Melina looked at herself in the mirror and wondered if she was smart enough for such a prestigious party. To her own eyes her dress of turquoise-shaded nylon made her look very young and unsophisticated.
She had brushed her hair until it gleamed with golden lights and she had made up her face very carefully, adding a touch of eye shadow, which she hoped would make her look exotic and exciting. But instead it only seemed to accentuate the blueness of her wide eyes and make her appear younger than ever,
Her only ornament was a necklace of pearls and moonstones that had belonged to her mother. It was an antique necklace that had come from Burma and whenever she wore it she felt as if it brought her luck and that her evening would be a happy one.
She thought now as she slipped on the necklace that she was wishing for safety and a lack of danger more than anything else, but it certainly added to her appearance and she noted, with a little touch of vanity, that her skin looked very white and clear, almost transparent.
She wondered wistfully whether Bing would notice her appearance. He was so intent on his job and his search for the child that she felt he would hardly notice or care if she appeared dressed in a sack.
And she could not forget, either, his strange outburst that afternoon when she had questioned him.
After his voice had rung out in protest and anger, there had been a long barren silence while Melina looked out of the window, feeling her cheeks burning crimson because he had spoken in such a way and also because she reproached herself for having seemed curious and prying.
Then about three minutes later Bing spoke,
“I’m sorry,” he said in his quiet ordinary tone.
He had then gone on to talk about quite trivial ordinary subjects and she realised, thankfully, that his anger was past and he was striving to make matters between them as normal and pleasant as they had been before.
Nevertheless she was well aware that it was a danger signal. Bing was not going to allow her to encroach on his private life and she felt a little resentful that she had been so open in her confidences to him.
During the long drive between Tangier and Fez she had spoken of the loneliness of her life in London and how, after her father’s death, she had longed for adventure and to get away from it all.
‘I expect he was bored listening to me,’ she told herself now.
And yet even the uncomfortable feeling that she had been over-exuberant and too confiding could not overshadow the little flicker of excitement within herself for what lay ahead this evening.
She had so seldom been to a really big party, in fact all the parties in her life had been few and far between and most of them not worth remembering. The people in the village where she had lived as a child, when she returned there for a weekend, would say,
“Fancy you living in London, Miss Melina! You must find us very dull and stodgy after all your smart parties.”
Melina knew it was no use trying to tell them that nearly always when her work was done she would go home to her tiny bedroom at the top of a tall house in Bloomsbury and sit there reading until it was time for bed. Sometimes, as a treat, she would eat at Lyons Corner House or one of the cheaper restaurants, so as to watch the people. But she had few friends in London and most of those, being of her father’s generation, were not the sort to press invitations upon a young girl who they thought was too gay for them.
It seemed absurd that she could not make friends of her own age in the office, but the place where she worked employed nearly all men and most of them had been there thirty years or more. One or two of the younger ones had asked her out from time to time, but they were married men and she refused them with such positiveness that they did not venture to invite her a second time.
No, tonight would be a red letter occasion as far as she was concerned and suddenly, as she looked at herself in the mirror, she threw away her apprehensions and made up her mind to enjoy it.
‘When I go back to London it will be something to remember,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I shall have seen one of the most beautiful houses in Morocco, I shall have been the guest, although uninvited, of one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the country.’
It sounded rather like a film, she thought and the only ingredient lacking was the love interest. She was not going to find fault with anything, however, and conscious that she looked her best, she opened the communicating door and stood there waiting with sparkling eyes for Bing’s approval.
He was putting the finishing touches to his hair, which he had brushed upwards in the American manner, and this, with its new darker colour, completely altered his appearance.
He put down his hairbrush and smiled at her.
“Well, you look real dandy!” he said in exaggerated tones and Melina laughed.
“All I can say to you is that you look very American, Bing,” she retorted.
His tuxedo, with its padded shoulders, was white and there was no possible doubt that the tailor who had cut it lived in the United States.
As Bing slipped a handkerchief into his breast pocket and picked up his loose money from the chest of drawers, Melina looked round the room and saw that the desk, which had been pushed to one side to make room for a table and comfortable chairs, was now piled high with papers.
She looked at them quizzically raising her eyebrows and in a low voice, which he used when he did not wish to be overheard by anyone listening outside the door, Bing whispered,
“My papers! They are all about the American stock market and are quite incomprehensible to me – as I hope they are to anyone else who tries to read them.”
“Every detail is vital, of course,” Melina said, speaking seriously but with a teasing note in her voice.
