Читать книгу Interference - Roland Pertwee - Страница 3
ОглавлениеCHAPTER I
The Powder Closet in Curzon Street in which Barbara Marlay carried out her secretarial duties was little more than an apple-green, panelled cube, ill-assorted to the click-clack of the typewriter upon which Barbara’s rather inexperienced fingers dealt with the correspondence of her uncle, Sir John Marlay, M.D., F.R.C.P.
Barbara was eighteen, direct, loyal, and courageous. Her father had been killed in Ploeg Street in 1915, and her mother, through loneliness and a broken heart, swiftly followed him into the unknown. John Marlay had adopted his niece, and, lest the sense of obligation should weigh too heavily upon her shoulders, had given her a job as his secretary. He did not like idle people—with the exception of Faith, who was his wife. Faith was privileged. He treated her as one treats a flower, she being of that human fabric woven of sweetness and devotion, and of spiritual rather than of practical service in this pedestrian world.
Barbara’s secretarial duties did not impose upon her a great intellectual strain. The letters she composed were mostly to advise patients that Sir John Marlay could or could not give an appointment at such and such an hour on such and such a day. This fact notwithstanding, she carried out her duties with religious severity, clicking away on the little machine as though the health of nations depended upon it.
She did not look up when Douglas Helder, uninvited and unannounced, came into the room. That Douglas had proposed to her, not once but many times, and that she was fully determined at the right moment to accept him, did not, she felt, justify her in allowing him to interfere with her work. An appreciation of discipline, which is every woman’s birthright, instructed Barbara that young men are all the better for being kept in their places, and for being mildly humiliated in the presence of an adored one. Besides, she had a bone to pick with Douglas and knew by experience that he would guess it by the unchanging angle of her head and her air of preoccupation.
‘Are you as busy as you look, or trying to look busier than you are?’ he asked.
Getting no answer, he drifted to the window, and stared down at the traffic which slowly trickled up and down Curzon Street. Douglas Helder was a good-looking fellow, a hard-bit, service type of man, unlike the average run of pressmen. As a Lieutenant-Commander of the Royal Navy he had come into the zone and passed out of it without getting his step, and had accordingly turned his back on the sea and attacked the profession of journalism.
His equipment, keen observation plus an agreeable aptitude for turning a phrase, secured him a job with The Cable, which for the best part of six months he held down with moderate success. His first big stroke of luck had come with Sir John Marlay’s discovery of a serum for the cure of General Paralysis of the Insane—a discovery which had created a tremendous excitement in medical circles and among a large section of the laity. Only a few weeks ago the theory and the facts had been given to the public, backed by undeniable instances of successful cures. Perhaps because the newspapers of the civilised world appreciated the immense value of the discovery, or, perhaps, because the time was sterile of other sensational reading matter, the press had given the serum an unprecedented publicity. The pleasant quiet of the house in Curzon Street in which John Marlay carried on his practice was invaded by legions of reporters, English, American, German, Austrian, French—by batteries of camera men and an ever-increasing number of scientific and pseudo-scientific gentlemen anxious for enlightenment. Himself something of a recluse, John Marlay was swift to realise the impossibility of carrying on his work in the glare of so much limelight. In self-defence, he made it known that he would give no interviews concerning the serum or his own private affairs save under exceptional circumstances, to any reporter but Douglas Helder.
To the gentlemen of Fleet Street who plucked at his sleeve or clicked cameras at his own front door—on the steps of King George’s Hospital, or any other institution he was known to attend, his invariable reply was:
‘Get after Douglas Helder; he’ll tell you all I want known. He’s a first-class chap—doesn’t know much about his job—just come out of the Navy—and going to marry my niece. Must give one’s own folk a leg up.’
‘Yes, but Sir John——’
But their protests were cut short by that crisp, characteristic ‘No!’ which blocked all further argument.
So Douglas Helder found himself exclusively covering the biggest journalistic scoop of the season.
The tiny typewriter bell tinkled cheerfully—the keys clicked BM/JM. Barbara Marlay pulled out the sheet of typescript, scanned it with a professional eye, slapped it down in the ‘For Signature’ tray—rose, took the cigarette from Douglas’s fingers—extinguished it in an ash tray and fixed him with a penetrating eye.
