The Uncertain Heart

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

A captivating love story from the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance first published in 1949 and available now for the first time in eBook. Linda quietly hoped that her absence abroad would awaken tender feelings in Grant. But when she returned, he was as uncertain as ever. And besides, there was a new woman in his life.

Release date: March 27, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 256

Sample

It seemed typical to Linda that it should be raining on the day she landed in England. Dear old England! It must rain, even though it was August and people were supposed to be having their summer holidays.

Linda loved the sun, and as a rule the wet and dismal weather depressed her. But today she could not be depressed for she was going home. It was the end of her job as a typist in a ‘pool’, in Frankfurt. She had only taken it on for six months and she had never really liked it. Her heart was at home with her young, pretty, amusing mother. They had been everything to each other since the death of Linda’s father, and Linda had only taken on the job with UNNRA because Mummie had insisted.

‘You’re young and beautiful and I want you to take this chance to get away from London and domestic drudgery,’ Mrs. Rowan had said.

So she had prevailed upon Linda to go abroad and promised to have her sister—Linda’s Aunt Doris—to stay with her so that Linda need not be afraid that she should be lonely or uncared for. For in a way Linda was more capable than her own mother. Mummie was one of those petite, helpless, appealing people—the weak kind who lean perpetually on the strong and get away with it. Women with big blue eyes and wistful lips and that air of pathos could always get away with it. But Linda was strong and determined and would never lean on anybody, so she had taken care of her mother ever since her father had left them alone.

She was twenty-four today. Yes, this was her birthday—this great day of her return to London. She could barely wait for the bus to take her from the airport (she had been flown back from Frankfurt with several other members of the staff) and reached the terminus at Victoria; hardly wait to find a taxi to carry her on to the little house in Hampstead, which had been Linda’s home since she was a child.

Lucky to have that home with all the housing problems facing the country at the moment but Mr. Rowan, one-time manager of a bank in this district, had the foresight to buy this small property fifteen years ago and so Linda and her mother profited by it now.

Linda’s heart beat fast with happy emotion when at last she saw the familiar little red-brick house which they called The Cottage. There were the scarlet geraniums Mummie always loved, rich and fragrant in the window-boxes, and the two little bay trees in their green tubs, and the fresh net curtains at the windows. Mummie always had things looking charming and so gay. Linda adored her home. She was in a mood today to adore the whole world. She was finished with gloomy, derelict Germany and post-war work, and now she was going to get a job at home and stay with Mummie. Nothing would get her away from this little house again—until she got married.

Until …

There was poignancy in that thought for Linda because there was one particular man in this world whom she loved with a love which exceeded anything she had ever before felt about any human being. It couldn’t, of course, be compared with her feelings for her mother, or any of her friends. It was the love of a girl for a man. She was crazy about him, crazy to see him again. And although she would not have admitted it, one of the reasons why she was so frantic to get back to England was because the job with UNRRA had taken her away from Grant Norris. Then, too, Grant was not much of a letter writer and she had heard from him so infrequently. He wrote—he said he missed her. But the maddening thing to Linda was the fact that she didn’t know in the least whether he loved her; whether the six months’ separation had been as hard for him as for her; or whether, indeed, he ever intended to ask her to marry him.

Loving Grant was a bit of a poser for Linda and she knew it.

But now she concentrated on the thought of her reunion with her beloved mother.

She paid the taxi, lifted up her two cases, plumped them on the steps and hammered on the green-painted door with the little Georgian knocker (they had found that ages ago in an antique shop in Church Street—both fond of hunting treasures together).

The door opened.

The greeting which Linda had prepared for her mother died on her lips. She stared with perplexity at a man who was an entire stranger to her. A tall, thin, soldierly figure who looked to Linda as though he had stepped straight out of an advertisement. Silver hair, a smartly-cut suit, a well-bred, distinguished man who might be anything between fifty-five and sixty.

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Linda, and dropped her attaché case in confusion.

The tall man picked it up.

‘Allow me.’

She looked up at him as he handed her the case. He looked down at her. Linda was flushed and, had she but known it, looking very lovely, brown from the sun (in her off-time she had led very much an open-air life in Germany), slim and tall with nut-brown wavy hair cut short, and grey-blue eyes—brilliant eyes—thickly, darkly lashed, and a curving mouth that held promise of fire and passion and a touch of wilfulness that could not be denied.