“One day I will explain to you that detail means the difference between success and failure,” Bing replied.
He straightened his narrow bow tie, slipped a large gold ring onto his engagement finger and held his hand out to Melina.
“What do you think of that?” he asked. “Twenty carat and bought in one of the best jewellers on Fifth Avenue. Haven’t you forgotten anything?”
Melina gave a little gasp.
“A wedding ring!” she exclaimed.
“Exactly,” Bing answered. “Rasmin thought of it, so I don’t take any credit. Try one of these for size.”
He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and emptied the contents on the palm of his hand. There were three narrow gold wedding rings and Melina took the smallest.
“I guessed that was the one,” Bing said. “And now I had better hide these. Anyone finding them in my baggage would imagine I’m a bigamist!”
She saw him slip the little envelope into a carton of cigarettes, which he then threw into a drawer.
“Is that a safe place?” Melina asked.
“Far safer than locking anything up,” he answered. “The implication, if one has something locked, is that one does not wish anyone to see it, which makes those who are curious ‘curiouser and curiouser’, as the White Rabbit said.”
“I only hope that I will remember that my name is ‘Cutter’,” Melina answered. “That is the most difficult thing for me to learn at the moment. Are you ready?”
“I am ready,” Bing said solemnly, “if you are.”
He picked up her evening scarf, which was of white silk with a fringe at either end, and carrying only a small evening bag which contained her handkerchief and her vanity case she walked across the floor in front of Bing, thinking that the stiletto heels of her silver shoes made a noise like the overture at a theatre before the curtain rises.
Bing picked up the invitation, which was lying on the table, and slipped it into his pocket. They had both studied it carefully before they went to dress.
Moulay Ibrahim had invited his guests for seven-thirty, which meant, Bing said, that there was going to be so much food and drink it was quite unnecessary to have dinner before they went.
“I expect there will be dancing,” he said, “but that will really be for the Europeans. To the Moroccans a party means a good blow-out. I expect the dishes will be mostly European tonight. No roasted sheep and the principal guest being handed the eye as a special titbit! Nevertheless, there will be plenty of it and too much drink anyway, so be prepared for an orgy.”
“I’m longing to try real Arab dishes,” Melina commented.
“Well, I doubt if you will get them tonight, but, anyway, there are certain to be several that you have never tasted before.”
Melina remembered the conversation as they went down the shining stone stairs to the ground floor. She was feeling quite hungry, she thought, and only hoped her fear that they might be denounced as gatecrashers would not take away her appetite at the last moment.
They drove slowly out of the courtyard and up the hill in Bing’s car and almost immediately found themselves in a long queue of other cars all converging towards Moulay Ibrahim’s villa.
“There’s going to be a good scrum,” Bing said with satisfaction, “in which case nobody is likely to notice us, so don’t be nervous.”
“Supposing he says, ‘I don’t remember inviting you’,” Melina said.
“Even if he thought such a thing, nobody in this country would be so rude as to question our credentials,” Bing said. “Once inside the gates we become honoured guests, invited or not. Their rules of hospitality are very strict.”
“I remember my father telling me about them and how even an enemy, once he sits down to eat, must be treated with courtesy and consideration.”
“That is right,” Bing answered. “Look! There’s someone important arriving.”
A huge limousine came out of the queue and passed them on the left hand side of the road, speeding up towards the gates.
“Who do you think that is?” Melina asked.
“I have an idea that I have seen the gentleman inside before,” Bing answered. “If I am not mistaken he comes from Russia and is someone I was quite certain will be here tonight.”
They drove on and finally came to the gates where an Officer in uniform took the invitation that Bing held out to him and told them where he could park the car.
It was all beautifully arranged, Melina thought, as they walked across the green lawns towards the house. There were fairy lights everywhere, which seemed only to echo the stars, which were already beginning to twinkle above them although it was not yet dark.
Guests in a long stream were surging up the steps through the tall, white columned entrance and for a moment Bing and Melina stood at the end of a queue, which was moving forward step by step.
Then Melina felt a pull on her arm and Bing was leading her away across the lawns in the direction of a long balustrade covered with roses.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Walk casually,” he answered. “We’re looking at the flowers and the fountain.”
She stopped at the touch of his hand and stared at the fountain that stood between them and the roses.
After a few seconds they moved on again and she realised that they were looking over a balustrade into another and lower part of the garden into which, from another flight of steps, guests were descending having obviously passed through the house, been greeted by their host and then returned to the garden again.
