Seen By Candlelight

“Have you seen Paul lately?” began Madeline, in a contrivedly casual tone.

“Paul?” Karen felt as though she was playing for time. Time to gather her suddenly shocked senses together. With trembling fingers she lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, savouring the nicotine in her lungs, relaxing. “No,” she replied slowly. “We never meet, and you know it. Why do you ask? Oh … I suppose you saw the notice of his engagement in The Times.”

“Yes, I did see that,” agreed her mother slowly. “Ruth Delaney, I believe that was her name. Some American girl, a tycoon’s daughter, if I remember correctly.”

“You’re in complete possession of the facts,” remarked Karen rather dryly. This was no casual remark. “Well, Mother, why should I have seen Paul?”

Mrs. Stacey shrugged. “I thought perhaps he might have telephoned to object about Sandra going out with Simon.”

Karen’s eyes widened. “Simon!” she exclaimed. “Simon Frazer is going out with Sandra? But he’s married; you must be joking.”

“I only wish I were,” said Madeline stiffly. “I don’t joke about things like this, Karen. I’m at my wits’ end. She refuses to give him up, even though I’ve begged her to do so. You know how unmanageable Sandra has always been, how headstrong and self-willed.”

Karen frowned. “You have only yourself to blame for that,” she said coolly. “You’ve always given in to her.”

Madeline’s lips thinned. “Thank you,” she exclaimed furiously. “And what would you have done if you had been left alone with two young children to bring up?”

“I would have treated them both alike, instead of coddling one and making a rod for my own back,” retorted Karen. “Anyway, Mother, that’s hardly relevant now. I agree that Simon Frazer is no fit associate for any young girl, let alone an impressionable idiot like Sandra! How did you find out about them? I don’t suppose she told you.”

“Oh, no; not a word. A friend saw them dining together last week and couldn’t wait to telephone me to let me know. Sandra is only seventeen, Karen. Simon Frazer must be over thirty; after all, Paul is thirty-seven, isn’t he?”

“Ah, yes,” Karen drew on her cigarette. “Where does Paul come into all this?” She shivered. “Simon is only his brother, you know.”

“As I’ve already said, I asked Sandra to stop seeing Simon. She simply laughed at my arguments and refused to take any notice of me. She says she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Both you and I know how foolhardy that statement is with a man like him. Something has got to be done. I think Paul is the only person able to do that something.”

“So?” Karen’s voice was dangerously quiet.

“I want you to get in touch with Paul and ask him to speak to Simon –”

Karen sprang to her feet. “No!” she exclaimed abruptly. She ran a restless hand over her shoulder-length straight hair. “I won’t do it. Paul and I parted in the divorce court two years ago and I just couldn’t contact him now. It’s out of the question.”

Madeline frowned. “So your own pride is greater than your sister’s downfall? She is your sister, Karen, your seventeen-year-old sister!”

“Stop play-acting, Mother,” cried Karen, inwardly seething. “It won’t work. I refuse to do it. Sandra is seventeen, as you’ve said. She’s not a child. She must make her own mistakes. After all, I was only eighteen when I met Paul.”

“And look what happened to your marriage,” taunted her mother cruelly. “Five years and it was all over. Here you are, twenty-five years old and already a divorcee. Not that there’s any question of marriage in the circumstances. As you’ve said, Simon is married. That makes everything so much worse.”

Karen was pale. This conversation was raking up all the painful past that she had tried to bury these last two years. She had always known that her mother had resented her break with Paul for purely selfish reasons, but to fling it all in her face now almost brought Karen to tears. How could Madeline be so unkind? But tears were a luxury that Karen had never indulged in and she did not so so now. She had always been an independent sort of person, like her father, and Madeline had clung to the baby, Sandra, and spoiled her utterly when their father was killed in an air crash a long while ago.

Karen knew that Madeline wanted to save Sandra from herself and she did not care if she hurt her elder daughter in the process. Karen was tempted to leave immediately and let them work it out alone, but she knew if she did so, she would never be welcome here again. As her mother had said, she and Sandra were Karen’s only blood relations and to cut herself off from them would leave her completely alone. How could she do such a thing?

“Well?” exclaimed her mother. “Are you going to let your sister’s life be ruined?”