‘Now for you,’ she said. ‘I would like to know exactly what you mean by it?’
With a singular lack of appreciation for the gravity of the moment, the young man put his arms round her shoulders and kissed her soundly.
‘There is one thing to be said in favour of a snub nose,’ he said. ‘It does keep out of the way in moments like these.’
‘Fool,’ said Barbara. ‘Sit down. I am angry with you.’
With an effort to appear contrite, Douglas disposed himself on a Queen Anne stool with his back to the wall.
‘Acknowledging the fact that we are all miserable sinners, in what particular manner have I digressed?’ he asked.
Barbara picked up a copy of The Cable, folded it at the illustrated page, and tossed it into his lap.
‘Who told you to publish that?’ she demanded.
‘That’ was a photograph of a man in a white suit and a girl in a white frock standing on a cliff, with the sea and hills behind them. Beneath was printed ‘Sir John and Lady Marlay, from a snapshot taken at Rose Bay, Sydney Harbour, in the year of their marriage.’
‘Well, what of it?’ he enquired.
‘What of it?’ Barbara retorted. ‘You bagged that snap out of the album I showed you last Sunday. You never said a word to me about printing it.’
‘Why shouldn’t it be printed?’ he replied. ‘They both look extraordinarily nice. There is no mystery about the fact that they were married in Australia. What the deuce does it matter anyway?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Barbara, ‘except that it was understood everything you published was to be censored beforehand.’
‘Writing matter—yes,’ he admitted, ‘but not photographs, darling. The public love a personal touch. After all the stodgy stuff we hash out about this serum, it is like a breath of fresh air to shove in something jolly like this.’
‘It is no good making excuses,’ said Barbara. ‘You have done wrong and you know you have done wrong.’
‘Have I? But why? Marlay doesn’t care a hoot, does he?’
‘I haven’t asked him,’ said Barbara. ‘Don’t expect he has seen it; he is much too busy to read newspapers these days.’
‘Well, then, let’s forget it.’
‘I am thinking of Faith,’ said Barbara. ‘Faith has seen it and hated it being there. It upset her dreadfully.’
Douglas looked grave.
‘I’m damned sorry if I hurt her,’ he said. ‘She’s been a splendid little pal to me and I’d hate to do anything she didn’t like. But why should it upset her?’
‘I tell you it has,’ said Barbara.
‘Why?’
‘Oh! lots of reasons. In the first place it’s a honeymoon photograph and she says everything that happened on her honeymoon was theirs and no one else’s. And then, it was taken in Sydney.’
‘Yes?’
‘You know how Faith tries to forget Australia and everything to do with it.’
‘That first marriage of hers, you mean?’ said Douglas.
Barbara nodded. ‘If you had married a creature like that, a drunken, cynical beast, you wouldn’t want reminding.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Douglas admitted. ‘But she’s happy enough now. I have never seen two people love each other like the Marlays. If it wasn’t so ripping it would be almost comic. The way she looks at him reminds me of Saint Anne in Da Vinci’s “Virgin of the Rocks.” You know—adoring—dog-like almost. There aren’t many women like Faith Marlay. I could kick myself for having hurt her and I’ll tell her so when she comes in.’
‘Don’t,’ said Barbara. ‘Much better let it alone. But do get it into your head, Douglas, to leave out personal stuff. Uncle John’s frightfully good-natured and understanding. He knows what a difficult job it is for you, but for all our sakes, keep to the facts of the case—stick to the cure.’ She threw up her head with a little angry action. ‘It’s so beastly vulgar to poke and pry into people’s private lives, and he’s just the sort of man, if he thought anyone had gone too far——’
‘No need to tell me that,’ Douglas interrupted. ‘A highly developed property-sense—that?’
‘A tremendous loyalty to what belongs to him,’ Barbara amended. Her expression softened. ‘There, that’s off my chest, so now we can be friends again.’
And they were, side by side on the old Queen Anne stool which could accommodate two as well as one at a pinch.
