Authors: Unknown
“Extremely well, as a matter of fact,” Susan told him. “She’s interested, and that’s the main thing.”
She hesitated, wanting to produce the new catalogues for their approval, and then decided to show them first to Max, possibly at Fetterburn, when she sent the tweed samples back to the mill. She could return them personally, she decided impulsively, to discuss them with him on a business footing, since that seemed to be all he wanted.
Grisell appeared at the terrace windows, fresh and glowing from her ride across the moor.
“I did work all morning,” she told Susan. “The new sketches are in the library, if you’ll have a look at them, and I’ve done something with the cashmere, though you might not like it.”
Max rose to go, breaking up what Evelyn now considered to be their happy family circle. Yet she had seemed quite willing to include Lilias.
“You’re always in such a hurry, Max!” she declared, smiling up into his set face. “I thought I had managed to capture you for dinner, too.”
“Not tonight,” he said, letting his hand fall gently on her shoulder. “Thank you, all the same, Evelyn.”
Lilias got up to follow him from the room.
“It’s been a simply super afternoon, Mrs. Denham,” she declared with what seemed to be the utmost sincerity. “Thanks for everything!”
For including her, Susan thought. For making her feel welcome at Denham. But Evelyn didn’t really like Lilias. Oh, obtuse Evelyn!
Grisell strolled with them through the hall and Susan went in search of young Adam, keeping the catalogues to herself.
The following morning at breakfast she showed them to her stepmother.
“They’re heavenly!” Evelyn declared. “All these soft, lovely colours, and you’ve chosen a marvellous name for them!”
“Lammermoor,” Susan mused, gazing out of the window. “I must have been thinking of the Bride!”
She was vaguely happy these days, working for Denham’s, working for Max, she supposed. She glanced at her watch.
“It’s time I was on my way,” she said, gathering up the scattered catalogues. “I’m going across to Fetterburn, to the mill.”
Evelyn smiled.
“Give my love to Max,” she said.
Grisell passed her in the doorway.
“Did you see my sketches?” she asked.
“Yes, we’ll go over them as soon as I get back.” Susan gave her an encouraging smile. “Not filming this morning?”
“I thought I’d better put in half a day at work,” Grisell answered. “The light isn’t very good, as a matter of fact,” she added truthfully.
Susan drove straight to Fetterburn. She had taken the tweed samples home with her the night before and they were in the back of the car. As she gathered them together she felt compelled to glance up to the windows of the office set high in the newly-sanded stone wall of the mill. Max was standing at one of them, looking down at her.
Something about his set face and the almost belligerent stance made her want to turn and run, but she had come with a purpose in mind and she couldn’t retreat now.
Max opened the office door in response to her knock.
“You’ve saved me a journey,” he said. “I was on my way to Yairborough.”
There could be no mistaking his present mood. Anger tinged with a cold hint of regret was in every line of his stern face and his eyes were harder now than she had ever seen them.
While she was still thinking of something to say to him, he crossed to the wide mahogany desk in the centre of the floor and flung something down on its polished surface. Thinking about him in the costume he had worn so effectively when they had last been as close as this, it was as if he had thrown down a gauntlet.
She looked at the challenging piece of paper on the desk, recognising it as a catalogue. Someone else’s catalogue.
“Maybe you can explain that,” Max said, his voice as cold as steel. “They’re your designs, I understand. You’ve certainly hit the jackpot this time!”
Susan remained staring at the catalogue on the desk for a full minute before anything he had said began to make sense, and then only his final words stood out to confront her with their icy logic. They
were
her designs!
She picked up the catalogue, reading the name of the firm blazoned across the front of it. Ewing and Haverford. It couldn’t be true! She began to turn the pages in an agony of disbelief. There were five coats, all offered in a hundred per cent cashmere, and a dozen knitwear designs which were an exact replica of her own.
“It just isn’t possible!” she breathed.
“That’s what I thought when I first saw them.” Max’s voice was ice-cold.
Susan turned to face him. His eyes were no longer faintly accusing. There was a fierce light in them now and a hint of scorn about his mouth.
