Read Online Away Went Love by Mary Burchell - Free Book Online

help”! It was not going to be easy, from any point of view.
    Not unnaturally, Hope spent a restless and broken night, and set out for the Laboratory next morning feeling singularly unprepared for the tackling of a crisis. She even found herself hoping in a cowardly way that some reason would prevent Dr. Tamberly from coming that day. But then she remembered that delaying the unpleasant interview would also mean delaying the solution of Richard’s problem. The sooner she got it over, the better.
    Unaffected by her hopes one way or the other, Dr. Tamberly made his appearance in the Laboratory at the exact time when he might have been expected. He was, as one of the other junior assistants had once put it, almost terrifyingly punctual, and very correct in all the minor virtues.
    His curt “Good morning” included Hope as merely one of the staff. And then he disappeared into his office, to which his shorthand-typist was almost immediately summoned.
    When she emerged again, he came out too—on his way to a conference, and Hope realized that she had indeed been right when she had said there would be no chance to speak to him until the end of the day.
    The reprieve both relieved and dismayed her. If only the whole dreadful business were over, one way or the other!—But it had to be one way— not the other. She simply could not face the prospect of going back to Richard to confess failure. During the night and this day she had had time to look realities in the face.
    Failure to find that five hundred pounds would mean ruin for Richard—probably prison. It was impossible even to contemplate that. A prison sentence was something that happened to people one read about in the newspapers. Not to people one knew and loved. Not to Richard!
    As the afternoon lengthened she grew calmer—perhaps with the calmness of despair. And when at last it was time to put away her work and go home, she took off her overall, smoothed her hair with an absent, nervous gesture, and went along to Dr. Tamberly’s private office.
    She could not remember ever having hated anything more, but, calling on all the courage she had, she knocked on the door and, in answer to his abrupt “Come in,” entered the room.
    He was sitting at his desk writing, but glanced up as she entered and spoke in some surprise.
    “Hello! What do you want? Come on in and sit down.”
    He was, Hope thought with faint amusement, decidedly more the guardian than the employer at the moment and, however much she might have resented that a few days ago, now she only hoped it might augur well for the interview.
    He continued to write for a few minutes. Then he flung down his pen and gave her his entire attention.
    “There, that’s finished. Well, what is it Hope?”
    The guardianly mood again! He was certainly not in the habit of calling her by her Christian name.
    “I wanted to talk to you about something quite—personal—”
    “Yes?” He seemed surprised that she paused there. “Something about the twins?”
    “No. Oh, no. Something about me and—and money.”
    To her astonishment, he smiled with an air of grim indulgence.
    “Money, eh? You want some, in fact?”
    She flushed deeply.
    “H-how did you guess?”
    “Come, that’s not very difficult, surely? I suppose you outran the constable a bit while your parents were away, in the expectation that an indulgent father would pay up when he came back, and now you’re stuck. What’s the damage?”
    Hope found that she was trembling. The fact that, within limits, he was prepared to be tolerant—even indulgent both disconcerting and unnerving. It made her all the more certain, somehow, that, outside those limits, he would be extremely hard to deal with.
    “It isn’t—quite—as you imagine,” she got out, rather jerkily.
    “No?”
    “No—There’s really a very large sum involved.”
    He tipped back his chair and regarded her.
    “How much?” he demanded bluntly.
    “Five hundred pounds.”
    “Five hundred !”