The Faithful Heart

by Claire Lorrimer

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romance

Synopsis

Harriet was very young when her ambitious, unscrupulous mother succeeded in parting her from Paul, the impecunious medical student Harriet loved. So successfully was Harriet convinced that Paul did not return her deep-felt love, that it was not long before she turned in her loneliness to the eligible Tony, it is not long before Harriet finds herself fighting against her disillusionment and doing her best to remain loyal to her vows. But by chance Paul comes back into her life just at the point at which she is most alone and in need of a friend.

Release date: May 15, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 400

Sample

Harriet edged her way self-consciously through the noisy, laughing groups of people thronging the hallway, the fingers of one hand nervously clutching a plate of ice cream. She was not hungry, but going to the dining-room had relieved her of the necessity of standing on the edge of the dance floor where she knew that she looked, as well as felt, a wall-flower.

Now she found a dim, secluded corner on the wide, thickly carpeted stairway that led up to the gallery where perhaps she would not be seen or noticed for a little while. Above all, she did not wish to be seen by her mother who was somewhere amongst the crowd that had been invited to Jennifer Highbury’s coming-out party.

Miserably, Harriet reflected that it would not be long before she would be facing this same kind of ordeal again, only it would be worse because she would be the focus of all eyes and it would be her coming-out dance. Really, she had not wanted to be here tonight, but since she and Jennifer, although a year older, were best friends, Jennifer had insisted she should come. As for Harriet’s mother, Mrs Harold Carruthers, she had jumped at the chance of ‘trying out’ her daughter, as she termed it.

No one knew better than Harriet what a hopeless failure she was at this sort of thing. Basically honest, she found it almost impossible to pretend. The artificiality of this old-fashioned aspect of society life went so much against the grain that it was little less than torture for her to try to adapt herself to it.

But she did try. For six months she had done her best because more than anything in the world she wanted to please the mother she adored. Even now, while she half-dreaded seeing her, the loving affectionate part of her nature admitted that her mother was the prettiest, most charming woman in the world. If only she could be more like her, Harriet wished for the thousandth time. If only she had that same grace and poise, that genius with clothes, the flair for colour, the unfailing chic! If only she had been a mere five-foot-two instead of five-ten and been born with slim, small hands and feet, a beautiful piquant face! Much as she had loved her father, Harriet had often wished during these last few months after leaving school that she had been less like him physically. He had been a fine-looking man, tall, upright, athletic; Harriet was every inch his daughter. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had been a boy. How often Mrs Carruthers said that! But Harriet knew it was not only her physical resemblance to her father that disappointed her mother; it was that she resembled him in character, too.

He had been a reticent man, quiet, a lover of the country and animals, deriving his chief enjoyment from hunting and shooting in the season, from his golf all the year round. Harriet could recall so many occasions in the past when her pretty little mother flew into a towering rage because Daddy turned up late from a hunt—too late for some party or other she had arranged.

Harriet, who used to spend every possible moment of the holidays at her father’s side, would flinch and draw closer to him, away from her mother’s fury. But Daddy never seemed to lose his temper or to be in any way put out by the constant reproaches rained down on his head. He would apologize quietly to his wife and hurry away as soon as he could to his own rooms, after giving Harriet a smile and comforting pat on the shoulder.

Now, whenever her mother’s disapproval was centred on her, Harriet would half-consciously try to emulate her father. She would stand quietly, without answering back, and apologize once the storm was over. It seemed as if she had continually apologized ever since she left school six months ago and her mother had started to take a real interest in her, for Harriet seemed fated to do the wrong thing.

First, her clothes …

‘We must buy you a complete wardrobe, Harriet. It’ll be fun. We’ll go to London tomorrow and make a start. Oh, that ghastly school uniform!’

Thrilled at the thought of her first grown-up outfit, Harriet had set off with her mother eagerly. But somehow it hadn’t been fun at all. Everything her mother liked and thought suitable for a young débutante seemed to look awful on Harriet’s over-tall, over-thin schoolgirlish figure. She, herself, favoured less fussy, more tailored clothes. But Mrs Carruthers, her wishes for once getting the better of her dress-sense, kept insisting on the organdies, the frills, the little-girlie frocks, all of which destroyed what few attractions Harriet possessed.

