The Strange Story of Linda Lee Read online

  ‘Come, come, my dear. Whatever is the matter? What is it that has upset you so? You know that you can tell me anything.’

  ‘It… it’s my shorthand,’ she sobbed. ‘Oh, I hate it! And I’ve let you down terribly. I’ve never been able to pluck up the courage to tell you, but I think I suffer from a sort of time-lag in my hearing. I simply can’t get the beastly stuff down quickly enough. I’ve taken test after test and a hundred a minute is the very best I can manage. That’s no earthly good for the sort of job I hoped to get. I failed … failed miserably. I … I’ll never make a really competent secretary.’

  ‘There, there!’ He patted her shoulder again. ‘It’s not the end of the world. There are lots of other jobs.’

  ‘I… I suppose I could become a shop assistant.’

  ‘Lord preserve us, no! I haven’t spent the past three months turning you into an educated young lady for you to serve behind a counter. How about becoming a model? Your height and looks qualify you for that.’

  ‘No they wouldn’t. Models have to be slim. My figure is all right, but I’m much too big all over. Besides, fashion houses require their girls to have lovely hands and feet. My hands are square, instead of being long and graceful, and my feet are enormous.’

  ‘A hotel receptionist, then. Or you might get a job in a travel agency.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ll have to think. Nearly everything that is worth while would need months’ more training, and I can’t live on you for ever.’

  Rowley looked at her steadily for a moment, then he said, ‘You could, you know. So don’t let that worry you. Anyway, we’ll talk it over in the morning.’

  Next morning he gave her a cheque for fifty pounds to cash at the bank, and said with a smile, ‘You need cheering up, so I’m going to take you out to dinner. I’ve been waiting to do that until … well, until you finished your schooling. Get yourself a pretty dress and shoes, and we’ll dine at the Savoy.’

  That evening when she came downstairs, dressed to go out, he smiled his approval. ‘Linda, you’ve turned yourself into a pin-up girl overnight. I’ll be proud to be seen with you. So would any man. But there is one thing needed to complete the picture.’

  They were in his study. Going to the safe, he turned the combination lock to and fro several times, opened the safe and took from it a number of leather jewel cases. As he put them on his desk, he said, ‘These belonged to my mother. Normally I keep them in Harrods’ safe-deposit which enormously reduces the insurance premium, but this morning I got some of them out. Poor Celia will never wear them again, but I should like you to wear some of them tonight.’

  As he spoke he was opening the cases. There were a rope of pearls, bracelets, brooches and rings. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires glittered and scintillated in the light of the desk lamp. Linda, her mouth a little open, stared in amazement at the dazzling display-Tentatively she fingered the rope of pearls, then shook her head:

  ‘No, I wouldn’t dare to. They must be terribly valuable, and if I lost one I’d never forgive myself.’

  ‘Don’t let that worry you. I telephoned my insurance company this afternoon and arranged cover to take out seven thousand pounds’ worth.’ Taking the pearls from her he clasped them round her neck.

  Her cheeks flushed, her eyes glowing, Linda selected some of the other things: a diamond and ruby clip, a two-inch-deep bracelet to match and a big diamond solitaire ring. She picked up another ring, but he gently took it from her and put it back. ‘No, my dear; that’s enough. I want you to look like a Duchess, not Mrs. Public House.’

  ‘Very well then.’ She transferred the diamond solitaire from her right hand to the engagement finger of her left. When she had, with some difficulty, managed to wriggle it on, she smiled at him, ‘Just for tonight we’ll pretend that I am your fiancée.’

  The evening was a great success. It was the first time Linda had ever dined in a famous restaurant or seen a cabaret, and she enjoyed every moment of it. Rowley was enchanted, not only by her appearance but also by the way she talked and behaved. No-one would ever have guessed that, little more than three months ago, she had been an ignorant and uncouth girl, digging for her bread and butter in a market garden.

  It was two o’clock before they got home. Neither of them was tired, and they had had just enough drink to make them gay without being tight. When Rowley suggested they should have a night-cap before going to bed, Linda laughed and cried, ‘Yes, let’s! I’d love another glass of champagne.’

