His Official Fiancee

Betra Ruck

Description

His Official Fiancée (1914) is a romance novel by Berta Ruck. After a decade of publishing stories in literary magazines, Ruck released her first novel to popular acclaim. Adapted for a 1919 silent comedy film starring Vivian Martin and Forrest Stanley, His Official Fiancée is a satirical tale of love, work, and modern life. To his employees, William Waters is a demanding boss who micromanages every aspect of their daily work. Beyond his back, he is known as “Still Waters,” a reference to his robotic nature and seemingly stagnant love life. When Monica Trant, a typist, is called into his office, she fears the worst. To her surprise, however, Waters makes a strange proposition. “‘I wish to find someone who, to outward appearances, could take the place of my fiancée; could go about with me, stay at my home, and be introduced all round as the girl I meant to marry. She must understand from the very beginning that it was absolutely a matter of business; that the so-called “engagement” would terminate at the end of the year.’” Hesitant at first, Monica is in no position to turn down a better job and agrees to his request. As days turn to weeks, weeks into months, she realizes that her role has given her an opportunity to gain control of a man who has controlled so much of her own life. Dedicated to the running of his business, Waters has left himself completely vulnerable in his life at home. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Berta Ruck’s His Official Fiancée is a classic of British romance literature reimagined for modern readers.

Sujets

• Romance historique
• Fiction
• England
• Romance
• Inglaterra
• Historical
• 20th Century

Informations

• Publié par: Mint Editions
• Date de parution: 21 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513287867
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

His Official Fiancée
Berta Ruck
 
 
His Official Fiancée was first published in 1914.
This edition published by Mint Editions 2021.
ISBN 9781513282848 | E-ISBN 9781513287867
Published by Mint Editions®
minteditionbooks .com
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Project Manager: Micaela Clark
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services
 
C ONTENTS I. T HE S UMMONS II. T HE P ROPOSAL III. T HINKING IT O VER ______ IV. A CCEPTED ! V. T HE F IRST L UNCH T OGETHER VI. W HAT THEY S AID VII. C HOOSING THE R ING VIII. T HE E NGAGEMENT IS A NNOUNCED ! IX. T HE L OVER W HO C AME TOO L ATE X. “H IS ” M OTHER ’ S I NVITATION XI. M EETING “H IS ” P EOPLE XII. T HE F IRST D INNER XIII. T HE F IRST T ÊTE - À -T ÊTE XIV. T HE F IRST Q UARREL XV. “T HE L IGHT OF O THER D AYS ” XVI. T HE O RDEAL BY I NSPECTION XVII. T HEO S ITS U P XVIII. T HE F IRST K ISS XIX. T HE F IRST H ANDSHAKE XX. F RIENDS XXI. T HE F IRST L ETTERS XXII. T HE W OODEN W OMAN XXIII. “M ANY W ATERS ______ ” XXIV. T HAT G IRL XXV. T HE F IRST A VOWAL XXVI. “A LL C HANGE H ERE ” XXVII. P ARTING C OMPANY XXVIII. T HE F IRST G LEAM P OSTSCRIPT . F ULL M OON
 
