The Inevitable End

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Billie Carden is one of the new breed of women: tomboyish and defiantly independent, she has no use for men and no desire to marry. Nor does she need to - for she is the lucky heiress to the fortune of her American Uncle Silas. But Billie's life takes a whole new direction when two events - at first unconnected - conspire to thwart her plans; an encounter with the impoverished Richard Bromley, and a dramatic ultimatum from her uncle. A captivating love story from the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance, first published in 1927, and available now for the first time in eBook.

Release date: October 16, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 192

Sample

IT was between Storrington and Parham that the big blue car with the gleaming silver bonnet, which had been travelling through Sussex at breakneck speed, leaving a cloud of dust behind it, suddenly broke down.

The girl at the wheel drew up, and jumped out.

‘Water in the carburettor,’ she muttered. ‘Dash the thing!’

She drew off her gauntlets, and lifted up the bonnet of the car.

After tinkering with the carburettor for a moment, she drew back, wiped her forehead with the back of a small oil-stained hand, and took off her felt hat, which she threw into the car with a vicious little movement.

‘Botheration!’ she said aloud. ‘I believe it’s something more than water in the thing … it would happen just as I’m so near home … and a thunder-storm coming up, too!’

She pulled a slim gold case out of her pocket, and lit a cigarette. Frowning, she looked up at the sky. It had been a matchless blue all this exquisite May day. But now the clouds were gathering, and across the commons and the woods dark shadows crept, where a few moments before the sunlight had been streaming goldenly.

Over Chanctonbury Ring the sky was ominously streaked with orange. Not a breath of wind stirred the leaves. There was that close silence which heralds a storm.

The girl stood by the side of the car, smoking for a moment. Then she looked up at the sky again.

‘Now for a storm,’ she muttered.

The hood and side-curtains were easily manipulated. She put them up just in time. Down came the rain—big, heavy drops—accompanied by a low growl of thunder.

The girl looked at her wristlet watch, and saw that it was a quarter-past four.

‘I wired Vera that I’d be home for tea …’ she reflected. ‘But it doesn’t look as though I shall have any tea to-day. If I were on the main road, I’d be able to get help. Can’t think why I chose this by-road to break down on!’

The rain fell faster, and the first vivid flash of lightning illuminated the hills. The girl climbed into her car with a sigh of resignation, prepared to remain therein until help arrived. The storm did not affect her. She lit another cigarette, and watched the lightning play over Chanctonbury and the gorse-covered common.

She remained like this for ten minutes. Then she sat up and threw away her cigarette. A man was coming down the road, striding through the rain with lowered head. He wore grey flannels and an old tweed coat, and his head was bare. He was walking very fast.

The girl hailed him.

‘Most males understand cars,’ she thought. ‘I hope to goodness this one does. Hi! hi!’ she called, waving her hand.

The man looked up and approached the car.

‘Hullo! Anything wrong?’ he called back.

‘No—that’s why I’m sitting here listening to the thunder,’ she said, with biting sarcasm.

He reached the car and stared at her.

‘Well—what is the matter?’ he asked huffily.

‘Car won’t go,’ she said. ‘Do you know anything about it?’

‘A bit,’ he said. ‘I’ll look, if you like.’

‘Well, you seem pretty wet already, so it won’t go to my heart to see you get a bit wetter,’ she said.

He stared at her again. Her abrupt manner seemed to surprise him, and he thought her rather rude. She was quite young; the slim figure in the tailor-made suit and suede motoring-coat was immature and boyish. She looked about nineteen. Her whole appearance was boyish rather than womanly. Her hair—light brown—was cut short and waved naturally back from her forehead. She had sharp features, and a clear, sun-browned skin. Her shirt-blouse, open at the neck, showed a V of tanned throat. Even the eyes were the eyes of a boy—grey-green, and very keen, with short black lashes.

He turned from her, after a brief scrutiny, and began to examine the engine. Every now and then he shook his head, and wiped the raindrops from his face. The lightning continued to flash vividly, and the thunder rolled magnificently and with increasing power, over the hills.

