Christopher Lane and David Collier sat opposite, and whenever the light of a street-lamp fell upon them Monica could see that Christopher was looking at her.
“Which comes first — you or us?” demanded Mary Collier.
“We’d better drop Miss Ingram first, I should think,” her brother returned courteously.
At the Ingrams’ door, both young men got out.
“Shall I ring?” asked Christopher. He was half-way to the bell already.
Monica had no latch key, but the taxi, driving into the quiet square, had evidently been heard, for a light appeared above the fanlight.
“It’s all right.”
She exchanged polite thanks and farewells with the Colliers.
“Good-night,” said Christopher Lane, very low and quickly. He crushed her fingers tightly in his. “Good-night, Monica darling. Don’t forget to-morrow, at Hurlingham.”
“As if I could!” Monica answered under her breath. She released her hand and sprang forward, just as the door opened.
“Thank you, William,” said Monica to the footman. She had been taught to reward servants for such extra services as sitting up at night by a smile and a few polite words, and she now saw with surprise that the clock in the hall showed it to be long past midnight.
“I hope you’ve had a pleasant evening, Miss.”
“Yes, thank you. Very.”
“Madam desired that you would go to her room at once on your return, Miss Monica.”
“All right, William. Thank you. Good-night.”
“Good-night, Miss Monica.”
Monica had known that there would be no escaping the visit to her mother’s bedroom — nor the glass of detested hot milk that she felt certain awaited her there.
She went slowly upstairs, leaving William to extinguish the light in the hall before retiring to the basement where he slept.
There was no light to be seen under her mother’s door, but this did not release Monica from the obligation of knocking softly upon it.
“Come in.”
Mrs. Ingram sat up in the big double bed and switched on the green-shaded bedside lamp as her daughter came in. To Monica, there was nothing strange, or even unfamiliar, in the astonishing difference between her mother up and dressed and her mother in bed; for she was accustomed to the double row of steel wavers, the absence of tight stays, the flannel nightgown and blue wool bed-jacket, and the cold cream that glistened upon her mother’s face and neck.
“Darling, you’re very late. Who brought you home?”
“A girl called Mary Collier and her brother, and a — a friend of theirs, Captain Lane.”
“Did you enjoy your evening?”
“Yes, awfully. It was great fun.”
“I’m very glad. Now, drink some hot milk, and then off you go to bed. You’ll lose all your freshness if you don’t get enough sleep.”
Mrs. Ingram lit the little spirit-lamp that stood in readiness on the bedside table, and heated the milk in the saucepan.
“Sit down a minute, just till your milk is ready, and tell me all about it.”
Monica sat down on the arm of the easy-chair and gave her mother a detailed and lively account of everything in the evening that was of no importance whatever. When she could not remember, she invented, almost without knowing that she was doing so.
“Wasn’t Claude Ashe very glad he’d been asked? Did he thank you for arranging it?”
“Oh yes, mother.”
At the thought of Claude Ashe a dreadful sensation of mingled dismay, remorse, and impatience went through Monica. To think that she had felt excited, only a few hours earlier, because she was going to meet him!
“There — it’s just not boiling. Pour it carefully into the cup, Monica, and then drink it while it’s hot.”
Monica obeyed. She wanted to be alone, in her own room, undisturbed except by the blissful chaos of her thoughts. She made none of her customary protests about the milk, and swallowed it nearly scalding.
“Good girl! Run along now, and you’d better have your breakfast in bed.”
“Good-night, mother.”
“Good-night, darling. I’m glad you enjoyed it so much.”
Monica dutifully kissed her mother, and received and obeyed her injunctions to put out the light and shut the door quietly — and at last was free.
Parsons did not sit up for Monica unless her mistress was out as well, and as Monica had forgotten to ask her mother to unhook her dress she had to do it for herself, which took time and made her arms and shoulders ache. But she accomplished it at last, threw the dress over the back of a chair, and left all her other clothes in a heap on the floor. Then she had to wash, to take down her hair and brush it out, and finally to kneel down for her prayers.
An incoherent jumble of petitions came to her lips.
Please God, let it be all right … let him really…. Don’t let anything spoil it…. I’ll be so good, all my life, if only this can really and truly happen….
At last she had turned out the light, and was in bed. She went over, again and again, everything that Christopher had said and looked and done. She felt sure that she had done wrong in allowing him to kiss her before he had actually proposed. Her mother would think it dreadful, and Monica was resolved that she should never, never know of it.
It was a long while before she felt in the least sleepy. A rapturous excitement possessed her and kept her tossing from side to side, re-living in imagination the evening that was, she decided, the most wonderful evening that her life could ever hold.
Chapter VI
Monica slept late the next morning.
When she woke it was to a sense of throbbing excitement that at first bewildered her.
Then she remembered: Christopher!
And she was to see him again in the afternoon.
Perhaps, thought Monica with awe, by this time to-morrow she would be engaged to be married.