Harriet’s Aunt Ethel, her father’s sister, had once told her when Harriet bemoaned her plainness, ‘You may not be pretty, Harriet dear, but you have other assets worth a deal more. Prettiness does not last, you know, and while it can help a girl find a man, it won’t keep him. Remember that,’ the sensible woman had said.

‘But, Aunt Ethel, what’s the use of being nice inside you if it doesn’t show outside?’ the seventeen-year-old girl had asked wretchedly.

‘But it does show in you, Harriet. You have the loveliest eyes I’ve ever seen … no, that’s not quite true, your father has them. You have his fascinating green eyes. Your hair may be straight, but it is beautiful—the colour of copper-beech. A good cut and perm will make you the envy of every woman you meet. And once you fill out a little and lose that lanky, bony look, you’ll have a figure every woman will envy, too.’

‘I’m far too tall!’ Harriet wailed, repeating her mother’s most common complaint.

‘No, Harriet! You have the height demanded of model girls. You know, my dear, you mustn’t try to emulate your mother. She may be a very pretty woman but her build is petite. Yours is not. Just be yourself, dear child. I assure you you won’t be sorry in the future.’

But this was the present and Harriet was sorry. Being ‘herself’ did not please her mother as Aunt Ethel imagined it should. No use Harriet protesting that she didn’t want a coming-out party … that she preferred country life, her horses, her riding, to dances or cocktail parties; no use begging to be allowed to go to her room and read when her mother was entertaining; no use pleading to have a quiet holiday in Brittany rather than a fashionable one in Monte Carlo or Cannes. Mrs Carruthers made it quite plain to Harriet that ‘being herself’ was no longer desirable.

‘You’re not a schoolgirl now, Harriet. You must try to be more adult. Burying yourself in the country won’t get you a husband you know and, anyway, men don’t like horsey women!’

‘But, Mummy, I don’t want a husband!’

Mrs Carruthers gave an angry little snort:

‘Nonsense! Every girl wants to make a good match, and my daughter is not going to be left on the shelf. You’re seventeen and next autumn you’ll be coming out. For goodness’ sake try to fit in better. You stand around like a gawky schoolgirl with a tortured expression on your face, all fingers and thumbs. I don’t wonder Lady Pomfrey asked you at tea yesterday when you’d be leaving school and imagined you still there. And, Harriet do walk with your head up and stomach in. Short steps … you come into the drawing-room as if you were striding on to the hockey-field!’

A man’s voice interrupted this flow of Harriet’s thoughts.

‘You seem to have found a nice quiet spot!’

Harriet glanced up quickly, the ready colour flaring guiltily into her cheeks. How she hated blushing! ‘A gentle flush is attractive, but you go so red, Harriet!’

‘May I join you?’

Harriet put down her untouched ice cream. She made way for the young man who stood looking down at her. She noticed that his eyes were very blue, that they had humour lurking in them, that his voice was gentle and faintly foreign, and that he had fine features. He must be about twenty, she judged, and she was glad of his company. Now, if her mother passed by, it wouldn’t matter. She would be delighted that Harriet had found herself a partner.

‘May I introduce myself? My name is Paul von Murren. I was invited to this party by Lord Highbury but I have very little acquaintance with his daughter Jennifer, in whose honour the party is given.’

‘You’re not English then?’ Harriet asked, and regretted the remark as soon as she had made it for fear it should have sounded rude. But the young man beside her seemed not to notice anything unusual.

‘I am Austrian!’ he said. ‘At the moment I am living in your country because I am studying to be a doctor. I will be here at least for another four years … maybe more if I should not pass all my examinations. May I now know your name?’

‘I’m Harriet Carruthers!’ she answered, no longer feeling shy. It was nice to meet a medical student. Harriet had always been interested in medicine, and at one time had thought she might like to become a nurse after she left school. Unfortunately, her mother had vetoed the idea at first mention of it.

