The Other Love

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Briony Moore is jilted just days before her marriage when her fiance decides his new job abroad is more important than she is. Seeking solace and oblivion in work, she becomes secretary to Hew Vanner, the explorer and writer. In the idyllic surroundings of his home in the Lake District, Hew and Briony find a common bond. A captivating love story from the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance, first published in 1952, and available now for the first time in eBook.

Release date: October 16, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 192

Sample

BRIONY MOORE’S small cousin David was, of course, the hit of the afternoon. While they were all finishing tea, his mother brought him downstairs in his page’s suit of pale blue satin with the frills of lace on collar and wrists. With his golden curls and laughing, long-lashed eyes he looked so adorable that everybody stopped eating and drinking, to stare at him.

‘Oh, the angel!’ the two bridesmaids chorused. They were Elizabeth Moore, another older cousin, and Penelope Taylor who was Briony’s dearest friend and who had been at school with her.

Mrs. Moore, family teapot suspended in mid-air, also smiled fondly at little David. He was her nephew’s son and the only boy to be born in the Moore family for a long time, so, of course, he always created a sensation. Mrs. Moore liked him particularly because something about him reminded her of Briony at the same age, although she had always had a decidedly red tint in the gold of her hair. But those eyes, that exquisite skin, short chiselled nose and vivid air of general health and beauty were Moore characteristics.

While the rest of the family congratulated David’s mother, and they all petted him, Mrs. Moore continued to pour out tea. Every now and then she stole a happy look at the bride-to-be.

Briony was her only child and she was going to be a great loss, the mother thought with a sigh. As well as being lovely to look at, she was such a nice girl. Kind and generous like her father and with none of his pleasant vagueness. Briony had a strong will and first-class memory. Geoffrey Moore had been a charming, good-looking young man in the regular Army when Lorna married him. Ill-health—the result of an old war wound—had forced him to retire, but he had bought a partnership in a firm of builders and had done very well here in Reigate, where they had finally settled.

The present-day situation prevented them from being rich but they were ‘quite comfortable’ as Lorna Moore liked to put it and had this nice little house and garden. They had been able to give Briony a good education.

Briony had chosen a secretarial career for herself. She had always been an ardent reader and collected books since she was a schoolgirl. One of her ambitions, she used to tell everybody, laughingly, was to become private secretary to a famous author and so live in the world of books.

Then, just as she had become thoroughly proficient and on the point of advertising for the sort of job she wanted—Clive Dormer came into her life.

Now, in a week’s time, Briony was going to be married to Clive. With something of a shock Lorna Moore looked at her ‘ewe lamb’ this afternoon and thought:

‘This time next week she won’t be sitting here … our Briony. … Her bedroom will be empty. The house will be horribly quiet and tidy, instead of full of the sound of her gay voice, and her young friends. She will be Mrs. Clive Dormer … down in Cornwall on her honeymoon, and Geoff and I will be alone, so very much alone!’

The mother’s heart ached suddenly with the realization of all that she was going to lose once she handed this dear daughter over to the stranger who had come into their midst. She was glad, because Briony was so much in love with Clive. Yet anxious at times because six months ago she hadn’t even known him. She met him at a party in London last Christmas.

They had nothing against Clive. He was an attractive boy—aged twenty-six—five years older than Briony, which was just right. Slight, dark-haired, vivacious, a good foil for Briony’s fairness. He held a Manchester University degree in engineering, and was the only son of a Midlands solicitor. His mother had died when he was born and he had been brought up by an aunt who was now also deceased.

It appeared that when his father died, Clive would have a little money of his own. There seemed every prospect of his getting a bigger job than the small one he held, in the near future. This was not yet settled, and the Moores had wanted Briony to wait for it. But Clive had insisted on a June wedding. Lorna and Geoffrey Moore, like so many modern parents, soon found that they had no real say in the matter. Briony had just come home one day and said:

‘Oh, Mummy, isn’t it terrific? … Clive and I are going to get married the last day of June because it is his birthday and he says I shall make such a gorgeous present so you can just wrap me in tissue paper and hand me to him, tied up with silver ribbon!’

Typical of Briony—eager—gay—impetuous, so very young.

No use suggesting that the couple should wait until they knew each other better. Briony was of age and Clive seemed quite sure that the new job he was after was as good as settled.

He had told Briony last night that he expected to hear at any moment where he was being sent, and when, then they could start looking for a home.

