The Runaway Heart Read online

  The lift carried her up. Now she began to feel more apprehensive about what lay ahead than worried about what was already in the past.

  It seemed to her that hundreds of people were working in the big office she walked into, feeling very small and very insignificant.

  Then, as her shyness evaporated a little, she saw that there were about a dozen girls and two men, all sitting at large desks, most of them typing or engaged in speaking on the telephone.

  “Can I help you?”

  It was a rather pretty dark-haired girl in a red sweater who asked the question.

  “I have been told to ask for Miss Weston,” Karina said.

  “Oh, you’re Miss Burke, aren’t you?” the girl smiled. “I was told to expect you. Will you come this way?”

  She led the way across the office and Karina was conscious that most of the people working there turned their heads to watch her pass.

  “I hope I am not late,” Karina said nervously.

  “Oh, no,” the girl answered. “Miss Weston doesn’t get here until a quarter-past nine, but we have to be here at nine. She should be arriving at any moment now.”

  She took Karina into a smaller room where there were two desks and the windows were shaded by Venetian blinds.

  “Miss Weston will not be long,” the dark girl said. “By the way my name is Beth.”

  “And I am Karina.”

  They shook hands solemnly.

  “Is this your first job?” Beth enquired.

  Karina nodded.

  “I am very nervous.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Beth replied. “There are plenty of other places wanting typists. In fact we are increasingly in demand. In consequence people are much nicer than they used to be when I first came to the City.”

  “You don’t look as if you are old enough to have been working long,” Karina remarked.

  “Five years. I am twenty-one,” Beth answered. “And pretty hardened by this time. Don’t worry, I will show you the ropes. And Miss Weston isn’t a bad old thing really.”

  “Thank you,” Karina said.

  She somehow felt warmed by Beth’s friendliness and, when a few seconds later, Miss Weston came into the room she was not so nervous as she might have been.

  She had expected someone old, austere and terrifying.

  But to her surprise she found herself looking at a very attractive smartly dressed woman of about forty-five who did not seem in the least the dragon that she had been led to expect.

  “How do you do, Miss Burke. Mr. Holt has told me about you. I hope you are going to like working for us.”

  Miss Weston’s voice was low and musical. Karina was to learn later that this was one of her most important assets. People in the City not only referred to her as ‘the golden-voiced secretary’ but also found that she could charm them out of their most disagreeable moods and put them in a good temper long before Garland Holt spoke to them.

  “I am afraid that you will find this all very strange to begin with,” Miss Weston went on. “But Mr. Holt has asked me to look after you myself and so I have arranged for you to be in this room with me.”

  “I hope I shall not be too much of a nuisance,” Karina said.

  “I am sure you won’t,” Miss Weston replied. “There are quite a lot of things you can do, for instance, that will help me. We will start off with some typing. There are some letters here that have to be copied. If you could get on with these, it will give us both time to find our breath and discover what comes next.”

  Karina was typing busily when, twenty minutes later, Garland Holt came striding through the room and out through another door on the other side that she had already learned was his special sanctum. Obviously something had gone wrong, for he was at his most formidable.

  He walked past with his brows knit together, calling to Miss Weston to follow him, and the door slammed behind them both.

  Karina could not hear what was said in the inner office, but she could hear the telephone ringing and once or twice during the next hour Miss Weston came out, called one of the girls from outside, gave her a mass of instructions and disappeared inside again.

  And then as abruptly as he had arrived, Garland Holt was gone. He strode out, giving last minute orders as he went.

  “Ring up Wembury’s and, if they cannot do it, get on to Harley and Black. Tell Tomlinson to telephone at five o’clock and let me know the prices. And by the way,” he was almost through the outer office by this time, “tell Sir Charles I cannot lunch with him tomorrow.”

  Miss Weston, frantically scribbling in her notebook, was following behind him.

  “Very good, Mr. Holt,” she said. “And what about Levinsons?”

