“But I shan’t go to balls — yet,” stammered Alex.
She and Barbara had only been allowed a very few children’s parties, and for the last few years she had been considered too old for these. She thought of a ball as a prolonged, glorified party.
“Not until after your presentation, of course, and that won’t be till the spring. But there may be one or two affairs in the country at Christmas, if I take you to stay about, as I hope.
“You see, darling, my plan is to let you have the next two months in the country with little Barbara, just as usual — only you must take great care not to let yourself get freckled in the sun — and then, when you come back to town in October, you can have your hair properly put up, and come about with me, so as to get to know people and make a little beginnin’ before there’s any question of really doing the season properly next summer.”
Alex began to feel vastly important. She had never been the centre of so much attention before.
Evidently this affair of coming out was the culminating point to which all life had hitherto been tending.
Even Barbara treated her with a rather envious respect now.
Only Cedric remained unimpressed, and treated his eldest sister’s marked tendency to assume airs of extreme maturity with silent indifference.
His school career was proceeding more triumphantly than ever, and his “removes” succeeded one another with a rapidity only less startling than his increasing reputation as a cricketer.
He spent most of his holidays with a schoolfellow, and showed himself rather scornful of girls in general and of his sisters in particular, although he played willingly enough with little Pamela, who had grown to an attractive and talkative age.
Barbara asked him once, with the touch of slyness characteristic of her in certain moods, whether he remembered Marie Munroe.
“Red-haired American kid? Oh, yes,” said Cedric loftily. “Didn’t she have a sister who was bosom friends with Alex at Liège, or some rot of that kind?”
And Alex had felt unaccountably relieved at the implication of the evanescent character of Cedric’s whilom admiration.
They spent August and September at the seaside on the Cornish coast.
Alex enjoyed the daily bathing, and scrambling over the rocks barefooted, and the picnic teas in any sheltered cove that old Nurse judged sufficiently protected from the profane gaze of possible trippers. But she had all the time the sense that these hot, leisurely days were only a time of waiting, and even when she enjoyed herself most she was conscious of a gnawing impatience for the next step.
The week in London before Lady Isabel and Sir Francis started for Scotland had rather disappointed Alex, although she did not own it, even to herself.
Perpetual “tryings on” in hot weather had proved a tiring performance, and her feet ached from standing and from the hot pavement, so that she dragged herself rather than walked, or stood on one foot so as to save the other, which had vexed Lady Isabel, and led to a long admonition as to the importance of moving properly and always holding oneself upright.
Moreover, Alex, although she did not give very much thought to her own looks as a rule, had always expected that as soon as she grew up she would almost automatically become very beautiful, and it vexed and surprised her to find that her new frocks, still in a very incompleted stage, did not at once produce any startling change in her appearance. It was also disappointing that her mother and her mother’s dressmaker should so often seem to find in her hitherto unsuspected deficiencies.
“Mam’selle won’t be able to wear elbow-sleeves just at present, Móddam, I’m afraid — at least, not until we’ve got rid of that redness.”
“Dear me, no! I suppose that comes from keepin’ her elbows on a school desk — how very vexin’. Really, the nuns must have been very careless to let you get into the way of it, Alex. And it’s made your shoulders round, too.”
“Mam’selle must keep her shoulders well back if that white chiffon is to look like anything at all,” chimed in Madame Marguerite most impressively. “It will simply be ruination to let it drop like that in the front ... takes away all the smartness from it.”
Alex straightened herself uneasily.
“It’s such a simple little frock, the whole thing is how it’s worn....”
Which made Alex feel miserably unequal to the responsibility laid upon her.
“Her neck is very thin,” sighed Lady Isabel, and Madame Marguerite, her large head with its weight of elaborate yellow waves well on one side as she gazed at Alex, had looked very disparaging indeed as she said, in tones more consolatory than hopeful:
“Of course, Mam’selle may fill out a bit before next year.”
Alex, in her heart, had been thankful when it was all over, and she had gone back to the old blue cotton frocks that were to be worn out at the seaside.
Her only responsibility there was the daily struggle of putting up her hair.
To her disgust, and to Barbara’s derision, the hair-dresser had insisted upon a large, bun-like frame, which made her head ache, and, pinned on by her unskilful hands, displayed a strong tendency to slip down the back of her neck. And however much she might brush and pull her hair over it, there always appeared a hiatus sooner or later, through which a large patch of what Barbara jeeringly called “false horsehair,” might plainly be seen.
In spite of it all, however, Alex enjoyed those last schoolroom days of hers more than any she had yet known.
Real life was going to begin, and though Alex had no idea as to how the transformation would be effected, she was convinced that everything which she had longed for, and utterly missed, throughout her schooldays, would now be hers.
VII
London Season
Alex’ first London season, from the very extravagance of her expectations, was a disappointment to her.
Her own appearance, indeed, in her first ball-dress, surprised and delighted her, and she stood before the great pier glass in the drawing-room, under the chandelier which had been specially lit for the occasion, and gazed at her reflection with incredulous admiration.