"You think I did this deliberately!” she gasped.
He moved away from her, prowling across the floor.
“What am I to think?” he demanded. “You see what it says—‘Exclusive to Ewing and Haverford’. They’re our greatest rivals and they have our designs. Even the cashmeres,” he added stonily.
Exclusive to Ewing and Haverford! Susan couldn’t think beyond that for a moment. The words seemed to be emblazoned ten feet high between them, together with the fact that their rivals had managed to produce their catalogue a month ahead of them. All that this could mean for Denham’s and Elliott’s suddenly struck her with the force of a blow, and as suddenly her mind cleared. Max was accusing her. He believed her guilty of perfidy, of selling out to the highest bidder.
How could he? She worked for Denham’s, she was part of the new set-up, whatever else he thought of her, and so she had to be loyal.
“Give me a minute,” she begged desperately, and it was as if she were asking for a lifeline.
Max stopped his pacing.
“Who are you working for, Susan?” he asked sharply. “This couldn’t be just a coincidence, not by the greatest stretch of the imagination. I know you’ve always resented the take-over, but this could have disastrous repercussions for Denham’s and for Elliott’s. If we can’t put out an autumn catalogue—and, as I see it, we can’t now—we’re going to lag a long way behind everybody else for at least six months, and these are vital months.”
"I'll find out who did this,” Susan said harshly, “if it takes me a lifetime! I know you don’t trust me,” she rushed on, so near to tears that she couldn’t look in his direction. “I know nothing I say or do could ever alter your opinion of me, but I wouldn’t sell my Denham designs to a rival firm. Not in a million years!”
Before he could stop her she had rushed to the door.
“Look here, Susan—” he began, but she had already gone, stumbling down the narrow stone staircase with Ewing and Haverford’s catalogue in her hand and a terrible weight of hopelessness in her heart.
Before she reached Yairborough, however, dismay had been displaced by a dogged determination to find out the truth. One look at the catalogue had been enough to convince her that there was no coincidence, as Max had pointed out. Someone had taken her designs and sold them to the rival firm. But who?
The answer seemed very simple. Only Grisell had access to the sketches for long enough to be able to copy them in such minute detail.
Grisell! She stopped in her tracks to confront the obvious while the blood rushed to her cheeks in a flood of anger. How could Grisell have done such a thing after all she had done for her and after all Max’s toleration?
Her first impulse was to go to Grisell direct, to confront her with the catalogue and demand an explanation, but instead she went to Denham’s. Climbing the stairs to her office on the first floor, she remembered how Max had spoken to her about his niece, his plea for her help and understanding, and Grisell’s own desire to work to please both Max and her father. Grisell really wanted their appreciation and trust, but this was no way to go about it!
Susan was still angry, but she could divide her mind between emotion and the practical necessity of looking to the future. Max had been right about the catalogue; there was nothing they could do about it now. Ewing and Haverford had probably bought the designs in good faith when they were offered to them—although how they had been offered was difficult to say—and there was no point in confronting them with similarities. Their colours were poor in comparison with Elliott’s, but their designs were already on the market.
Flicking over the leaves of her desk calendar, she made a rapid calculation. It was impossible, but she would have to do it. Within three weeks she must have another set of designs off her drawing-board and into production. Their catalogue would be late in reaching the trade, but Denham Exclusives would be on the market before the autumn. A great deal of time and patience and effort had been lost and their present catalogues would have to be scrapped, but that was about all.
Forcing her mind to the task, she worked on through the lunch break, ordering a sandwich and a glass of milk to be sent up from the canteen and saying that she must not be disturbed.
“That goes for everybody,” she insisted. “All comers, whoever they may be!”
Her determination had always been strongest when faced with disaster and it was almost easy for her to work now. She sat with her drawing-board on her knees and a frown of concentration between her brows till Aaron Spottiswode came knocking on the door to ask her how long she was likely to be. It was seven o’clock and he wanted to go home.
“I could have locked up,” she said. “Sorry, Aaron, but I had to concentrate!”
She had taken the foreman into her confidence up to a point, and although he had shaken his head and said that what she was attempting just couldn’t be done, she knew that he would support her in every way he could.