‘Thank God our child is so happy,’ Lorna Moore’s reverie continued. Bri really did look beautiful this afternoon, flushed with excitement, her eyes dancing. It had been ‘present-showing day’. All their friends had come in to see the lovely things which Lorna had arranged on the dining-room table. The young couple were doing very well. It had made quite a ‘show’. Briony had already written thirty or forty ‘thank-you’ letters. The cake was ordered. The dress was being sent home tomorrow. She had had a final fitting first thing this morning and looked, the mother thought, so beautiful that it had made her want to weep. Tall and straight and slender in her white bridal gown; red-gold head veiled with the Limerick lace which had been loaned by Aunt Caroline. Lorna’s sister, Caroline Shaw, older than herself, and a spinster, lived up in the Lake District, where she ran a small antique shop. She was coming down from Seascale for the wedding to stay with them. She had always been particularly fond of Briony.

‘Oh, Mummy, what an afternoon we’ve had!’ came Briony’s fresh happy voice. ‘Are you exhausted?’

‘Completely,’ said Lorna, nodding a short-curled head which was only just beginning to grow grey. She was at forty-five still a good-looking, youthful woman.

‘Liz and Penelope are absolute scavengers, they have finished all the cake!’ giggled Briony.

The two bridesmaids protested, joining in the giggle. David snatched a chocolate biscuit which his mother took away from him at once because of the blue satin suit, whereupon he set up a yell, and was carted upstairs again.

‘I hope he doesn’t behave like that on my wedding day,’ said Briony more solemnly, then flung herself back on the sofa and momentarily closed her eyes.

‘Isn’t life superb!’ she added in a rapturous voice.

Mrs. Moore finished her tea and stood up.

‘It’s nice to know that you find it so, my darling, and I wish I had ten more daughters and ten more weddings to organize in spite of the work. They create such a gay atmosphere for everyone.’

Briony unclosed her eyes and smiled dreamily at her mother.

‘I feel more than gay,’ she said, ‘and I must be the luckiest girl in the world. All that we have got to pray for now is that this gorgeous weather will last. Liz … Penny …’ she addressed her cousin and her friend, ‘let’s go out in the garden and have a cigarette. And if that is the postman at the door, Mummy, will you be a darling and hide whatever he brings. I couldn’t open another present today. Keep the parcels for tomorrow when Clive comes down … we’ll open them together.

The three girls walked through the french windows on to the lawn. It was perfect June weather. The lawn looked dry for want of rain but the herbaceous border, which was Mr. Moore’s special pride, was vividly beautiful—full of colour. The first roses were out. The striped deck-chairs under the chestnut tree looked especially inviting. Briony and her chosen bridesmaids retired to these chairs for what they called a ‘good gossip’.

Gay! Briony decided that the word could not really describe her own feelings. They were blissful. It was wonderful to be young and strong and beloved and just about to be married to the most marvellous man in the world. To have that lovely trousseau all packed in a trunk upstairs, ready for the honeymoon … Mummy and Daddy had been wonderfully generous … provided her with all that she needed. Clive had bought the wedding ring, and had it inscribed with the date of the wedding, and something personal, which was to be a secret he said, until he put it on her finger. Their rooms were booked in one of the most glamorous hotels on the Cornish coast. They were to spend the first week there then go on to the Scilly Isles. After that there would be the thrill of coming back, finding a home and furnishing it, and settling down to life as a married couple.

Briony thought with poignant tenderness of Clive. Her heart throbbed with the strong passionate conviction that she was making the absolutely right choice.

It had been a case of love at first sight. Never to be forgotten was that thrilling evening at the Savoy. Penelope was responsible for her meeting with Clive. It had been her twenty-first birthday party. Her brother, Peter, had brought Clive along. Peter was also an engineer. It amused Briony now to remember that when she had first been introduced to Clive and danced with him, she had been rather cool and off-hand with him. He was so good looking and full of charm and she had been so fascinated by him, that it had had the effect of making her hold herself aloof. She was terrified that he would see how strongly he affected her. Now she knew that he (so he said) had felt the same way about her. He had had many girl-friends, but did not intend to marry until he was over thirty. But Briony had ‘knocked him flat’. She had been in white that night, a white spangled net dress ‘off the shoulders’, and with the full crinoline type of skirt. Her hair was arranged in a bunch of red-gold curls over one ear. She had worn long white gloves and silver sandal shoes.

‘My crinoline girl!’ Clive had called her. That Victorian touch of coldness, of shyness, belying the warmth in Briony’s grey-blue eyes, had intrigued him vastly.

After that, he had scarcely missed a week-end in the Moores’ Reigate home, and not long afterwards he and Briony had become officially engaged.

