Roberta Leigh - Pretence Read online

  Roberta Leigh - Pretence

  Ann felt responsible for the fact that shy, plain Rosalie Banks had been badly hurt by Paul Mallison — and she was determined to get her own back on him. She never stopped to think she might be playing with fire.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE small, old-fashioned car drew in to the kerb and stopped outside a dingy office building leading to the Strand. A few yards away the London buses crawled slowly through the heavy traffic, the constant hooting of horns and screeching of brakes a fitting accompaniment to the heavy smell of petrol and dust that pervaded the air.

  Desmond Barclay switched off the ignition and leaned back in his seat, staring in exasperation at the girl next to him.

  "I can't say any more now. I've pulled out every card in the pack, but you're stubborn as they come."

  Aim Lester straightened her legs in the small confines of the car and made a face as she grazed her knee on the dashboard.

  "It's the only thing to do. If I'd stayed at the Boxford Rep I'd have gone mad. I've been there four months and I haven't had a part — not even a single line or a snigger."

  Desmond slewed round in his seat, his good-looking face marred by an expression of discontent. "You want things to happen too quickly, that's your trouble. How long do you think I had to slog before I got where I am?"

  "I know all that," she replied, "but I haven't as much patience as you."

  "You've got to have patience in this profession. If you knew as much about the stage as I do, you'd realize that."

  She half turned her head away. "There's no point in talking any more. I've made up my mind and you won't make me change it."

  She moved to get out of the car and he caught her arm. "You can't just go like this. If I let you walk out of my life now I might never see you again."

  "I'll drop you a line at the Rep."

  "Fat lot of good that'll do! I might not even be there myself. If this audition with Arnold Becktor comes off I'll be lodging in Kenton." He frowned. "Give me your address, can't you? There's no reason to be secretive."

  "I'm not secretive."

  "Yes, you are. Why are you afraid of letting me see the real you?" He slid closer along the seat. "We get on well together and we could work together too, if only you'd say the word."

  "No, thanks. I want to succeed on my own ability. If I'd been willing to let people pull strings for me, do you think I'd have slogged four months at the Rep?"

  Desmond's eyes appraised her slim figure which, even hunched in the car, still had the power to move him to desire. Long, slim legs were crossed one over the other, arched insteps visible in black patent sandals. Her narrow, triangular face with its perfectly chiselled bones had excited him at their first moment of meeting and even now, familiar though he was with every nuance of her voice and expression on her face, she was still as much a mystery to him as when they had first met. His hand rested on the top of her head and slid down the soft blonde hair.

  "No, darling," he said quietly. "I'm sure if you'd wanted it the easy way you'd have got on fast." He leaned forward, his mouth just above hers. "I'm crazy about you, Ann."

  "Desmond, no—people are watching."

  "Who cares? You know I'm at my best when there's an audience!" His eyes grew serious. "Why don't you let yourself go?"

  "I don't happen to be in love with you."

  "You won't even try. I know I haven't led a blameless life, but if you'd say the word I wouldn't look at another woman." His hands were hard on her shoulders, and knowing it would be useless to struggle, she relaxed in his grasp. "Ann darling, kiss me." He loosened his hold to place his arm round her waist and instantly she slithered along the seat and out of the car.

  "Good-bye, Desmond."

  "Ann, wait! I can't let you go like this."

  She waved her arm. "Drop me a note at this address and it'll be forwarded."

  He glanced behind her to the black and white plaque outside the door, and his expression changed to one of amazement. "A marriage bureau — Ann, are you crazy?"

  "Not at all," she laughed. "I'm going to see if they have a producer on their books, or maybe an up-and-coming playwright!"

  "You can't do that! Ann — Ann, wait!"

  Regardless of his cries, she walked up a narrow flight of stairs and pushed open a glass-panelled door bearing the name: "McBride Marriage Agency."

  A girl looked up from a typewriter and smiled. "Good afternoon. Can I help you?"