The girl had stepped into the road, and was standing unconcernedly in the rain, watching the man make his examination. She had given him one cursory glance, and summed him up in a few words:

‘Sahib from his voice … no money from his clothes; and too good-looking … bound to be a conceited prig … however, useful at the moment …’

He looked up at her.

‘Puncture in the float,’ he said. ‘You won’t be able to get on. She’ll have to be towed to the nearest garage.’

‘That’s pleasant,’ said the girl crossly. ‘What a beastly nuisance! And how am I going to get home?’

‘Do you live far away?’

‘Just outside Brighton.’

‘You could hire a car from a garage in Storrington.’

‘Yes, I could do that.’

‘Well, I’ve got an ancient motor-bike, and I could get you into Storrington on that, when the storm subsides.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘That’s decent of you.’

‘Meanwhile,’ he said, ‘you’d better shelter back at my place. This is rather a nasty storm.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘That cottage—over there …’ he pointed to the only dwelling visible on the landscape—a small white-washed cottage with a thatched roof and diamond-paned windows. The girl followed his gaze, then looked at him doubtfully. Good-looking he certainly was; tall and broad-shouldered, with the narrow hips that women appraise. His features were straight, and he had a clear, bronzed skin, and thick dark hair with an attractive ‘kink’ in it. But the expression of his mouth was surly, and his eyes—very blue—were the most cynical, bitter eyes she had ever seen. Eager invitation and admiration from him would have made her at once refuse to shelter in his cottage. But the fact that this invitation was merely the outcome of breeding and courtesy, and uttered none too graciously, found favour with her.

‘I dare say you’d like a cup of tea,’ he added. ‘There’s nobody at home but the woman who looks after the place, and my young brother.’

The girl jammed her hat down on her head.

‘Right-o,’ she said. ‘I’ll come. And thanks.’

She fell into step beside him, and began to walk across the sodden field toward the little cottage.

‘Under the circumstances we might as well know each other’s names,’ she said, after a pause. ‘Mine is Billie Carden.’

‘It would be “Billie”,’ he thought. ‘She looks like it. One of these young women of the new masculine cult!’ Aloud he said: ‘My name’s Bromley—Richard Bromley.’

‘You’ve chosen a solitary spot to live in,’ she remarked.

A loud crackle of thunder downed his reply, but he repeated it:

‘I don’t live in this place by choice, I assure you. I’d be abroad if I had the chance. But I’ve got no money, and a delicate brother to look after, so I live in the cheapest way possible.’

‘I see,’ said Billie. ‘You don’t do any work, then?’

‘Work!’ He gave a short laugh. ‘My work consists of writing stories and selling ’em when I can—and digging the garden in my spare time.’

‘Well, it might be worse,’ said Billie thoughtfully. ‘You’re lucky to be able to sell your stories at all.’

‘Quite so,’ he said, with another laugh.

‘What do you write? The usual love-rot?’

‘Heaven forbid!’ he said. ‘I keep strictly to adventure. I couldn’t write a line on love. I don’t believe in it.’

‘I’m with you there,’ she said, flashing a more friendly look at him. ‘Neither do I believe in it. What is love? A snare and a delusion. I’ve never wanted any romance or sentiment in my life, and I don’t intend to have it. I’ve seen too many of my girl-pals mess up their lives with love.’

Richard Bromley nodded.

‘Yes, mess up their lives, and the lives of the unfortunate men they set themselves out to capture,’ he said grimly.

‘Oh, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other,’ said Billie. ‘Men are selfish brutes. They turn women into fools, then go about calling them fools. But no man will ever be able to call me one! I make them keep their distance. I don’t mind a decent man-pal—but a lover—pah! The mere idea makes me feel sick!’

Bromley shook with silent laughter.

‘You’re a queer sort of girl,’ he said. ‘You’ve cut out the “soft-stuff,” have you? So have I. But I’ve had rotten experiences, and you, apparently, have had none.’

‘Don’t want any,’ said Billie calmly.

‘Don’t be too sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve met your sort before—the woman who swears she has no use for my sex, and ends up by coming a howler with some cad or other.’