As she sat talking with the other girls, it struck Briony that one of the most amazing things about an engagement was the fact that although the two concerned seemed to know each other intimately, they did not really know each other at all. They were bound to discover all kinds of new and wonderful things about each other after they were married. Some of them unattractive perhaps! He would produce faults … inevitably … since he was only human, although at the moment she could find absolutely nothing wrong with Clive except that he was unpunctual and a little inclined to exaggerate. Once or twice she had thought, too, that he was on the vague side, and liable to forget some of the important things he said, or meant to do. However, he never forgot to tell her that he loved her! That was what counted with a girl in love. And he was oh! so charming and so clever. She was sure he would succeed at any job he took up. Daddy, himself, said that Clive was very intelligent. He was always nice to Mummy, too, and he played wonderful tennis and was a marvellous dancer. What more could a girl want? They would not be frightfully well off to begin with but few young couples of their age could expect to be, at first. And if matrimony meant cooking and housework and all the rest of it … what did it matter, Briony thought, if one had a husband like Clive?

Mrs. Moore called playfully from the french windows.

‘Am I to hide a letter from Clive as well as your parcels?’

‘Don’t you dare!’ cried Briony, and darted out of her deck-chair and rushed to her mother.

‘This will be to say what time he is coming down tomorrow,’ she added breathlessly.

Mrs. Moore smiled and began to clear up the tea things. What it was to be in love! Even though it was over twenty-two years ago she could remember feeling the same feverish happiness at the sight of a letter in Geoffrey’s handwriting.

Then she turned her head quickly and looked at her daughter. Briony had given a sharp exclamation. The mother saw that all her lovely rose pink colour had drained from her cheeks. She was milk white. Mrs. Moore put down the tea-tray.

‘Bri! What on earth is the matter, darling?’

The girl did not answer. It was obvious that she had received some kind of a shock. Her eyes which had been so full of happiness a few minutes ago had gone suddenly blank, with dilated pupils.

‘What is it, darling?’ repeated her mother, terrified.

Briony shook her head. She seemed unable to speak. The muscles of her throat worked. Mrs. Moore saw that the slim body was shaking. Then blindly Briony held out the letter that she had just read.

Mrs. Moore found her glasses, put them on and hurriedly glanced through the letter.

Her heart sank as she took in its meaning. She, herself, was conscious of shock. This was calamity. She could hardly believe what she read, but it was there in black and white … in Clive Dormer’s small rather cramped handwriting … there to be seen and believed, shocking and incredible though it was.

Briony, my darling, how much I hate to write this letter I can never tell you. I have already written three letters and torn them up. I wondered if it might be better to come down as arranged tomorrow and tell you the news myself. Then I decided that I could not face you, for if I did I might break down and revoke my own decision. I love you so much. I can hardly bear it. Yet the decision is one I have got to make for both our sakes.

Briony, we can’t get married next week. We must cancel the whole thing. I know it is leaving it pretty late. It means sending back all the presents and that sort of thing. It’s pretty awful but it has got to be done. I have already cancelled my part of the arrangements because I am leaving England on Monday. Briony, it’s my job. My whole career is at stake. From the bottom of my heart I beg you to forgive me and try to understand. It isn’t that I have stopped loving you. I’ve never met any other girl that I wanted to marry and you are wonderful and I still want you to marry me if you don’t mind waiting. But it means a three years’ wait for both of us. It’s pretty grim when you think of all our dreams and plans. I can’t allow myself to remember Land’s End and all I am going to miss next week. But there it is. Oh, Briony, try to forgive me and tell me you understand. …

Mrs. Moore skipped through a few more paragraphs of this (as she afterwards described it to her husband ‘nauseating stuff’), and went on to facts. There was one salient fact that stood out in the whole letter. Clive had been offered a wonderful job in the engineering world, but it was open only to an unmarried man. It was to be abroad, and it carried a big salary—magnificent prospects. Fine for Clive! Tempting bait for any ambitious young man and Clive was ambitious. Briony’s father had recognized that fact. But none of them had imagined that so overmastering was his desire for fame and fortune that he would put it in front of his marriage.

A positively devastating selfishness leaped nakedly from the four pages of Clive’s letter. It was meant to be a form of apology—he continually reassured Briony that he loved her. But it was in fact the revelation of a man’s absorbing interest in himself to the exclusion of anybody or anything else.

It must have taken Clive hours to concoct. It twisted and turned. He seemed conscious of his own guilt; ashamed of it. Euphemistically he talked about ‘only postponing the wedding’. After his three years’ term was up, he said, he would find a way of getting Briony out to him. Or, perhaps, before that he would find a bigger and better job which would enable him to send for her.

