A Girl in Wartime by Maggie Ford Read Free Book Online

that there was more than just embarrassment in there. Her pencil seemed to fly, hardly any need for the rubber. It was only a quick sketch but right out of the blue she felt inspired. This sometimes happened and in no time at all it was finished. She put the pencil on the desk together with the completed likeness. ‘It’s done,’ she announced firmly.
    The man got up and stretched. ‘Never could sit still for too long,’ he said quietly, seemingly over-awed. ‘Hope it was worth it. Can I see?’
    â€˜Come and look,’ she said, feeling suddenly proud of the likeness she had captured, almost having forgotten where she was.
    She watched him bend over the drawing, stare at it for a moment, then straighten up. She heard him whisper, ‘Good God! It’s me. No doubt about that. But I look worried out of my life – sort of haunted. I never thought … I didn’t think it showed.’
    His last words caught her attention. ‘Why should you feel haunted?’
    He looked at her for a moment or two, then seemed to collapse in on himself, his voice fading to a whisper.
    â€˜My son-in-law was killed last week. My wife and I, we don’t know what to say or how. Our daughter is beside herself with grief, and we don’t know how to help her. We feel helpless. We feel—’
    The door opened, cutting him off mid-sentence as Mr Clayton came in.
    The man instantly straightened his shoulders, becoming a different person as his boss enquired, ‘Is it finished? There are a lot of applicants still waiting.’
    As if it were her fault, Connie bridled inwardly, beginning to feel on edge as he picked up her drawing and studied it a moment, comparing it to the sitter.
    â€˜Good God! You look—’ he began, but Turnbull cut him off mid-sentence, saying, ‘Thanks, old man, but I’ve got work to do,’ and promptly waddled back to his own office. Mr Clayton watched him go with a crooked smile that Connie could only interpret as completely cordial.
    For a long time it seemed, there being other applicants waiting, he surveyed her drawing until she was on the point of asking if he was done with her as she had work to go back to, then he looked up at her and said quietly:
    â€˜As I said, Miss Lovell, Constance, you’re not really suitable for the job of filing clerk, but, if you don’t mind, there’s something I really would like to put to you which you might be interested in. I have to make a few enquiries and it’s a bit of a long shot. Hopefully I’ll be in touch. But we’ll just have to see.’

Chapter Six
    On the bus back to Shoreditch High Street she couldn’t get Mr Stephen Clayton out of her mind. The way he’d regarded her was unsettling, though she couldn’t quite say why, only that it had set a strange churning in her heart. Suddenly she wanted desperately to get that job, though it didn’t look all that likely now. But he’d said he’d something else in mind. What was it? She knew her father would think the worst of his interest in her, given the difference in their ages and social standing, but she felt sure that Mr Clayton was an honourable man more interested in her artistic skills than her pretty face.
    He had said before she left, ‘It often occurs to me that cameras can be a little intrusive. The moment people find themselves in the camera’s eye they instantly pose or try to hide, depending on circumstances. The result, a precious second of truth lost. A cameraman busily setting up his camera may fail to catch that illusive expression, a fleeting second of shock or devastation on a grief-stricken face. But no one notices someone with a pencil and a scrap of paper. An expression you seem to have caught on my colleague’s face. A camera can’t always do that.’ He had smiled at her, a charming smile that lit up his face, making her heart race.
    Walking home along Bethnal Green