‘Not me,’ said Billie grimly. ‘I’ve got my head screwed on the right way.’

‘Some women are driven to marriage—for the sake of a home and money.’

‘There, again, I escape. I’m fortunate enough to possess a private income.’

He nodded his head, regarding her without much interest.

‘You’re certainly lucky. Well, here we are. You’d better go in and get dry by the kitchen fire.’

Later, when Billie was tolerably dry, she found her way into the sitting-room; and a tempting tea with hot buttered toast and home-made scones was placed before her.

RICHARD BROMLEY joined Billie. He had been out in the shed to inspect his motorcycle, and then up to his room to change into another suit—which Billie noticed was only a shade less shabby than the first one he had worn.

‘The storm’s passing over,’ he announced. ‘My bike’s all right. We’ll be able to get to Storrington after tea, and tell them at the garage to send for your little bus.’

‘Thanks awfully,’ said Billie. ‘Can I give you some tea, or would you rather pour it out?’

‘I’d rather pour it out myself,’ he said.

He spoke rather bluntly. He was so used to being without a woman in the house: he felt he did not want one ‘to look after him’ now. To see this girl pour out his tea would remind him too painfully of the old days (they seemed centuries ago!) when the woman he had loved desperately—and lost so desperately—had held this very teapot in her dainty hands, smiling at him with all her sex-allure, as she handed him the cup.

Billie Carden was not in the least like that woman, however. He was almost thankful for the lack of soft femininity about this unexpected guest. She was so like a boy with her severe blue tailor-made, white shirt-blouse, and short brown hair.

Tea over, they smoked and exchanged a few confidences.

Billie explained that she had been spending the weekend with a friend in Chichester. She had motored back this way, just for a whim. The weather had seemed so fine; there had been no need to hurry. She lived with a cousin—Miss Vera Disney—in a bungalow which she had built on the Downs a few miles out of Brighton.

She was, apparently, a most fortunate and independent young woman: an orphan; no ties; no cares—heiress to an uncle who was an American millionaire. She was American on her father’s side, but had lived all her life in England. She spent the spring and summer in England, and generally went abroad with her cousin in the winter.

Richard Bromley regarded her with an almost hostile look in his eyes.

‘You’re thoroughly spoiled,’ he growled. ‘What right have you to all the goods of this world, and no troubles?’

‘The troubles of this life are either financial or sentimental,’ said Billie. ‘Since I am free from the former, I shall take care to keep free from the latter.’

‘Very wise,’ he said, with a short laugh. ‘I’ve been the sort of fool to court both. But my chief trouble of the moment is my young brother, who is upstairs in bed, and has been in bed for months now. He’s got spinal trouble, poor kid—only sixteen, too. He ought to be operated on—to have proper treatment, and I can’t afford it. It’s the very devil!’

‘Rotten luck,’ said Billie.

‘Tony has nobody to look after him but me,’ said Richard. ‘I’m sixteen years older, and father died soon after he was born, so I’ve always been father as well as brother to Tony. Then, two years ago, the mater died, too. Tony and I were left alone. I was in a good position on the Stock Exchange. My partner let me down and absconded with all the money, leaving me to pay off huge liabilities. Of course it ruined me, and I had to give up the Exchange.’

‘Bad luck all round,’ murmured Billie. ‘But a good thing you weren’t married and with a large family.’

‘I was married,’ Richard said in a low voice. ‘I was … that’s just it. Though I had no family, thank God … only Tony to look after.’

Billie puffed at her cigarette in silence. Any display of weakness or emotion made her speechless. Entirely lacking in sentiment herself, she did not understand or sympathise with it in others. Yet she was sorry in a vague way for this blue-eyed, good-looking giant, who had obviously been through the mill one way and another.

He continued to confide in her, as though it pleased him to pour out his bitterness, his virulence against her sex.