  "I'd like to see Miss McBride."

  "Have you an appointment or are you already on our books?"

  Ann smiled. "Neither, I'm a friend of hers."

  "Then go right in — she's got no one with her."

  Ann opened the door of a second, larger office and a middle-aged woman looked up from her desk, her face lighting with a smile as she saw the girl standing on the threshold.

  "Aim! How wonderful to see you."

  Ann ran forward, arms outstretched, and the two women hugged each other.

  "Heavens, it's good to see you again, Marty. You don't know how much I've missed your nagging!"

  Marty smiled. "Another few days and you'd have missed it altogether! I'm going into hospital — nothing serious," she said as Ann tried to interrupt. "Just some darned orthopaedic thing that'll take at least two months to put right."

  Ann stared at Marty in dismay. "I'd no idea you weren't well. What will happen to the business?"

  "Peggy will have to do the best she can. I've tried to get someone else to take over, but it's hopeless."

  "Wouldn't it be better if you closed down temporarily?"

  "It would be more than a matter of temporarily," Marty sighed. "If I close the office this month, I might as well close for good. It's introductions made now that keep me going for the rest of the year."

  "I see." Ann frowned. "I'd no idea it was as serious as that."

  "It's so serious I'm fed up thinking about it." Marty reached for a cigarette and lit it. "Let's talk about you instead. What brings you up from Boxford?"

  "I've left the Rep. Four months running around with pots of tea was more than enough. So here I am — no job, no prospects. I've reached the stage where I'd even be back legs of a horse to get a part!"

  "Why don't you go and see some of your father's friends? Laurie was the most important actor on the London stage — they'd be willing to help you for that reason alone."

  At the mention of her father, Ann's expression altered. How rarely she allowed herself to think of him, for in recollecting the past lay sadness and regret that he should have died in so ugly and untimely a fashion.

  She stirred and raised her head. "I don't want to succeed because of Dad. Believe me, I'd rather take a job scrubbing floors until I get a part on my own merits."

  There was a momentary silence and Marty looked beyond Ann's shoulder and sighed.

  "Scrubbing floors is a mite drastic," she said slowly. "But if you're really in a fix for money I can give you a job here."

  "No, thanks. You're just about making ends meet without adding me to your responsibilities."

  "I wasn't doing it out of the kindness of my heart," Marty said dryly. "I was thinking you might like to help Peggy run the business for me while I'm in hospital."

  Ann burst out laughing. "Now I know you're joking! Why, I don't know the first thing about a marriage bureau."

  "You've got tact and imagination — they're the most important. What do you say?"

  Ann ran her hands through her hair, the blonde ends standing like feathers round her head. It might be fun to act Cupid for a couple of months, particularly if, in so doing, she could help Marty out of a difficult situation. Her eyes sparkled and her voice was buoyant when she spoke.

 
"It's not a bad idea at all. I'll wear horn-rimmed glasses and play the part straight. I knew I could rely on you to help me, Marty. I wish Dad had had the sense to marry you instead."

  "Nonsense!" Marty said, with more force than was necessary. "We were both too obstinate to have been happy together. Laurie was a wonderful person, but he had to have things his own way."

  "He never did with Mother." Ann sighed. "She hated the stage, yet she had to marry an actor!"

  "They were in love."

  "You need more than love to be happy."

  "My little armchair philosopher," Marty smiled. "If you were my child I'd take a hairbrush to you."

  "No, you wouldn't. You'd offer me a job just as you're doing now."

  "A job with a catch in it," was the sly reply. "If you haven't landed a part by the time I come out of hospital, I want your promise that you'll go home for a bit."

  "How can I land a part if I'm working in an office all day?'

  "You can always take time off to go the rounds, so that's no excuse. Your mother needs you, Ann. She's still grieving over Laurie, and having you home for a while will help her." Marty leaned forward and smiled. "You've Laurie's charm, my dear, but he couldn't get around me and neither can you. Make up your mind which it's to be."