“You’re your father’s daughter, Miss Susan,” he declared. “If ye say you’ll do it, I suppose ye will!”
They locked up and she offered him a lift as far as the council estate, where he lived.
“I shall be in early in the morning,” she told him, “but I’ve got my own key. I don’t want anyone prowling round the office, by the way,” she cautioned. “No one at all!”
Evelyn was frankly anxious by the time she reached Denham House.
“I thought you had gone up to the peel tower to help with the filming and there had been some sort of accident,” she said.
“No.” Susan hesitated, wondering how much she should tell her stepmother. “I worked late.”
“But I thought the collection was finished.”
“We’ve scrapped it.” Susan sat down to her belated meal. “I can’t go into all the details, but I’ve had to begin from scratch again.”
“Oh—no! How could this have happened?” Evelyn protested.
“It didn’t happen naturally.” Susan was still angry. “Someone took my designs and sold them to Ewing and Haverford, for a fairly high price, I should imagine.”
“Oh, Sue!” Evelyn came to put a sympathetic arm about her shoulders. “This is terrible, after all your hard work, too. And your designs were—-different.”
“Some of them were Grisell's ideas,” Susan pointed out bitterly.
“You don’t think that Grisell—?”
“What am I to think?” Susan pushed her soup plate to one side. “She could have done it. She had ample opportunity. But why?
Why?
She didn’t need the money. If she did this, she did it for some other reason.”
“We’ll have to be sure,” Evelyn said. “Absolutely sure.” Her face was very pale. “This will kill Richard,” she added desperately. “What are we to do?”
“Nothing, in that case,” Susan answered dully. “Max wouldn’t believe me, anyway, if I did try to prove it. He would just think me jealous. Grisell has got my horse and he believes I must bear her an eternal grudge because of Hope’s Star.”
“And do you?” Evelyn asked.
“Of course not! She can ride, and she knows how to handle Hope’s Star.”
That was a compliment, coming from Susan Denham. Evelyn moved towards the windows.
“Don’t do anything about Grisell just now,” she advised. “Let me handle this, Sue. Her father’s in a very poor state of health and any sudden shock—” Her lips quivered. “You understand?”
“Yes.” Suzan gazed at her intently. “I think I understand,” she answered slowly. “Are you going to marry Richard?”
Evelyn turned her back, gazing out across the gentle dale to the mist-crowned fells.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s—so little time.”
A lump rose into Susan’s throat.
“Even if it was only a month or two—” she suggested.
“I would settle for that.” Evelyn turned back into the room. “But Richard won’t. He thinks it would be unfair to me.”
“Unfair?” Susan spoke as if she couldn’t understand the word, “If he loves you, why should he think of being ‘fair’?”
Evelyn smiled at the question.
“That’s Richard,” she said.
Susan finished her meal in silence. She could do nothing about Grisell now.
“Don’t work too hard,” Evelyn cautioned when she rose from the table. “Max will find some way out.”
“I can’t leave everything to Max,” Susan objected, “but I won’t tell him about Grisell, if you think it’s going to cause trouble.”
Once, not so long ago, she would have blurted out the truth straight away, she mused, going at it like a bull at a gate to confront him with the fact that his trust had been misplaced and his judgment wasn’t infallible, after all, but not now. Too many people were being hurt in this small community—Evelyn, who was in love with Richard; Grisell half in love with Fergus and she, herself, in love with Max. Hopelessly in love with him! Nothing Evelyn could do would alter things. Richard wouldn’t ask Evelyn to many him out of a sense of ‘fairness’, and Grisell wouldn’t hang around for ever, waiting for Fergus to change his mind. Max might try to keep her in the dale for his brother’s sake, but one day she would go, possibly with Lilias.
Lilias? Susan thought of her ex-employee a great deal during the next few days when her own nose was kept to the grindstone both at the mill and in her ‘leisure’ time at Denham House. Lilias was still in the neighbourhood, acting out her 'bit' part at the Carse and up on the fells at the old peel tower where some of the film exteriors were being shot.