Her dress, in the height of the prevailing fashion, had been the subject of Lady Isabel’s minute and careful consultations with Madame Marguerite of New Bond Street. Of stiff white satin, the neck was cut into a hard square, and the bodice, as it was still called, unsoftened except for a small draping of pleated white chiffon held on the left shoulder with a cluster of dead-white roses, which were repeated at the side of the broad, white-ribbon belt. The most prominent feature of the dress was the immensity of the sleeves, stiffened within by strips of petersham, and standing well up from the shoulders. Thence, the monstrous, balloon-shaped things narrowed imperceptibly, and were gathered in just below the elbow, leaving no hiatus visible between them and the mousquetaire white-kid gloves.
The skirt had no train, but fell into plain, heavy folds, sweeping the ground, and with a slight additional length of “tail,” and a considerable additional fulness behind. A white ostrich-feather fan hung by white satin ribbon from her waist.
“It looks charming,” said Lady Isabel delightedly. “Better than your presentation frock.”
The servants, who had respectfully petitioned through Lady Isabel’s maid to be allowed to see Miss Clare in her ball-dress before she started, were grouped in the doorway, the long white streamers of the maids’ caps contrasting sharply with their neat black dresses.
Old Nurse, a privileged personage, was right inside the drawing-room, inspecting critically.
“I never thought you’d look so well, Miss Alex,” she observed candidly. “They’ve hid your failings something wonderful, and your hair and complexion was always good, thanks to the care I’ve took of them — that I will say.”
“Don’t those shoes pinch, Alex?” asked Barbara, looking on enviously in her plain schoolroom frock and strapped shoes, with her hair still hanging down her back.
Alex did not care whether her pointed, white satin sh
oes pinched her feet or not. She was too happy in her first triumph.
It was not quite a solitary triumph, for Sir Francis, after a prolonged gazing through his double eye-glasses that made her flush more than ever from nervousness, gave one of his rare smiles of gratification and said:
“Very pretty indeed. I congratulate you on your appearance, my dear child.”
But it was to Lady Isabel that he turned next moment, with that sudden softened glance that he never bestowed elsewhere.
“How beautifully you’ve dressed her, my dear. You will be taken for sisters, now that she is in long dresses.”
The compliment was not ill-deserved, and Alex, watching her mother’s exquisite flush, felt a vague dissatisfaction with her own immaturity.
She might be pretty, with youthful colouring and smooth skin, but she lacked the poise that added charm to her mother’s beauty, and a struggling consciousness of that lack disturbed and vexed her.
“I think she’s better without any ornament, don’t you, Francis?” asked her mother critically. “Some girls wear pearls, I know, but I never quite like — it not the first year, anyway.”
Her opera cloak over her shoulders, its cape-like outline and heavy, turned-back collar of swan-down adding to the already disproportionate width of the upper part of her person, Alex followed Lady Isabel into the carriage.
She wore nothing over her head, for fear of disarranging the light Princess-of-Wales’ fringe curling on her forehead.
That first ball remained in her mind as a medley of valse tunes, quadrilles and jigging polkas, blazing lights and red and white flowers everywhere, and a sequence of strange young men brought up in rapid succession by the daughters of her hostess and introduced in an unvarying formula, to which each responded by a bow and a polite request for the pleasure of a dance with her. Alex danced readily enough, but found conversation strangely difficult, expecting she knew not what profundities of intercourse which were never forthcoming. Her chief gratification was that of seeing Lady Isabel’s pretty, pleased smile at the sight of her daughter dancing.
“Are you enjoying yourself, darling?” she asked several times, as Alex returned between each dance to the row of gilt chairs against the wall.
Alex said “Yes” sincerely enough, but she was all the time reminded of that strange, disconcerting experience that had been hers a year or two earlier, when she had sought to persuade herself of a great success with the boy Noel Cardew.
She boasted of her enjoyment of the ball to Barbara next day, and said that she had been so busy dancing that she had never gone down to supper at all.
“But that must never happen again,” Lady Isabel said, horrified. “Girls do that sort of thing at first, when they’re foolish, and then they get over-tired and lose all their looks and have no more good times.”
It seemed the omega of disaster.
Nevertheless, there were other balls when Alex did not go down to supper, sometimes because no one had asked her to do so.
She nearly always had partners, for she danced reasonably, though not superlatively, well, and introductions were still the fashion. But the number of her partners depended very largely upon the attentiveness of her hostess or of her hostess’s daughters. Young men did not always claim dances from her, although they had been amongst her partners at the ball of the week before. Nor did many of them ask for two or three dances in one evening.
Lady Isabel had said, “Never more than three dances with the same man, Alex, at the very outside. It’s such bad form to make yourself conspicuous with any one — your father would dislike it very much.”
Alex bore the warning carefully in mind, and was naïvely surprised that no occasion for making practical application of it should occur. She was intensely anxious to be liked and admired, and she strangely confounded the two issues in her own mind. Attributes such as her clear skin, her exquisitely-kept hair, or her expensive frocks, she thought would promote interest in her amongst her fellow-creatures, and to the same end she simulated an enthusiasm — which was so entirely foreign to her real feelings that it lacked any semblance of body — for the crazes of her immediate generation, centred in Planchette and in the publication of Barabbas. She was full of preconceived ideas as to that which constituted attractiveness, and in her very ardour to realize the conventional ideal of the day failed entirely to attract. In intercourse with other girls, still in their first or second season, she slowly began to suspect the deficiencies in herself.
