Kitabı oku: «Seen By Candlelight»

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

KAREN STACEY slid out of the driving seat of her small black saloon and slipped her sheepskin overcoat about her shoulders before locking the car door. Shivering slightly in the frosty March air, she crossed the pavement and opened the door of the Georgian-styled cottage which her mother owned in this quiet mews.

Inside all was warmth and light and Karen shrugged appreciatively in the pleasant atmosphere. Liza, her mother’s housekeeper, greeted her warmly, taking her coat and hanging it in the hall closet. Liza had been with her mother since Karen was a child, and yet to Karen, she never seemed to look any older.

With a smile now, Karen asked: “Where is my mother, Liza?”

“In the sitting-room, Miss Karen,” replied Liza, her eyes showing their dislike of Karen’s casual attire. Tight-fitting stretch slacks and a chunky sweater were anathema to Liza. “Must you wear those disgusting trousers, love?” she exclaimed. “They’re hardly suitable for a young lady.”

Liza was terribly old-fashioned. She had never married herself and had always looked on the Stacey children as her own. And with the familiarity of years she invariably spoke her mind. It amused Karen now and she answered:

“Oh, Liza darling, I’ve just left my drawing-board. You can’t possibly expect me to dress up just to come round here. Not when I’ve got to go back and go on working. Besides, slacks are very warm and very fashionable at the moment.”

Liza shrugged, grimacing, and with a chuckle Karen left her to enter the sitting-room. This was the room which overlooked Masewood Mews and was a very pleasant room. The whole cottage was comfortably, if not opulently furnished, and Mrs. Stacey lived here with her younger daughter, Sandra. Karen did not see as much of them as she should, she knew, but her work and the painting she did in her spare time kept her quite busy and besides, this house brought back too many painful memories which were best forgotten.

Her mother was seated at a bureau writing letters when Karen entered the room and she rose to greet her elder daughter. There was little resemblance between them, for Karen was an ash-blonde while her mother’s hair had once been a vivid auburn.

Mrs. Stacey crossed the room and bestowed a kiss on her daughter’s cold cheek. Then she drew back and surveyed her thoroughly.

“It’s good to see you,” said Karen, smiling. “It’s so long since I’ve done so.”

“Yes, darling,” murmured Madeline Stacey absently. “I … er … I didn’t hear you arrive.”

“From your tone on the telephone I assumed a major catastrophe was about to occur,” remarked Karen lightly. “I had visions of your waiting on the doorstep for my arrival. Instead, you seem engrossed with your own thoughts.”

Madeline sighed heavily. “Well, my dear, I must admit I am rather cross with you for neglecting us for so long. We are your only kith and kin, you know. You really ought to care about us.”

“But I do,” exclaimed Karen, guiltily aware of her own indiscretions. “It’s simply that I never seem to have the time. I lead a very full life really, Mother. But anyway, what is there to stop you from visiting me? The apartment is only a stone’s throw away.”

Madeline raised her eyebrows. “My dear Karen, whenever I visit you I find myself thrust to one side like so much rubbish, while you engross yourself in some new design or paint those ghastly abstracts. Alternatively, I’m entertained, but am always conscious that I’m stopping you from getting on. I could hardly say I was made welcome, however unkind that may sound.”

Karen felt uncomfortable. She knew that what her mother had said was partly true, but Madeline’s limited conversation, which was mainly gossip anyway, bored her stiff, and she did prefer to work alone.

“All right, honey,” she agreed now. “You’ve made your point quite thoroughly. Now, what’s your problem? The one that’s hot off the press?”

Madeline indicated that Karen should sit down on a low armchair and turned away slowly. Karen sighed in exasperation. Much as she really loved her mother she knew only too well how she adored to dramatize things and it was obvious that this was not going to be the brief visit that she had hoped for. Madeline had something on her mind and she would not rest until she had extracted the very utmost out of it. Karen drew out her cigarette-case and helped herself to a cigarette, but her mother’s first words startled her so much that she almost dropped it.

“Have you seen Paul lately?” began Madeline, in a contrivedly casual tone.

“Paul?” Karen felt as though she was playing for time. Time to gather her suddenly shocked senses together. With trembling fingers she lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, savouring the nicotine in her lungs, relaxing. “No,” she replied slowly. “We never meet, and you know it. Why do you ask? Oh … I suppose you saw the notice of his engagement in The Times.”

