Men and Angels Read online

  Men and Angels

  Elizabeth Cadell

  Friendly Air Publishing

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, locals, business, organizations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1952 by Elizabeth Cadell

  This edition, Copyright © 2017 by the heirs of Elizabeth Cadell

  “About the Author” Copyright © 2016 by Janet Reynolds

  Cover art by Nikita Garets

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  The Friendly Air

  About the Author

  Also by Elizabeth Cadell

  Afterword

  Introduction

  MEN AND ANGELS

  Rae knew a good deal about Richard Ashton. Sharing his sister Judy’s flat, she had lived for a year with his photograph: a dark, handsome, somewhat commanding young man. She had listened to long extracts from his letters, and built up a picturesque if inaccurate picture of his life in Kenya. She knew he declared himself heart-whole, and had instructed his sister to find him a wife. Judy was enthusiastic. As for Rae, at least this promised to be an unusually interesting encounter.

  Chapter 1

  Rae Mansfield opened her eyes, turned over with a start to look at the alarm clock by her bed, and relaxed with a sigh of relief.

  Sunday! She could stay in bed as long as she pleased. For the rest of the week, she must obey the clamorous alarm bell and prepare for a working day; on Sunday she could enjoy a leisurely, unhurried rising.

  She stretched out her hand to the wireless set on the little table and, switching it on, lay listening to the strains of a dance band. Remembering the occupant of the other bedroom, she turned the volume down and relaxed comfortably, looking through the open door of her bedroom into the living-room beyond.

  Her lips curved in amusement as she took in its disorder; Judy, she reflected, must have dressed last night in a greater hurry than usual. There was a blouse on the sofa, a skirt on the floor, shoes everywhere, two handbags, a plate with some crumbs on it.

  Rae’s eyes went to the open door opposite her own, and she smiled more widely as she saw Judy’s eiderdown on the floor and her blankets in a heap at the bottom of the bed. Sometimes, in cold weather, Rae would slip across and put the bedclothes on again—but this was May, and the air, though crisp, was not chilly enough to disturb the sleeper across the way. The narrow slit of sunshine across Rae’s bed felt warm.

  At the sight of the slit, her smile became a gurgle of laughter. Sunny aspect. Judy had been an easy victim; she had wanted this flat and had been only too willing to believe all that the agents said about it. She and Rae discovered, too late, that it had no sunny aspect and very few conveniences, but they had settled down and they were happy.

  Over a year—it was hard to believe that time had gone so fast. It must be almost fourteen months—she had moved in on Judy’s twentieth birthday.

  A stir from the bed opposite brought Rae out of her reverie. She heard a moan and a yawn, loud, prolonged, and ending in a squeak.

  “Rae?”

  “Hm?”

  “Awake?”

  Rae slipped out of bed and walked across the living-room and into the bedroom opposite.

  “What’s the time?” asked Judy.

  “Quarter-past ten. Hungry?”

  “Oh, Lord, yes. I came in hungry, but I was too tired to get anything.”

  “What are those crumbs?”

  “Oh—those…I got a bit of something, but I was too tired to see. I was—Rae! Listen!”

  The drowsiness banished from her eyes, Judy sat up with a jerk to listen to the low wailing coming from Rae’s room. With a swoop, she turned on her own wireless as loud as it would go, and, lifting the set from the table, cradled it in her arms. The wailing rose to a heartbroken baying, and Judy listened with a look of ecstasy on her face.

  “—and I’ll do-oo,” promised the voice,

  “The same for you-oo

  Oh, my bew-oo-tiful Star of my Night.”

  The sound died away; the dance band blared once more. Judy, with a sigh, put the set back on the table.

  “Isn’t he marvellous, Rae?” she breathed.

  Rae looked dubious.

  “He’s a bit stricken, isn’t he?” she said slowly. “He never seems to—to cheer up.”

  “Of course not—that’s his style, don’t you see? He takes all his stuff at that slow, dragging rhythm—he makes every note last.”

  “Well, isn’t that because he gets paid by the minute? Why sing four songs if you can make two spin out?” asked Rae reasonably.

  It was too early to be angry; Judy contented herself with a look of scorn and settled back on her pillows.

  Judy Ashton was small and dark, with beautiful eyes and hair so curly as to be unmanageable. Her skin was clear and smooth, and her rapid changes of expression gave her face an attractive vividness. When she spoke—and she was seldom silent—she looked like a child learning to dive—she took a deep breath, plunged, and then came up for air. Her manner with Rae, and with anyone she liked, was eager and affectionate, but to those who bored her, she showed an abruptness and rudeness bordering on insult. Nobody had succeeded in curing her of this regrettable tendency; Judy argued that she was under no obligation to be polite to anybody but her friends. Bores, she believed, could, like the wireless, be turned down or, better still, switched right off.