  Rowley was very fond of champagne and always kept a bottle in the refrigerator. When he had fetched it, poured it out and they had toasted each other, there fell a short, pleasant silence; then he said:

  ‘Linda I want to ask you a question. You’ve no need to answer it if you’d rather not. But I’d like to know. Are you a virgin?’

  Chapter 4

  Sex Rears its Ugly Head

  Linda’s golden-brown eyes opened wide, then she laughed. ‘Since you want to know, I’m not. I was raped soon after I was sixteen.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, how awful for you. But no girl can really be raped if she’s determined not to be.’

  ‘I don’t agree. Not if the man is much stronger than she is.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how strong he is, she has only to stretch out her hand, grab his testicles and squeeze them for all she is worth. It sends an excruciating pain through him right up to his heart, rendering him as helpless as an infant. All she need do then is to push him off her and take to her heels.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know that. I’ll remember it in case sometime in the future a man I don’t like gets me in a corner and becomes really difficult.’

  After a moment, Linda went on: ‘Perhaps, though, rape is not quite the right description of what happened to me. I ceased to resist, mainly owing to a threat, but partly from curiosity. I was rather advanced for my age, and had already experienced sexual excitement. I imagine that at most schools girls talk to one a’other about that sort of thing. We did, and a few of the older girls had let fellows go the whole way with them. Opinions differed about what it was like, but one girl I knew enjoyed doing it with her boy friend regularly; and I suppose both mentally and physically I was ripe for the picking.

  ‘The man was a junior master. It was my last term, and I went to the end-of-term hop. He singled me out and danced with me several times. Naturally, I was flattered, as there were a number of older girls there who were staying on in the hope of making university. A brother and sister who lived near me had taken me in to the dance in their family car, and were going to give me a lift home. But this fellow suggested taking me for a spin on the back of his motor bike, then dropping me off. Like a little fool, I agreed, and left the dance early with him.

  ‘We started out on the right road, but he soon turned off on to another. When we had run on for about five miles, I became a bit worried and shouted in his ear, “We had better turn back now, or I’ll be late in and get in trouble with my Pa.”

  ‘He only laughed and shouted back, “Don’t worry. The dance can’t have finished yet, and I’ll get you home in good time.” After we had covered about another mile, he pulled up opposite a haystack which had been cut into, and said, “This will do, sweetie.”

  ‘Of course, I had expected that there would be a little petting party and goodnight kisses when he dropped me off at the house, so I made no objection when he led me over to the stack. He pulled some more hay out of it and made a place for us to sit down. I didn’t like him overmuch; but, as I’ve said, I was flattered by receiving the attentions of a grown-up man, so I let him kiss me all he wanted.

  ‘That worked me up a bit, so I didn’t protest very hard when he started fumbling, as I’d already let two or three boys do that. His hand excited me still more, but after a few moments he unbuttoned his trousers and, at that, I did draw the line.

  ‘But he was determined to have me and told me so. I refused to play and tried to throw him off. Finding that he couldn’t pe
rsuade me, he became angry and panted, “You silly little bitch, if you don’t let me, I’ll leave you here and you can damn’ well walk home.” ’

  ‘The swine!’ Rowley exclaimed with a sudden frown.

  ‘He was; and his threat scared me stiff. I would have had to walk six miles, and it would have been close on two in the morning before I got in. My father would have believed the worst and given me a proper belting. All the excitement which had been aroused in me drained away. I burst into tears and went limp with fright.

  ‘ “That’s better,” he muttered, and got me the way he wanted.

  ‘I began to fight again, but not very vigorously. For a long time I’d been curious to know what it really felt like, and now I was faced with the choice of finding out or walking home to the worst leathering I had ever had. By then he had partly entered me. Next moment he thrust hard, and I screamed with pain. The pain went on to the very end. I hated every second of it. And afterwards he hadn’t even the decency to try to comfort me. He never spoke a word to me all the way home. For couple of weeks I was absolutely petrified by the thought that he might have put me in the family way. But, thank God, I was at least spared that. So there you are. That was my first experience of sex with a man.