“Yes, I did see that,” agreed her mother slowly. “Ruth Delaney, I believe that was her name. Some American girl, a tycoon’s daughter, if I remember correctly.”

“You’re in complete possession of the facts,” remarked Karen rather dryly. This was no casual remark. “Well, Mother, why should I have seen Paul?”

Mrs. Stacey shrugged. “I thought perhaps he might have telephoned to object about Sandra going out with Simon.”

Karen’s eyes widened. “Simon!” she exclaimed. “Simon Frazer is going out with Sandra? But he’s married; you must be joking.”

“I only wish I were,” said Madeline stiffly. “I don’t joke about things like this, Karen. I’m at my wits’ end. She refuses to give him up, even though I’ve begged her to do so. You know how unmanageable Sandra has always been, how headstrong and self-willed.”

Karen frowned. “You have only yourself to blame for that,” she said coolly. “You’ve always given in to her.”

Madeline’s lips thinned. “Thank you,” she exclaimed furiously. “And what would you have done if you had been left alone with two young children to bring up?”

“I would have treated them both alike, instead of coddling one and making a rod for my own back,” retorted Karen. “Anyway, Mother, that’s hardly relevant now. I agree that Simon Frazer is no fit associate for any young girl, let alone an impressionable idiot like Sandra! How did you find out about them? I don’t suppose she told you.”

“Oh, no; not a word. A friend saw them dining together last week and couldn’t wait to telephone me to let me know. Sandra is only seventeen, Karen. Simon Frazer must be over thirty; after all, Paul is thirty-seven, isn’t he?”

“Ah, yes,” Karen drew on her cigarette. “Where does Paul come into all this?” She shivered. “Simon is only his brother, you know.”

“As I’ve already said, I asked Sandra to stop seeing Simon. She simply laughed at my arguments and refused to take any notice of me. She says she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Both you and I know how foolhardy that statement is with a man like him. Something has got to be done. I think Paul is the only person able to do that something.”

“So?” Karen’s voice was dangerously quiet.

“I want you to get in touch with Paul and ask him to speak to Simon –”

Karen sprang to her feet. “No!” she exclaimed abruptly. She ran a restless hand over her shoulder-length straight hair. “I won’t do it. Paul and I parted in the divorce court two years ago and I just couldn’t contact him now. It’s out of the question.”

Madeline frowned. “So your own pride is greater than your sister’s downfall? She is your sister, Karen, your seventeen-year-old sister!”

“Stop play-acting, Mother,” cried Karen, inwardly seething. “It won’t work. I refuse to do it. Sandra is seventeen, as you’ve said. She’s not a child. She must make her own mistakes. After all, I was only eighteen when I met Paul.”

“And look what happened to your marriage,” taunted her mother cruelly. “Five years and it was all over. Here you are, twenty-five years old and already a divorcee. Not that there’s any question of marriage in the circumstances. As you’ve said, Simon is married. That makes everything so much worse.”

Karen was pale. This conversation was raking up all the painful past that she had tried to bury these last two years. She had always known that her mother had resented her break with Paul for purely selfish reasons, but to fling it all in her face now almost brought Karen to tears. How could Madeline be so unkind? But tears were a luxury that Karen had never indulged in and she did not so so now. She had always been an independent sort of person, like her father, and Madeline had clung to the baby, Sandra, and spoiled her utterly when their father was killed in an air crash a long while ago.

Karen knew that Madeline wanted to save Sandra from herself and she did not care if she hurt her elder daughter in the process. Karen was tempted to leave immediately and let them work it out alone, but she knew if she did so, she would never be welcome here again. As her mother had said, she and Sandra were Karen’s only blood relations and to cut herself off from them would leave her completely alone. How could she do such a thing?

“Well?” exclaimed her mother. “Are you going to let your sister’s life be ruined?”

Karen sighed heavily. The ultimatum had come and she was not ready for it. What could she say? How could she explain that it was not merely pride that kept her from contacting Paul? That she was frightened of her treacherous emotions and afraid that he might see how disturbed she was.

But Simon, too, had a wife whom he never considered and although Karen had never liked Julia Frazer, she was still involved. Perhaps Paul might be glad to break up the affair. After all, he had no reason to love the Stacey family.

“All right,” she agreed at last. “But why should you imagine that Paul will take any notice of me? Let alone speak to Simon.”

“Paul used to be very fond of Sandra,” replied Madeline, inwardly exulting at Karen’s surrender. “And he knows what kind of a man Simon is.”

