Too Precious to Lose Read online

  Norina had loved every moment of it.

  She thought now that she could easily play the part of a widow. No one would ever guess her real age or that she looked very different from how she appeared.

  Dawes was watching her with his shrewd eyes.

  “I shall need a black gown,” Norina said aloud, “and of course a widow’s hat with a veil, which is very concealing.”

  “I thinks too,” Dawes added, “you could wear some spectacles when there’s anyone about.”

  “That’s a sensible idea,” Norina agreed. “But the first thing is to find my black gown and my widow’s hat.”

  “If we goes out,” Dawes said in a whisper, “before ’er Ladyship finds you be alive, you can say you wanted somethin’ for your father and I went with you to show you the shop he always patronises.”

  “Dawes, you are a genius!” Norina exclaimed.

  She went hastily to the wardrobe. She picked up her hat and the little jacket that went over the gown she had on and her handbag was in a drawer, as were her gloves.

  She started to leave the room. Then she remembered that she had been writing her references at the desk in the corner.

  She hurried to pick up the piece of paper on which she had scrawled a few words. She would have put it in the wastepaper basket, but Dawes took it from her.

  “You don’t want to leave anythin’ incriminatin’ about the place, Miss Norina!”

  “No, you are right, Dawes,” Norina agreed. “It was stupid of me not to think that anyone who was suspicious might look in the wastepaper basket.”

  “You’ve got to be watchin’ every move you make in the future,” he warned.

  He did not wait for Norina to reply, but opened the bedroom door cautiously.

  There was nobody about and they hurried down a side staircase.

  As they reached the bottom of it, Dawes said in a whisper,

  “Wait ’ere a moment, Miss Norina, I’ve got an idea!”

  He left her. She wondered what he was planning, until a few seconds later he returned.

  She saw then that he carried a key in his hand and she knew that it was the key that opened the door leading into the garden.

  “Now, just you walk across the lawn,” Dawes said, “open the gates at the far end, which’ll lead you into the mews. Go slow and I’ll be waitin’ for you there.”

  Norina did not argue, but took the key from him and let herself out of the house.

  She walked slowly under the trees, stopping occasionally apparently to admire the flowers in one of the beds. If by any chance somebody was looking out of one of the windows, they would assume that she was just enjoying the morning air.

  She reached the end of the garden. Quickly she let herself out by the door in the wall that led into the mews.

  She was half-afraid that she had arrived there before Dawes.

  To her relief, he was already there and had a Hackney carriage waiting.

  As Norina climbed into it, he told the cabbie to take them to a large emporium in Oxford Street.

  Norina had never been there herself, but she had seen it advertised in some of the ladies’ magazines.

  Only as they drove off did Dawes say,

  “I’ve just thought, Miss Norina – I didn’t remind you to bring any money with you, so ’ow will you pay for anythin’ you buys?”

  “I can write a cheque for the gown,” Norina said, “and I have enough money in my purse to pay for the hat. It might seem a strange purchase if I paid for it by cheque.”

  Dawes looked relieved and Norina guessed that he had felt upset because he thought he had slipped up in his arrangements.

  It made her realise that she would need a great deal of money if she was going to disappear for any length of time.

  Fortunately on her eighteenth birthday her father had given her a chequebook.

  “One day, my darling,” he had said, “your husband will handle your money, but I think it is a good idea, as it is yours, that you should be able to spend some of it without having always to ask someone else’s permission.”

  “Yes, of course, thank you, Papa,” Norina had said.

  “You should know how to write a cheque,” Lord Sedgewyn went on, “and feel for the moment, at any rate, that you are independent even of me.”

  Norina had thought that what he was really saying was that her stepmother would not be able to interfere in anything she spent.

  To please him, however, she merely answered,

  “I love having you to look after me, Papa. At the same time I shall now be able to keep what presents I buy you at Christmas and birthdays a secret!”

  Her father had laughed.

  Norina then found that he had put a thousand pounds in her name into the bank.

  In fact, she had spent very little of the money. When she had come to London, her father had insisted that he should pay for the clothes she was to wear as a debutante.

  “It is a present to my beautiful daughter,” he had smiled.

  Norina had been aware that her stepmother’s lips had tightened and there was a flash of hatred in her eyes.

  Violet had, however, praised her husband for his generosity.

  “And I am very lucky to have such a lovely stepdaughter to present to the Social World,” she cooed.

  Now Norina said beneath her breath,

  “If she can act, so can I!”

  The emporium boasted that it could provide everything a woman might ever want.

  It produced a pretty black gown when Norina said that she needed one for a funeral and she also bought a black coat to wear over it in case it was cold.

  At the same time, she realised that black accentuated the whiteness of her skin and her hair which was ‘gold flecked with fire’. This was how her father had once described her mother’s hair.

  When Norina went to the hat department, she explained that she was buying a hat for a friend who had been bereaved.