The man with the monocle looked at this glowing, beautiful girl and gave a nervous cough.

‘You are Linda,’ he said.

‘Yes—isn’t my mother here? Are you …’

She broke off and he said quickly:

‘I might as well introduce myself straight away, my dear. I’m Trevor Vane, your stepfather—I hope this isn’t too much of a shock for you?’

Linda stood there like one in a stupor. The blood raced to her cheeks then receded. She did not notice that it was beginning to rain again. She could only stare at this man who called himself her stepfather. He said that he hoped that it wasn’t too much of a shock. … Heavens! It was the biggest shock she had ever received in her life.

He saw her distress and seemed, himself, upset. He said:

‘Do come in. You’ll get wet. Didn’t you know about us? I thought Angela had written to you. I know she was dreading it but I told her that she ought to prepare you for this. She’s a naughty little thing.’

Linda froze completely on those words. It gave her the cold shudders to hear this man talking about her mother as ‘a naughty little thing’. It conjured up visions of an intimacy for which she was indeed totally unprepared, and must inevitably hate. Mummy married again! Somebody in Daddy’s place. Someone in her place, installed in The Cottage. All Linda’s dreams about coming back to lead a lovely life of happy companionship with Mummie shattered into a thousand fragments in the space of a few moments.

The unknown and unsuspected stepfather was carrying in her cases. Linda followed like one in a nightmare, wishing that she could pinch herself awake. The well-known sitting-room with its quaint old Dutch oak dresser, blue Delft china, faded familiar chintzes, rugs—books—all the things she had missed in her German billet seemed blurred. So, too, was the face of her mother.

Mrs. Trevor Vane stood in front of the fireplace looking her most appealing self in a new blue dress that brought out the blue of her eyes. She had always seemed to Linda like a Dresden china figure—so fair and fragile, with fair curly hair which had only sufficient grey in it to make it look blonde-cendré and just the faintest network of wrinkles about eyes and lips; otherwise she might have been thirty instead of forty-four.

‘Oh Linda, darling, do forgive me—forgive us!’ said Angela Vane with a break in her voice, and came with outstretched hands towards her tall, sunbrowned daughter.

Some of the ice about Linda’s heart melted. She burst into tears—a thing of which she would not have thought herself capable. Her mother, with a pretty gesture, motioned the tall man to leave them alone. The weeping Linda was led to the sofa and with an arm about her, her mother began to state her case and make her apologies.

She had never, never intended this to happen, but while she and Aunt Doris were at Eastbourne at the end of June on holiday they had been introduced to Trevor Vane who was a friend of a friend down there. He was a widower without children, and a chartered accountant. He was living at his Club at that moment. He had fallen madly in love with Angela and she with him although, she said, she had never thought she would ever marry again and replace Linda’s darling father; but Trevor was such a kind, courteous person and did seem to need her and she had suddenly realised that she needed him, too.

‘Perhaps it will be difficult for you to understand, darling, but at forty-four one is still young and it has been a bit lonely for me since Daddy died. Not that you haven’t been everything, but the companionship of marriage is so different. … I’m sure you do understand, don’t you?’

At this point Linda pulled herself together, blew her nose violently, and made a valiant effort to take this blow well, for her mother’s sake.

‘If … if Mr. Vane makes you happy, that’s all I want,’ she said in a choked voice.

Mrs. Vane looked radiant again.

‘You’re a darling, Lindy, and I knew you’d see it this way. And you must call him Trevor. He wants you to.’

Linda bit her lip and said:

‘But why didn’t you write? Why did you keep it all from me? You didn’t even give me the chance to send my good wishes; I don’t even know when you were married.’

Angela Vane admitted then that she had been a coward—afraid to tell her daughter, although Trevor had wanted her to. Trevor was the most upright, sympathetic person, she said. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, and he had been worried about Linda’s reaction, knowing what a lot of plans she had made about the future. But he didn’t want any of those plans altered; Linda was absolutely welcome here in her home as always; she and Trevor would get on … they would all three get on.

And the little woman continued to chatter until Linda’s brain whirled and she was given small chance to think what this really meant to her. Then back came Trevor Vane and was most charming, adding to his wife’s, his assurance that they both wanted Linda here with them and that nothing was to be changed.

Linda tried to look around and concentrate. In many ways nothing was changed. Mummie’s tender solicitude for her … Linda’s favourite cake for tea … her favourite flowers. And, of course, a lovely birthday present. And she was to dine with them tonight at the Dorchester. Trevor Vane had hired a car specially to take them there and back for the occasion.

