Read Online My Heart Has Wings by Elizabeth Hoy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Hoy
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Daker shouted irritably.
“I will!” Mike shouted back, his temper flaring, and began to make for the door, as if he would set about the task then and there.
Daker made an exasperated sound. “Come back here, Mike, and don’t be an ass. This Ariel leakage is awkward, but it’s not worth our quarrelling over. All I’m asking you to do is to let me know if anything significant emerges in your contacts with the Ferrabys.”
Mike swung round. “The only thing that can emerge is their innocence and the fact that you and S.M. owe Jan and her father a profound apology for defamation of character.”
“We’ll be delighted to tender it,” Daker murmured laconically. “Meanwhile we’ve got these tests on hand this morning. And before we go over to the hangar, I’d be glad if you’d take a look at these notes of mine on the latest wind-tunnel computations.”
Mike bent over the desk, his face, and his mind, clearing. For the past twelve months the E.106a, in all the complex stages of its development, had dominated his every waking moment. And now, as he pored with Daker over diagrams and notes, the disturbing discovery that Jan Ferraby and her troubles could matter to him a good deal faded into the background.
He did not think of her again until some three hours later, when, the absorbing interest of the morning behind him, he strolled into her office to find her alone. Engrossed in her typing, she did not appear to be aware of his entrance, and for a moment or two he stood watching her. The smooth brown head bent patiently over the keys, a suggestion of weariness in the stoop of the slim shoulders, seemed to him suddenly unbearably touching. Hugh Daker’s acrid description of her father came back to him; a down-at-heel journalist desperately scavenging for news. The implications of insecurity, of a day-to-day struggle for existence, smote Mike sharply. One mild theatrical success nearly two years ago, and since then the mounting toll of failure, disillusion. And last night, Mike thought with a stab of regret he had been unnecessarily discouraging to Hart.
He hadn’t an inkling of domestic economics, but it didn’t need much imagination to realize the anxious contriving and managing it must take to keep a family of four, to say nothing of a sizable house, going in such uneasy circumstances. And this was Jan’s end of it—a burden she shouldered with a gay young courage he could only marvel at. There had been nothing last night to hint at the grimness of the struggle. The shabby, gracious old house had hidden its deficiencies gallantly behind the music and wine and mild birthday feasting. They had pluck, these Ferrabys, and enough demands upon just now without the monstrous assault of Daker’s accusations!
Indignation and compassion flooded Mike's heart as he looked down at the bowed bright head. “Isn’t it time,” he said, “that you knocked off for lunch?”
Jan raised her head and smiled. “I’ve got to finish these letters for the early collection,” she said, adding with an absurd quickening of her pulses, “but I’m nearly through.” Was he going to suggest they lunched together?
Perching on the edge of Helen’s desk, he regarded her musingly. He said, “Something has been worrying my conscience, Jan. I’m afraid I was a bit abrupt with your father over that embryo play of his last night.”
A film of embarrassment clouded her candid gaze. “Oh, you mustn’t feel that way, Mike. I know he must have seemed to you a bit tedious over it. It was just a new idea that struck him all of a heap; the way ideas do sometimes hit writers, I suppose. He was excited ... anxious to spit it all out to the first likely listener ...”
“Trying it on the dog,” Mike suggested.
Jan laughed and nodded. “It wouldn’t occur to him that all that heroic stuff about flying and flyers would sound to you like a most ghastly piece of line-shooting.”
“And how!” Mike shuddered.
“And yet I don’t
“I will!” Mike shouted back, his temper flaring, and began to make for the door, as if he would set about the task then and there.
Daker made an exasperated sound. “Come back here, Mike, and don’t be an ass. This Ariel leakage is awkward, but it’s not worth our quarrelling over. All I’m asking you to do is to let me know if anything significant emerges in your contacts with the Ferrabys.”
Mike swung round. “The only thing that can emerge is their innocence and the fact that you and S.M. owe Jan and her father a profound apology for defamation of character.”
“We’ll be delighted to tender it,” Daker murmured laconically. “Meanwhile we’ve got these tests on hand this morning. And before we go over to the hangar, I’d be glad if you’d take a look at these notes of mine on the latest wind-tunnel computations.”
Mike bent over the desk, his face, and his mind, clearing. For the past twelve months the E.106a, in all the complex stages of its development, had dominated his every waking moment. And now, as he pored with Daker over diagrams and notes, the disturbing discovery that Jan Ferraby and her troubles could matter to him a good deal faded into the background.
He did not think of her again until some three hours later, when, the absorbing interest of the morning behind him, he strolled into her office to find her alone. Engrossed in her typing, she did not appear to be aware of his entrance, and for a moment or two he stood watching her. The smooth brown head bent patiently over the keys, a suggestion of weariness in the stoop of the slim shoulders, seemed to him suddenly unbearably touching. Hugh Daker’s acrid description of her father came back to him; a down-at-heel journalist desperately scavenging for news. The implications of insecurity, of a day-to-day struggle for existence, smote Mike sharply. One mild theatrical success nearly two years ago, and since then the mounting toll of failure, disillusion. And last night, Mike thought with a stab of regret he had been unnecessarily discouraging to Hart.
He hadn’t an inkling of domestic economics, but it didn’t need much imagination to realize the anxious contriving and managing it must take to keep a family of four, to say nothing of a sizable house, going in such uneasy circumstances. And this was Jan’s end of it—a burden she shouldered with a gay young courage he could only marvel at. There had been nothing last night to hint at the grimness of the struggle. The shabby, gracious old house had hidden its deficiencies gallantly behind the music and wine and mild birthday feasting. They had pluck, these Ferrabys, and enough demands upon just now without the monstrous assault of Daker’s accusations!
Indignation and compassion flooded Mike's heart as he looked down at the bowed bright head. “Isn’t it time,” he said, “that you knocked off for lunch?”
Jan raised her head and smiled. “I’ve got to finish these letters for the early collection,” she said, adding with an absurd quickening of her pulses, “but I’m nearly through.” Was he going to suggest they lunched together?
Perching on the edge of Helen’s desk, he regarded her musingly. He said, “Something has been worrying my conscience, Jan. I’m afraid I was a bit abrupt with your father over that embryo play of his last night.”
A film of embarrassment clouded her candid gaze. “Oh, you mustn’t feel that way, Mike. I know he must have seemed to you a bit tedious over it. It was just a new idea that struck him all of a heap; the way ideas do sometimes hit writers, I suppose. He was excited ... anxious to spit it all out to the first likely listener ...”
“Trying it on the dog,” Mike suggested.
Jan laughed and nodded. “It wouldn’t occur to him that all that heroic stuff about flying and flyers would sound to you like a most ghastly piece of line-shooting.”
“And how!” Mike shuddered.
“And yet I don’t
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