‘My wife was very beautiful—the most charming creature in the world,’ he said. ‘I was a complete fool about her, and she pretended to be one about me … possibly was … for as long as it suited her. But when the crash came … she couldn’t face the poverty or my irritability … and God knows I was irritable and bitter those days, after being let down so badly by my partner. Then she crowned everything by letting me down in a worse way.’

‘Ran away?’ put in Billie’s cool voice.

‘Yes … with some fellow in the Guards who had more money than he needed and no scruples about taking her. So Tony and I had to fight things out by ourselves. I couldn’t get a fresh job … so we came down here, and I support the two of us by writing.’

‘H’m,’ said Billie. ‘It’s the same old story. What is love? You shouldn’t have married.’

‘Oh, some folk make a better job of marriage than I’ve done,’ said Richard Bromley, with a curt laugh. ‘All marriages don’t end in divorce.’

‘Most marriages are mistakes and ought to end in divorce,’ said Billie, ‘only in a good many cases the folk are too stupid (or too virtuous) to separate. To crave for divorce in one’s mind, and not dare to take any action, is immoral to my way of thinking, so the most moral thing to do is to remain single.’

Richard Bromley pulled a pipe from his coat-pocket and handled the polished bowl with fingers that looked both strong and tender. But there was no tenderness on his face. He looked hard … hard as nails … and that was what Billie Carden appreciated most in him.

‘He may have been a fool once, but he won’t be a fool twice,’ she mentally decided. ‘I think I like him.’

She was so sick of, and bored with, the many men she met who begged her to forsake the road of stern realism and tread the path of dreams. It was a novelty and a pleasure to come in contact with a man who had proved by personal experience just what she believed—that the road of dreams ends in an abyss of darkness and misery.

Before she left the cottage, she went upstairs to see the invalid brother. She found Tony Bromley the most pathetic person she had ever met. Small, delicate as a child, he was more like a beautiful girl than a lad of sixteen. He had Richard’s thick dark hair … only it was a mass of curls … and Richard’s straight features. But his eyes were violet-blue, and much too large for his thin, white face. He looked terribly ill and frail, and there were lines of pain pulling down his mouth.

He greeted Billie without enthusiasm. He did not care for women … he bore her sex a grudge because of the way in which his brother had been treated. But Billie Carden was so frankly boyish and unaffected that she weakened his antagonism.

He complained peevishly to Richard of the heat, and the bad effect which the thunder-storm had had on his head. Billie wondered how Richard would take the complaint, and saw him as one transformed. He was marvellously gentle and understanding with his young brother.

‘The storm’s over and the air’s much cooler, old chap,’ he said, shaking up the boy’s pillows. ‘Try and get a nap. When I’ve taken Miss Carden into Storrington, I’ll come back and read a bit to you.’

‘Good-bye, Tony,’ said Billie, smiling at him with her keen grey-green eyes. ‘By the way, I’ve got a topping library at my bungalow, and if you’re hard up for anything to read, I’ll send you something over.’

Tony’s eyes lit up.

‘Thanks awfully,’ he said.

‘That’d be kind of you, Miss Carden,’ said Richard.

‘Oh, rot!’ she said, in her slangy, breezy way.

Richard Bromley followed her downstairs and out into the garden.

The rain had ceased. The air was cool and sweet. A light breeze shook the raindrops from the trees on to the soaked grass. In the west, a shaft of sunlight had escaped from the clouds and was fringing Chanctonbury Ring with living gold.

On the pillion of an old motor-bike, lightly holding on to Richard Bromley, Billie Carden rode into Storrington.

VERA DISNEY sat on the edge of her cousin’s bed, and listened with rapt interest to the tale of the breakdown and the tea in the cottage on the road to Parham.

‘It sounds most thrilling, my dear Billie,’ she said. ‘Richard Bromley is a man after my own heart. Six-foot odd; blue eyes; a cynical mouth; and has divorced his wife. What romance!’

Billie, who was standing before her dressing-table vigorously brushing her hair, hunched her slim shoulders.

‘You make me sick, Vera,’ she said in a disgusted voice. ‘You see romance in everything. Preserve us from it! Haven’t you lived with me long enough to know that I dislike anything approaching romance? You ca. . .