This lower garden, Melina thought, had not been visible from the hillside that she and Bing had inspected through the glasses. It was obviously here that the party was to be held.
There was a dance floor built in the centre of it beneath great arches of flowers and lights. There were fountains lit with every colour in the rainbow and floodlights revealed flowers so exotic and so beautiful, that some of them could have been arranged or planted only for that particular evening.
At the far end of the garden there was a long buffet laden with food, and already turbaned waiters were passing amongst the guests with trays containing tumblers of whisky and glasses of champagne.
“I think,” Bing said, “there is no need for us to be welcomed by our host. We’ll skip the preliminaries and join those below us.”
“How did you guess that we could do this?” Melina asked him.
“I thought when we looked this morning that there were very few preparations for a dance in this part of the garden,” he answered. “Therefore, there must be another one somewhere. Q. E. D.”
“I suppose I was expecting that they would dance in the house,”
“Much too hot,” Bing replied. “But somehow we have to get into the house later.”
There was no need for him to say more. Melina remembered, with a little dropping of her heart, the real reason why they were here.
The child! Where would they have hidden him?
And she felt guilty and ashamed because she had thought of herself early in the evening rather than of what was happening to the little boy.
She longed to ask Bing how they could get into the house or, rather, how they could get upstairs. It would be easy enough to wander into the reception rooms, but she was quite certain that Moulay Ibrahim would have an effective guard in the part of the villa he did not wish his guests to penetrate.
She realised, however, that it would be not only silly but also dangerous to question Bing at the moment and so she walked silently by his side as they moved forward until they found a flight of marble steps leading into the garden below.
The chatter and noise of voices was rising every moment as more and more guests poured from the house onto the lawns. The orchestra was playing a sentimental foxtrot and quite a number of couples were dancing to it.
They were nearly all Europeans, Melina noticed, and felt a sudden pang of envy that some of the women’s dresses were glittering with embroidery so that they seemed to reflect the lights and shimmer almost like the water falling from the fountains.
“I feel rather a plain Jane – ” she began to say to Bing and then suddenly she caught sight of a woman who had just come into the garden and who was wearing a dress of white net embroidered all over with tiny sparkling diamanté.
It was a dress that Melina had seen before.
As she recognised it, she gave a little gasp and clutched at Bing’s arm.
He stopped dead at the insistence of her fingers and looked towards her inquiringly.
“It’s awful!” Melina told him in a quick frightened whisper. “Mrs. Schuster is here! She’s standing over there. What are we to do?”
“Nothing,” Bing said quickly. “Just act naturally. We cannot leave and it will be impossible, even in this crowd, to avoid someone for the entire evening. You have to face her and we had much better do it at once in case she sees you later when it might prove awkward.”
He put his hand over hers as if to calm her and went on,
“Walk up to her and explain that the reason you left Tangier without saying goodbye was because your husband turned up unexpectedly.”
“I would not have said goodbye to her anyway,” Melina replied bitterly, remembering Mrs. Schuster’s unjustified accusation that she was both inefficient and impertinent.
“Never mind! Never mind!” Bing urged her impatiently. “Whether you have had a row with her or not, it doesn’t matter now. What does matter is the fact that you have to establish yourself as my wife. To have her rushing round telling everyone that you are really Miss Lindsay might cause complications. Where is she? Just walk across to her naturally.”
With an effort Melina pulled herself together.
What did it matter what Mrs. Schuster thought, she asked herself. There was more at stake than that spoilt rich woman had ever dreamed in her selfish empty head.
Melina smiled at Bing and lifted her little chin.
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll try not to let you down, but I cannot say that I am going to enjoy it.”
Quite a number of people had come between them and Mrs. Schuster since Melina had first seen her. Now, with Bing pulling her, she pushed her way through to where she had last seen that glittering lovely gown, which she had thought, when she last saw it hanging in Mrs. Schuster’s wardrobe, was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen in her life.
Mrs. Schuster had her back towards them as they approached. Melina could see that she was wearing her diamond necklace and the big diamond earrings which were shaped like bunches of flowers.
She was talking to Ambrose Wheatley, but after one glance towards him Melina did not look at him again.
She reached Mrs. Schuster’s side and said in tones that were almost aggressive because she was so nervous,
“Hello, Mrs. Schuster! What a surprise seeing you here.”
Lileth Schuster turned round sharply.
“Miss Lindsay!” she exclaimed. And then as if to make certain that her former secretary was really there she repeated, “Melina Lindsay! You’re the last person I expected to see. What are you doing here?”