  “Thank Heaven you remembered them!” Karina heard Garland Holt say. “Stave them off for the moment. Make any excuse you like, but leave the door open.”

  He was gone and Karina could almost hear the sigh of relief that went up.

  Miss Weston came back to her desk and started telephoning. What she did seemed very incomprehensible to Karina, but she could not help but note how charmingly she gave all the messages.

  “Mr. Holt is so sorry to inconvenience you. He feels sure that you will understand – ” she would begin. Or, “Mr. Holt thanks you so much for your kind letter. It was just what he wanted to know – ”

  Karina smiled to herself, remembering Garland Holt’s staccato instructions and thinking that if they had been given in that manner they would have received a very different reception.

  They were both still busy, Karina with the humble job of copying a letter that had already been typed, when a young man came into the office.

  He was good-looking, dark and extremely well dressed in a blue suit with a white stripe and wearing a red carnation in his buttonhole. He was carrying a bowler hat and a tightly rolled umbrella.

  “Hallo, Westie!” he said. “Is the great man in?”

  “No, Mr. Jim, be isn’t,” she replied. “And I will thank you not to call me ‘Westie’.”

  “Where has he gone?” the newcomer asked. “I was wondering if I could sell him a new car.”

  Miss Weston put down the telephone.

  “Mr. Jim, you haven’t lost that other job?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one with the stockbrokers. Mr. Holt went to so much trouble to secure it for you.”

  The young man sat down on the edge of the desk.

  “Westie, I just could not stick it. I was only the office boy, told to run here, run there and lick the stamps. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.”

  “Well, I cannot think what Mr. Holt will say.”

  “That is why I did not come round until I had found a new job all on my own,” Jim Holt said proudly. “And, by the way, will you not introduce me?”

  He waved his hand in Karina’s direction.

  “We are busy, Mr. Jim.” Miss Weston said severely.

  “Not too busy for a teeny weeny little introduction surely?”

  “Very well then,” Miss Weston said crisply. “Miss Burke, this is Mr. Jim Holt.”

  Jim Holt walked across the room and shook Karina by the hand.

  “I am the black sheep of the family,” he announced. “I am Garland’s reprehensible and most incorrigible cousin. I think he is really rather ashamed of me. What do you think, Westie?”

  “He is not ashamed of you,” Miss Weston replied, “but he will be very disappointed at your throwing up that job.”

  “You sound exactly like my Housemaster at Eton,” Jim Holt said with an incorrigible smile. “He was always disappointed in me. I used to wonder why he went on hoping against hope that I should ever be better.”

  He turned to Karina.

  “How have you managed to get into the holy of holies?”

  “Mr. Holt was kind enough to say that Miss Weston would look after me,” Karina replied.

  “Ye Gods! Garland hasn’t fallen in love at last, has he?” Jim Holt enquired. “I have never heard him give a hel
ping hand to a woman before and certainly not to anyone who looks like you.”

  Karina felt the colour come into her face even while she could not help laughing. There was something infectious about Jim Holt’s smile and his ridiculously frivolous way of talking.

  “Of course there is nothing like that,” Karina replied. “I-I hardly know, Mr. Holt. I only happened to be staying at his house this last weekend and – ”

  “Heavens! You were there when the burglary took place!” Jim Holt interrupted. “You are just the person I want to see. What happened? The papers are full of it. Did they really get away with all the contents of Aladdin’s Cave?”

  “Not all of them,” Karina told him.

  “I bet Garland is as mad as fire,” Jim Holt went on. “Very possessive is our Garland about his treasures. I remember him slapping me when I was a baby because I wanted to suck the paint off his tin soldiers!”

  “Really, Mr. Jim, I don’t believe a word of it,” Miss Weston interposed. “And I don’t want to seem disagreeable but Miss Burke and I are very busy.”

