The Runaway Heart

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1957-2

“And you were ashamed of him too. Go on, admit it,” Felix said almost roughly.

“Yes, yes, I was ashamed of him,” Karina said. “That is why it did not matter when we went home and Aunt Margaret did not seem to want me to go anywhere.

“‘Why don’t you play tennis here with Cyril?’ she would say. Or, ‘why don’t you and Cyril watch the television?’ Or, ‘ride with Cyril?’ Or, ‘ – play cards with Cyril?’ Everything that I suggested, the alternative was always to – do things with C-Cyril.”

Karina’s voice broke on the last word and Felix put out a comforting hand and laid it on hers.

“Forget it,” he said. “It’s all over now.”

“I am only just beginning to realise how awful it was,” Karina said. “It was like a nightmare that gets worse and worse and yet you know that you cannot escape from it. I felt there was nothing I could do – and then you came!”

“Quite by chance,” he said. “If my car had not broken down almost outside the door, I had no intention of calling on my loving relations. I never could stick either of them.”

He gave a laugh that was mirthless.

“I remember how they asked me to some of those parties that you went to in London,” he went on. “I don’t think that I even bothered to reply, just chucked the invitations in the wastepaper basket.”

“I wish you had come to them,” Karina breathed. “I wish I had now,” he answered. “But how was I to know that the child I remembered as rather a plain little thing had grown into one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen?”

“You will turn my head,” Karina said with a little laugh that was both shy and uncertain.

“That is what I want to do,” he answered.

She was not quite certain what to make of this remark and they drove in silence for a little while.

Then almost timidly she said,

“You have not yet told me where we are going.”

“I am taking you to meet Garland Holt,” he said. “His mother is a very old friend of mine. She has been very kind to me. I am going to throw myself on her mercy and I have a feeling that she will be merciful.”

“But you cannot force me on people who don’t want me,” Karina said hastily.

“They will want you,” Felix assured her. “All I want you to do is just to be yourself. Natural, sweet, innocent and unassuming. For God’s sake don’t put on an act. I have seen so many women do that when Garland Holt is about.”

“What sort of act?” Karina asked curiously.

“Oh, showing off, being affected, ogling him, if you like. When a man’s as rich as Holt, women behave like drunken moths round a candle flame.”

“Well, I am certainly not interested in him or his money,” Karina said almost in terror.

Felix laughed.

“You haven’t met him yet. You haven’t realised how useful money can be. It’s something everyone wants and few people can do without.”

“Well, I don’t want Mr. Holt’s money, at any rate,” Karina said. “All I want to do is to be able to earn my own living. If he can help me to find a job, I shall be grateful. I shall not have to stay with them long, shall I?”

“Just as long as they will have you,” Felix said sharply.

Then, as if he remembered himself, he said in a very different tone of voice,

“Listen, Karina dear. You have to trust me. I have got you out of that hole, haven’t I? Well, just leave me to figure out what is the best thing for you to do. Don’t go and try to do anything yourself until we have had a chance to talk it over. Is that a deal?”

“Of course I want to do what you say,” Karina said. “At the same time I don’t want to force myself on anyone who doesn’t want me.”

“You won’t be doing that, I promise you,” Felix said. “But I want you to do what I say is best. Promise me that you won’t go round shouting that you want a job until I tell you to do so.”

“You are being very mysterious,” Karina said. “Cannot you explain things a little better?”

Felix Mainwaring did not answer for a moment or two and then he said,

“We have only known each other for forty-eight hours. I should not like to hurry you or frighten you, Karina, because you have had so little experience of the world. But I should like to feel that one day I was going to mean a great deal in your life.”

Karina turned her face swiftly towards him. He knew that there was astonishment in those wide blue eyes, but he did not turn his head from contemplation of the road ahead.

She studied his profile for a few seconds in silence. He was good-looking, there was no doubt about that, and though he was only a second cousin, there was a vague family likeness to the photographs of her father that had stood on the mantelpiece in her bedroom ever since she was a child.

Cousin Felix! She had heard about him for as long as she could remember – heard disparaging remarks about his gaiety, the fact that he was always written up in the social papers, that he had a luxury flat in London and was seldom in it.

“Felix Mainwaring with the Duchess of Downshire on the beach at the Lido.”

“Felix Mainwaring at the Hunt Ball given in the Duke of Northwood’s Castle.”

“Felix Mainwaring in Nassau. In New York. At Cannes.”

She could hear Aunt Margaret’s voice saying distinctly as she held out The Tatler to Uncle Simon,

“Really, Felix is beginning to get quite bald on top. I suppose this dissolute life of his is beginning to tell at last.”

There had been almost a malicious delight in Aunt Margaret’s voice and afterwards out of curiosity Karina had glanced at the paper. She had thought that the lady Felix was escorting to some gala was lovely – dark, mysterious and sophisticated – but Felix had appeared rather old.

Now, she looked at him in a startled manner. Could he have meant what she thought he meant? Of course he was not really elderly. He could not be much more than thirty-five and thirty-five was not really old.

