave me! Don’t – leave – me!”
“I’m not going to leave you,” he answered.
“There – might be – somebody in the – bathroom,” I said and thought to myself that my voice sounded hysterical.
The bathroom was little more than a cupboard at one side of the room. David opened the door and switched on the light.
There was nobody there and he came back to say,
“I’m sure there was only one man, Samantha.”
“He might – come – back,” I murmured weakly.
“That’s very unlikely,” he replied, “but I’ll tell you what I want you to do. I want you to undress and get into bed. While you are doing that, I’ll lock my car and the doors.”
“You won’t go – away?” I asked nervously.
“I’ll come straight back and make you a warm drink,” he said. “Now get into bed, Samantha. I shall not be more than a minute or two.”
“Promise – you won’t – leave – me?” I asked again.
“I promise,” he said gravely.
He went out of the bedroom and shut the door carefully behind him, which I knew was because he didn’t want me to see the mess in the sitting room. I didn’t really care what it was like as long as the burglar didn’t come back and hit me again.
I undid my dress very quickly and hung it up in the wardrobe, slipped off my other clothes and put on the first nightgown I could find.
Then I climbed into bed to lay shivering and listening. I was still afraid that David might change his mind and leave me.
I heard him shut the sitting room door and then there was a sound as if he was turning the chairs the right way up again before he switched off the light and came back into the bedroom.
“There’s no sign of your burglar and I’m sure, Samantha, that he is far more frightened of us than we are of him. After all, if we see him again, we can hand him over to the Police.”
“I don’t – want to tell the – Police what has – happened,” I said childishly.
“We shall have to see if you have lost anything valuable,” David pointed out gravely.
“I don’t have anything valuable to lose,” I answered.
“Then that makes it easy,” he said. “Now, is there anywhere where I can make you something warm to drink? Warm and sweet was what my Nanny always prescribed for shock.”
“There’s a kettle and a gas ring in the bathroom,” I said.
He smiled at me, opened the bathroom door and I could hear him rattling cups and saucers.
It is very small, but it really is rather cleverly fitted up as a bathroom-cum-kitchen. There is even a board that one can let down over the bath, presumably if you had a lot of cooking to do, which is very unlikely in my case, because I have never cooked for anyone but myself.
I lay back against the pillows and now because David was with me I didn’t feel either so cold or so frightened and I wondered why I had been so afraid when he had walked into the Meldriths’ drawing room. The burglar was far more frightening than he was.
He put his head round the door.
“Do you have a hot water bottle?” he asked.
“It’s on a hook,” I answered, “but – ”
I was going to say that he shouldn’t bother to fill it for me, but he had gone again and I felt too weak to shout.
He brought me a cup of cocoa with lots of milk in it and at least four spoonfuls of sugar.
“Drink it all up,” he said in the voice that I always obeyed.
I sat up in bed, took it from him and as I did so he said,
“You’ve got terribly thin, Samantha. What have you been doing to yourself?”
“I look fatter when I’m dressed,” I said defensively.
“I noticed how much weight you have lost the moment I walked into the Meldriths’ drawing room.”
“Were you surprised to see me?” I asked.
“I was relieved,” he replied. “I was sick of dining with the Meldriths and having you chuck at the last moment.”
I was so astonished that I looked at him open-mouthed. But without waiting for me to answer he went back to the kitchen and filled my hot water bottle.
He brought it to me, turning it upside down to be quite certain it wasn’t leaking, then held my cup of cocoa while I put the hot water bottle inside the bed.
“Thank you very much,” I said. “Do you mean that you asked Lady Meldrith to invite me the other times when I threw her over at the last moment?”
“I couldn’t think of anyone else whose invitation you would feel compelled to accept,” he answered. “Even then tonight she had to invite Giles to make quite certain that you would turn up.”
“And – why did you – want to see me?” I asked.
“I wanted to talk to you, Samantha,” David replied in his deep voice.
I felt my heart give a funny jump and then it started thumping wildly and I wasn’t certain if it was because I was frightened or was happy that he wanted to talk to me.
Then suddenly I gave a cry.
“Oh, David, I’ve thought of something!”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I must get up and get dressed at once!”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t stay here,” I answered. “I would be terrified. I’d feel certain that the burglar would come back if I was alone. I must go to an hotel.”
I finished the cup of cocoa and put the cup and saucer on the table beside my bed.
“If I dress quickly,” I said, “will you take me in your car? It would be difficult for me to find a taxi as late as this.”
David did not answer for a moment and then he said,
“Listen, Samantha, it wouldn’t be easy for a woman alone to get into an hotel at this time of night. They’ll just say that they’re full up.”
“I can’t help that,” I said. “I can’t stay here. I can’t! I can’t!”
My voice rose again, I could feel the pain in my face and in my chest where the burglar had hit me and I remembered how large and menacing he had seemed.
“I shall – never feel – safe – again,” I went on with a little sob.
“I’m going to suggest something,” David said, “but I don’t want to frighten you more than you are already.”
“I know you think it’s foolish of me,” I said, “but I really am terrified. Supposing I had been here alone when that man broke in?”
“I am sure he made quite certain that you were out before he did so,” David said. “Burglars don’t usually leave much to chance, Samantha. But I do understand that you are frightened and that’s why I have a suggestion to make.”
“A suggestion?”
“That I should stay here with you tonight,” David replied. “Tomorrow we will make different arrangements so that you won’t be afraid.”
I looked at him without speaking and he said very quietly,
“You can trust me, Samantha.”
“B-but it will – be – uncomfortable for you,” I stammered.
“I’ve been uncomfortable before,” he said with a smile, “and I can assure you that the floor here would be luxury compared to some of the places where I have had to sleep.”