Karen stubbed out her cigarette and thrust a hand into the pocket of her slacks. She was committed to speaking to her ex-husband. God, weren’t memories hateful enough without reinforcing them with reality? How could you meet a man with whom you had shared the tenderest intimacies of marriage without feeling a knife turn in your inside? She supposed dully that it should have been easier, but they had been so much in love and now …

She had been eighteen when she met Paul Frazer. He was then the chairman of the board of the Frazer Textile Industries whose head office was in London, and Karen was a very junior designer working for the company. She had worked there for almost two years without ever dreaming she would come in contact with the young dynamic tycoon whose named spelled “Success” with a capital S. She had heard plenty about him from her colleagues, but he did not concern himself with the small fry like them. Still a bachelor at thirty, he was the most sought-after man in London, and the social papers and magazines splashed stories about him wherever he went.

For all this, Karen had secretly believed that the man could not seriously add up to his image. It had amused her to listen to the girls raving about him, but she had not been particularly interested. Men had always been attracted to her and she had plenty of admirers in her own sphere without looking on to a higher, much more futile, plane.

And then she produced, as much to her surprise as anybody else’s, a design for a carpet which was quite brilliant. The Frazer Combine produced various ranges of textiles and the carpet design was a completely original piece of work.

To her embarrassment, she was sent for by the man himself, and had to go to his office on the sacrosanct top floor of the Frazer building. She had been not so much nervous as embarrassed, but when the chief designer introduced her to Paul Frazer she found herself completely absorbed by his overwhelming charm and personality. Far from over-estimating the man, she found him absolutely more devastating than his reputation and was therefore astonished when later in the week he rang her office and invited her to dinner.

She accepted, of course, much to the envy of her friends, and found to her amazement that he was actually interested in her as a person, and not as a designer.

Within a few weeks their relationship had assumed such proportions that Paul, who had never been used to being denied anything from a woman, found his every waking moment a torment of wanting to possess her, and his admiration for her ideals kindled into love. Karen, who had been attracted to him from the beginning fought against the love which threatened to overwhelm her, but when Paul eventually proposed marriage she was utterly consumed with happiness.

They had flown to the Bahamas for their honeymoon and were away for three idyllic months. Karen had never known such happiness and Paul grew relaxed and lazy and sun-tanned. They adored each other, but when they returned to England to the house which Paul had bought near Richmond, they both resented the return to normality. Paul had to spend a lot of time at the office then, making up the work that had been left to slide in his absence, and Karen was left alone.

To begin with she was not lonely. The house needed a complete redecoration, and Paul had only a few of the rooms furnished so that Karen might do the whole place over to her own liking. With the help of a team of interior decorators Karen set to work, and the result pleased Paul just as much as Karen. She loved the evenings best when Paul came home to her. They rarely went out or entertained, and spent hours alone, talking and making love.

Then, as time passed, Paul, who had neglected a great deal of his normal work to be with Karen, found it necessary to visit the factories in the Midlands and the North of England where Frazer Textiles were produced. Being an active man, and interested in his work, he had always disliked delegating duty, and it was over a year since he had made a tour of inspection. With reluctance, he left Karen at home when he went to visit the factories. He knew if he took her with him he would be unable to concentrate. When she was with him nothing else could take precedence.

For a while, Karen’s duties at Trevayne absorbed her, and she spent her time swimming in the pool in the grounds, or inviting friends over for tennis or drinks.

But as the years passed, apart from having holidays with Paul, their time together was limited to the evenings. Week-ends were given over to entertaining, and Karen began to hate the rigid pattern of their lives. She was bored; not with Paul but with having too much time and too little to do.

Eventually she asked Paul whether she could go back and work for the company. Paul was astounded, and refused point-blank. Apart from wanting her at home when he needed her, he objected to her working when it was so unnecessary. Her pleas of boredom were shrugged off, and Karen found herself getting irritable and frustrated. The combination of these two emotions began the series of arguments and rows about her work and about her aimless position in the house. Paul, who had assumed her too young to start a family, now suggested that they do just that, but Karen was too stubborn and foolish to agree and thus give in to him again. She refused abruptly, and to her horror Paul moved his clothes into the spare guest-room.

She was frightened and terrified of the results of her own actions, but too full of pride to beg him to come back to her.

They had been married a little over three years when Karen went behind Paul’s back and got herself a job with a rival organization, the Martin Design Company. When Paul found out he was furious. The Martin Company obtained some of their work from the Frazer Syndicate, and he immediately withdrew his interest.

