The Questing Heart by Elizabeth Ashton Read Free Book Online Page B

advice and encouragement in return for his compliments.
    Chris rang up during the afternoon and Clare answered the phone as she usually did on Monica's behalf. She told him that all was well and she would be free after working out her month's notice. To her dismay he declared he could not wait a month; he needed her services at once.
    'Then I'm afraid it's all off,' she said regretfully, aware of acute disappointment. 'I can't just walk out on her.'
    'Nothing easier,' he returned. 'But I suppose you can't help being a conscientious idiot.'
    'She can be vindictive, she'd probably sue me.'
    'Don't you worry about that. I'll deal with Madame Monique, and I'll send a taxi to collect you tomorrow morning.'
    Clare was alarmed, but before she could expostulate, he hung up, and she did not know from where he was ringing. She hoped he would not do anything reckless and she did not believe he would be able to placate Mrs Cullingford, who would not be pleased when she learned by whom she had been engaged. She visualised more lectures and some of Monica's criticism would be justified, for she was acting unwisely, but so strong was Christopher's attraction becoming that she was loath to sunder their association. Because of that her folly was all the more apparent and she could not wholly justify it. In sudden panic she wondered if she could rescind her notice.
    Clare was on tenterhooks for the rest of the day, fearing Chris might call on Monica, but as he did not put in an appearance she decided he had thought better of it, and had accepted that she was unavailable, in which case she had lost the job. She felt bitter as she reflected upon his unreasonableness, but artistic people were not au fait with » business practices or he would have known she could not walk out at a moment's notice. Other people had to be considered besides Mr Christopher Raines' convenience.
    That evening Mrs Cullingford told her that she was going out to a cocktail party and Clare need not wait up for her.
    'I'll make sure my next secretary is a qualified driver,' he told her acidly. 'Then he'll be able to chauffeur me around.'
    Clare noticed the masculine pronoun. So Monica was making plans and there was no going back. Since Christopher could not wait, she would have to return to Manchester without a job at all.
    Disconsolately she went to her room after Monica's departure, and idly glanced through her manuscript but felt no urge to add to it. She stared despondently out of the window at the spangled sea glimpsed through the trees, wrapped in the velvet Mediterranean night. Fireflies gleamed in the bushes near the gate, points of green light. Manchester had never seemed less attractive. Finally the excesses of the night before caught up with her and, early as it was, she went to bed and slept.
    She was awakened early by Marie-Celeste bringing in a breakfast tray on which was an envelope with her name upon it in Monica's scrawling handwriting. Opening it, she found a note and a cheque for what salary was owing to her.
    'Madame said you were to go at once,' Marie-Celeste informed her. 'But I could not let you depart without your coffee. She meet your jeune homme at her party. What he do I not know, but she come home what you say ... in at the deep end. She tell me she throw you out then and there only she fear that the neighbours make scandal. You must go now, shall I help you pack?'
    Clare nodded mechanically while she perused the note. She had never dreamed that Chris might be at the party, somehow he must have engineered it, and he must have said something drastic to Monica to produce the letter she held. For Mrs Cullingford declared that Clare was a deceitful, unscrupulous snake in the grass who had abused her trust and solicited her guest. The sooner she returned to the gutter where she belonged the better for all concerned, and she never wanted to see her face again. 'If you were starving,' the note concluded, 'I would not give you a crust.'
    Clare drank the