Authors: Unknown
Gerry felt her heartbeats quicken that this icy man in front of her could be big enough to indicate he might have made a mistake. Keeping her face as expressionless as possible wasn’t easy as the thought roared through her that perhaps he might agree to her staying on in her old job. She did hope so. She was sure to get the same money she was getting now—if they moved her to a department that didn’t pay so well heaven alone knew how she and Teddy would manage. Besides which, she had seen a new side to the work since he had taken over, and it now seemed more interesting than the work Mr Gillett had given her to do. Aware that her air of calm was in danger of slipping, she sat upright on her chair, her legs neatly crossed at the ankles as she gave him her attention. There was a pause between them which lengthened, and she was conscious he was giving her face a cold, unsmiling scrutiny. It unnerved her, and where she should have remained quiet and allowed him to finish, she found herself asking:
‘Are you saying I can keep my job? That I can still be P.A. to the Company Secretary?’
His expression didn’t alter, though he leaned back in his chair, showing he was very much at ease, very much in charge, while she was becoming more and more tense with every second as she waited for his answer.
‘With certain provisos,’ he tossed at her.
Here we go, she thought, getting herself ready for a lecture on her timekeeping. ‘I’ve been early every day this week,’ she blurted out, then could have bitten her tongue at his sarcastic answer.
'I'll see you get a medal.’ Then getting down to brass tacks,
‘
All
being well the new man will take over some time next month. His name is William Hudson,’ so Basil had been right yet again. ‘I think you should work well together. But,’ he paused, and she tensed at that, because there seemed to be an ominous threat in that small word. ‘But I’m rather afraid you may have picked up ways from William’s predecessor that are not in accordance with the way I want things done.’
Gerry wanted to protest that everyone had their own way of working, but could see the futility of that argument. True enough, she had worked in the way Mr Gillett had wanted, and probably had, she was prepared to concede, picked up bad habits. On Mr Gillett’s instruction she had taken short cuts which were not her style at all, but since she badly needed this job, she was fully prepared to take heed of what Crawford Arrowsmith was telling her. If he wanted the work doing without the aid of short-cutting, she was prepared to go along with him all the way.
‘I’m adaptable,’ she said quietly. ‘If you want the routine altered I’m in agreement with anything you suggest.’
He looked at her levelly, and she had a suspicion there was a gleam in his eye, like someone about to play a trump card, but nothing prepared her for his next statement.
‘Good,’ he said briefly. ‘I’m sure you’re a young woman who means what she says. That being the case you will, I know, have no objection to spending two or three days at our London office seeing the way things work there.’
‘London!’ she gasped, all calm gone from her now as her brain took in what was involved with Teddy for her to spend a couple of nights away from home. Annoyingly that unruly strand of hair had started to slip again and lay in a wave against the side of her face, as she tried desperately to remove her flabbergasted expression.
‘Yes—London,’ Crawford Arrowsmith said, noting her astonishment and adding sarcastically, ‘Did you think I said Mars?’
‘But I can’t! ’ she said, ignoring his sarcasm. Apart from the fact that Teddy couldn’t bear to be on her own at night—even in her teens she had needed other people around her at night—Teddy would never cope on her own.
‘If you want this job you can.’ The sarcasm had gone from him now, leaving him cold and ruthless. ‘What’s the matter—is there a queue waiting to have feet wiped all over them? Are you afraid your lover will find he can do without you if you go away for a few nights?’
Gerry stood up. She didn’t have to take this. He was thoroughly enjoying seeing her squirm—he knew he had her in a cleft stick.
‘Sit down.’ He said it quite mildly, but there was an authority in his voice that had her sitting when what she would have liked to do was hit that cold disdainful expression from off his face. ‘Accommodation has been booked for you,’ he told her, mentioning the name of the hotel, and seeming not to notice the sparks of anger flashing in her eyes at his previous remark. ‘You will travel on Sunday in order to report to our London offices at nine on Monday morning. You will stay in London on Monday night and Tuesday night, and if by Wednesday you’ve got the hang of how things are run that end, you may then return to Layton Is that clear?’