  She tried on several and the one she bought had a touch of white on the forehead. When the fine crepe veil was thrown back off her face, she looked a very young and very attractive widow.

  Norina did not speak to Dawes while they were in the department.

  He kept very much in the background and she heard him explaining to anybody who was interested that he was escorting the young lady because her personal maid was indisposed.

  Without him prompting her, Norina was wise enough to realise that she would need black stockings, black shoes and black gloves and on an impulse she also bought a black evening gown which she saw hanging up as they passed through the emporium and, although it seemed unlikely, she thought it might be useful to have one.

  She paid for everything by cheque with the exception of the hat.

  Having left the shop, she said to Dawes, once everything had been placed in the carriage beside her,

  “I knew what you were thinking when I was trying on the black hats and, while I can cover my hair in the daytime, I am wondering what I should do about it in the evening.”

  “I were a-wonderin’ the same thing meself,” Dawes admitted, “and I thinks if you’re accepted for the job, I’ll ’ave to get you a wig.”

  Norina gave a little cry and clapped her hands.

  “Dawes, you are brilliant! I never thought of it, but, of course, a wig is the perfect solution and, as I bought a lot of black ribbon, I can tie it where the wig joins my forehead.”

  “You’ll still look young, Miss Norina,” Dawes said, “so just you remember to keep them spectacles on your nose if there be anyone about, man or woman.”

  He sounded so worried that Norina answered,

  “I will do everything you tell me, but I was thinking that one issue is very important. Once I have run away from home, I must be able to contact you.”

  Her voice trembled before she finished,

  “I – might be in – difficulties – and not know what to do.”

  “I was a-thinkin’ the same thing meself, miss,” Dawes
said, “and it’ll be quite easy. You can write to me care of Mrs. Rolo, who be a relative of mine and who I’ve just caught up with, so to speak, since I comes to London.”

  “Oh, Dawes, that sounds an excellent idea! She need not know who I am, but you must make sure if she did that she would not betray me.”

  “I’ll tell ’er nothin’,” Dawes said. “At the same time ’er be discretion itself, I promise you that!”

  Norina gave a little sigh.

  “All I have to do now is to secure the position and you have to take me there.”

  “I was a-thinkin’ about that while you was tryin’ on the clothes,” Dawes said, “and if it’s all right, I’ll take you straight to Mrs. Rolo now. It’s only round the corner in Shepherd’s Market where ’er’s got a little shop.”

  Norina stared at him.

  “You mean I can change there into the clothes I have just bought?”

  “That’s the idea,” Dawes agreed, “then I can drive with you to the gentleman’s ’ouse and wait till you comes out.”

  “Dawes, you are wonderful,” Norina exclaimed.

  *

  Mrs. Rolo lived in a small house in Shepherd’s Market.

  She was a large rosy-cheeked woman who Norina thought should be in the country and not in London.

  She greeted Dawes with enthusiasm and was very polite to Norina.

  “Nice to meet you, miss,” she said. “I’ve been hearing about you from Andrew and he tells me how pretty you are, but it were only half the truth!”

  “Thank you,” Norina said as she smiled, “and ‘Andrew’, as you call him, has been very kind to me ever since I was a baby, so I think of him as one of the family.”

  “I’ve been telling him that he should have a family of his own,” Mrs. Rolo said, laughing, “but he always was one for the girls and won’t settle down as he should!”

  “What I says,” Dawes retorted, “is there’s safety in numbers and, as Miss Norina knows, I always speaks the truth.”

  When he explained that Norina wished to change her clothes, Mrs. Rolo took her upstairs.

  The staircase was small and narrow he bedroom, which Mrs. Rolo explained was there in case any of her relatives wished to stay was tiny.

  Equally it was spotlessly clean and even the windows shone as if they were made of diamonds instead of glass.

  Norina changed quickly and, when she put on the widow’s hat, she thought, as she had in the shop, that she looked too young to be a widow.

  Perhaps too the Frenchman would think her too young to be a secretary.

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror.

  Because he was blind, the gentleman would not realise that, if she had indeed been married, it could not have been for very long.

  When she went downstairs, Dawes was waiting for her in the parlour.

  The front room was the shop, which contained a large amount of mysterious substances, some of which were herbs and elixirs that apparently Mrs. Rolo obtained from the country.

  “Do I – look all right?” Norina asked anxiously.

  “I thinks this be what you need, miss,” Dawes answered.

  He held out a pair of spectacles as he spoke and Norina gave a little cry.

  “How have you managed to buy these?”

  “I found ’em in one of the shops in the market,” he said. “They enlarge the sight a bit, but I thinks they’ll make you look older.”

  Norina placed them on her nose and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she laughed.

  “Now I look like an owl,” she said, “but certainly older.”

  Dawes was regarding her critically.

  “Some of your ’air be showin’,” he said. “It’d be wiser if you could tuck it away. I’ll get you a wig in a different colour from you own.”

  “Yes, of course,” Norina agreed.