  Ann looked down at the carpet and, watching her, Marty sighed. If she had had the courage to marry Laurence Langham when he was still unknown, Ann might have been her child. But Laurie had always been ambitious and, recognizing his talent, she had known that when success was his, he might regret his marriage to a sober Scots girl. Modesty, logic — call it what you will — had made her refuse him; an act she had regretted all her life.

  At the height of his fame he had fallen in love with Angela Paterson, daughter of a country parson, and, to everyone's surprise, had married her and brought her to London. Ann had been the only child of a marriage that had teetered precariously between success and failure until, flying home from entertaining the troops in Aden a year ago, Laurie's plane had disappeared over the Sinai Desert His death had left Angela prostrate with grief, and the overwhelming realization of how much her jealousy of his career on the stage had warped their married life made it impossible for her to think of him without pain.

  Yet Ann had been affected deeply too, for there had been a strong bond of affection between father and daughter, and Marty had not been surprised when, soon after the accident, the girl had given up the secretarial training her mother had insisted she take, and decided to attend drama school. Angela had done everything in her power to prevent her daughter taking up a career that had robbed her of her husband. But to no avail. The girl had been determined to prove herself her father's daughter.

  As if conscious that she was being watched, Ann looked up. "I'll take the job."

  "Thank goodness for that!" Marty moved her chair. "Come arid sit next to me and I'll explain a few things. In a couple of days you should learn all the ropes."

  The first week-end after Marty entered hospital, Ann travelled down to Sussex to see her mother. After her husband's death Angela Langham had retired from the theatrical circle she had mixed in during her lifetime and spent her days in the small cottage that nestled on the edge of the Downs. Behind her rolled the verdant green of the sloping hills while the living-room windows afforded a magnificent view of the coast and the restless sea.

  Helping to prepare the food and wash the dishes, Ann knew she could never be content to stay in this quiet spot, and conscience prompted her to suggest her mother return to London.

  "Thanks, darling, but I'm perfectly happy here. I've been co-opted into the local W.V.S. and I even help run the village library!"

  Ann made a face. "I wonder what some of your friends would think if they saw you now."

  "That I was madly unfashionable and quite stupid!" Angela looked down at her serviceable jumper and skirt. "But you knew yourself that your father's life was never mine, and when he died there seemed no point in going on with all the pseudo-glamour and excitement."

  "It's not all pseudo, Mother."

  "You say that because you've Laurie's blood in your veins, but I'm a country girl at heart, and that was something he never realized." She bent forward to poke the fire and the orange flames warmed her skin and hair, the spattering of grey in the blonde more noticeable now than a year ago. "I'm happy here, Ann—you've no need to worry about me. As long as I know you're all right…

  "I'm fine." Ann stirred and stretched her arms. "It's fun working in Marty's office. I never realized there were so many lonely people."

  Angela Langham did not answer. It would do Ann good to have a job unconnected with the stage and to know that the majority of people lived ordinary, humdrum lives and were content to do so.

  She stood up. "I'll go and make some supper. You'll be too tired to bother by the time you get back to London."

  Lying in Marty's bed, in Marty's flat, later that night, Ann thought of her mother and the years of marriage that were now no more, wondering with bitterness if time were able to eradicate all sorrow. Suddenly she thought of Desmond and wished she had been able to love him. They liked the same things and had the same sense of humour, yet the intangible spark of magnetism that made a woman want a man did not exist between them, and she was still puzzling why, when she fell asleep.

  Slowly the weeks rolled past and each day a new chapter was added to one of the romances on the files of the McBride Bureau. Whenever an introduction ended happily she felt a personal sense of achievement and wished that she possessed magic spectacles to enable her to see into the future lives of the two people she had introduced.

  Each time Peggy brought in a new client she still had difficulty in curbing her curiosity and sticking to the questions laid down by Marty. How impersonal some of the answers seemed; yet when related to the person who said them, how much they revealed!

