Monica had felt foolish, but had stuck to Napoleon. She liked the feeling of having originated a cult for herself.
Beside the bed stood a little table with a framed photograph of Monica’s father and mother, taken almost before she could remember them, a Bible and Prayer-book, and a copy of the Imitation of Christ, bound in limp green leather. A reproduction of the Sistine Madonna hung over the bed.
There had been a moment when Monica, really doubtful whether she was not at heart an atheist, had wished to take this down, and to substitute yet another Napoleon, but she had never found courage to do anything so entirely likely to lead to disaster. Besides, it wouldn’t have been of any use. She would never have been allowed to take down the Madonna and Child. And after all, it was — like the pink wallpaper — very pretty, and reminded her of her childhood.
In these virginal surroundings, Monica lay and thought about her first ball.
She was deeply excited.
Nobody knew what might happen at a first ball.
There were stories about girls who had received proposals at their first balls, or even actually become engaged. Mrs. Ingram had many times told her daughter of the almost historic case of the aunt of Frederica and Cicely.
“She was Claire Bell — the youngest of all the family — and she went to her first ball when she was seventeen. She was very pretty, as they all were, and, of course, she had the advantage of two sisters who were already out, and could introduce men to her. Well, Sir Felix Craner saw her, and asked to be introduced, and he danced with her once or twice, and the very next morning he called on her father, and asked if he might propose. You can imagine how delighted the Bells were — three daughters still unmarried, and they weren’t at all well off. And Claire married this very rich man before she was eighteen! Of course,” Mrs. Ingram was apt to conclude the story with a sigh, “things like that don’t happen every day.”
“She must have been awfully pretty.”
“She was pretty, I must say. But it isn’t always prettiness that does it. As a matter of fact, Claire lost her looks very soon after. Still, what did that matter? There she was, married and settled at seventeen.”
It seemed an almost unrealizable ideal.
One could not hope to be as brilliantly successful as all that. Still, it would be glorious to dance every dance, and to feel that one’s partners were admiring one’s dress, and one’s dancing, and one’s looks. Monica knew that she was, for instance, prettier than either Frederica or Cecily, who were both so much too tall, and held themselves so badly. It certainly was not only because she was a visitor that Mr. Pelham had talked so much more to her than to either of them. Mr. Pelham might be elderly, and not very good-looking, but still, he was a man.
Monica, dozing, dreamed that she was wearing an engagement ring, and that Frederica was jealous.
At four o’clock, her mother’s maid brought her a cup of tea and a plate of sponge-fingers.
Parsons was good-natured, and fond of Monica. Otherwise she would certainly never have stumped up from the pantry, right down in the basement, but would have sent Mary.
“Thank you very much, Parsons,” said Monica politely. She sat up in bed.
“What’s mother doing?”
“Resting, Miss Monica. She’s been on her feet all day long, and the master’s just come in, and said she was to have a lay-down if it’s only for half an hour.”
“Oh, is father downstairs?”
“Yes, Miss Monica. He’s just come in,” repeated Parsons.
“Well, I should think I might get up now, and go downstairs, wouldn’t you? The hairdresser isn’t coming till seven.”
“I don’t know what madam’s orders were, Miss Monica, but if she didn’t say nothing special, then I’ should think you might go down.”
“It isn’t as if I hadn’t had a doze. I went right off. I know I did, because I had a dream.”
Monica gave a self-conscious little laugh, at the remembrance of the dream.
She had an absurd feeling that a dream like that might be a kind of good omen. It might even mean that she really was going to be engaged quite soon.
“Can I help you, Miss Monica?”
“No, thank you, Parsons. I can manage.”
“Then, please Miss, could I come and fasten your dress for you not a minute later than half-past six?”
“But the hairdresser?”
“You’ll want your dress on before he does your hair, Miss Monica, otherwise you’ll never be able to get it over your head safely.”
“No, of course, I shan’t. All right, I’ll be up here at half past six.”