‘A nurse? What nonsense, Harriet! It’s a hard life and a most unattractive kind of job. Besides, you’d never meet an eligible man in a hospital. If you must have a job, which is quite unnecessary since your father has left us reasonably well provided for, then choose something a little more chic. Certainly not nursing!’

Yet Harriet had always felt deep down inside her that she would have found nursing satisfying, rewarding kind of work. Had the war lasted another year, she had meant to persuade her mother to let her join the Red Cross. But the war had ended during her last term at school and put an end to such hopes. Shyly, she mentioned this one-time ambition to Paul von Murren.

He said: ‘But there is still time. You are now only seventeen. You have much time left for your training.’

‘Unfortunately my mother would never allow it. I have to come out and do the season and I couldn’t do that and my training.’

‘Come out? Oh, you mean the début … presented like Lord Highbury’s daughter?’

‘I’m afraid I shan’t be very much like Jennifer!’ Harriet said, smiling ruefully. ‘She loves this kind of thing. I’m not much good at it.’

‘How do you mean … to be good at this? There is some special way in which you must behave?’

‘Oh, yes!’ said Harriet, her large green eyes serious now and deeply concerned. ‘You have to know how to say the right things to the right people, how to dance well and dress well, how … well, how to be attractive and interesting.’

Paul von Murren looked down at the girl beside him. He handed her a cigarette, which she smilingly refused, lit one for himself and studied her for a moment. Slowly he nodded, his brows knit in concentrated thought.

‘Yes, in Vienna we have had all this … before the war, of course. Perhaps in time it will come back again. At the moment, we are all too poor for this kind of life so I myself shall avoid this … how do you call it … social marriage market?’

Harriet looked up. Now her green eyes were dancing delightedly.

‘That’s exactly what it is! How lucky you are not to have to endure it!’

‘I do not think this is necessary for you. You will find the husband you want without all that!’ He half-turned and indicated the reception-room whence came the sound of music, voices, laughter.

‘Oh, no!’ Harriet retorted quickly, and began to quote her mother. ‘I love country life. There aren’t so many young men there as in London. And I’d never learn how to behave properly if I didn’t do a season. I’m afraid I shan’t learn very quickly then, either,’ she added, sighing. ‘I’m nearly always doing the wrong things at the wrong time. I never know what to say to people.’

‘You are talking quite easily to me, and I find all you say of great interest,’ said the young Austrian medical student. ‘I have had many dances this evening with many young ladies but all they have to tell me is about some other dance they have been to, or what they have enjoyed at the theatre. I find this very dull for I do not go much to parties myself, nor have I time for the theatre, although good opera I enjoy.’

‘I like the opera too!’ Harriet said, her heart warming to him. ‘But we don’t go often. Mother prefers a play or the cinema.’

‘I enjoy theatres and some films, but I have not the money for such things. I am here only because Lord Highbury insists. He knew my father very well in Vienna before the war. My father is dead now … he died in a concentration camp during the war,’ Paul said, the light fading from his eyes. ‘He was a very wonderful man, my father, a great doctor, too. When the Germans came, they wished him to work for them in their experimental hospitals and of course my father refused. At first they did not kill him because they need his knowledge and they hoped he will relent and agree to work. They put him in a concentration camp. Still my father does not give way. They come to him and promise him much money and power but this means nothing to my father who is a patriot and was very brave. They take away his home and land and still he refuses to work for them.’

‘And you?’ Harriet asked, enthralled by this story.