  “Miss Burke isn’t going to be too busy to tell me all about the burglary,” Jim Holt declared. “Besides, I am entitled to hear about it. I am one of the family. I would have telephoned and asked myself if I had not thought that they would refuse to accept a reversed charge.”

  “Miss Burke can tell you about it another time, but not now,” Miss Weston said. “And I have plenty a lot of private calls to make, so I must ask you to go.”

  “If you have private calls to make, you know you do them in Garland’s office,” Jim Holt said mischievously. “You are just trying to keep Miss Burke from me.”

  “If you haven’t got any work to do,” Miss Weston replied ominously, “we have.”

  “All right, I will go on one condition,” Jim Holt said. “And that is that you both come and have lunch with me. What about it, Westie?”

  “I am sorry, but I am engaged,” Miss Weston answered. “Thank you all the same.”

  “What about you?” Jim Holt asked directly to Karina.

  “I-I don’t think I can,” she stammered.

  “Why not?” he asked. “Are you lunching with anyone else?”

  He saw the answer in her face and added,

  “No, of course you are not. You haven’t fixed up anything on your first day. You were thinking of sneaking out to some revolting sandwich bar and having a bun and a cup of coffee. All that is very bad for you. My mother always said so. I will fetch you at one o’clock and give you a decent meal. It will not be at The Ritz, but at least it will be better than the sandwich bar.”

  Karina looked across the room at Miss Weston.

  “I – don’t know – what to say,” she faltered.

  This was something that she had not expected. She felt that she ought not to accept an invitation from Jim Holt and yet, at the same time, it seemed so difficult to say no when, as he guessed all too clearly, she had nowhere to go.

  “That is settled then,” he said. “One o’clock. I will meet you in the hall downstairs. And don’t let Westie put you off me. I may be bad, but no one could be as bad as I am painted.”

  He opened the door.

  “Goodbye, Westie. If I don’t see you again, put in a good word for me with the big man. I don’t want him cutting me off with a shilling or anything like that.”

  “It’s what you deserve,” Miss Weston said sternly.

  “Oh, Westie, have a heart!” Jim Holt cried and closed the door quietly behind him.

  Miss Weston laughed.

  “He’s hopeless, isn’t he?” she said to Karina.

  “He seemed very happy about it all,” Karina replied.

  “Oh, Jim Holt never takes anything seriously,” Miss Weston told her. “He has had three jobs this year already and as soon as they bore him he chucks them up. Mr. Holt will be very upset about this last one. He had hoped that Mr. Jim might settle down at last.”

  “There doesn’t seem much resemblance between them,” Karina said.

  “Nevertheless they are first cousins,” Miss Weston replied. “Mr. Jim Holt’s father and Mr. Garland’s father were brothers. I believe, though, that Mr. Jim’s father, like his son, was a spendthrift all his life. Anyway if it was not for Mr. Garland, he would be completely penniless.”

  “He is kind to his family, then?” Karina asked.

  This was somehow a sidelight she had not expected to Garland Holt’s character.

  “Yes, he is very conscious of his responsibilities,” Miss Weston said primly and picked up the telephone again.

  Karina felt embarrassed when, going down in the lift at lunchtime, Beth said to her,

  “Will you come and have lunch with me? I usually go to a little place round the corner where it’s not so crowded.”

  “I should love to another day if I may,” Karina answered. “I am going out to lunch today.”

  “Oh, aren’t you lucky!” Beth said. “I always long for someone to ask me out.”

  She would have said more if at that moment the lift had not stopped at the outer hall and Karina saw that Jim Holt was waiting there.

  “Here you are,” he said. “I was beginning to be frightened that you had avoided me by going down the fire escape.”

  “I think really I ought to go out with one of the girls who has just asked me,” Karina said in a low voice and then looked round to find that Beth had already disappeared.

  “You ought not to do anything that you don’t want to do,” Jim Holt said. “You know, if you are honest, that you would much rather have lunch with me. I have sold a car this morning and so it will be a good one. I drew my commission at once in case the chap changes his mind and brings it back.”