Twenty minutes later, Monica ran down to the drawing-room, pausing for a moment to admire the gilt pot of marguerites that had suddenly appeared on a small table on the drawing-room landing, just below the pleated pale-blue curtains of the window. Then she opened the door and went in.
Her father stood by the window, as usual agreeably doing nothing. Presumably his occasional activities at the Bank of which he was a director exhausted Vernon Ingram’s energies, for, outside the hours of business, he was seldom seen to do anything at all. Good-looking and imperturbable, he merely existed, politely and blandly, knowing everybody whom he considered to be worth knowing, and never making a mistake as to those who might, or might not, be included in the category. He smiled when he saw Monica, and lightly brushed her face with his pointed brown moustache.
“This is a great occasion, eh?”
“I’m awfully excited,” exclaimed Monica. She would have said something of the kind, even had it been less than perfectly true, knowing that he expected it of her. Her relations with her father were almost entirely governed by her knowledge of what he would expect.
“That’s right,” Ingram murmured approvingly. “Mother has gone to have a little rest before dressing. She’s been doing a very great deal lately, and we mustn’t let her knock herself up, eh?”
“No, of course not.”
Monica assumed an expression of dutiful concern, but in reality a faint, familiar pang of vexation shot through her, as it always did at every fresh proof of her father’s solicitude for her mother.
It was not that she was so especially devoted to her father. Monica believed herself to love her mother better than anybody else. But there was a feeling of resentment, that she never sought to define, at knowing her mother to be the object of an exclusive affection such as Monica herself could not, as yet, claim from anyone.
“Have you been to play whist at the Club, father?”
The question dated from Monica’s nursery days. She asked it several times weekly, and never realized that the reply was a matter of complete indifference to her.
“Yes, I had a couple of rubbers. One or two people were very amused to hear that I was taking my daughter to her coming-out ball to-night.”
“Why?” asked Monica innocently.
Vernon Ingram laughed self-consciously.
“Perhaps they didn’t quite realize that I had a grown-up daughter,” he suggested.
Monica did not altogether understand. She often rode in the Park with her father, and had met a number of his friends. Why should they have failed to realize that of course she was grown-up?
But she said, “Oh, I see!” and laughed a little.
“I hope the new frock has arrived safely, and that you and your mother are very pleased with it all,” said Ingram kindly.
“Very pleased, thank you, father.”
“I want you to realize, dear child, that father and mother have taken a very great deal of trouble, and gone to a lot of expense, over this ball. Your mother, especially — I’m quite afraid that she’s worn herself out.”
“Oh, I hope not!” interjected Monica uncomfortably. Her father held up a long, beautifully shaped hand, and she perceived that she had interrupted him.
“You mustn’t think that because Lady Marlowe is — is joining forces with us to-night that the brunt of it has not fallen upon your dear mother. It ha
s. Naturally, we don’t grudge any of it — we want you to have everything that we can give you. And I’m sure that you realize that, and will never — never disappoint us, in any way.”
“No, father, I won’t.”
“That’s right, darling. We hope that you’re going to make a number of very nice friends, and prove that we were quite justified in this — this expense, and trouble, over your first ball.”
“I can’t thank you and mother enough, I know,” murmured Monica.
Her father waved her embarrassed gratitude aside.
“We don’t want any thanks, dear child. We just want you to enjoy yourself, and be a good, happy little girl. I’m looking forward to seeing you in your new dress to-night, very much indeed. You’ve had a little talk with your mother, as to dancing with people whom we know, and like, and not too many times with any one partner, eh?”
“Yes, father, mother has told me.”
“That’s right, that’s right. I’m sure you’ll be a very good child, and enjoy yourself very much. Have you seen anything of your friends, Frederica and Cecily, to-day?”
“Not to-day, father. I shall to-night, of course.”