  ‘You say your “first”,’ Rowley commented. ‘Does that mean that you’ve had others?’

  ‘Yes, but not until a few months before I left home. That first time had been so awful that, for a long time afterwards, I never let myself get into a situation where I might be taken advantage of again.

  ‘Jim and another fellow picked up me and the girl I was with one night in the cinema. He was a fine, strapping fellow with dark, curly hair and a ready laugh. Afterwards he and his pal took us for coffee and cakes to a café. He asked me to go to the pictures again with him the following week, and I agreed. He saw me home and we had a petting party in the barn before I went in. During the month that followed we had three other meetings, and each time things became a bit warmer. Then one night he asked me to let him. I wasn’t afraid of Jim, because he was so gentle. And by then I was getting pretty steamed up, so I was in half a mind to; but I was scared that he’d put me in the family way.

  ‘He got over that hurdle by telling me that his married sister used the Pill, and he’d get some from her for me. He did, then on our next evening together we made love properly. It was utterly different from the first time. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it. So after that we did it regularly every time I could get an evening off.’

  Rowley nodded. ‘I imagine he was frightfully upset when you told him that you meant to run away to London.’

  ‘I didn’t, although I felt terribly bad about it. I was afraid that if I did, he would persuade me not to.’

  When Rowley had refilled their glasses, he said with a smile, ‘When we first met, I told you that I had no intention of trying to seduce you, and I meant it. I also told you that I was still virile and had a girl with whom I spent a night now and again. A month after you came to live here I stopped going to see her. The reason was that I’d fallen head over heels in love with you.’

  Linda started to say something, but he held up his hand to check her. ‘Please let me finish. You said last night that you couldn’t live on me for ever. I replied that you could, and you can. Half a loaf is far better than no bread, and I’d be utterly miserable if you left me. So, if you are against the suggestion I’m going to make, we’ll simply forget that we have ever had this conversation.

  ‘I know only too well that a man like myself can’t possibly be physically attractive to a girl like you; so I’m going to be quite unscrupulous and attempt to off-set my age by dangling temptations before you.

  ‘It is impossible for me to ask you to marry me, as long as Celia is alive. But, apart from the legal tie, I want you in all other respects to become my wife. You’d have a handsome allowance to buy lovely clothes, and could wear my mother’s jewels whenever you wished. I normally spend several months of the year abroad. In September I always go to Venice and stay at Cipriani’s. It is one of the most comfortable hotels in Europe, and you would love its beautiul swimming pool. We’d go to the South of France in January, and Paris in the spring. I’d take you to Greece, the Rhine and Spain. There is so much to see in these places, and I’d love to show them to you. Whenever we travelled, you would stay in luxury hotels and all the year round live a life of leisure. Now, what do you say?’

  There were tears in Linda’s eyes. Getting up, she went over to him, stooped, and kissed his rosy cheek. ‘Oh, Rowley,’ her voice quavered, ‘you needn’t have mentioned the clothes, jewels and travel. Your age and figure—they don’t really count. It’s yourself that matters, and you’re the most lovable person I’ve ever met. Anyway, if after all you’ve done for me I didn’t let you have your wish, I’d be the meanest girl in the world. Come, darling. Let’s go up to bed.’

  After that night Linda’s life entered a new and still happier phase. She no longer had to struggle five days a week with that baffling shorthand and she had acquired a great deal of useful knowledge from her special classes. These, combined with all that Rowley had taught her on their visits to museums and galleries, had given her as good a background in history, literature and art as is acquired by most girls who have been sent to expensive schools.

  Now that all this was behind her, Rowley said that the time had come for her to assume a definite position in the household and act as his hostess. Then, a few evenings later, he told her that he had invited their first guest to dinner.