  He had a car outside. A small open two-seater, and Karina was glad to see that it had stopped raining.

  “This is the only car they would let me pinch from the place where I am working,” Jim explained. “I took a Bentley out yesterday and got one of the wings bashed in. They were extremely annoyed about it. You would have thought that I had done it on purpose.”

  He chattered gaily until they arrived at a small restaurant in a side street where he could park the car.

  “If you like really good cooking, this is the place,” he told her.

  He was obviously well known in the restaurant, for the proprietor greeted him with delight and led them to a comfortable table by the window. Jim Holt ordered cocktails despite Karina’s protestations that she never drank at lunchtime and then ordered a meal that, while it sounded delicious, made her feel that she would never get through it.

  “I have to work this afternoon,” she exclaimed.

  “Don’t you let Westie drive you too hard,” Jim Holt said. “She herself loves work, as other women love their husbands or their children. In fact work is her only love. I used to think that she had a passion for Garland. But now I have decided that she thinks of him as a kind of symbolic son, someone whom she can push to power.”

  “I should not have thought that he wanted any pushing,” Karina said.

  “That is all you know,” Jim answered. “He has been pushed all his life, first and foremost by our grandmother! Have you met her, by the way?”

  “Mrs. de Winton? Yes, I met her.”

  “She is a real old battle-axe,” Jim went on, “consumed by ambitious fire and the determination to succeed when everyone else fails and all that sort of thing. She has used Garland as an instrument for her own aspirations since she first realised how clever he is. She had it all planned out long before he left school. He was to carry on where her husband had left off. She never had much use for her sons, but Garland was everything she needed to forge ahead with her fantastic plans for an empire composed entirely of wealth.”

  “You make it sound frightening,” Karina said.

  “It is frightening,” Jim agreed. “What is the point of money unless you are spending it? What fun does Garland get out of life?”

  “Well, he has his home and all those
lovely things around him,” Karina said.

  “He has not bought a quarter of them and he has not even had the fun of going shopping for himself,” Jim said. “They were all inherited or else grandmother purchased them. No, Garland has a rotten life if you ask me. I am so sorry for him that sometimes I really feel like crying.”

  Karina stared at him in amazement. This was somehow the last thing she expected to hear.

  “You are sorry for him!” she said. “But I thought that you had no money.”

  “I haven’t and I don’t really want it,” Jim answered. “As long as I have enough to keep body and soul together and, as long as I can earn a few pounds to take a pretty girl out to lunch, that’s all I ask of life.”

  He laughed at her amazed expression and went on,

  “Oh, Garland has done his best for me. He has tried to put me into all sorts of businesses and you know as well as I do that, if Garland Holt says they have to take a chap, they take him. If I had toed the line and been a good boy I should have been a rich man by now.”

  “Don’t you want to be rich?” Karina asked.

  “What, and look like Garland?” he enquired. “Not on your life. He is harassed, worried, weighed down with responsibilities and all the time being chivvied by women.”

  “I don’t think that is true,” Karina argued, “except where his grandmother is concerned. He is frightened of women, he runs away from them. Everybody has told me that if a woman so much as looks at him he does his best never to see her again.”

  “That is true” Jim said. “Perfectly true. But have you heard the reason why?”

  “No, why?” Karina asked curiously.

  She felt somehow that she ought not to be listening to all this and yet Jim’s confidences were irresistible.

  “Well, after Garland had just begun to build up his fortune, he fell in love. He must have been twenty-three at the time.”

  “Was she pretty?” Karina asked quickly.

  “Isn’t that just like a woman? Yes, of course she was pretty, quite outstandingly so,” Jim answered. “And she had breeding and brains as well. Her father was an Earl, but she was not just one of those stupid goofy debutantes. She had been to Oxford, obtained a degree and had even begun to write a book. Everyone said that it would be a perfect match.”