Karen sighed heavily. The ultimatum had come and she was not ready for it. What could she say? How could she explain that it was not merely pride that kept her from contacting Paul? That she was frightened of her treacherous emotions and afraid that he might see how disturbed she was.

But Simon, too, had a wife whom he never considered and although Karen had never liked Julia Frazer, she was still involved. Perhaps Paul might be glad to break up the affair. After all, he had no reason to love the Stacey family.

“All right,” she agreed at last. “But why should you imagine that Paul will take any notice of me? Let alone speak to Simon.”

“Paul used to be very fond of Sandra,” replied Madeline, inwardly exulting at Karen’s surrender. “And he knows what kind of a man Simon is.”

Karen stubbed out her cigarette and thrust a hand into the pocket of her slacks. She was committed to speaking to her ex-husband. God, weren’t memories hateful enough without reinforcing them with reality? How could you meet a man with whom you had shared the tenderest intimacies of marriage without feeling a knife turn in your inside? She supposed dully that it should have been easier, but they had been so much in love and now …

She had been eighteen when she met Paul Frazer. He was then the chairman of the board of the Frazer Textile Industries whose head office was in London, and Karen was a very junior designer working for the company. She had worked there for almost two years without ever dreaming she would come in contact with the young dynamic tycoon whose named spelled “Success” with a capital S. She had heard plenty about him from her colleagues, but he did not concern himself with the small fry like them. Still a bachelor at thirty, he was the most sought-after man in London, and the social papers and magazines splashed stories about him wherever he went.

For all this, Karen had secretly believed that the man could not seriously add up to his image. It had amused her to listen to the girls raving about him, but she had not been particularly interested. Men had always been attracted to her and she had plenty of admirers in her own sphere without looking on to a higher, much more futile, plane.

And then she produced, as much to her surprise as anybody else’s, a design for a carpet which was quite brilliant. The Frazer Combine produced various ranges of textiles and the carpet design was a completely original piece of work.

To her embarrassment, she was sent for by the man himself, and had to go to his office on the sacrosanct top floor of the Frazer building. She had been not so much nervous as embarrassed, but when the chief designer introduced her to Paul Frazer she found herself completely absorbed by his overwhelming charm and personality. Far from over-estimating the man, she found him absolutely more devastating than his reputation and was therefore astonished when later in the week he rang her office and invited her to dinner.

She accepted, of course, much to the envy of her friends, and found to her amazement that he was actually interested in her as a person, and not as a designer.

Within a few weeks their relationship had assumed such proportions that Paul, who had never been used to being denied anything from a woman, found his every waking moment a torment of wanting to possess her, and his admiration for her ideals kindled into love. Karen, who had been attracted to him from the beginning fought against the love which threatened to overwhelm her, but when Paul eventually proposed marriage she was utterly consumed with happiness.

They had flown to the Bahamas for their honeymoon and were away for three idyllic months. Karen had never known such happiness and Paul grew relaxed and lazy and sun-tanned. They adored each other, but when they returned to England to the house which Paul had bought near Richmond, they both resented the return to normality. Paul had to spend a lot of time at the office then, making up the work that had been left to slide in his absence, and Karen was left alone.

To begin with she was not lonely. The house needed a complete redecoration, and Paul had only a few of the rooms furnished so that Karen might do the whole place over to her own liking. With the help of a team of interior decorators Karen set to work, and the result pleased Paul just as much as Karen. She loved the evenings best when Paul came home to her. They rarely went out or entertained, and spent hours alone, talking and making love.

Then, as time passed, Paul, who had neglected a great deal of his normal work to be with Karen, found it necessary to visit the factories in the Midlands and the North of England where Frazer Textiles were produced. Being an active man, and interested in his work, he had always disliked delegating duty, and it was over a year since he had made a tour of inspection. With reluctance, he left Karen at home when he went to visit the factories. He knew if he took her with him he would be unable to concentrate. When she was with him nothing else could take precedence.

For a while, Karen’s duties at Trevayne absorbed her, and she spent her time swimming in the pool in the grounds, or inviting friends over for tennis or drinks.

But as the years passed, apart from having holidays with Paul, their time together was limited to the evenings. Week-ends were given over to entertaining, and Karen began to hate the rigid pattern of their lives. She was bored; not with Paul but with having too much time and too little to do.