“Yes, yes. Well, we must see if you can’t cut them both out in looks and dancing and everything else,” said Ingram with simplicity. Then he sat down and took up the new Cornball Magazine, and Monica perceived that the conversation was over.
She picked up a book from the table, and pretended to be reading it, but was quite unable to fix her attention. Her father’s last words, echoing the thought that was never really out of her own mind, thrilled her with its implication that she might achieve triumphs of masculine admiration beyond those accorded to others.
Every now and then she looked anxiously up at the enormous ormolu clock on the marble mantelpiece, and its hands seemed to her to be moving so slowly that she several times wondered whether it had stopped.
At last, however, it was six o’clock and she could go up to her room again, and begin to dress.
It was really beginning.
Presently she was sitting in her white frilled flannel dressing-gown, waiting for Parsons. The new white satin dress lay on the bed, and on the floor were pointed, high-heeled, white satin shoes, that Monica knew only too well would hurt her long before the end of the evening.
There was a knock at the door, and she called “Come in!”
“Now, Miss!” said Parsons, full of sympathetic excitement.
Monica took off her dressing-gown, and the white satin dress was carefully lifted over her head, whilst she held her hair out of the way with one hand.
“Pin it up, Miss Monica — anyhow. Just to get it out of the way.”
Monica drew in her breath while Parsons fastened the double rows of hooks and eyes, and smoothed down the ample skirts.
“There! It’s lovely.”
Monica had no long glass in her room. She surveyed herself in the mirror on the dressing-table, unable to keep herself from a smile of gratified pleasure and astonishment at the sight of her reflection, but saying to Parsons in as critical and detached a tone as she could command:
“It’s not fair, of course, to judge with my hair not yet done. But I must say I think it looks very nice.”
“Lovely, Miss Monica. And madam’s silver sequins are beautiful, too. Now let me put on your dressing-gown again, miss, to keep everything quite safe. There! That’s the bell. That’ll be the hairdresser.”
“Parsons! Ask if I can come in and sit with madam while he’s doing her.”
“Yes, Miss Monica.”
In five minutes Parsons was back with the necessary permission, and Monica, with the dressing-gown gathered round her, and one hand carefully holding up the folds of the white satin beneath, had gone down to her mother’s room.
Mrs. Ingram sat before the dressing-table, her head held motionless, whilst the tall, yellow-headed assistant from the Maison André Leroy in Sloane Street swiftly and vigorously twisted the hot irons in and out of her hair.
“Sit down, my pet. Are you all ready except for your hair?”
“Yes, mother.”
“You’re burning me — be careful —— —” squeaked Mrs. Ingram suddenly.
“I’m very sorry, madam, I beg your pardon.” The young man, with an air of acute concern, snatched the tongs out of Mrs. Ingram’s hair and held them up to his own face.
“I beg your pardon, madam. I don’t think it’s done any real harm, madam — the hair is not scorched. I’m extremely sorry it should have happened.”
“Well.”
The young man, looking deeply contrite, resumed his operations, and Mrs. Ingram muttered to her daughter:
“Il est aussi stupide que possible.”
Monica nodded intelligently.
“Darling, look on my writing-table, and you’ll find a menu card. It’s one I spoilt. Just read it through, and then you’ll know how dinner is getting on, and be ready to jump up directly I catch Lady Margaret Miller’s eye. It’s such a bore if one person doesn’t realize and goes on talking.”
Monica fetched the stiff white card, with its narrow gilt edge, and read the items, although without any very great feelings of interest, from soups — thick and clear — turbot sauce madère, and sole meunière, entrée and joint, hot and cold sweets, savoury — canapés à l’indienne, of course — to bombe glacée — which was the only item that aroused in her a faint anticipation of enjoyment.
“I see, mother. It ought to be very nice.”
“Of course it’ll be very nice, darling. I didn’t ask you for your little opinion on the menu — what can you possibly know about it?” said her mother, laughing. “But you must learn how these things are done, of course. Directly dessert is finished, I shall make the move.