It ended with an appeal to her to forgive, but never to forget him, and to assure her that he was ‘hurting himself’ far more than her by this decision. But the said decision was irrevocable. He finished by begging her to send him away with her good wishes and still to wear his ring.

Mrs. Moore finished the letter and looked at her daughter, her whole being flooded with resentment against Clive. She could see what the letter had already done to her darling. The girl’s face was a mask of pain and bewilderment. Her teeth chattering, Briony now spoke:

‘He can’t ever have loved me as I loved him. He can’t or he couldn’t have done this to me. Oh Mummy, we were going to be married next week. Everything is arranged. Mummy, tell me it is not true!’

Mrs. Moore shook her head dumbly. Sensible woman though she was, this was too much. She was at a loss to know what to say or how to comfort her girl. But somewhere at the back of her brain a small voice was beginning to remind her that right from the start she had mistrusted Clive. He was too good looking—had too much charm, not enough stability. He had been spoiled by that aunt who had brought him up in place of his mother and who, along with his silly doting old father, had always let him have his own way. He had never really been good enough for Briony. Her loyal, honest, deeply affectionate Bri, who would have died rather than do a thing like this.

Briony was speaking again in an anguished voice which cut the mother to the quick.

‘I can’t understand it … I can’t. He was just as thrilled as I was about our marriage when I saw him the day before yesterday. I suppose he had not had the job offered him then. And he hasn’t even waited to talk things over with me. He says he has cancelled everything. He’s going abroad on Monday and without me. For three whole years. Oh, Mummy …!’ Suddenly, wildly, Briony called to the two girls who were laughing and chatting under the chestnut tree

‘Hi! you two … Liz … Pen … you had better come and help pack up the wedding presents. They have all got to go back. I am not going to get married after all. Isn’t it a joke?’

Her voice cracked. The other girls started to come across the lawn, their faces bewildered. Briony turned and rushed out of the dining-room and up the stairs. The house reverberated with the sound of a door banging. Her bedroom door.

Lorna Moore stood very still, holding Clive’s letter in one hand, the other pressed against her lips which were quivering. She felt quite sick. It seemed impossible that anything like this could happen to Briony … to any of her family. They had all been so happy always and especially today. All those presents in there … little David in his page’s suit … Briony’s wedding dress … over one hundred guests invited to the church; the reception all arranged. Oh, how dreadful!

Then she pulled herself together and tried to answer the questions the two girls were hurling at her. Yes, something had happened … she could explain now … yes, the wedding would not now take place … poor Briony was very upset, naturally … but she didn’t want anything said to anybody in the district. Please go home now, dears, she told them, but don’t take anything for granted or start any rumours. Briony would telephone them and tell them more later on. …

So Elizabeth and Penelope left. Full of disappointment, anxious for Briony—they left the house which a short while ago had been so full of bliss. There now hung over it a black threatening cloud.

David and his mother also left. Nobody knew anything except that the wedding was ‘off’, because Briony had had bad news. The birds went on singing merrily in the green trees and the close of the beautiful June day was tranquil and heavenly. But from Briony’s bedroom came the sound of heartbroken sobs. And the girl who had thought that she was going to get married next week to the most wonderful man in the world, lay face downwards on her bed, drenching the pillow with the most bitter tears she was ever likely to shed.

‘YOU had better have a strong drink before I tell you the news, Geoff,’ said Lorna Moore as her husband entered the house and greeted her with the usual kiss and genial smile.

‘Glorious day——’ he began.

She broke in and told him exactly what had happened about Briony and Clive.

The smile was wiped from Mr. Moore’s face. He did not have the ‘strong drink’ but he had a long soft one and while he sat in the cool sitting-room, drinking and listening to what his wife had to say, the most bitter anger and resentment on behalf of his young daughter welled up in him.

‘Well, I’m blowed!’ he exclaimed. ‘But I never liked that young man, never. There was always something about him that I didn’t like. I accepted him because Bri wanted me to.’

‘Same here,’ said Briony’s mother.

She had recovered from the shock of Clive’s letter, but not from the knowledge that Briony was still upstairs, locked in her bedroom, crying her eyes out. Her child’s hurt was hers. It all seemed so humiliating as well as miserable for the poor darling. She had virtually been ‘jilted’! That ‘wait for me’ business with a three years’ limit was a lot of bunkum.

Mr. Moore agreed. He had much more to say and said it vigorously.

‘Young whippersnapper! He can’t do this to our girl. Where’s our ABC, Lorna! I am going to see and settle Mr. Clive.’

That was where Briony came in—she had entered the room so quietly that her parents did not notice the door handle turn. They looked at her. She was very pale and her eyes were red rimmed but she was quite calm now. He. . .