“We’ve just arrived,” Melina replied and added quickly, “I wanted to apologise for hurrying away from Tangier without saying goodbye. As a matter of fact my husband arrived unexpectedly. I am afraid I did not tell you about him, but we – we had quarrelled and now we have made it up again.”
It all sounded rather breathless and incoherent and Mrs. Schuster raised her eyes from Melina’s flushed face and turned towards Bing.
“Your husband!” she exclaimed.
“Yes,” Melina answered. “May I introduce – ?”
She was unable, however, to complete the sentence.
She found herself staring with fascinated eyes at the transformation that suddenly seemed to take place in Mrs. Schuster’s face. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open and then, with a little cry, she put out both her hands and said breathlessly,
“Bing! It is Bing, isn’t it? For a moment I wasn’t certain. Oh, Bing! Where have you been? And what have you done to your face?”
Bing’s face was impassive but then, as Melina thought afterwards, there had been a second or so for him to recognise Mrs. Schuster before she looked towards him. And yet Melina thought he somehow looked white under his tan as he replied,
“Hello, Lileth! This is, indeed, a surprise.”
“Bing, where have you been?” Mrs. Schuster asked softly in a manner that made Melina feel as if she had been eavesdropping. “When I was in London I tried to find you everywhere, but nobody knew where you would gone.”
“I expect I was in the States,” Bing answered.
“In the States!” Mrs. Schuster said as if it was Timbuktu.
“I’ve had a lot to do out there, as a matter of fact,” Bing replied. “It’s a long story, but I’ve had to change my name and so if you were asking for me by my old one it was not surprising you could not find me.”
“Changed your name!” Lileth Schuster repeated almost stupidly.
“Yes,” Bing answered. My Godfather died. He left me some rather useful oil wells on condition that I took his name. It’s Cutter now, by the way. You must try and remember it, Lileth. It is spelt in the usual way.”
“Oil wells!” Lileth Schuster echoed in almost strangled tones.
Bing was acting the part so well, Melina thought, that she, herself, almost believed in the oil wells and a Godfather called Cutter.
“You have to tell me about it! I must to know what it’s all about,” Mrs. Schuster said and her voice was somehow desperate.
She looked around almost as if she expected an oasis where they could be alone to appear before them. Then, seeing the crowds growing larger every moment, she said quickly,
“Let’s dance, Bing. Ambrose will look after – ” she paused before she added, “ – Melina,” and Melina had the feeling that she could not bear to say the words, ‘your wife’.
“Very well, we’ll dance,” Bing agreed. “You will be all right, won’t you, Melina? We’ll meet by the fountain over there after this dance.”
“Melina will be quite all right with me,” Ambrose Wheatley intervened, speaking for the first time.
Mrs. Schuster drew Bing away and Ambrose took Melina’s hand and guided her onto the dance floor. She moved automatically, too bemused by what had just happened to know what to think.
“Well, really,” Ambrose was saying in an almost peevish voice, “you might have told me you were married. It was rather unkind to let me make a fool of myself over you.”
“Did you do that?” Melina asked.
She was watching, over his shoulder, Bing dancing with Lileth Schuster. He danced surprisingly well, she thought. She had not imagined that he would. And Mrs. Schuster was gazing up into his eyes, her lovely head thrown back, her red lips parted.
Melina forced herself to listen to what Ambrose Wheatley was saying.
“As a matter of fact,” he went on, “I was going to find you and apologise for having upset you with my suggestions. I didn’t think, somehow, you would take it like that. It’s only that I am under such an obligation to Lileth. As you know, she’s financing my Art Gallery so I don’t want to offend her at this particular moment and she is very, very possessive.”
“There was no need for you to apologise,” Melina told him.
“There was,” he insisted. “I realised that I said the wrong thing. Instead I was going to ask you to marry me.”
Melina dropped her eyes. How easy to say that now, she thought, when he had learnt that she was married and that her husband was with her. She was quite certain that Ambrose Wheatley was far too ambitious and self-seeking to tie himself up to a poverty-stricken, unimportant girl however much in love he might be.
“I love you, Melina!” he carried on. “I love you and I can think of nothing else. In fact I could not sleep last night for thinking of you.”
“You must not have any sleepless nights about me,” Melina smiled. “I don’t think my husband would like it.”
“Fancy Bing Ward turning up like this – and being your husband,” Ambrose said. “I have heard so much about him from Lileth, I feel almost as if I know him. She always described him as being very fair though and he doesn’t look very fair to me.”