  The two girls were strongly contrasted, both in looks and in character. Rae was taller and very fair; she was slender, quiet and restful. Her eyes, resting on Judy, held a good deal of humour. Her voice was low, and she spoke calmly and without emphasis.

  A further contrast between the two lay in their circumstances. Judy’s father had been a rich man, and had left each of his children comfortably off; Rae supported herself, and had no allowance to augment her salary. Judy dressed expensively; Rae spent far less, but was fortunate in possessing a figure on which ready-mades looked well. She walked to and from her work in Kingsway, while Judy was the possessor of a blue two-seater which was known to every bus-driver on the Baker Street route.

  Judy had followed Rae to London; she took occasional secretarial posts offered her by an agency. The flat was hers, and for some time Rae had refused to share it, for, in spite of its lack of amenities, it was central and therefore expensive. She had finally agreed to come upon her own terms; she would pay a nominal rent and cook the meals. Judy, eager to have her on any terms, gave in, and the arrangement had worked smoothly. The two girls got on well, and there was affection in Rae’s eyes as she looked down at the tumbled figure on the bed.

  “How did the party go last night?” she asked.

  “It was all right,” said Judy a shade doubtfully. “It would have been better if you’d been there, though.”

  “Well, I couldn’t,” point
ed out Rae. “I couldn’t have let Uncle Fabian down.”

  “Yes, you could, easily. It made our numbers uneven—Richard had got a man for you and, naturally, when you didn’t turn up, he felt that someone owed him a bit of attention, so I had to spend half the evening convincing him it wasn’t me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Dinner at that new place, and then on to dance. You should’ve been there, Rae—Richard’s a wonderful dancer, considering he says he doesn’t get any practice, and the others were pretty good—there were nine of us. You’d have made ten.”

  “Who were the others?”

  “Nobody we’ve ever heard of—all Richard’s Kenya crowd except this odd man, and he’s from Kenya too, only Richard didn’t know him out there—he met him on the boat coming home. He got on my nerves—he was one of those people who start off saying something, and as soon as they’ve got the general attention fixed on them, they dry up.”

  “Perhaps he’s shy.”

  “Then he ought to go to a school for shys and get himself cured,” said Judy. “Nobody’s got time to sit and wait while he decides what it was he was going to say.”

  “How was your brother?”

  “Richard? Oh, the same, only a bit thinner, I think. He thought I’d changed a lot—but three years makes more difference at my age. He looks older than twenty-six, but his manners haven’t changed—he’s still the same teasy sort. He can still get me irritated, but we got on well, on the whole. We went in pairs when we were young—Estelle and Bruce, and Richard and I—but two days in each other’s company and Rich and I were fighting like Zulus.—I wonder if you’ll like him, Rae?”

  “Does he look like his photographs?”

  “Oh—those; well, yes. He’s good-looking, but what I meant was, I wonder if you’ll—well, fall for him. I wish you would.”

  Rae uncurled herself and stood up, smiling down at the dark, eager face.

  “I wouldn’t start match-making if I were you,” she said in her slow, calm voice. “It never comes off. And this my-favourite-brother and my-best-friend is—”

  “I know—it’s the trickiest angle of all,” said Judy. “I know that. But when I think things, I like to say them, and I’d be crazy, wouldn’t I, if I didn’t want you and Richard to fall in love?”

  “You’d be crazy if you tried to make us,” said Rae from the door. “Fried eggs and the week’s bacon, or boiled with toast?”

  “Any tomatoes?”

  “No—oh yes. I got a pound, but at what a price. . . .”

  “Well, chuck ’em in and let’s have a lovely fry. No liver or sausage or tiddly kidleys?”

  “No.”

  “Pity. Oh, Rae—Richard came up last night.”

  “Up here?” Rae turned back, a little startled. “The place must have looked a shambles. I thought you were meeting him somewhere.”

  “I was, but he was in Baker Street and thought he’d come up. He came just as I was ironing my dress.”

  “Then I don’t know how he got in at all,” said Rae. “You always put the ironing board just in front of the door.”

  “Oh, he got in. But the first thing he did was to go round turning off the wirelesses. You’d left yours on in your bedroom, and my bedroom one was going and so was the big one, and he’s one of those people who think you only ought to have it on when you want it. Who’s got time to sit in front of the thing with the Radio Times in one hand and the switch in the other, putting it off and on?—Oh, and then he cleared the table.”

  “But I’d cleared it!”

  “Yes, but I was hungry, so I’d made myself something. Then he put all my shoes in a row along the wall, so nice and neat. He’d make quite a husband, Rae.”

  “Good,” said Rae. “I’ll get the breakfast.”

  “Want any help?”

  “No, not from you. Go and have a bath,” advised Rae, “before the whole block gets up and runs off the hot water.”

  Judy got reluctantly out of bed and went into the bathroom. She gave a distasteful glance at the view—a series of back windows and fire escapes—and, sitting on the edge of the bath, turned on the hot-water tap and held her fingers under the flow.