“I’m engaged for nearly every single valse at the Duchess’s ball on Tuesday already!” a very young, childish-looking little creature exclaimed in Alex’ hearing.
Alex was astounded. What could the little thing mean?
“Nearly all my last night’s partners will be there, and they’ve all asked me for dances, and some for two or three,” said the child with ingenuous pride.
Alex was frankly amazed. Lady Mollie was not particularly pretty, and her conversation was the veriest stream of prattle. Yet she was asked to reserve the favour of her dances three days or four days in advance, and the experience was evidently no new one to her, although she had only come out a few weeks earlier than Alex!
It was the same little Lady Mollie who gave Alex a further shock by demanding of her very seriously:
“Do you know a girl called Miss Torrance, a girl with very fair hair? She says she was at school with you.”
“Queenie Torrance? Oh, yes!” said Alex, the old fervour rushing to her voice at the sudden memory of Queenie, who had left her letters unanswered — of whom she had heard nothing for two years.
“She’s tremendously admired by some people,” said Lady Mollie, shaking her head with a quaint air of sapience. “I know two or three who rave about her. Mother says she’s rather inclined to be fast. I think people don’t like her father very much, and he generally takes her about. You don’t know them very well, do you?”
Alex hastily disclaimed any intimacy with Queenie’s unpopular parent. She felt disloyal to Queenie for the eagerness with which she did so.
Two nights later, at one of the big evening receptions that Alex enjoyed least of any form of entertainment, Miss Torrance’s name was again mentioned to her.
She was listening to the conversation of a brilliantly-good-looking young German Jew, whose name of Goldstein, already spoken with bated breath in financial circles, conveyed less to her inexperience than did the dark, glowing eyes, swarthy skin and the Semitic curve of his handsome nose. His voice was very slightly guttural, and he slurred his r’s all but imperceptibly as he spoke.
She found that conversation with him was exceedingly easy, and translated the faint hint of servility in his deference, as did most women not of his own race, into sympathy with her utterances.
“You think so, you really think so?” he inquired gently, when she expressed a banale admiration for the prettiness of some girl whose entry, preceded by that of an insignificant couple, had made a slight stir round the huge open doorway of the reception-room.
“Yes,” said Alex, emboldened by the interested look in the dark eyes which he kept upon her face, as though finding it more worth while to gaze upon her than upon the entering beauty.
“I have seen more beautiful faces than hers, nevertheless,” he responded.
The eloquence of his look made Alex feel as though she had received a compliment, and she blushed. As though to cover her shyness, the young Jew went on speaking. “I wonder if you know Miss Torrance — Miss Queenie Torrance?”
She noticed that his throaty voice lingered over the syllables a little.
“She was my great friend at school.”
“Indeed! What a delightful friendship for both, if I may say so. I think I may say that I, also, have the privilege of counting myself amongst the friends of Miss Torrance.”
“I haven’t seen her since she left school,” said Alex wistfully. “I should like to see her.”
“You spoke of beauty just now,” said the young Jew deliber
ately. “To my mind Miss Torrance was the beauty of the season, when she came out last year.”
She felt faintly surprised, but spoke hastily lest he should think her jealous, although he had carefully emphasized the date of Queenie’s appearance into society.
“I heard only the other day how much she was admired.”
Goldstein’s dark face grew darker. “She is very much admired indeed,” he said emphatically.
“Perhaps she will be here tonight,” Alex suggested, thinking that she would like to see Queenie grown-up.
“She is not coming tonight,” said Goldstein with calm assurance. “Are you going to the Duchess’s ball on Tuesday? But I need not ask.”
Alex felt unreasonably flattered at the homage implied, rather than expressed, in the tone, and replied in the affirmative.
“Then you will see Miss Torrance.”
“Oh, I’m glad,” said Alex. She felt rather elated at the success which her friend must have undoubtedly met with, to be so much admired, and she remembered with added resentment Lady Isabel’s old inquiry: “Torrance — Torrance — who is Torrance?”
“Did you know that the girl I was at Liège with, Queenie Torrance, came out last year, and every one says she’s lovely?” she demanded of her mother.
“I’d forgotten you were at school with her. I remember now,” said Lady Isabel thoughtfully. “Who says she is lovely?”
“Oh, Lady Mollie and every one. That Mr. Goldstein I was talking to.”
“Goldstein!” exclaimed her mother with infinite contempt. She was silent for a little while and then said, “I’ve heard about the Torrance girl. Men — of a sort — admire her very much indeed, but I should be sorry if you copied her style, Alex.”
Alex felt more curious than ever. Blindly though she had adored Queenie, it had not occurred to her that she would be considered very pretty, and she wondered greatly concerning the development of her old playmate.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 99