‘I am still a young boy, but my father guesses at what may become of us if the Germans take our country so he transferred much money to this country just before the war to Lord Highbury, to keep for me and my mother. Father could not send us over here for safety as there was no time, but we left Vienna to live in the mountains with his chauffeur who had a cottage in the Tyrol. My mother, he told us, must call herself the chauffeur’s wife and I am his son. This saved our lives for the Germans did not discover where we were. Although they tortured many of our friends to find out, no one but my father knew of our hiding-place and until he died my father remained silent. So it is now I have enough money over here in this country for my studies. Lord Highbury had invested carefully for my father. Otherwise we have nothing. There is our country home … it is a very beautiful Schloss overlooking a big lake in the Tyrol. But first the Germans took everything we had in Vienna, then the Russians our heirlooms and treasures, our money. We had nothing left in our poor martyred Vienna. So, you see, I must live quietly here where I am learning to become a doctor like my father. When I can, I send a little home to my mother, but alas, it is not often! I would like to visit her more often but I cannot do so. When I am a doctor, though, I will go to live in the Tyrol and try to give my mother back all that she lost.’

For a moment, Harriet remained silent, so deeply impressed was she, not only by this tale of human suffering and endurance, but also by this young man’s determination to step into his father’s shoes. There was a fire inside Paul von Murren, a fire of ambition that she could see nothing would quench. And she had no doubt, hearing Paul’s quiet, determined voice, that he meant to succeed.

Impulsively, she put out a hand and touched one of the long brown hands of her companion who, although a total stranger, had come so close to her in this short time.

‘I know you will succeed!’ she said softly.

He turned his head and looked down at her, as if seeing her for the first time as an inspiration, a symbol of hope. As his eyes gazed into hers he said:

‘Earlier this evening I think that I should not have come here. So much money wasted on such a meaningless party: it was making me a little bitter. You see, in Europe—in Austria—there are many people starving … and this … but no, forgive me. I have no right and now I am not sorry I came. I have met you and …’ He broke off, suddenly displaying his youth, unable to break through his natural shyness and express exactly what meeting Harriet meant to him. Hesitantly, he recaptured the hand that a moment earlier had touched his. As he did so, he saw the colour rush back to her cheeks.

‘I … I don’t suppose we’ll meet again!’ She uttered the first words that came to her mind, filling in the silence. ‘You see, this is the kind of place where I shall have to spend most of my time.’ She broke off, conscious that she had broken one of her mother’s rules for behaviour with young men … that one did not suggest that another meeting was desirable. One left the running to them.

But her new friend seemed not to notice her gaffe. He held her hand more tightly.

‘Could we not meet somewhere else?’ he asked. ‘I know I have not much time, or much money, but maybe if you enjoy walking, we could go in the park sometimes? Or to the opera? The ballet? In your country, as in ours, it is possible to make the line and not have to pay too much for seats, is it not?’

‘You mean queue?’ Harriet said, laughing but not unkindly. ‘Oh, yes, I’d love that. I love walking and I don’t mind queueing at all.’

‘Then it is agreed?’ Paul von Murren said eagerly. ‘You must now give me your telephone number so I may ring you. Your mother will permit?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Harriet said happily. For this would be her first ‘date’ … the first time any young man had shown any interest in her, and it would prove that she wasn’t always a failure at parties. Besides, Paul was very good-looking with his fair curly hair and bright blue eyes; he was tall and broad-shouldered and yet slim. And his lips were fine-cut and sensitive. How could her mother, who was always talking of what she considered handsome in a man, fail to find this young Austrian attractive?

‘Now I write down the number, then we dance!’ Paul said, smiling. Harriet’s face fell.

‘I’m afraid I don’t dance well,’ she apologized.

He laughed. ‘This I do not believe. We shall see. If you are too bad, then we find more ice cream and come back here.’

How easy everything had become! Harriet thought. Her eyes shone happily as she allowed him to lead her towards the ballroom. All the awkwardness, the sensation of fear, seemed to leave her in Paul’s company. It no longer mattered even if she could not dance well … he wasn’t going to abandon her because of that. So, because she was for the first time completely relaxed, she found suddenly that she could dance, she could follow his easy lead, and actually enjoy it.

He held her lightly; responding to the rhythm of the music Harriet felt her whole body flow towards him on the tide of that music. Her heart sang. Her happy eyes saw no man in the room save him.

‘Never again shall I believe you when you say you cannot do this or. . .