But she felt no desire to play the old game of pretending to choose her wedding-dress and the colour scheme for the bridesmaids. She did not want to think about anything at all, excepting Christopher, and the feeling of his hand clasped over hers, and the way he had looked down into her eyes just before kissing her.
She was not at all certain that she wanted him to kiss her again. For one thing, it troubled her conscience very much indeed. She could almost hear her mother’s voice, saying that no young man ever respected a girl who made herself cheap. No young man ever wanted such a girl to marry him. He merely despised her.
That didn’t, and couldn’t, apply to Christopher — but still, Monica was convinced that she had done wrong. She breathed a fervent petition that God would not punish her by letting Christopher stop caring about her.
There was a knock at the door and the housemaid entered with a can of hot water.
She drew back the pink curtains and pulled up the blind.
“Oh!” cried Monica involuntarily. “It isn’t raining, is it?”
“Pouring, Miss Monica. It’s been coming down hard ever since six o’clock.”
It seemed too bad to be true.
How on earth could one hope to be taken to Hurlingham in pouring rain?
A terrible constriction in her throat warned Monica that she was very near to the ignominy of tears.
She lay down again, her face turned away from the window, and did not move until Mary had put down the breakfast tray and gone away again.
At eleven o’clock it was still raining.
At twelve, Mrs. Ingram said:
“Why don’t you telephone to Frederica Marlow, and see if she and Cecily are doing anything this afternoon? If not, you might arrange something together.”
“I thought we were going to Hurlingham,” said Monica faintly.
“It’s too wet, darling.”
“I think it’s clearing.”
Mrs. Ingram, surprised, glanced first at Monica’s face and then out of the drawing-room window. Rain still dripped from the black railings of t
he balcony, the pavements shone with wet, and the sky was leaden.
But it was true that it had stopped raining.
“Should you be very disappointed if we didn’t go?” she enquired doubtfully.
“Well, I should, rather. I do like Hurlingham, and it’s the last time we shall be able to go this year,” Monica faltered, very anxious to say neither too much nor too little.
Her mother laughed indulgently.
“We’ll see what it looks like after lunch. If the sun comes out, it might be possible — although I don’t like you to get your feet wet.”
The sun did come out.
Monica, in an ecstasy, thanked God.
“I really don’t know what to say,” Mrs. Ingram declared, just before one o’clock. “It certainly seems to be clearing up now, but it’s bound to be wet underfoot.”
“Is that Hurlingham?” Vernon Ingram enquired. “I think I could come with you this afternoon. I should like to do that.”
Monica’s heart bounded. That, she knew, would settle it. If her father offered to escort them, and said that he would like to go to Hurlingham, then Hurlingham it would be.
It was.
Wandering demurely about the grounds with her parents, Monica exchanged polite greetings with their friends, and with one or two of her own.
She saw Mary Collier, conspicuous by reason of her curiously marked air of distinction and upright carriage, walking with a good-looking, tall man, of whom Vernon Ingram said:
“That’s Lord Culmstock, whose father used to be a friend of mine many years ago. One of the most eligible young men in London.”
“Is that the girl you met last night, Monica?” her mother asked.
“Yes. Miss Collier.”
“I thought so. I heard there was someone,” said Mrs. Ingram, with a mixture of satisfaction at having her information confirmed, and annoyance at the good fortune of somebody else’s daughter.
Monica paid very little attention. She was absorbed in watching for Christopher Lane. Every time that she caught sight in the distance of an unusually tall man her heart beat faster, until she saw that it was not Christopher.
Presently they sat down to watch the game.
“He’ll never find us here,” Monica reflected despairingly.
They were joined by Lady Margaret Miller, and two gentlemen whom Monica instantly dismissed from her consciousness as being elderly and uninteresting, although one of them sat beside her and took pains to talk to her with the elaborate kindliness and entire lack of conviction characteristic of the conversation addressed to a débutante by her seniors.
Quite suddenly she saw Christopher. He was by himself, within four feet of her chair.
Monica felt herself changing colour. She bowed uncertainly, and he raised his hat and approached her.
Mrs. Ingram turned.
“Mother, this is Captain Lane,” said Monica in a small voice. She remembered with relief that Lady Margaret Miller also knew him. That would, she knew, predispose her mother in his favour.
“Wake up, darling,” said her mother’s voice, laughing, but with an edge of sharpness to it.
Monica, realizing that she had momentarily lost herself, started violently.
“Captain Lane is asking if you would like to walk about a little. Joan and Peter are somewhere about, you might see if you can come across them.”
Monica rose. She walked away beside Christopher Lane. Now that her almost terrifyingly intense desire to meet him again was fulfilled, she suddenly felt drained of all vitality, and incapable of speech.
They paced slowly along without speaking.
“Well,” said Captain Lane at last — and at the first sound of his voice, it was as though the blood had begun to flow through her veins once more— “are you glad to see me again? I can’t tell you how furious I was when I saw the rain this morning. I was afraid you mightn’t come.”
“I very nearly didn’t.”