  She glanced at the file in her hand and flicked the pages, closing it abruptly as Peggy knocked on the door.

  "Miss Donalds is here to see you."

  "Not again!"

  Peggy grinned. "And wearing a bunch of violets too—if that means anything."

  "I hope so." Ann smoothed down her hair and put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with plain lenses. "Maybe the man from Kenya has done the trick. Show her in and I'll find out."

  Ann composed her expression as Rosalie Donalds entered the office. Slight, fair, with large brown eyes and a nervous habit of bending her head forward when she spoke, she had been, so far, the most difficult of all the clients to satisfy.

  "Hallo there, Miss Donalds. How did you get along with Mr. Addams?"

  "Very well, considering, Miss Lester." Pale hands twisted the clasp of a patent leather handbag. "If only he didn't have to go back to the bush I'd marry him tomorrow. It's the thought of living miles from anyone that keeps putting me off."

  "If you're worried about it, you'd best put him out of your mind."

  "I'm more than worried—I'm scared stiff! And it's not only because of the bush. I know I'm stupid about men, but it isn't my fault. You see, I was brought up by a spinster aunt, and the tales she told me…"

  Ann grinned. "You shouldn't believe everything you heart"

  "That's what I keep telling myself, but it doesn't help much."

  "It will, when the right man comes along. You won't be scared then. Meanwhile, I'll have another look through the books and see if there's anyone else that might be suitable."

  Alone in the office Ann checked through the files, but none of the available men wanted to meet anyone of Rosalie Donalds' type. She sighed and walked through to Peggy's room.

  "We're in a cleft stick with Miss Donalds. She's got a 'thing' about marriage."

  "Pity she ever came to see us."

  "Not at all. The bureau's here for cases like hers. If only I could get her to keep on seeing this man from Kenya."

  "You're wasting your time."

  "I don't mind." Ann perched on the desk. "Aren't there any you've interviewe
d recently that might do?"

  "Not one. Have you tried the specials?"

  "What specials?"

  "The millionaires!" Peggy's freckled face beamed. "Not really, of course, just the clients that want something special. I'll get you the file." She returned with a small ledger and opened it. "There's a Christian Scientist, he's been on the books for ages and only wants to meet a vegetarian. We've a Mr. Percivals who plays the flute and wants to meet a pianist, and a Mormon—but I don't think Miss McBride intended to do anything about him!"

  "That's no help, then."

  "Wait a minute, there's a new entry here. It must have been booked just before Miss McBride left. Sounds just the type for Rosalie too. He wants to meet someone who's shy, rather plain and in her middle twenties. Don't see why he had to come to a marriage bureau for that!"

  "What's his name?"

  "Paul Mallison, aged thirty-four, profession—" Peggy looked down the page. "Profession listed as playwright."

  "Don't be silly," Ann said. "It can't be."

  "Why, do you know him?"

  "I wish I did. Do you remember seeing Hit or Miss or Double Decker?"

  "You don't mean he wrote them?"

  "He certainly did. It's definitely the same man. I remember Dad—" She stopped and frowned. "I can't understand why he should want us to find a girl for him."

  "Perhaps he can't meet a simple homebody any other way. It definitely says here he wants someone shy and plain."

  "Then Miss Donalds is the answer to his prayer! Even if nothing comes of it, it'll give her a chance of comparing someone else to Mr. Addams."

  "Miss McBride doesn't work that way," Peggy said seriously. "If a client is still seeing one man she never introduces her to another."

  "These are special circumstances. Mr. Addams goes back to Kenya in a month's time and if we can't get Miss Donalds to make up her mind pretty soon she'll lose the chance completely." Ann slid down from the edge of the desk. "Give her a call and ask her if she wants to meet this Mallison man."

  "Wants to meet him! For two pins I'd go myself." Peggy made a face at the mirror. "If only I was shy, nervous and ten years younger. Heigh-ho! Some people get all the luck."