This culminated in yet another row, the result of which was that Karen packed her possessions and left. She had not gone to her mother’s home. Her mother had never agreed that Karen should need anything more than a home and a husband, and she was very angry with Karen for a long time after their separation.

But for Karen there was no going back. Lewis Martin, the head of the small company, who knew her circumstances, sympathized with her but advised her to be brave and stick it out. He did not advise her to go back to Paul, indeed quite the reverse, and Karen was grateful to him at that time. Looking back now, she felt sure that left alone she would have returned to Paul within a week; and on his terms!

Paul made several abortive attempts to see her, but Lewis guarded her like the Crown Jewels and Karen was left alone with her thoughts. Whenever she suggested that perhaps she ought to see Paul, Lewis had reminded her of her reasons for leaving, and his words had stiffened her resolve. No good could come of their reunion. Only more arguments and more rows and another separation. They were incompatible. She might as well admit it here and now. Sexually, they were well matched, but marriages were only partly based on that side of things. These were Lewis’s words, his advice to her, and she had believed him. After all, why not? He had nothing to gain in this except a rather second-rate designer who had forgotten so much during the past years. How was he to know that until the affair of the “Job” as she called it to herself, she and Paul had only rarely argued, and never in an unkind way?

Lewis found her the apartment which he obtained from a friend who was an estate agent. Lewis himself bought the flat and Karen was therefore his tenant. Karen was thrilled to have a home of her own and she furnished it as soon as she had saved the money. She did it in pieces, refusing Lewis’s offer of an advance. Paul had long stopped calling her and she was left in peace. She worked well for Lewis, who was a good designer himself, and learned a lot from him.

He was a man in his early forties, a widower with no children, and Karen felt more like a daughter to him. It was with a sense of shock, therefore, that she received his proposal of marriage about a year after her break with Paul. She had protested that apart from the fact that she did not love him, she was technically still a married woman, and he had remarked that he had heard that Paul was going to sue her for divorce.

Karen was horrified a few days later when she received the notification in the mail of Paul’s intention, and astounded that the grounds were adultery. He was citing Lewis as co-respondent.

Lewis however did not seem at all perturbed at his position in all this, even though the press made a nine days’ wonder out of it all. He advised Karen not to defend the suit, as did the solicitor he found for her. Defended suits, they said, became laundries of dirty washing, and unless she wanted her private life dragged before the magistrate she might just as well not defend.

Bewildered, with no one to turn to but Lewis, Karen did as they suggested, and withdrew even more into her shell. Paul achieved his freedom by revealing certain facts which appeared conclusive to an outsider. Karen was too sick at heart to care. Of course Lewis had obtained the flat for her, but she paid a rent for it! Lewis often stayed late in the evening if they were discussing a new project, but it was all quite innocent. Even the night he had spent in the apartment on the couch in the living-room was only because a thick smog had descended on London, and it seemed ridiculous that Lewis should have to trail home to his house in Hampstead. However, even she could see that no good could come of trying to refute the accusations. They looked too conclusive, and Lewis’s attitude was one of amiable inertia. Thus it was that less than five years after their wedding, Karen found herself free again.

Lewis was a tower of strength in those early days, devoting himself to her welfare and generally making himself indispensable. But when he again broached the subject of their marriage she vetoed the idea at once. Apart from anything else she felt too raw inside to contemplate such a step then, and Lewis, who knew he had no rivals, was content to wait.

Time had eventually partially healed Karen’s torn feelings and she had thought she was beginning to get over the affair, but now, listening to her mother extolling Paul’s virtues and ridiculing her own part in it, she knew that it was only pushed into the back of her mind, waiting to be brought into the open. And she felt convinced that all her futile defences were going to be in vain.

Still, she had committed herself and there was no going back now. She had to go through with it, see her ex-husband, for she could not discuss this over the telephone, and possibly even meet Ruth Delaney, the woman he had chosen to take her place.

Karen walked restlessly to the door. She might as well do it and get it over with.

“And … er … what if he refuses to even speak to me?” asked Karen, turning back to her mother.

“I’m sure he won’t,” replied Madeline calmly. “Paul isn’t a man like that.”