Gerry knew she dared not argue with anything he had said if she wanted to keep this PA. job that paid so well, though she looked forward to some far distant date when she could tell him exactly what she thought of his overbearing, arrogant, ruthless tactics. There was mutiny in every line of her body as she realised she had no choice but to agree to do what he wanted.
‘Yes—everything’s clear,’ she said through tight lips, and stood up. Somehow she had to find a way of getting out of this, but at the moment she couldn't think of a thing.
Crawford’s voice stopped her as she would have stormed out of his office. ‘You’re dying to tell me to go to hell, aren’t you?’ he questioned, and could see from the flame in her eyes how accurate his question had been. ‘You must love this—Ted person very much,’ he added, and there was a note in his voice she didn’t understand—which was just as well, she thought, since he understood enough about her to know if it wasn’t for Teddy, she’d have told him exactly where to go.
‘I do,’ she said quietly, and left the room closing the door behind her.
Perhaps it was a good thing the whole of her concentration was needed on transcribing the shorthand she had taken earlier. For it gave her little time to ponder on how she was going to spend three nights in London—more if, as he had intimated, she hadn’t got the hang of the way things were run. She didn’t see how she could possibly leave Teddy to cope on her own, and since they kept themselves to themselves, there wasn’t anyone in the village she knew well enough to ask to stay with her sister and the twins overnight.
It was nearly lunch time when Teddy rang asking her to get some cotton wool in her lunch hour, and Gerry was glad that the door between the two offices was closed and Crawford Arrowsmith wasn’t in earshot to give her some more of his sarcasm for being a doormat when she finished the call.
‘Everything all right?’ Teddy seemed to be coping quite well since their visit to Paul Meadows. Teddy assured her everything was fine.
‘The twins, for once in their lives, have both decided to go to sleep at the same time,’ Teddy told her with a little exaggeration. ‘So I’m taking advantage of that and am going to have five minutes myself.’
It was wonderful to hear Teddy without that tearful note in her voice as she said goodbye. It had been pure cowardice on her part, Gerry thought, as she put down the phone, that she hadn’t been able to tell her she was being sent to London for a few days.
Feeling the results of her broken night catching up on her, she took almost the whole of her lunch hour to relax and unwind. It would mean she’d have to go full pelt this afternoon, but she felt a weariness come over her and even though she was loath to give in to it, thought she might be more use to Teddy tonight if she relaxed now.
She had seen little of Crawford Arrowsmith since he had delivered his bombshell earlier, apart from knowing he had passed her desk unspeaking a couple of times during the afternoon. And when she took his letters in for signature at half past four, she would have left them on his desk as she had done before, but he told her to wait while he signed them, then she could take them up to the post room.
‘Did I say that?’ He pushed a letter along the desk to where she was standing.
Gerry took the letter up and read what had so obviously offended him. ‘In connection with yours of the fourteenth ultimo,’ she read, feeling a tide of pink colour come up under her skin that he should have to pull her up. It didn’t help to know he had turned in his chair and was watching her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, knowing he had dictated no such thing. Her concentration hadn’t been as great as she had thought, with the nagging worry of leaving Teddy intruding every so often. Mr Gillett had often started his letters in that stiff, creaking way, and she must have typed it automatically. ‘I’ll type it again,’ she said, and regretted now taking nearly all of her lunch hour, when only half an hour would have put her so much further ahead.
‘It’s no great crime,’ he said unexpectedly, causing her to turn to catch his slate grey eyes watching her embarrassed colour subside. ‘Though I’ll agree it will have to be typed again.’
She stood and waited while he checked the rest of the correspondence she had typed, and wanted to disappear through the floorboards when he found another two glaring errors. But to her amazement his tone was quite mild when he pointed these out to her and said he would like them retyped too.
What a strange man he was, she thought, as she returned to her typewriter. She would have expected any other reaction from him at her blatant incompetence—she didn’t think her obvious embarrassment had anything to do with the lack of anger in his voice when he had spoken to her—but she had seen another side of him she would never have suspected existed.