“There’s no need to sleep on the floor,” I said. “There’s a chair – ”
I looked round the room. I had never realised before how tiny my bedroom was or how much room the bed took up.
David watched me and then he said,
“I could sit in a chair in the sitting room, Samantha. But I would be farther away and you know the most sensible thing would be for me to lie on the bed. I swear I won’t touch you – and it is a very large bed!”
“It came from the Vicarage.”
“I’ll treat it with proper respect,” David said.
Now there was that note of laughter in his voice that I knew so well.
“If you – are quite – sure – ” I said hesitatingly.
“I thought you would see sense, Samantha.”
He picked up my cup and saucer and took them into the kitchen. Then he came back into the bedroom, took off his dinner jacket and put it over the back of the chair.
He undid his shoes, took them off and stood for a moment looking at me.
I always think there’s something very attractive about a man in a white shirt without a coat and David’s evening shirts, as I had seen when I packed them, were made of silk. He wore gold cufflinks with his crest on them.
“Are you quite happy about this Samantha?” he asked. “You wouldn’t rather I went into the sitting room?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I would much rather you were near me and, please, will you lock the door so that no one can creep in on us when we are asleep?”
“They wouldn’t surprise me because I am a very light sleeper,” David replied, but he locked the door and then walked to the other side of the bed.
“I think you’d better get under the eiderdown,” I said. “It gets cold at night. After all, it is October.”
“That would also be a sensible thing to do,” David said in a calm expressionless voice.
He lay down on the bed and pulled the eiderdown over him. I realised that there was a big gap between us.
“Shall I turn out the – light?” I asked in a nervous little voice.
“I think you might find it difficult to sleep if you kept it on,” David answered.
“Yes, I would,” I said and turned it out.
I lay on my back and found it difficult to breathe.
I could hardly believe that we were lying side by side and that David was with me again. David, whom I had been so afraid to see that I had been trying to hide from him ever since I came back to London!
In fact, before I returned, I had made Giles promise on his most sacred word of honour that if I went back to the studio he wouldn’t tell David where I was living.
After a moment I said,
“I hear your film is a great success.”
“So I am told,” David replied.
“You don’t sound very excited about it.”
“I’m not,” he answered. “There is only one thing I have been trying to do these past months.”
“What was that?”
“To find you.”
I was very still.
“What do you – mean?”
“How could you disappear like that? Where the devil did you go to?” David asked. “I nearly went mad trying to find you.”
“You – wanted to – find me?” I said in a very small voice.
My heart had started beating again with heavy thumps like a hammer.
“Of course I wanted to find you,” he said. “Do you suppose I didn’t realise – ”
He stopped. There was a pause.
Then he said very very quietly,
“I wanted to find you, Samantha, so that I could ask you to marry me.”
For a moment I felt that I must have dreamt that he had said it and then as I didn’t answer he went on,
“Will you marry me, Samantha? There are so many things we have to say to each other and a lot of explaining to do. But that is the only one that really matters. Please, say yes, Samantha.”
I gave a little cry.
“I can’t, David! I can’t! I want to marry you – I’ve always wanted to – but it’s – impossible! Oh, David – why do you – ask me – now?”
I heard my voice ringing out in the darkness and then there was silence until David said in a voice that was slow and almost expressionless,
“Will you tell me why you won’t marry me?”
I drew a deep breath.
“It’s too soon, that’s why I didn’t want to – see you. I wanted to wait until I was – different – until I had – changed myself to what you – wanted me to be, but at the moment – it’s hopeless – quite hopeless!”
“I may be very dense,” David said, “but I can’t quite understand, Samantha, what you are trying to say to me. Perhaps you had better start from the beginning and tell me what happened to you after you left me in the flat. I ran after you, but you just vanished.”
“I jumped into a taxi,” I said. “I went back to the boarding house and packed and then I went home.”
“I thought that was where you had gone,” David said, “but you see, you never told me where your home was. I knew it was in Worcestershire, but that was all.”
“I didn’t think you would be interested,” I said.
“I was sure that you would have gone to the boarding house when they told me you hadn’t been back to the studio.”
“How did you know that?’ I asked.
“I telephoned from Southampton,” he replied, “and Miss Macey said you hadn’t come back and that Bariatinsky was furious.”
“I went – home,” I repeated.
“I had no idea that you had left London,” David said, “so I sent my telegrams and letters to the boarding house.”
“You wrote to me?”
“Nearly every day.”
“I wish I had known.”
“I think it was one of the biggest shocks of my life,” David continued, “when the woman showed me all my letters to you unopened and done up in bundles with elastic bands round them. She had telephoned Giles to ask him where she should send them, but he didn’t know either where you were.”
“I meant to write after I went home and say I wasn’t coming back.”
“Eventually he went down to the Vicarage to find you, as I did, when I returned to England,” David said, “but you had disappeared.”
“You went to the Vicarage!” I exclaimed incredulously.
“Giles told me where you lived and I couldn’t believe that you wouldn’t be there,” he answered. “But there was a new incumbent – a pompous old fool who told me that your father had died weeks before he moved in and as far as I could make out he didn’t even know you existed.”
“Why should he?” I asked weakly.
“Where were you?” David questioned. “I asked a woman called Mrs. Harris who did say you had gone with a lady who came to the funeral.”
“That was Aunt Lucy,” I said. “My father’s sister.”
“And where does she live?”
“Near Southampton,” I answered. “She is the Mother Superior of a Convent.”
“A Convent?”
There was no doubt of the surprise in David’s voice.
“You see,” I began, “two days after I went home, Daddy – died of a – heart attack.”