Loving & Giving

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Friday's child is loving and giving. Juliet had devoted her life to the care of crippled and deprived children. But when she left London to work in the South of France, the phrase was to take on a deeper meaning. For Julia's new life was to bring her too much love, and too much pain, when she fell in love with a man who belonged to someone else. Juliet had always thought of love as a sacred bond and of marriage as an oath she would never break -- and she promised herself she would never love a married man. That was until she met Lucien de Maureville -- a gentle husband betrayed by a faithless wife and a lonely, tormented man caught between Juliet's budding love and a promise she hoped never to break.

Release date: July 24, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

“My whole life,” said Juliet Browning, “seems to have been spent in saying good-bye to somebody – and mostly to you!”

The tall grey-haired man who sat opposite her at a corner table in the Grill Room did not speak for a moment. He was lighting his pipe. Puffing at it for a few seconds he looked through the smoke at the face of his daughter. It was not a sad face although there was sadness in her voice. It was the face of a lovely girl on the very threshold of a radiant womanhood, one who should have been happy and, thought Alan Browning with much concern, so much more fortunate than she was.

At last a deep sigh escaped him. He took the pipe from his mouth and said:

“It’s a rotten business, Ju, and somehow I feel it’s my fault.”

Immediately Juliet denied this and gave him one of her wide gay smiles; the sort of smile that could always cheer him up. Now, he thought with even greater concern and regret, she looked really beautiful and so like her mother. The same wide apart eyes, darkly hazel with a fleck of gold, thickly lashed. The same short nose (he used to tease poor Molly and call her nose a ‘snub’ …) a sprinkling of freckles left on nose and forehead from last summer, and a bright pink flush colouring the attractive young face, as it always did when she was emotional. The same firm dented chin and big laughing mouth. Juliet was not strictly a beauty, yet so warmly attractive. Her hair – thick, bright brown, crisply waving – that was inherited from him he thought (feeling a trifle sorry for himself now as he passed a hand over his balding head). Once he had had that same hair.

He was always the proud father when he took Juliet out; convinced there was never a nicer looking girl in the room. Not quite tall enough for model clothes, perhaps; on the petite side, but Juliet knew how to dress well on her slender means; made most of her own clothes, and made them well. She had an eye for colour. She had inherited that from her mother. Once poor Molly was artistic – used to paint.

Alan Browning stuck his pipe back between his teeth and scowled because he felt a stinging sensation behind his eyelids. Good lord – he mustn’t get all worked up like this. His darling wife had been dead for two long years. He had suffered hellishly at the time – so had poor little Ju. So deeply fond of her mother – so furiously indignant against the fate that had stricken down such a splendid person with that fatal illness that none of the specialists could do anything about yet.

Remembering Juliet’s words about ‘always having to say good-bye’, he could see that it was true. She had been only eighteen when forced to bid that long farewell to her mother. Then there was that only other member of the family, Alan’s son, Nicholas. Nicky was in the Merchant Navy. Only two years older than Juliet, already on the high seas – never home for long.

There were these perpetual good-byes where both brother and father were concerned. Mr. Browning was an established, and not unsuccessful, representation of a big oil company in Iran. Nearly always abroad – and not in the sort of places where Juliet could conveniently follow him. What sort of life was there for a young girl in one of those God-forsaken countries where he had to spend most of his time in the desert, lengthening pipelines, or drilling for oil?

Always bidding good-bye to somebody! Somehow those words struck a forlorn note. With all his heart Mr. Browning loved his daughter and he could not bear her to be unhappy.

She had quite a good job just now as a trainee in a home for Disabled Children in Wandsworth. She loved children and she wanted to go on looking after these tragic little creatures who needed so much love and attention. She had been doing this ever since her mother died. After Nicky had gone to sea, it hadn’t seemed a financial proposition for them to keep up a home. They had the little house in Highgate where they had lived so happily together, but had decided to let it furnished. It brought in a moderate income which they divided.

But now, to Alan, it didn’t seem right that Juliet should have no home.

“Tell me about Luke,” Mr. Browning said suddenly, trying to switch the conversation into more cheerful channels.

Juliet’s cheerful expression altered to a more serious one. She hunched her shoulders, sat back and let the waiter place their coffee cups in front of them, and pour out some of the strong black liquid from a round glass beaker.