“Well – ”

She realised with a little start that Felix was awaiting her reply.

“I – don’t understand what – you are trying to say.”

“I think you do,” he answered. “But it is too soon, isn’t it? The only thing is that Garland Holt need not be afraid that you are yet another woman who is running after him. I am not taking you to his home just to lose you.”

“I-I want a job. I want to work,” Karina said,

“You shall,” Felix said soothingly. “Don’t upset yourself. Don’t be frightened by what I have said to you. Just leave it at the back of your mind. One day perhaps we shall get to know each other a great deal better than we do at this moment.”

Without taking his eyes from the road he picked up her hand from her lap and raised it to his lips.

“Don’t be frightened of me, Karina,” he said. “You are trembling and it is quite unnecessary, I assure you. I am not a big bad wolf! Just Cousin Felix, cosy and kind, who is going to look after you.”

His words soothed Karina, as they had been meant to do. She felt herself relax and, leaning back, watched the road ahead.

It still seemed incredible that she had taken the step that she had and run away from Letchfield Park, which had been her home ever since both her parents were killed in an aeroplane accident when she was only seven.

She could still remember her mother kissing her goodbye, the fragrance of her scent, the soft tickle of her furs that framed her happy face.

“We shall be back in a week, poppet,” she said. “Daddy and I are going on another honeymoon. I will send you beautiful picture postcards of Rome and Florence and all the glorious places we go to. Look after her, Nanny.”

They were the last words Karina ever heard her mother say.

Then had come the move to Letchfield Park – the dark, big, sombre house that had seemed to close in upon her from the very first moment that she saw it. Her world had narrowed down to three people, Aunt Margaret, Uncle Simon and Cyril.

She felt a shudder run through her as she thought that if Cousin Felix had not walked unexpectedly into her life, she would, in five days’ time, have been married to Cyril.

They had worn her down. She knew that now. They had not shouted at her or argued with her.

They had not even appeared to coerce her, except by the insidious method of assuming that she wanted to make them happy and of reminding her indirectly a hundred times a day how kind they had been in taking a poor unwanted orphan child into their home.

Night after night she had lain awake wondering how she could do it, hoping that she would die before the Wedding Day came, knowing that every dawn brought her twenty-four hours nearer to it. Then Cousin Felix, arriving unexpectedly, had swept her off her feet. His disgust and horror at the idea of her being married to Cyril had been a far more persuasive argument than anything he might have said.

She knew then that was how other people would regard it, people from whom she had been isolated, people outside Letchfield Park, normal and ordinary men and women.

Impulsively she turned now towards the man who had saved her.

“Cousin Felix, I can never thank you enough for taking me away,” she said.

Her soft voice, which seemed to have some musical quality about it and yet, at the same time, was so young and so unspoilt that it seemed impossible that it should come from someone no longer in her teens.

“I don’t think at this moment that I could love anybody very much. I have been so unhappy and frightened for so long. But if you will wait – ”

She stopped, blushing at the intensity of her feelings.

“As I have already told you,” Felix said soothingly, “I am prepared to wait until things right themselves, until we get to know each other very much better. It is rather exciting, don’t you think, to start a new friendship with someone who attracts you very much but of whom you know so very little.”

He took his left hand from the driving wheel and laid it on hers.

“I want you to tell me all that you are thinking and feeling, about new places we are going to and about new people we are going to meet.”

“Supposing – supposing they don’t like me?” Karina asked anxiously.

Felix laughed.

“I cannot imagine anyone disliking you,” he said. “Just take a look in that mirror you will find in the pocket beside you.”

Automatically Karina obeyed him. She pulled out the mirror with its grey suede back and held it up to her face.

“Is there anything wrong?” she asked. “Have I a blotch on my nose?”

“Look at what you see there,” he said.

Obediently she stared at her face. The blue eyes were fringed with dark lashes, an inheritance from some Irish grandmother, a tiny tip-tilted nose, a full red mouth and soft fair hair, almost ash blonde, waving against the pink and whiteness of her cheeks.

“I wish I looked older,” she said involuntarily.

“In which case you would not be here,” Felix replied quickly.

She turned enquiring eyes towards him and he added hastily, almost as if he had made a slip,

“I mean that if you looked older you would very likely be older in which case you would have run away a long time ago.”

“Yes, I suppose I should,” Karina said. “Oh, Cousin Felix, thank you so much! Thank you! Thank you!”

“I don’t want to be thanked,” he replied, but she knew enough of men to know that he was pleased and she made a mental note to go on thanking him.

They must have travelled for over an hour before they turned in at high ornamental gates and drove down a wide drive towards a huge stone house with a pillared portico.

“Are we there?” Karina asked nervously.

“We are,” Felix replied. “Don’t be afraid. I promise you that everything is going to be all right.”

“If they don’t want me, promise you will take me away,” Karina said. “I can find a room in London while I look for a job? There must be something I can do.”

“Don’t worry,” Felix admonished her. “Leave everything to me.”

He drew the car up at the front door and, as the butler came hurrying out, said,