It had been a great blow to Madeline when she had had to give up giving her intimate little parties which Paul had indulged her in. He had always made sure she had plenty of money for anything she desired, and flowers and chocolates were often delivered for her. He had known all her little weaknesses, and even if a secretary carried out his instructions, Madeline revelled in the feeling of being a cosseted woman again. Karen had not known half of the money spent on Madeline, which was just as well, as she would have hated that Paul should think they were paupers.

“Well, why can’t you ring him, then?” asked Karen, making one last attempt to free herself from her obligations.

“I couldn’t, Karen. I wouldn’t know what to say. You were his wife. You know him intimately. It will be much easier coming from you.”

Karen flushed. Yes, she had known Paul intimately. She had thought that no one could possibly know anyone as she had known Paul.

“Now,” said Madeline, smiling in her victory. “Will you ring him from here?” She glanced at her watch. “It’s eleven-thirty. He may be at the office.”

“No,” replied Karen with emphasis. “I shall ring him from the intimacy of my own apartment. That is … if you don’t mind, of course.” This last she spoke sarcastically, causing Madeline to press her lips together in a thin line.

“So long as you don’t forget,” she replied curtly.

“I shan’t forget,” replied Karen heavily. “I’ll ring him when I get back. Does that satisfy you?”

“I imagine so,” said Madeline coolly. “You’ll have coffee before you go, won’t you?”

Karen shook her head. The strained atmosphere was stifling her.

“No, thanks,” she answered swiftly. “I … I’d better go. I have a lot to do.”

“Of course,” Madeline shrugged, and Karen went out into the hall to retrieve her coat. She felt nauseated and longed for the peace of her own home.

With a brief farewell, she slid behind the wheel of the Morris and drove round to Berkshire Court, the large block of apartments in a cul-de-sac in Chelsea, of which she occupied the top floor. It enabled her to have the maximum amount of light into the small studio which adjoined the flat and she had always liked it.

A lift transported her to the twelfth floor after she had put her car away in the basement garages. She walked along the corridor and inserted her key into the lock and entered the lounge of the apartment. This was an attractive room, with stark white walls which were an ideal background for the dark red three-piece suite and lusciously opulent velvet curtains of olive-green. The carpet was fitted and patterned in a variety of colours, while the remainder of the furniture was a light oak in colour. There was a small foldaway table and chairs, and a small cocktail cabinet. The essence of the room spelled elegant simplicity in design, and it suited Karen’s character. She loathed fussy rooms, overflowing with knick-knacks and ornaments of all kinds.

The rest of the flat was composed of her bedroom, a bathroom, a minute kitchen opening off the lounge, and the small studio where she worked, which also opened off the lounge. The studio had roof windows as well as wide windows in the walls and was ideal for working. Here she had her drawing-board, as most of her work was done in the silence of her home.

After her break with Paul she had been left with a lot of spare time in the evenings and had started painting pictures for her own pleasure. It was an entirely new hobby for her and she found great satisfaction in putting her thoughts into paintings. They were, as her mother so unkindly termed them, “ghastly abstracts”, and even Lewis showed little interest in them. To him they were so much wasted effort, and he bluntly told her so. Karen was a little disappointed that he should think so, for although she did not believe they were masterpieces, she nevertheless felt that they had something.

All Lewis would admit was that they made her an ideal occupation, but he advised her not to consider them a monetary proposition. As Lewis was a clever designer and knew a lot about art in general, Karen contented herself with his opinion for she did not care much either way. It was merely a means of filling in time.

Now, as she looked round the lounge, the paintings were all about her. As she liked them she had had them framed, and at least they provided a splash of colour on the otherwise bare walls.

She slipped off her overcoat and hung it over a chair, and strolling across the room she took a cigarette from her case and lit it. She thought momentarily that she was smoking far too much, but she drew on the tobacco with enjoyment.

The scarlet telephone on the low table by the couch seemed to mock her silently and she inwardly hated herself for agreeing to her mother’s blackmail, as indeed it had been. Telephone Paul or be ostracized.

But how on earth could she just pick up the telephone and speak to a man who had divorced her two years ago and whom she had not spoken to for almost four years? It was ludicrous, really. And would he be secretly amused at her for calling him? What satisfaction would it give him to have her crawling to him for help? She bit her lip angrily. Only her mother could have placed her in such a position. She was tempted to ring Lewis and ask his advice, but decided against it. He would consider her actions quite ridiculous and would most likely advise her not to go through with it.

With a deep sigh she lifted the receiver with trembling fingers and dialled the number of the Frazer building. She knew the number so well; how often had she called Paul there in the old days?