  This was a Wing Commander Eric Dutton. Rowley said that they had met in the latter part of the war, when he had been the Meteorological Officer at an R.A.F. station, and Dutton, a very young fighter pilot who, during the Normandy landings and the last year of the conflict, had so distinguished himself that he had been awarded both a D.S.O. and a D.F.C. After the war he had left the R.A.F., entered the Foreign Service and served in several Embassies abroad as Cultural Attaché. For the past two years he had been en poste in Persia, and had only recently returned, to be given a job at a scientific establishment.

  ‘Why would they want a Cultural Attaché at such a place?’ Linda enquired innocently.

  Rowley gave her a slight smile. ‘The term covers a multitude of activities, my dear, particularly where a knowledge of aircraft is concerned. Security is one of them, but we needn’t go into that. Anyhow, now he is back in England we shall be seeing quite a lot of him, as whenever he’s had a job in this country and comes to London for a night or two, I’ve always put him up.’

  He then told her why, on this occasion, Dutton was to be their only guest. It was to prepare the way for her meeting with Elsie and Arthur Spilkin. At his Club that day Rowley had given Dutton lunch, and confided to him his true relationship to Linda; but he alone was to be made privy to this secret. They had then hatched a pretty little plot. Linda was to be passed off to the Spilkins and other acquaintances of Rowley’s as Dutton’s cousin; and, when he came to dinner, they would work out the details of this deception which would give her a respectable background.

  That afternoon Rowley set the ball rolling by writing to Elsie to make certain that she and Arthur would be staying to dinner on the following Tuesday, thanked her for all she had done for him since her mother’s accident, and explained that new work he had undertaken now made it essential for him to have a full-time secretary, who would also in future save her the bother of supervising his household. He added that he had been most fortunate in finding just the type of young woman he needed, in a relative of his old friend, Eric Dutton. He felt sure Elsie would like her and, naturally, he expected Elsie and Arthur to continue to dine with him on Tuesdays whenever they were not otherwise engaged.

  Linda felt it was one thing for a girl to have an affair with a man near her own age, and quite another for her to be kept by a middle-aged gentleman; so, although she appreciated the soundness of Rowley’s plan, she was none too happy about being produced as his mistress to the gallant Wing
Commander. But her fears that he had agreed to accept her nominally as a relation only out of friendship for Rowley and might scarcely bother to hide a low opinion of her, proved groundless. When, two evenings later, they were introduced, he promptly kissed her on the cheek, then turned to Rowley with a laugh and cried:

  ‘By Jove, you old devil! How dare you keep it from me all these years that I had such a lovely cousin! She’s a corker!’

  Eric Dutton was in his early forties, so was ten years younger than Rowley. He was a tall, wiry, pale-faced man, with dark hair and ‘side-burns’ that came half-way down his cheeks. His swift speech frequently included the type of slang that had been popular with the Royal Air Force during the war, which rather intrigued Linda, as she had never met anyone like him. Dutton’s eyes were bright blue, and she sensed that even when he appeared to be disinterested, they missed nothing. His ready laugh and the easy way in which he talked to her as if he had known her for years she found very attractive.

  After dinner they had quite a little fun, making up the story that they would tell Elsie and Arthur Spilkin. Dutton opened the discussion by saying to Linda, ‘Look, coz. The first principle in putting over a deception is to stick as near the truth as possible, so you’d better put me in the picture about yourself.’

  When Linda had given a précis of her life before she had run away, he said, ‘My sister, Daphne Chatterton, and her husband, Ralph, have an igloo in Cheshire, and quite a sizable farm. The Spilkins have never met them and are unlikely to, so we had better transfer the Chattertons’ place to Lincolnshire, because you know the gen about those parts. Daphne’s older than I am. She’s hitting forty-eight by now, and her better half is a good bit longer in the tooth than she is. He was a Tank Corps wallah in the war, and got himself gonged with an M.C. In view of their age, you’d better be their daughter. That will make you my niece instead of my cousin. I’ve got photographs of them both I’ll let you have. All nice gels tote about the physogs of their parents and you can stick ’em up on your dressing table.’