“Oh!” she sighed, “Luke!”

“Aren’t things going right with him?” asked her father.

“Oh, it’s just going to be another good-bye,” she said.

“But why – you know I never like to probe but—”

“You never do,” she broke in, “you’re a tactful old darling. And I’m perfectly willing to tell you all, although there isn’t much to say.”

Alan had heard quite a bit about her latest boy-friend, Dr. Luke Farrell. A young, newly-qualified physician who helped with the medical care of the children in this Home where Juliet was working.

She hadn’t said too much about him in her letters – only that she liked him and found him an admirable character – absolutely dedicated to his profession; the only son of a widowed mother who lived down in Somerset. Juliet had also informed her father that she had been out to several meals with Luke, and one or two theatres. Alan had felt pleased that a nice young doctor should have supplanted that other boy-friend of Juliet’s … (Chris Someone or Other) a TV film actor. For a time he had been afraid that Juliet had got it badly about Chris. It had been her first real affair. Finally she had woken up as her father imagined she would (she was such a sensible girl) to the realization that Chris was no good. Conceited, selfish and out for fun rather than marriage. Juliet wasn’t all that modern in her outlook. She belonged to the set who believed in decent living; in saving one’s kisses and caresses for the right boy. Nothing of the prig or prude about her; too warm-hearted and generous by nature for that – but idealistic.

Alan had hoped, maybe, that this doctor might come up to her ideals.

This evening, however, she had no such good news for him. The awful truth was, she said, Luke was beginning to bore her. He was so self-righteous – so smug.

“I seem to have hit the exact opposite type in him to Chris,” she admitted with a rueful laugh. “At first I thought Luke was wonderful because of his medical work. But he is dull, Daddy! I take a dim view of the way he is so ready to criticize other people, too. You know I don’t hold with the way some people behave, but I do try to understand why things go haywire at times, and I don’t think any of us have got a right to be too pompous, or to adopt that holier than thou attitude. You never know what temptation is going to do to you.”

Mr. Browning puffed at his pipe. Remembering some of the temptations of his own youth, he nodded.

“How right you are, my darling!”

“There’s been trouble at the Home lately. One of the women I work with – ten years older than me actually – found she was going to have a baby. The man walked out on her. There’s been an awful scandal. She’s left us now but I was awfully sorry for her. Luke said she must have made herself jolly cheap and that it is always the female’s fault, and so on. You know I don’t lose my temper often, Daddy, but I did with him. We were having a meal together and I walked out – I was so furious. I don’t myself think girls ought to go the whole hog before they are married, but if they do, who should cast the old stone? There may have been a lot of reasons why poor Vera couldn’t stand up to this man. And she trusted him. I told Luke that I thought it was his fault – both their faults if you like – but he was all on the man’s side and against Vera. I’m sorry nobody knows where she has gone or I’d go and see her and try to help.”

“You’re a kind little thing,” murmured her father.

“A softie,” Juliet grimaced. “Anyhow I got tough with Luke and just before I came to meet you this evening some flowers arrived from him with an apology. I think he’s in love with me, Daddy.”

“I bet he is. And you?”

“No,” she said. “That’s the awful part of it, I’m not. Luke says love will come later. He’s sure of me, but I’m far from sure of myself. Perhaps I live in a dream-world but I don’t believe I have met the man who figures in those dreams just yet!”

Mr. Browning smoked his pipe and wished to God that he had enough money to retire and set up a comfortable home for this adored and adorable child of his. How he hated being impecunious and having to go off to Iran tomorrow. His firm had some sort of agreement with an American company there.

He wondered what Molly would have done about Juliet. How she had doted on her pretty little daughter! There flashed into Alan Browning’s mind, suddenly, the memory of Juliet’s sixteenth birthday party. Before Molly fell ill. Juliet’s happy and proud parents had looked at her as, flushed and laughing with her teenage friends, she had cut the cake. They had held a buffet supper party for her. Molly and Juliet, together, had made all of the ‘eats’. Molly had whispered to him:

“Do you remember that Friday when she was born, Alan? We were so pleased that we had a little girl, as we already had our son. And she’s turned out to be a typical Friday’s child. Do you remember the verse. How does it end? Friday’s child is Loving and Giving. Saturday’s child must work for its living … etc. …”

Alan Browning’s eyelids ached again. He remembered it all as though it were yesterday. And it was so true. Juliet had proved generous and affectionate; Loving and Giving described her. And she had to work for her living too, he thought with a sigh. Still – everybody did that now. Work was good for one; it was just that he wanted her to find the right man. With her sweet nature it would be murder for her if she accidentally married the wrong one. For her, marriage would be a sacred tie for life.