  “Cold!” she shouted indignantly. “Cold as Christmas, and it’s not eleven yet. That’s the fourth bath I haven’t had on Sunday. Now I’ll have to get up early to-morrow to get one, blast them.”

  “Too bad,” said Rae from the kitchen. “Get the papers in, will you?”

  “Yes—and oh, Rae, that reminds me. Richard’s asked us to the theatre to-morrow night. I thought we might go and see that new show with Rosanna Lee in it—you know—Rose Lewis that was.”

  “What sort of show is it?”

  “What sort of show would it be, with Rosanna in it? Terrible, I bet. But it’d be interesting to see someone you’ve been at school with.”

  “I can’t imagine Rose acting,” commented Rae at the stove.

  “She doesn’t act. They say she stands there and recites her songs and gives the audience the idea that she could do much better, if only she could be bothered to try. And they like that, so she goes down quite well.—Let’s go and see her.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Rae. “Put a cloth on the table, will you?”

  Judy took a cloth from a drawer and threw it absently across the dining-table.

  “How did you get on last night?” she asked.

  Rae broke an egg neatly into the frying-pan.

  “You won your bet,” she said.

  “Honestly, Rae? You mean, he didn’t spend a sou?”

  “Not one.”

  “But you must have—he must have. You can’t spend an evening in London without spending money.”

  “Uncle Fabian can, and he can do it with—with grace, almost.”

  Judy came to the kitchen door and stood there, wide-eyed.

  “What did you do?”

  “The usual things. It’s always the same routine with Uncle Fabian. A drive in the Park, a short stroll and then a drive home. Finished. But he was looking awfully handsome and—and debonair and young.”

  “Young! He’s well over forty!”

  “Not much over,” said Rae, halving tomatoes neatly. “Nobody knows quite how old he is—he was much younger than my mother, and nobody on my father’s side met him until he came to my mother’s funeral.”

  “But why’s he so mean, Rae? He isn’t poor—you said yourself he’s got a Rolls-Royce.”

  “He’s got a nice comfortable income,” said Rae calmly, “but there are lots of incomes which do very nicely for one, and which don’t stretch to expensive favours for orphan nieces. I suppose, in a way, he does contribute something to society—he’s tall and slim and beautifully dressed—he’s exactly like those advertisements you see of figures standing in front of Tudor manors looking the picture of expensive ease. Nobody could look at him without pleasure.”

  “He must be as hard as nails. How does he come to have money, Rae, when your aunts lost all theirs?—I’m sorry if I’m poking my nose in.”

  “You’re not. And he’s nothing to do with my two aunts— they’re my father’s sisters. They thought that because my father was a good historian, he must be a good financier, too. They put all their money into the thing he advised them to put it into and then—”

  “Wallop!”

  “Yes. So it’s just as well that Uncle Fabian’s a bit hard, or he’d have been in the smash, too. He kept his money—and he’s still keeping it.”

  There was silence for a time. Rae divided the breakfast into two equal platefuls and carried them to the table.

  “Bring the coffee, will you?” she asked.

  Judy carried in the coffee and poured out two cups. She handed one to Rae and looked at her in a puzzled way.

  “If I’m nosey, then I’m nosey,” she said, “but, Rae, this Uncle Fabian can’t be as mean as all that. There was a general idea at Madame Soublin’s—and it was spread by no less a person than Rosanna—that your uncle—that
he—I mean, that he—”

  “—paid my fees?” Rae smiled. “Well, he didn’t. I don’t suppose it’s really amusing, but even my aunts can laugh at it now. They didn’t then.”

  “Can you tell me—or is it a family secret or something?”

  “It oughtn’t to be exactly noised abroad,” said Rae, “but I’ll tell you, and then you won’t waste any more time trying to make Uncle Fabian spend his money on me.”

  “Go on.”

  “Can I have another cup of coffee first?—Thanks. Well,” began Rae, “I was fifteen when my father lost his money and sixteen when he died. I went to live with my aunts—”

  “Hester and Anne?”

  “Yes. The school I was at reduced the fees without being asked, so that wasn’t a problem. Then I left and decided to take a job, and at that point Uncle Fabian paid us a visit and I met him for the first time. He was quite upset when he heard I was going out into the world—he said I was too young. A little finish—a little polish was necessary for a girl.”

  “And especially for his niece.”

  “Yes. My aunts said it was out of the question, and quite, quite unpractical. But Uncle Fabian talked them down, and lid that he would see a good scholastic agent and arrange it all.”

  “And pay it all?”

  “Yes.”

  “But your aunts must have known the old so-and-so, after all. Didn’t they suspect—”

  “They suspected everything,” said Rae. “He’d never been known to do a good deed before, and they knew that he kept getting entangled with young actresses—I know you don’t believe that young ones would look at him, but then, you’ve never seen Uncle Fabian. While the aunts were busy suspecting, a letter came from Madame Soublin.”