“Mr. Ashe will take you into dinner, and you’ll have Lady Margaret’s son, young Peter Miller, on the other side of you. The one you met at lunch the other day, at the Marlowes’.”
“I don’t remember which one he was,” admitted Monica, with a confused recollection of a large Sunday lunch-party, and an indistinguishable herd of black-coated, grey-trousered men, and introductions performed in Cecily’s shyest and most inaudible manner.
Mrs. Ingram made a sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, indicating dismay and disapproval.
“Darling, that’s one of the things you’ll have to learn — and as quickly as possible. You’ve got to remember who people are, and recognize them when you see them again, and not look blank and uninterested. A man is very quickly put off, if he thinks that a girl hasn’t even taken the trouble to remember what he looks like.”
“I’ll try,” said Monica meekly.
“Mr. Miller is in the Foreign Office, and he’s the second son of Lady Margaret Miller, who was a Farren of Earlswick, and an heiress. He’ll be quite well off some day. The one who’ll take you into dinner, and to whom you must talk most, of course, is Claude Ashe. His father and mother have a place in Wales, and very seldom come to London. I used to know his mother quite well, and she wrote and told me that this boy — he’s the second son — was going to be in London for a bit. So I’m very glad to have a chance of doing something for him. Perhaps, if we like him, we could suggest his coming to a little theatre-party one night. Anyway, he’ll call, after the dinner-party. You can let him know — and the other man too, of course — that I’m always at home on Sunday afternoons. Just mention it casually, you know.”
“Very well, mother.”
The hairdresser’s work with the tongs was completed. He stepped backwards and surveyed Mrs. Ingram’s reflection in the mirror with respectful admiration.
“Shall I dress it, madam?”
“My maid will do it, thank you, whilst you’re waving the young lady. — Monica, run up to your room, darling, and — let me see — ring for Mary, and tell her that mother says she’s to sit with you until Parsons is free.”
Mary, the housemaid, was as busy as possible, but it was clear that she must l
eave her work in order that Miss Monica should not be alone in her bedroom with the assistant from the Maison André and his curling-tongs. He, too, evidently appreciated the delicacy of the situation, for he did not knock at Monica’s door until five minutes after Mary had breathlessly appeared there, and had been installed in a chair with a stocking to darn.
When Monica’s hair had been tonged into waves of the stiffest and most uniform regularity, it was drawn backwards through the comb in order to fluff it out on either side of her head, and the ends were rolled into curls, and transfixed by two hairpins to the pad securely pinned on the back of her head. One or two short pieces of hair on the back of her neck were twisted up in the tongs until Monica winced in the apprehension of being burnt, and then the hairdresser silently handed her the looking-glass.
“Very nice indeed. Thank you so much,” graciously said Monica, imitating her mother’s phrasing and intonation of a kind especially reserved for such occasions.
“Thank you very much, Miss. Good evening, Miss.”
He was gone, and Monica threw off her dressing-gown, and took the full effect of her appearance.
“It’s lovely, Miss Monica. The dress suits you most beautiful,” said Mary, with respectful warmth. “I’m sure there won’t be a prettier young lady anywhere in the ballroom.”
Monica’s mother, sweeping into the room without warning, dismissed Mary to her duties downstairs, and inspected her daughter.
“Very nice — yes, very nice indeed, my darling. Hold yourself up — you don’t want to poke like Frederica Marlowe. Let me see — you want a brooch just in front, there.”
“I’ll put on my blue swallow brooch.”
“No, that won’t do at all. You can’t wear turquoises with a ball-dress. I’ll lend you my little pearl heart. Just lean over the banisters, darling, and call to Parsons, and tell her to bring it up here. It’s in my silver tray.”
The brooch was found, and brought upstairs by Parsons, and Mrs. Ingram herself pinned it on the little white tulle edging of Monica’s dress.
Then she said: “You want another hairpin — just there.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 345