It was not in the nature of either Juliet or her father to stay gloomy for long. When they left the Grill Room they were both laughing at a joke they had shared. Mr. Browning hailed a taxi. He insisted on driving Juliet back to Wandsworth. He knew it was extravagant he said, but he didn’t come home on leave all that often, and he wanted to spend some money on her. Now that the Spring had come, she was to go and buy herself a summer outfit at his expense, too.

“You’re a darling,” she said, and laid her head on his shoulder.

The Home in Wandsworth looked large, dark and dreary, on this May night. He wished her life could be a little more glamorous. But when she kissed him good night she assured him that she was perfectly satisfied.

“You’re not to worry about me, Daddy. I’ll be all right,” she said.

But he was not to know how worried she really was about herself and the future, and how when she got back to her little room in the staff quarters of the home she felt very much like bursting into tears. Not even the pleasure of having Daddy in London for a day or two, or buying a Spring outfit at his expense, could compensate for the news she had received this morning. She had not told him. He was an awful old worrier, and if she had said one word, he would go off to Iran in absolute misery. Men, Juliet decided, were really far more vulnerable and easily worried than women. Women were the stronger sex!

The Children’s Home had been a real home to her since Mummy died. One month from today it was closing down. Matron had explained that it was something to do with new Government Planning. They were going to pull down all the houses in this road and put up a huge block of Council flats. The Home had two country branches. The Wandsworth children were being divided between them. A few of the senior trained staff would go with them. Juliet and the other Trainees must find other work.

Juliet had shed quite a few tears over that notification this morning. She felt a sinking feeling in her heart tonight as she prepared for bed. What was she going to do in the future?

Luke, of course, had offered a way out in his letter of apology. He had proposed marriage to Juliet.

But she didn’t want to marry Luke. Once or twice when he had taken her out, she had kissed him good night and he had tried to set the stars alight for her. He was nice. Not unattractive. She had even imagined for a few seconds that she might respond to his passion. But it was a failure. It wasn’t the real thing; she was sure now that she couldn’t marry Luke, even in order to get a home of her own. A pity in many ways; being a doctor’s wife would have suited her.

At one time she had thought that after Mummy’s death she should have started training to qualify as a hospital nurse. It had perhaps been a mistake not to do so. On the other hand, after long weeks of indecision, she had been forced to the conclusion that she wasn’t really cut out for hospital life. She could look after crippled children, but she didn’t really want to be a professional nurse. She wasn’t very proud of the fact, but she just wasn’t made that way. She was too emotional and imaginative. Hospitals didn’t want martyrs – they needed dedicated women and Juliet Browning would never make a good nurse. She was not stoic enough. She had the highest regard for the born hospital nurse, but she ended up by taking this job with the disabled children in Wandsworth. So far it had suited her – hard and exacting though the work was at times.

Juliet decided to turn out her light and try to forget her worries in sleep. She and Daddy had had fun together at the Grill – eaten a jolly good dinner. It would be nice to lie and think about that. Poor old Daddy! Life must be a bit lonely and uncertain for him. If only Mummy hadn’t died and left them all!

Juliet moved across the room to open her window and suddenly noticed a square envelope with a foreign stamp lying on the carpet.

She picked it up, surprised. This must have come after she left the Home. The draught from the window had blown it from her table on to the floor.

The address was typed. The postmark was the Alpes-Maritimes.

Turning it over she saw a name and address written on the flap of the envelope.

From Mrs. Ingram, c/o Mme de Maureville, Château de Roquemont, Nr. Cannes.

Juliet stared at this – her pulses quickening. Then she climbed into bed, tilted the shade of her table-lamp and opened her letter.

So the day had not yet ended; this was a fresh surprise. The letter was from her godmother, Juliet Ingram, after whom she had been named. Juliet was very fond of Mrs. Ingram, she had been at school in Paris with Mummy. Although a bit brittle and a ‘socialite’ she was really quite sweet. Mummy once told Juliet that the older Juliet had been different when young, but got spoiled after her marriage to her millionaire American – Bob Ingram. About the same time, Mummy had married Daddy – a very much smaller and less glittering affair.

