The Silent Tide Read Online Free PDF Page A

I not live here if I paid my way? I’d not be any trouble.’
    ‘Isabel, it wouldn’t work.’
    Though wrapped up in her own concerns, Isabel caught a sudden glimpse of secrets her aunt kept close.
     
    The address Alexander Berec had given her took her north of Oxford Street, to a tall, narrow Georgian house in Percy Street, on a corner at a junction where the road curved in a sort of elbow. A painted sign, palely visible in the lamplight, announced it to be the offices of McKinnon & Holt Publishers. Curtains were drawn across the ground-floor windows, but chinks of light, snatches of voices and laughter betrayed a party going on within. There was no sign anywhere of Berec, but as she hovered outside, mustering the courage to ring the bell, he came hurrying round the corner. ‘Isabel,’ he cried, kissing her cheeks. ‘I am so pleased you came. Mrs Tyler . . . ?’
    ‘I’m afraid I told her I was going to meet a friend.’ Isabel was relieved to see that he looked more spruce than he had that morning.
    ‘Why, that is exactly what you have done,’ Berec replied, going up the steps and pressing the bell. ‘I am your good friend.’
    ‘What is the party for?’ Isabel asked, as they waited to be admitted.
    ‘It’s not for anything, I don’t think – just a literary party,’ he replied.
    The door opened to reveal a solidly built, pleasant-looking man of around thirty with fair hair brushed to one side and a fresh, sensitive face.
    ‘Come in, both of you, come in,’ he cried. ‘Berec, the ladies had almost given up on you.’ He ushered them into a big, shabby hallway lined with piles of cardboard boxes where half a dozen people hung about talking. It smelled excitingly of cigarettes and alcohol.
    ‘And this must be . . . Mrs Berec?’ The man put out his hand to shake Isabel’s, his expression polite but uncertain.
    ‘No, no,’ Berec said, with a laugh. ‘Myra conveys her apologies, but she is once again indisposed. Stephen, may I introduce my young friend, Miss Isabel Barber? Isabel, this is Stephen McKinnon, my publisher – the best, may I say, in London.’ These last words were spoken with one of his gallant little bows.
    ‘Miss Barber, enchanted,’ Stephen said, looking askance at Isabel.
    Berec rushed on. ‘I see I must explain. Stephen, Miss Barber and I met at Penelope Tyler’s home this morning. She is Mrs Tyler’s niece, a most intellectual sort of girl.
    Isabel has only recently arrived in London and needs to find suitable work. I immediately thought of you.’
    ‘How very considerate,’ Stephen McKinnon murmured.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Isabel said, feeling far out of her depth. ‘You must think it awfully rude of me, turning up like this.’
    ‘Not at all,’ Stephen said. ‘I know your aunt and am glad to have you. Come in and meet everyone. Excuse us, gentlemen, please,’ he said to a group being lectured on politics by a short stout man with fiery eyes and a low, passionate voice. Stephen led Berec and Isabel past them into a noisy room packed full of people.
    At once, a chubby, middle-aged woman with a low-necked dress and too much face powder came to meet them. ‘Ha, Berec,’ she said. ‘You’re just in time to settle an argument about the great Czech poets. There’s a man here says there aren’t any.’
    ‘That’s perfidious, Mrs Symmonds! Isabel, please excuse me,’ Berec said, as the woman dragged him away.
    Beside her, Stephen chuckled. ‘Berec gets on with everyone, but particularly the more mature ladies.’ He handed her a glass of whisky. ‘They like to mother him. Your aunt is a case in point. A truly nice woman, and very generous to impoverished writers.’
    ‘Why doesn’t his wife look after him?’ Isabel asked. She’d liked Stephen immediately, sensed there was something very straight about him. She didn’t mind that he regarded her now with amusement.
    ‘I have never met Myra Berec and am not even certain that they have, er, exchanged marital vows,’