Having retyped the offending letters, she read them through carefully. Satisfied he could have no quarrel with the result, she prepared to take the letters in to him. First, though, she checked the clock and saw to her horror it was ten past five. Where the time had gone she had no idea, but it was a certainty she wouldn’t be home at the expected five-fifteen. Her fingers were automatically dialling Honeysuckle Cottage before she was aware she had lifted the phone. Gerry’s spirits sank that just as Teddy’s voice answered, the communicating door opened and Crawford Arrowsmith came in.
‘Hello,’ said Teddy, having given her number and hearing nothing in response.
‘Oh—hello, Ted,’ Gerry came back, tearing her eyes away from those slate grey ones that seemed to visibly harden as he heard whom she was telephoning. ‘Sorry to be so late in ringing you, but I’ll be about fifteen minutes late.’ There was a silence at the other end and Gerry was torn between a desire to soothe her sister and a desire to hurriedly finish the call, for Crawford Arrowsmith was looking at her as if he would like to snatch the phone out of her hand and slam it back on its rest. She tore her eyes away from him, hating that he had the power to make her feel so agitated. ‘All right, love?’
Teddy hadn’t been all that pleased, Gerry could tell that from her tone, but she hadn’t begun to weep as a week ago she might have done. Then there was no further time to worry about Teddy, for Crawford Arrowsmith had stretched out a hand and picked up the letters she had been going to take in to him.
‘Since you’ll be a threadbare doormat if you don't get home to dear Ted soon, you’d better go now,’ he said shortly.
Her eyes flew to his, but there was no answering spark of anger in his cold eyes, just an expression of disgust, that unaccountably defused her anger and made her heart lurch that he could think her so lacking in moral fibre.
She watched the back of him disappear into his own office, saw the door close quietly, and didn’t move for some seconds. He thinks I’m weak, she thought, and for no reason, when she had been at pains to keep her home life and business life separate, she would have dearly loved to follow him and explain that Teddy was her sister.
Of course, she soon got over that feeling once she was in her car and on her way to Little Layton. He would
have thought her a complete
idiot anyway, she mused, as she negotiated a tight bend. He wasn’t remotely interested in her home life— would
in turn probably be highly embarrassed at her confiding in him. Though she couldn’t quite see him being embarrassed about anything. She forgot about him as she turned the car on to the earth drive beside the cottage, though
she couldn’t help wondering briefly that he had said no more about London. Obviously, she decided, once he
had made his wishes
known he
had thought no more about it—it would
never occur to him that his orders might be disobeyed. Now what was she going to tell Teddy—and more important still, how was Teddy going to take it?
Teddy didn’t take it very well at all. The evening had been spent much the same as usual in getting the twins to bed, clearing away their toys, having their own meal, tidying up and washing. Up until the point when they both sat down at last, Teddy had made an effort and worked alongside Gerry and the evening had been without stress. Gerry felt a glow inside that Teddy seemed to be making progress and felt easier than she had been at bringing up the subject.
‘London?’ Teddy ejaculated when she told her, reacting in much the same way she herself had done when Crawford Arrowsmith had delivered his ultimatum. ‘You mean
stay
there?’ Teddy sounded so incredulous, Gerry cut in quickly, trying to calm the situation before Teddy had hysterics.
‘It’ll only be for three days,' she said, trying to soothe her down.
But Teddy wasn’t to be soothed, and amidst floods of tears sobbed out that she couldn’t be left on her own overnight. ‘I know I’m selfish,’ she cried, ‘and I’ve tried really hard since that Paul Meadows shocked me into seeing you’re the one who needs looking after, b-but honestly, Gerry, I’ll go mad if I have to stay here for three whole days and nights by myself!’
No matter what Gerry said or did, there was no calming her sister, and knowing she would soon be crying with her if Teddy didn’t stop soon, she went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea neither of them would want, and puzzled her brain while waiting for it to brew on what to do. But her mind was so tired, so confused, her emotions so churned up as they had been through the day ever since Crawford Arrowsmith had told her if she wanted the job she would do as he said, that nothing came through that would answer the problem.