“I think people’s hair darkens as they grow older,” Melina explained rather lamely.
“Well, Lileth will not be pleased he is married to somebody else,” Ambrose said reflectively.
“Why? Does she look upon him as her particular property?” Melina asked.
“I should say so,” Ambrose answered. “They were engaged to be married at one time.”
Melina suddenly felt that she could bear to hear no more.
This was Bing’s story. If he wanted to tell her, he would do so. Perhaps this was the reason why he had shouted at her that afternoon, why he had thumped his hand down on the steering wheel. She did not want to pry behind his back.
“It’s too hot to dance anymore,” she said. “Let’s go and stand by the fountain.”
Ambrose negotiated his way with difficulty towards the end of the dance floor, but the music then stopped and the dancers poured onto the lawns and towards the buffet, which Melina could now see was heaped with food of every description.
They reached the fountain and there was no sign of Bing or of Mrs. Schuster and by now the dance floor was empty.
“I expect they have a lot to say to each other,” Ambrose said, seeing her looking round anxiously. “Come for a walk with me, Melina. I want to talk to you. You are looking very lovely tonight. I don’t think you listened just now when I told you that I loved you.”
Melina realised suddenly that she hated him.
“I wonder if you would fetch me a glass of champagne?” she asked. “I haven’t had one yet.”
“That will be easy,” Ambrose answered. “Stay here and I will find a waiter.”
He turned away and he had not gone more than a few paces before Melina slipped away into the crowds. She hurried across the lawns until she found herself in the shadows of some trees and bushes that were covered with coloured fairy lights that looked like glittering jewels.
Here the crowds were not so dense and after a moment Melina managed to find a quiet seat in the shade where nobody could see that she was alone.
There she sat for a moment trying to compose her thoughts and to realise the quite fantastic coincidence by which Bing was connected with Lileth Schuster.
‘How could he have liked anyone like that?’ she thought – hard, brittle and mean to everyone she came into contact with. But in fairness she had to admit that Mrs. Schuster was very lovely with her great dark eyes, her pointed chin, which completed the perfect oval of her face, her beautifully symmetrical figure and the small slim feet that seemed characteristic of every American.
‘Was that Bing’s taste?’ Melina wondered and was somehow disappointed, although why she did not know.
“Let us sit here, darling!”
It was Mrs. Schuster’s voice directly behind her and Melina started.
“We have to go back. I need to find Melina.”
That was Bing speaking and Melina realised now that there was only a hedge of roses and honeysuckle between them.
“Bing darling, darling Bing, why did you leave me? Why did you just disappear like that without telling me where you were going?”
“You told me you were going to marry a man called Fulton, remember?” Bing answered.
“I had to,” Lileth Schuster replied. “But I never loved him, you knew that. I loved you.”
“You wanted his money and you got it, was not that enough?” Bing asked in a hard aggressive voice.
“Don’t speak to me like that,” Lileth begged. “You don’t know what I went through. Oh, I was rich, rich enough to make any woman happy, I thought. I was wrong. It was agony, worse than that, it was torture being married to a senile old man. I thought money could make up for love, but I was wrong, Bing. I knew when it was too late that I only wanted you, however poor we might be.”
There was a silence and Melina wondered what Bing’s face looked like. Had he squared his jaw, she wondered. And were his eyes angry or dark with suffering?
“When he died,” Lileth went on suddenly, “I tried to find you. I asked everyone we had both known in New York, but nobody had seen you. I was so unhappy I let myself be talked into marrying Carl Schuster. He was an incredible drunk. Our marriage lasted two months then I got a divorce. I came to England. I couldn’t find anyone who knew where you were. I wrote to you, not one letter but dozens, Bing, but they were all returned.”
“I told you that you could not have both money and me,” Bing remarked.
“But now – now when you are rich, I-I could have had – both,” Lileth muttered in a strangled voice.
“It’s too late,” Bing replied. “You forget I am married.”
“To Melina! That milk-faced, stupid little thing. Do you think she will be able to hold you?” Lileth asked scornfully. “You’ll be tired of her in a few weeks. She has worked for me and I can tell you – ”
Melina rose suddenly to her feet. She could not sit here, she felt, and let this woman run her down. She could not bear to have all her faults relayed to the man she was now working for, the man she was supposed to be married to.
Without considering, without thinking of what she was doing, she cried aloud,
“Bing! Bing! Are you there?”
And, even as she spoke his name, she realised that more than she had ever wanted anything in her life before, she wanted him to come to her.