I
T HE S UMMONS
“ A girl without a sweetheart ,’ girls—(I was readin’ something about it this very morning ’s I was coming along in the Toob),” chattered little Miss Holt over her work. “ A girl without a sweetheart is like a ship at sea, without knowing what port she’s to put in at ______ ”
“Accounts for the way a lot of ’em seem to pick their sweethearts on the principle ‘ Any port in a storm! ’” said Miss Robinson, with her little sniff.
“Well! Seems to me there’s a good deal in the idea that a poor husband is better than none,” came philosophically from Miss Holt, whose back is always curved like a banana over her typing-table, and who “smarms” her dull brown hair down under a hair-net until her head looks like a chocolate. “After all, my dear, if you’re married, you’re married; and nobody can say you aren’t. But if you aren’t married, you aren’t. And nobody can say you are !”
“How true,” said Miss Robinson dreamily. “Got that, Miss Trant?”
And she gave a sardonic glance towards me, to see if I was thoroughly taking this in. I was trying not to. The buzz of Cockney whispering which goes on, intermittently, all day long in our murky “typists’-room” was beginning to get on my nerves again almost as badly as it did in the first week that I worked at the Near Oriental Shipping Agency. I didn’t raise my eyes. Then, above the click and the buzz, came a shriller:
“Miss Trant, if you please?”
My fingers fell from the typewriter, and I looked up with a start into the sharp little South-London face of our smallest office-boy.
“Yes? What is it, Harold?”
“Miss Trant, Mr. Waters says he wishes to see you in his private room at two o’clock.”
“To see me ?” I asked in a panic; hoping that it might not be true, that by some lucky chance my ears had deceived me. They hadn’t.
“Yes; at two o’clock sharp, miss.”
“Very well, Harold,” I heard myself say in a small, dismayed voice.
Then I heard the door of our room shut upon the office-boy’s exit.
I turned, to meet the shrewd, sympathetic brown eyes of Miss Robinson over her machine.
“Governor sent for you?”
I nodded dismally.
“Any idea what it’s about, Miss Trant?”
“Oh, it might be about anything this last week,” I sighed. “It might be about my forgetting to enclose those enclosures to the Western Syndicate. Or for leaving out the P.T.O. at the bottom of that Budapest letter. Or for spelling Belgium B-e-l-g-u-i-m. Or half a dozen other things. I knew Mr. Dundonald was going to complain of me. It’s been hanging over me for the last three days. Anyhow I shall know the worst to-day.”
“P’raps he’ll give you another chance, dear,” said little Miss Holt.
“That’s not very likely,” I said. “He’s such an abominably accurate machine himself that he’s ‘off’ anybody in this office who isn’t a machine too, girl or man.”
“D’you suppose the Governor even knows which of us is a girl and which is a man? because I don’t,” put in Miss Robinson. “I bet you he—”
“Talking in theyairr!” interrupted the grating Scotch accent of Mr. Dundonald, as he passed through to the Governor’s room, where, alas! I, Monica Trant, was soon to present myself.
A deathly silence, broken only by the clicking of the four typewriters, fell upon our department.
But I’m pretty sure that all the work I did from then on until lunch-time was of very little good.
That gloomy typists’ room, looking over the “well” of the great buildings in Leadenhall Street, and so dark that we worked always by electric lights, switched on one over each machine, faded away from me. I ceased to know I was breathing in that familiar smell of fog and mackintoshes and dust and stuffiness. I ceased to hear the muffled roar of the City outside, and the maddening “click! click-a-click-pprring!” of the typewriters within, as I shut myself into my own mind.
Dismally I reviewed my own situation.
H ERE WAS I, “ ALONE IN London,” all my poor little capital spent on the business-training which I had joyfully hoped was going to bring me in a nice “independent-feeling” income of at least two pounds a week. At the offices of William Waters and Son, of the Near Oriental Shipping Agency, a post I had obtained after weeks of weary searching for work, my salary was twenty-five shillings a week. Now , in all probability, I was going to lose even that. And then what was I to do? How was I to go on contributing my half of the rent of the Marconi Mansions flat; how was I to pay for even my cheap meals and my “these’ll-have-to-do” clothes? How was I to earn my living?
Obviously, I’m not cut out for a business-girl!
My three months in the office has plainly shown me that.
“You lack method, Miss Trant”—as Mr. Dundonald, the head of our department, has told me more than once. “You lack concentrrayshn . You are intelligent enough, for a young lady, but when I think I can rrely on you, what happens? I find ye out in some rideeclus mistake that the rrrawest student from Pitman’s wouldn’t make. And this after I’ve warrrned you times and again. What do you think is going to be the end of it?”
Evidently the sack.
And what else is there I can do?
Nothing!
I can’t draw fashion-plates or write articles for the magazines.
Go on the stage—no, I never could remember my cue, even in private theatricals. I love children—but people want diplomas and Montessori Systems with their nursery-governesses. For serving in a shop I don’t suppose I’m tall enough. That’s one of the inconsistencies of men—they quote poetry about a girl being “just as high as their hearts,” and then advertise for parlour-maids and mannequins who must stand well over five foot nine, which I don’t. Though, even if my nickname is “Tots,” thank goodness I’m not dumpy, like little Miss Holt, who thinks a poor husband is better than none…
What about the principal profession open to women—getting married?
Well, but I never see any men, now a days—you can’t call things-in-the-City men , exactly—whom I could get married to . Besides, there’s nobody, now that I’m an unbecomingly-dressed pauper, who would want to marry me.—Except, perhaps… Sydney Vandeleur…? Dear old Sydney is a friend left over from the days before the smash in our family when “ the world was more than kin when we had the ready tin .” I’ve seen him several times since, and he was just the same as ever, so sympathetic and amusing; such a “pal,” and with something about him that made me quite certain he’d be ready to become something more, the minute I encouraged him.
“Encouraging” him wouldn’t be too unpleasant either, though I never was in love with Sydney. By this time I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a bit the falling-in-love type of girl. Major Montresor, of father’s regiment in the old days, told my brother Jack once that “little Monica had the makings of a first-class flirt; she belonged to the successful Order of the Cold Coquette.” After listening to the dodderings and drivels and despairs of girls who aren’t cold, I’m rather thankful that I am . At least I can be fond enough of people in a sensible sort of way. I could be of Sydney.
I suppose it will end in my getting him to marry me…
But not yet. I haven’t even got his address! He and his mother have gone on a tour to Japan, and they won’t be within reach for so much as a dinner for about a year. Whereas it’s to-day, this afternoon , that I’m to get the sack without knowing what else is to happen to me!
A pretty depressing outlook!
A T ONE O ’ CLOCK I WENT out to lunch at what the typists here call “The Den of Lyons,” with Miss Holt and Miss Robinson.
Our fourth typist, pretty, an æ mic Miss Smith, had evidently made other arrangements to-day. She wore another hat; a fresh bunch of violets was tucked into her long coat, and she monopolized the looking-glass while she attended to her complexion with a pot of face-cream, a clean hankie, and a book of papiers poudrés .
“We’re extremely smart to-day, Smithie,” said Miss Robinson. “What’s on?”
“I’m going out to lunch with Still Waters.”
This was “the” office joke at the Near Oriental.
“Still Waters” meant no one less than Mr. William Waters, Junior, the head of the firm, who acted as General Manager, and from whom I had just received that fatal summons. He would as soon think of having a word to say to one of his typists out of business-hours as of giving a dance in the office itself. So that the excuse “ I’m going out with Still Waters ” always means that the speaker intends to keep her engagement to herself. It’s an open secret in the office that Smithie, who keeps a manicure-set in her hand-bag and who blushes twice daily down the telephone, has “got some sort of boy.”
“Oh, all right, haughty! Don’t bother to apologize,” said Miss Holt. And we left Miss Smith to her preparations.
Presently we caught sight of her again in the