Linda looked from her mother’s pretty anxious face to the kind and handsome one of her new stepfather. They were both being so nice—doing everything to make her feel better about this. And nobody could help liking Trevor, nor doubt that he would make a very excellent husband for Mummie, who basked in his smiles and his old-world gallantry.

Yet at the bottom of Linda’s heart there was an awful sinking sensation. Her home-coming had been spoiled at its very source. It was not to be a case of Mummie and her, but of a trio, and there was that well-known saying ‘two’s company’ with its bitter truth.

Bitterly true was the fact, thought Linda, that if she walked out of this house tonight, Mummie and her husband could get on quite well without her.

The tears were threatening Linda again and she made some excuse to go upstairs and unpack. As she went, she heard her mother’s voice:

‘Trevor darling, we mustn’t forget we’re going to your uncle’s for lunch tomorrow. …’

Linda shut her door. Try as she would to be glad that Mummie had found this new happiness she felt hot and resentful deep down within her. So, tomorrow they were lunching out together. It would often be like that. She would be alone. They would go out. It was only natural. They were married and in love.

How queer to think of Mummie in love again!

Instinctively Linda’s thoughts turned to her own love life—and particularly to Grant. She had brought up all her mail and she sorted through the letters and one or two parcels feverishly looking for Grant’s writing.

There was no parcel from him. Possibly he didn’t even remember today was her birthday. Grant was much too intent on business affairs to remember dates of that kind. He was the most hard-working, conscientious person she had ever known. But a fortnight ago she had written to him from Frankfurt telling him that she would be home today and asking him to look her up. Surely there would be a welcoming note. …

But there wasn’t.

Linda’s sensitive mouth quivered. She was a person of intense feeling and at the moment she felt intensely and utterly miserable. With her world crashing around her she opened the letters one by one. Letters from kind friends and relations who remembered that she was twenty-four today—that she had just come home from abroad.

Of course there was both a letter and a parcel from Tony Wharton. The faithful Tony who, of all her boy friends, always remembered occasions like this one. He had sent her a book that she wanted and an eager letter begging her to lunch with him as soon as she could, telling her that he was thrilled that she was back in town.

Good old Tony! But of course he was in love with her and had been for the last two years. With dogged devotion he hung around waiting for her to change her mind. It was such a pity that she couldn’t love Tony. He wasn’t bad looking, just thirty, and had a first-rate job in his father’s printing firm of which he would eventually be managing director. Mummie liked him. Everybody liked Tony. Good-natured, generous—a wonderful friend. And it cheered Linda even now to get his note and the book and realise that he was unchanged when everything else in life seemed to have let her down.

Yet as she stood up, took off her coat and looked out of her bedroom window at the steady summer rain it was not Tony who occupied her thoughts. Not even Mummie and the new stepfather downstairs. It was of Grant that she was thinking … Grant, the irresistible, incalculable and altogether difficult man whose love she so ardently desired.

She had a swift mental vision of him … the tall, strong figure and fine, strong face. He had square shoulders and a square jaw and a determination as unshakable as her own. She had found that out on many occasions! If anything he was the more determined—the stronger of the two. Perhaps that was why she loved him so much. A man like Tony Wharton hung around waiting for the crumbs … but Grant Norris would never wait for favours from any woman. He was and always had been a challenge to Linda, and Linda liked to fight. In that way she was so completely different from her mother.

Grant had brown thick hair much the same colour as Linda’s own but his eyes were bluer—a rather steely blue narrowly set under thick dark brows. Some people thought he looked too masterful, as though he enjoyed a fight. But it wasn’t true. Linda had known Grant and his family for many years, and those who were well-acquainted with him were also well aware that the steel-blue eyes and the masterful manner were only a small part of his make-up. He also had a great sense of humour and of injustice (which was one thing Linda admired above all others) and a great love of small children and animals. Why, she had seen Grant quite broken up over the death of his favourite dog just before she went to Germany. Oh, there were so many endearing qualities in Grant and perhaps the fact that he was in many ways a contradiction made him even more attractive.

But he had not yet told her that he loved her.

At times he had seemed so near to it. Just before the fall of Japan, for instance, when he was still in the Navy and had come back on leave and seen so much of her and Mummie.

