A Professional Marriage

She had an idea this interview was going very badly, and decided she’d got nothing to lose by telling that which, hurt and humiliated, she had not told another living soul. ‘Everything!’ she answered evenly, adjusting her position on her chair, catching the flick of his glance to her long slender and shapely legs now neatly crossed at the ankles. ‘On the same day I heard from my landlord that he’d decided to sell the property—and, no desperate rush, but would I care to look for a flat elsewhere?—I had a row with Hector Browning.’

‘You usually row with the people you work with?’

‘Lionel and I never had a cross word!’ Chesnie retorted—and inwardly groaned. She’d be having a row with Joel Davenport any minute! And she wasn’t working with him, or for him—or ever!

He was unperturbed. ‘Hector Browning rubbed you up the wrong way?’

‘That I could, and did, cope with. What I was not prepared to stay and put up with was that—was that…’ Joel Davenport waited, saying not one word, which left her forced to continue. ‘From the various snide remarks Hector Browning had made I knew he resented my closeness to his father, my affection for him and his affection for me. He—Hector…’ Again she hesitated, but the fact that she knew herself innocent made her tilt her chin a fraction. ‘When he that day accused me of having an affair with his father,’ she made herself go on, ‘I knew that one of us would have to go. Blood being thicker than water, I also knew it would be me.’

‘You handed in your resignation.’

‘I left last week—the end of the month.’

‘And were you?’ Joel Davenport asked.

‘Was I what?’

‘Having an affair with his father?’

Her eyes widened in surprise and annoyance that anyone could ask such a thing. Somehow, though, she was able to maintain the outer cool she showed to the world. ‘No, I was not!’ she stated clearly, and, not wishing to say any more on the subject, she left it there.

To his credit, Joel Davenport allowed her to do so. He nodded, at any rate—she took it that he believed her. ‘Human Resources will have explained the package that goes with the position.’ He took the interview into another area. ‘Obviously the salary, pension and holiday entitlement are acceptable to you or you wouldn’t have proceeded with your application.’

‘It’s a very generous package,’ Chesnie stated calmly. Generous! It was a sensational salary!

‘The successful candidate will earn every part of it,’ he replied, which she felt hinted that she was not the successful candidate. Though when he continued she began to wonder… ‘The job as my PA demands one hundred per cent commitment,’ he advised her, and surprised her by adding, ‘Your qualifications aside, you’re a beautiful woman, Miss Cosgrove—’ he did not seem personally impressed ‘—and no doubt have many admirers.’

About to deny she had any, Chesnie, who just wasn’t interested in relationships, suddenly felt feminine enough to want to go along with his view that she had a constant stream of admirers at her door. ‘They wouldn’t interfere with my work,’ she replied.

‘I may need you to work away with me on occasion,’ he went on. She knew from the job description that there were times when Joel Davenport required his PA to accompany him on overnight stays when he visited their Glasgow offices, and had no problem whatsoever with that. ‘Supposing such an occasion arose at short notice—say, half an hour before a theatre date with your favourite man?’

‘I’d hope my favourite man would enjoy the theatre just as much without me,’ she replied promptly, and thought she caught a momentary twitch of her serious interviewer’s mouth—quite a nice-shaped mouth, she suddenly realised—but it was come and gone in an instant.

‘There’s no one man in particular in your life?’

‘No,’ she replied. Who had the time? Or the inclination, for that matter?

‘No marriage plans?’ he asked sternly, her one-syllable answer insufficient, apparently. But she resented his question. She hadn’t asked him if he was married or about to be! She studied him for a moment. Good-looking, a director of the expanded and still expanding multi-national Yeatman Trading—he had it all, which no doubt included some lovely wife somewhere.

Suddenly she became aware that as she was studying him, so keen blue eyes were studying her. ‘I’m not remotely interested in marriage,’ she stated bluntly, belatedly realising his question, in light of his statement that the job as his PA demanded one hundred per cent commitment, was perhaps a valid one.

‘You sound as if you’ve something against marriage,’ he commented.

With her parents and her sisters as fine examples, who wouldn’t have? Chesnie kept her thoughts to herself. ‘I believe the latest statistics show that forty per cent of marriages end in divorce. Personally, I’m more career-oriented than marriage-minded.’

He nodded, but when she was expecting some comment on her reply, he instead enquired, ‘You’re still living in Cambridge?’

‘For the moment. Though at present I’m staying with my sister, here in London, for a few days.’

‘You’re obviously prepared to move here. Have you found anywhere to live yet?’

