The Runaway Heart

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1957-3

“Good evening, Travers! I am afraid I am three days late.”

“You are, indeed, sir,” Travers replied. “Her ladyship was very upset at your message that you had broken down. You weren’t hurt in any way?”

“No, Travers. It was only a burst tyre. You will find my luggage and Miss Burke’s in the boot.”

“Will the young lady be staying, sir?” Travers asked in a respectful voice.

“Yes, she will, Travers,” Felix Mainwaring answered.

He put his hand under Karina’s arm and led her up the steps and into a great, cool hall.

She had a quick impression of pillars and statues skilfully lit and of pale-green walls hung with pictures in gilt frames.

And then Felix led her through another door, opened by a footman, and she found herself in what she knew was the drawing room.

It was a big Georgian room with huge bow windows and a fireplace at the end, in front of which was seated a woman.

Karina had imagined Lady Holt to be old, why she could not have said. But the woman who sprang to her feet with a little cry of welcome seemed incredibly young until one was very close to her.

“Felix!” she exclaimed. “I had almost given you up for lost. Where have you been, you naughty boy? I have been worrying myself sick about you.”

“I was afraid of that, Julie,” he said, raising both her hands to his lips one after the other.

“You are three days late! Isn’t that like you!” Lady Holt said. “And the Cartwrights could not wait. They have gone back to America, terribly disappointed not to see you.”

“I am sorry about that too,” Felix smiled. “But you know that I would much rather find you here alone.”

Lady Holt took one hand from his eager grasp and turned towards Karina.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“My cousin,” Felix answered. “My little cousin, Karina Burke. And she is here, Julie, because she is desperately in need of help.”

“Really!” Lady Holt did not seem very pleased at the idea.

Felix drew her towards the sofa and sat down beside her.

“You have to listen, Julie, and only you in the kindness of your heart will realise what this unfortunate child has been through. She has been brought up, since her father and mother, he was my first cousin, were killed in an aeroplane accident, by an uncle and aunt who have one mentally deficient son. Oh, he is not listed as that, nor have they acknowledged it. He looks fairly all right, but he is, in actual fact, not quite normal. His brain does not always synchronise with his body and he is at certain times of the month extremely queer.”

“It sounds horrible,” Lady Holt said a little petulantly.

“He is,” Felix agreed. “And so you will understand why I could not allow my cousin, although, indeed, I have not seen her since she was seven, to marry such a creature.”

“Marry? How could she have contemplated such a thing?” Lady Holt cried.

“She was being forced into it,” Felix explained. “And that is why I have run away with her. We crept out as soon as it was dusk, threw her luggage into the car and came here to hide.”

Lady Holt gave a little cry and clasped her hands together.

“Felix, isn’t that like you! So impulsive, so impetuous! I have always told you that it will get you into trouble one day.”

“And will you help me out of trouble?” Felix asked.

She smiled at him.

“I suppose so. Silly boy! I can refuse you nothing, can I?”

He kissed her hand again and Karina, watching them, noticed for the first time that Lady Holt’s hand was old, the fingers a little bent and the white veins showing. She looked more closely at the skilfully painted face, at the neck, with its six rows of huge pearls that hid the wrinkles and at the beautifully coiffured hair, which she realised now must be dyed.

She had a sudden vision of Aunt Margaret with her grey hair drawn back into a neat roll at the base of her neck and of her lined face above her inevitable woollen twinset, which did nothing to disguise the flatness of her figure.

It was difficult to imagine two women who would be a greater contrast.

“Well, will you be kind to her, at least for a little while until we can find her a job?” Felix asked.

“But of course,” Lady Holt said. “How could I refuse you, Felix? And how could I be so unkind as not to help this poor child?”

She put out her hand towards Karina.

“Come here, dear. You must tell me all about it,” she said. “You are much too young to think of being married anyway, let alone to someone like that.”

“I am – ” Karina began, eager to tell the truth about her age, only to catch a warning glance from Felix to silence her.

He obviously did not want Lady Holt to know how old she was and so she was silent.

“Of course you must stay,” Lady Holt was saying in her soft purring voice. “Tell Travers to prepare a room for her, Felix. I am afraid that we have a very quiet evening ahead. Garland may arrive about half past seven, but he is not certain and there is no one coming until tomorrow. Will you be bored?”

It was a question to which she obviously knew the answer and Felix’s garrulous compliments seemed to please her. She smiled at him flirtatiously over her shoulder before she moved across the room in a flutter of blue draperies to pour him a drink at the cocktail table.

Felix looked at Karina and winked. It was not a gesture that she was expecting from him and, because it seemed so funny, she gave a little gurgle of laughter.

The door opened suddenly and a man came into the room. But ‘came’ was not the right word. It was more as if he burst into the room and yet actually he was moving quite slowly.

There was something so purposeful and so determined about Garland Holt that he appeared to people who met him for the first time to almost have a volcanic quality.

Still laughing at Felix, Karina looked up at his entrance and met his eyes, dark dynamic eyes that seemed almost, she thought, to bore their way through her.

“Garland! So you have made it!” Lady Holt exclaimed from the cocktail table. “Well, that is splendid. And look who has arrived three days late.”

“Hello, Felix!”

Garland Holt held out his hand, but he did not sound as if he was particularly pleased to see Felix Mainwaring.

“Hello, Garland,” Felix said. “This is my little cousin, Karina Burke.”

Garland Holt held out his hand. Karina put out hers.

She felt the warmth and strength of his fingers. She had the strangest feeling as if he were a magnet drawing her towards him. She felt as if he drew her and then she remembered Felix’s description, ‘drunken moths round a candle flame’.

“Have I seen you before?”

His dark eyebrows were knit above his penetrating eyes. He would be good-looking, she thought, if he did not appear so fierce and so uncompromising, the kind of man with whom you could never feel comfortable or relaxed.

“I-I don’t think so,” she stammered involuntarily as she did when Uncle Simon barked at her for something she had done wrong.

“Of course you haven’t seen her before,” Felix said. “She has come to us out of the blue, it’s a romantic story, if you care to hear it.”

“I was asking Miss Burke,” Garland Holt said. “I suppose she can answer for herself.”

Karina looked bewildered. Why, she wondered, was he so snubbing to Felix?

“I-I don’t think we have met before,” she managed to say in a quiet voice, at the same time pulling her hand away from Garland Holt’s grasp.

It almost seemed as if he had forgotten that he was still shaking hands with her.

“Yes, we have,” he said. “A ball in Belgrave Square three years ago. You were in a white dress and you went out onto the balcony when the dance was over.”

He paused.

Karina’s eyes were looking up into his as if mesmerised.

“You stood there for a moment,” Garland Holt went on, “and you said, ‘I hate this! I want to go home!’ That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, I did say that,” Karina said in a low wondering voice.