Grant’s parents were dead. He generally spent his leave with his uncle and aunt who, like Linda, had a house in Hampstead. Mummie and Mrs. Norris were great friends. They were always in and out of each other’s houses.

Linda had found Grant heart-breakingly handsome and attractive in Naval uniform with the tan of the sea on his face and a devil-may-care look in those blue eyes of his.

During that leave he had seemed to devote himself to her and take her everywhere. Linda had then been doing part-time work for a Government office but had managed to synchronise her own holidays with his.

They had had a wonderful time. Dining out, dancing, driving in his small car, rushing around, behaving as they always did—arguing furiously (two strong-minded people like themselves were bound to fight) but enjoying every moment spent in each other’s company. They had so many tastes in common. But whereas Linda was head-over-heels in love … Grant never let the association swerve from the platonic. He kept off sentimental moments and Linda waited and hoped and thought that she understood Grant and that he was himself just waiting for the psychological moment. Mummie had often said that she knew Grant would eventually ask her to marry him and friends of Linda’s who had seen them together, thought so too. And Linda herself never really doubted it. She felt dedicated to him. There was nobody, could be nobody, who meant as much to her as Grant.

Miserably, today, she looked down at the wet pavements and running gutters. It was close and sticky and beastly in London and all the joy of her home-coming had been blighted. Oh, why hadn’t Grant written? Was he away? Mummie had said in her last letter that Mr. and Mrs. Norris were down in Torquay, but Grant had rooms now somewhere near Earl’s Court. His head office was close to the Underground. He was working for one of the big insurance companies. And if Linda could find any fault with him it was that he made such a god of his job and put it before anything or anybody.

Of course she could see things from his point of view. He was twenty-seven and had spent six years in the Navy. Years that had been wasted so far as business training was concerned. He had no private means, only a good education and his unbounded energy and determination to aid him, and the firm had held open this job which he had started when he was twenty-one, just before the war. But it was bound to mean an uphill climb now—a tremendous effort if he was to get anywhere. Linda had felt quite worried about him when they last met. He had looked pale and tired and preoccupied and could talk of nothing much but ‘the firm’. All that concentration, and living in digs, lack of fresh air—poor food—were soul-destroying, Linda felt. But when she had ventured to say so he had snapped at her and said:

‘Don’t be an idiot, Lindy—a fellow’s got to make his way. I want to get somewhere and I won’t do it unless I go all out one hundred per cent.’

(How she had longed to tell him that he would do so much better if he had a comfortable home to come home to, a wife to look after him, and something more than ambition to slave for!)

She must see Grant. Perhaps he hadn’t realised that she was coming home today. Later on, she would telephone his digs. She knew the number.

Her mother came into the room.

‘Are you all right, darling? Darling, you have forgiven me, and you will be nice to Trevor, won’t you? He’s so anxious to please you.’

Linda’s grey-blue eyes softened and she put an arm around her pretty mother—dropped a kiss on the blonde-cendré hair.

‘Of course I will. I think he’s awfully nice and I’m terribly pleased you’re so happy, Mummie.’

‘I want you to be happy, too.’ said Angela Vane, with a warmth that was genuine. ‘Now about tonight, Trevor says do ask anybody you like as a fourth. Can’t we get hold of one of your boy friends? I did think of Tony, but I know you find him a bit of a bore; and I did think of Grant, but …’

‘Yes?’ said Linda, with a throb in her voice.

‘But I haven’t been able to get hold of him,’ finished her mother. ‘You know the Norrises are out of town and I didn’t know Grant’s private number and I’m afraid I’m so stupid, darling, I forgot the name of his insurance company so couldn’t ring his office.’

Linda stood ruminating.

Her heart beats quickened and a sudden look of hope came into her eyes. If Grant would come to the birthday party at the Dorchester tonight what a difference that would make … all the difference in the world! It was always so wonderful and invigorating being with Grant … sane, sensible Grant who at times could be gloriously insane and swing one up to the heights and then … oh dear! … let one down with a bump. But that was Grant.

Suddenly she swung round to her mother.

‘I’ll give you Grant’s number … You go along and phone him and ask him to come tonight,’ she said breathlessly.

‘I’ve never seen you look so wonderful, Linda,’ Tony Wharton said in a voice of immense enthusiasm.

He meant it as he looked across the table at the slim sunbrowned girl in the ice-blue dinner dress with a little blue, sequin-spangled net floating from her nut-brown head. She seemed t. . .