‘I thought I’d better sort out a job first,’ she answered, and was surprised when, without a response, he got to his feet.

‘Perhaps you should set about finding your accommodation without delay,’ he suggested pleasantly.

Chesnie looked at him. Clearly the interview was over. She stood up as he came round his desk. She was wearing two and a half inch heels and still had to look up at him. ‘I’m not sure…’ she faltered, not at all sure she should believe what she thought he was saying.

He held out his right hand, and automatically her right hand met his warm, firm clasp. ‘I should like you to start on Monday, Chesnie,’ he confirmed, and for the first time he smiled.

Chesnie managed to keep her face straight while she was in the Yeatman Trading building, but once she had left the building so too did she leave her cool, sophisticated image, her lovely face splitting into an equally lovely grin. She’d got it! She’d jolly well got it! Only then did she acknowledge how very much she had wanted this job as PA to Joel Davenport.

It sounded hard work—she thrived on hard work. To be constantly busy had been her lifeline. She hadn’t been sure what sort of work she wanted to do when she had left school, but with her studies finished and no need to spend time at her desk in her room she had spent more time with her parents. Their constant sniping at each other had driven her to take various courses at evening classes, all to do with business management.

It seemed to her she had been brought up in a house full of strife. The youngest of four sisters, with a two-year gap separating each of them, she had been twelve when her eldest sister, Nerissa, had married—for the first time. Nerissa was now on her second marriage, but that didn’t appear to be any happier than her first. Chesnie’s second sister, Robina, had married next—she was always leaving her husband and returning for weeks on end to the home she had confided she had only married young to get away from.

When her sister Tonia married, Chesnie had thought surely it must be third time lucky for one of her sisters. But, no. Tonia had produced two babies in quick succession and seemed to have quickly developed the same love-hate relationship with her husband that her parents shared.

With one or other of her sisters forever returning in tears to the family home, to rail against the man she had married, Chesnie had soon known that she wanted no part in marriage. She had attended college most evenings, doing most of her studying at the weekends. She had not lacked for potential boyfriends, however, and occasionally had gone out on a date with either someone she had known previously or had met at college. On occasions, too, she had experimented with a little kissing, but as soon as things had looked like getting serious she’d put up barriers.

She’d become aware she had started to get a reputation for being aloof. It had not bothered her—nor had it seemed to stop men asking her for a date.

Chesnie had been working in an office for two years when her studies came to an end. She’d taken more courses, and done more study, and two years later had been ready to take a better-paid job. She’d changed firms and begun work as a secretary and she’d been good at it.

What she had not been so good at was handling the traumatic friction that seemed to be a constant feature in her family home. She’d told herself she was being over-sensitive and that everyone had their ups and downs. The only trouble was that in her fraught home, the animosity was permanent.

Having been brought up to be self-sufficient, she had thought often of leaving and had soon felt she could just about afford a bedsit somewhere. Only the knowledge that her mother would be furious should she leave her commodious and graceful home for some lowly bedsit had stopped her.

Matters had come to a head one weekend, however, when all three weeping sisters, and crying babies, had descended. From where Chesnie had viewed it, each sister had been trying to outdo the other with reports of what a rotten husband her spouse was.

When Chesnie had felt her sympathy for the trio turning into a feeling of weariness with all three of them, she’d gone out into the garden and found her father inspecting his roses.

‘You came to escape the bedlam too?’ he asked wryly.

‘Dad, I’m thinking of moving out.’ The words she hadn’t rehearsed came blurting from her.

‘I think I’ll come with you,’ he replied. But, glancing at her to see if she was smiling at his quip, he saw that she wasn’t. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he asked.

The words were out; she couldn’t retract them. ‘I’ve been thinking of it for some while. I’m sure I could manage a small bedsit, and…’

‘You’d better make that a small flat, and in a good area, if you want me to have any peace.’

Two days later her mother sought her out. ‘Your father tells me your home isn’t good enough for you any more.’

Chesnie knew that she loved her mother—just as she knew the futility of arguing with her. ‘I’d like to be—more—independent,’ she replied quietly.

Ten days after that, and much to her astonishment, her mother told her she had found somewhere for her. Chesnie was so overjoyed that her mother, having slept on it, had decided to aid her rather than make life difficult, that she closed her eyes to the fact that the rent of the flat was far more than she could afford.

Furnishing the flat was no problem. What with bits and pieces from her parents and her grandparents, and with her restless sister Nerissa always changing her home around and getting rid of some item of furniture or other, Chesnie soon made her small flat very comfortable.