  Obediently she pulled her hat lower and tucked her hair underneath it and then she drew the veil forward so that it hung over the sides of her cheeks.

  “That’s better!” Dawes approved. “Now I’ll get a carriage to set you down at the corner of Hill Street so that you’ll be able to walk up to the ’ouse.”

  Norina understood, as anyone who was poor enough to need a job would hardly be so extravagant as to hire a Hackney carriage.

  Dawes was far more sensible in these matters than she was, she realised.

  When they reached Hill Street, the carriage drew up at the corner where it joined Berkeley Square.

  Dawes paid off the cabby and then he said,

  “It be number forty-two on this side of the road, Miss Norina. I’ll be waitin’ for you when you comes out.”

  Norina flashed him a smile and then hurried away.

  She had no idea that Dawes, watching her as she went, thought how elegant she looked in her black gown.

  Her waist was very small and she walked with a grace and an eagerness that made her seem very young.

  “I ought not to be lettin’ ’er do this,” Dawes muttered beneath his breath, “but Gawd knows I can’t think of any other way ’er’ll be safe from that devil!”

  Norina walked up the steps to number forty-two and raised the silver knocker.

  It made a rat-tat that was quite audible in the almost empty street and Norina waited, feeling that it was a long time before she heard footsteps inside.

  Then the door opened.

  Chapter three

  The door was opened by an elderly man with white hair.

  He looked at Norina questioningly and then she he took from her pocket the card that Dawes had given her and held it out to him.

  “I have come from Hunt’s Domestic Agency,” she said.

  The man took the card and looked at it. Then, leaving Norina standing just inside the door, he walked across the hall.

  He disappeared under the stairs and Norina heard him shout,

  “Mr. Blanc! Mr. Blanc!”

  She waited.

  The house appeared to be well-furnished and obviously belonged to somebody who had money.

  A few seconds later a middle-aged man whom she guessed must be a senior servant or secretary came hurrying towards her.

  He held the card from the Agency in his hand and as he looked at her, Norina thought that he seemed somewhat surprised at her appearance.

  Then he said,

  “I tell Agency, place for man!”

  His English was halting and he mispronounced some of the words and on an impulse Norina replied in fluent French,

  “It is impossible for the moment for them to find a male secretary who is fluent in French. I have therefore come because, as you can hear, monsieur, I speak French and I am an experienced secretary.”

  The man stared at her in astonishment.

  Then he said,

  “You wait, I speak Master.”

  The servant closed the front door and, although he did not ask her to do so, Norina sat down on a hall chair that was against the wall.

  She sat upright, holding her handbag in her lap and she was praying in her heart that she would be accepted.

  If not, Dawes would have to go back to the Agency and she would be forced to return home. She would not dare to eat anything until Dawes found her somewhere else to stay.

  She had the feeling that it would be a mistake to ask Mrs. Rolo if she could occupy her spare bedroom and Norina was sure that she would agree and anyway, Shepherd’s Market was too near to her stepmother and the servants would obviously shop there.

  If she was seen, even her disguise might not be sufficient to prevent them from recognising her.

  The Frenchman seemed to be away for a long time.

  Then he came back to say,

  “You – come!”

  Norina felt her heart leap.

  At least she had a chance if the old gentleman was prepared to see her.

  The Frenchman walked ahead down a narrow passage and opened a door.

  When Norina walked inside, she thought that he had made a mistake.
The room was dark, the curtains drawn over the windows and the only light came from a fire burning in the grate.

  Then she saw the man beckoning to her, indicating a chair just inside the door and she guessed that it had been put there especially for her.

  It was a hard upright chair and she sat down on it.

  As her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, she realised that there was a man in the room and he was sitting in an armchair directly in front of the fire.

  It meant that he had his back to her and she could see only the top of his head.

  The Frenchman walked to his side.

  “Madame est ici, monsieur,” he said in a low voice.

  There was no reply and he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Norina waited.

  At last the man, who spoke in a deep voice, asked,

  “Vous parlez Français?”

  This she knew was her opportunity and in her very best Parisian French she answered,

  “Mais oui, monsieur, I speak fluent French and can write as easily as I speak. I am a proficient secretary and am used to writing letters on behalf of whoever employs me.”

  She paused for breath.

  There was a silence until the man whom she could not see suddenly started to reply. He spoke with a rapidity that was quicker than anything Norina had ever heard before.

  Her teacher had warned her that the French spoke at a great speed and it was with a sense of relief that Norina realised she could understand every word.

  The man in the armchair was asking her if she could translate political articles from a newspaper, if she understood the value of French money and if she had travelled at all in France.

  He used difficult phrases and ones that were not common in everyday conversation.

  When finally he had finished, Norina answered him almost as quickly as he had spoken.

  She told him once again how proficient she was and how easy it was for her to translate English into French or French into English, whichever was required.

  When she stopped speaking, there was silence and then the man sitting in front of the fire said,

  “Your French is excellent, madame, but I require a man.”