After Mummy’s death, Mrs. Ingram had been very kind to Juliet and sent her a cheque and box of clothes (they had the same petite figure). Juliet hadn’t seen her for over a year. She lived in New York. But the older Juliet never forgot to provide and post some delicious luxury present from New York on her godchild’s birthday and at Christmas.

Now it appeared that Mrs. Ingram was in Europe staying with another friend of her youth – a French woman – in Cannes.

There were four sheets of this Continental notepaper, written in Auntie Ju’s big sprawling hand. The contents of this unusually long letter left Juliet gasping. It was as though she had been swimming, darkly, under water, and suddenly come up into the air – through a bubble of sunlight.

Darling little Ju,

As you will see from my address I am staying here with my friend Mimi de Maureville. You may remember me telling you about her and how I first met her at our finishing school in Lausanne. She and her daughter, Simone, stayed with Bob and myself in New York.

Her husband, Lucien, belongs to one of the old French aristocratic families who survived the war and have still got a lot of money, which Lucien supplements as Director of a big olive oil manufactory – they have marvellous groves down here. They also have an apartment in Paris. This old Château is in a village named Roquemont – up above Cannes.

Mimi’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Simone, by her first husband, is a spoiled brat and causing a few headaches. There is also a daughter, Sophie (Lucien’s), now eight years old. Between ourselves I don’t hold Mimi up as an angel. She is self-centred and leads her husband a dance (Simone takes after her), but Sophie is a cripple. The poor little thing spends her time in a wheel-chair, and is a frightful worry to Mimi who seems to have taken almost a dislike to the child. She never was a born mother, and I’m the first to admit it. And as I don’t care for children myself I can’t altogether condemn her. But Lucien is an idealist and pathetically devoted to his little cripple. Mimi is often away. Lucien doesn’t like leaving Sophie in the care of paid nurses. I don’t blame him. Mimi has been very naughty.

I suggested that YOU should come down here and look after Sophie. You are educated. You speak French better than the average English girl so you can give her lessons. You understand children’s health as you’ve been trained and you are musical. The child worships music and would like someone to teach her the piano.

I have recommended you as being the ideal person for the job. Mimi will be only too glad to leave everything to you.

Please say that you’ll give the post a trial, dearest little Ju. Here there is all the sunshine and beauty of the Côte d’Azur. The Château is too big and sometimes gloomy but Mimi has transformed one wing and it is lovely.

Get a reverse-charge call to me. If you decide to come I will pay your fare, and be here myself to introduce you to the de Maurevilles.

I showed poor little Sophie a snapshot of you and she said that she thought she would love you. She certainly hates all the mademoiselles who have kept coming and going, quarrelling first with Lucien, then Mimi.

Do say yes, darling,

Your loving      

Auntie Ju.   

Juliet read this letter twice. She felt slightly dazed but soon woke up to a sense of extreme excitement.

This sounded like an answer to all her prayers. She wouldn’t have to go into a new job and be miserable and have to put up with it. She could go down to the South of France – to the de Maurevilles – as soon as they wanted her. Matron had told the staff that any of them was free to leave when they chose.

Monte Carlo! Cannes! An old château in the hills! Could anything sound more attractive?

Juliet had never been to the South of France but many of her girl-friends had taken their holidays out there. If she accepted this offer it would not, of course, be just in order to enjoy the South of France but she would have a definite purpose in life; to look after a lonely crippled child; a poor little rich girl. Her father adored her but her mother preferred the other girl – Simone – who was fit and beautiful. Madame de Maureville sounded to Juliet a poor sort of mother.

Juliet was nothing if not impulsive. She gave this matter scant thought. She tumbled headlong into the golden net that had been spread for her. She would telephone Auntie Ju tomorrow and tell her that the job was ‘on’. She would shake the dust of Wandsworth and London off her feet and fly by Comet to Nice airport. She would look after Sophie. She would make her life happy – teach her to play the piano – make sure that she never, never felt unwanted or neglected again.

It would be her new life’s work.

Juliet tossed Auntie Ju’s letter up in the air and watched it flutter down in four white crisp sheets on to the bed. Then she picked the pages up and kissed them.

Then she sobered down. . .