Eventually she asked Paul whether she could go back and work for the company. Paul was astounded, and refused point-blank. Apart from wanting her at home when he needed her, he objected to her working when it was so unnecessary. Her pleas of boredom were shrugged off, and Karen found herself getting irritable and frustrated. The combination of these two emotions began the series of arguments and rows about her work and about her aimless position in the house. Paul, who had assumed her too young to start a family, now suggested that they do just that, but Karen was too stubborn and foolish to agree and thus give in to him again. She refused abruptly, and to her horror Paul moved his clothes into the spare guest-room.

She was frightened and terrified of the results of her own actions, but too full of pride to beg him to come back to her.

They had been married a little over three years when Karen went behind Paul’s back and got herself a job with a rival organization, the Martin Design Company. When Paul found out he was furious. The Martin Company obtained some of their work from the Frazer Syndicate, and he immediately withdrew his interest.

This culminated in yet another row, the result of which was that Karen packed her possessions and left. She had not gone to her mother’s home. Her mother had never agreed that Karen should need anything more than a home and a husband, and she was very angry with Karen for a long time after their separation.

But for Karen there was no going back. Lewis Martin, the head of the small company, who knew her circumstances, sympathized with her but advised her to be brave and stick it out. He did not advise her to go back to Paul, indeed quite the reverse, and Karen was grateful to him at that time. Looking back now, she felt sure that left alone she would have returned to Paul within a week; and on his terms!

Paul made several abortive attempts to see her, but Lewis guarded her like the Crown Jewels and Karen was left alone with her thoughts. Whenever she suggested that perhaps she ought to see Paul, Lewis had reminded her of her reasons for leaving, and his words had stiffened her resolve. No good could come of their reunion. Only more arguments and more rows and another separation. They were incompatible. She might as well admit it here and now. Sexually, they were well matched, but marriages were only partly based on that side of things. These were Lewis’s words, his advice to her, and she had believed him. After all, why not? He had nothing to gain in this except a rather second-rate designer who had forgotten so much during the past years. How was he to know that until the affair of the “Job” as she called it to herself, she and Paul had only rarely argued, and never in an unkind way?

Lewis found her the apartment which he obtained from a friend who was an estate agent. Lewis himself bought the flat and Karen was therefore his tenant. Karen was thrilled to have a home of her own and she furnished it as soon as she had saved the money. She did it in pieces, refusing Lewis’s offer of an advance. Paul had long stopped calling her and she was left in peace. She worked well for Lewis, who was a good designer himself, and learned a lot from him.

He was a man in his early forties, a widower with no children, and Karen felt more like a daughter to him. It was with a sense of shock, therefore, that she received his proposal of marriage about a year after her break with Paul. She had protested that apart from the fact that she did not love him, she was technically still a married woman, and he had remarked that he had heard that Paul was going to sue her for divorce.

Karen was horrified a few days later when she received the notification in the mail of Paul’s intention, and astounded that the grounds were adultery. He was citing Lewis as co-respondent.

Lewis however did not seem at all perturbed at his position in all this, even though the press made a nine days’ wonder out of it all. He advised Karen not to defend the suit, as did the solicitor he found for her. Defended suits, they said, became laundries of dirty washing, and unless she wanted her private life dragged before the magistrate she might just as well not defend.

Bewildered, with no one to turn to but Lewis, Karen did as they suggested, and withdrew even more into her shell. Paul achieved his freedom by revealing certain facts which appeared conclusive to an outsider. Karen was too sick at heart to care. Of course Lewis had obtained the flat for her, but she paid a rent for it! Lewis often stayed late in the evening if they were discussing a new project, but it was all quite innocent. Even the night he had spent in the apartment on the couch in the living-room was only because a thick smog had descended on London, and it seemed ridiculous that Lewis should have to trail home to his house in Hampstead. However, even she could see that no good could come of trying to refute the accusations. They looked too conclusive, and Lewis’s attitude was one of amiable inertia. Thus it was that less than five years after their wedding, Karen found herself free again.

Lewis was a tower of strength in those early days, devoting himself to her welfare and generally making himself indispensable. But when he again broached the subject of their marriage she vetoed the idea at once. Apart from anything else she felt too raw inside to contemplate such a step then, and Lewis, who knew he had no rivals, was content to wait.