“Would you have been disappointed?”
“Frightfully.”
“Tell me why.”
Monica looked up at him from under the brim of her large shady hat — white lace, trimmed with pink velvet cherries.
“You know.”
“I don’t think I do. Besides, I should like to hear you say it.”
He was talking exactly like the people in books, and Monica felt as though she were herself a girl in a book — only no one, either in a book or outside it, had ever been so radiantly happy as she felt.
They talked and talked. Christopher told her things about himself — he had very little money, and he wanted to get on in his profession, and he thought that his Regiment would be going to India in the autumn — his people did not altogether understand him, and he saw very little of them — and he had never met anyone in the world who understood everything he said, as Monica did. Did she feel that too?
Monica felt that, and a great deal more besides. In a confused and agitated turmoil, she signified that she, too, had always been lonely. Her mother, even, did not really understand her. She had no brothers or sisters. No really intimate friends, even, because almost everybody, somehow, was rather disappointing when it came to the things that mattered most.
Presently, without knowing how it had happened, Monica found herself having tea with him at a little table, amongst a crowd of other little tables.
She was past wondering whether her parents would be displeased with her or not. She had temporarily forgotten their existence. She was recalled to earth by a greeting, spoken almost in her ear.
“Hullo, Monica!”
It was Alice Ashe, Claude’s sister.
She was a tall, plain girl, several years older than her brother, good-natured, and not very intelligent.
She had appeared to take a fancy to Monica at their first meeting, and had suggested that they should exchange Christian names.
Monica introduced Captain Lane, because she did not know what else to do. Alice seemed to be by herself, and she sat happily down at their table. The conversation became unreal and manufactured.
At last Monica said unhappily:
“I expect I’d better find mother again. She’ll think I’m lost.”
“Let me take you back.”
“Yes, come on,” said Alice. “Claude is somewhere about, Monica. I’m sure he’d love to see you.”
Monica was far from wishing to see Claude. She had a vague feeling of self-reproach and uneasiness in regard to Claude. He had certainly seemed vexed and upset after the expedition to Olympia, and she remembered that, since it was she who had procured the invitation for him, he might reasonably have expected to spend at least part of the evening with her. And she had been all the time with Christopher Lane.
Monica felt more and more like a girl in a book.
To her relief, they did not meet Claude. Lane, however, just as they came within sight of Monica’s father and mother, saw some people whom he knew, and excused himself. As he lifted his hat, his glance at Monica was eloquent. They had already discovered that they were to meet at a dance — the last one of the season, for Monica — at the Ritz at the end of the week, and Christopher had made her promise to keep every third dance for him, and go down with him to supper.
In a dim and remote way — since nothing seemed quite real to her — Monica wondered whether Frederica and Cecily would be astonished, if they could know what was happening to her.
The moment she saw her mother’s face, Monica realized that she was slightly in disgrace, although Mrs. Ingram said nothing at all except: “Well, darling, here you are,” in a very bright voice.
She greeted Alice Ashe with warmth, and made many enquiries for Mrs. Ashe, whom she said she had not seen for years.
“Mummy never comes to London now. She’s not very strong, I’m sorry to say.”
“I’m sure you’re a great help to her.”
“I try to be, of course,” said Alice, with a smile that showed all her teeth — very white ones, but also large and p
rominent.
It was that smile, Monica felt certain, that caused Mrs. Ingram to say emphatically on the way home that Alice Ashe seemed to be a particularly nice girl. It was probably the smile, also, that caused her father to reply, with very much tempered enthusiasm, that Alice seemed very nice indeed but that her looks — poor thing — were not her strong point.
He glanced at Monica as he spoke, as though involuntarily, and although she was careful to look as unconscious as possible, the tribute that she divined gratified her vanity. Prettiness, Monica had always heard, was not invariably the thing that attracted men most easily, but of course, it was important, and it was nice to know that one had up-curled eyelashes, and a good complexion, and wasn’t too short, or too tall, or too fat, or too thin.
When they reached home, Monica, still apprehensive, attempted to go straight upstairs.
“Just wait a minute, dear. I want to speak to you.”
It was a formula that, coming from either of her parents, never failed to cause Monica’s heart to sink.
She meekly followed Mrs. Ingram into the library.
“Were you with that Captain Lane all the afternoon?”
“Well — only part of it. Part of the time I was with you and father.”
“Naturally, I know you were. But I mean, of course, when you went off like that.”
“Well, I was — we just — Alice Ashe was there, quite a lot.”
“That has nothing to do with what I’m asking you. I’m not at all angry with you, Monica, but I want you to give me a straightforward answer to my question at once. Were you, or were you not, with Captain Lane all that time?”
Monica debated the advantages and disadvantages of telling a lie, and decided immediately that she was not likely to be able to tell a convincing one. So she looked down at her white kid gloves, twisted them into a ball between her hands, and said, with a mixture of sullenness and defiance:
“Yes. I was.”
“Very well, darling. Quite right to tell mother the truth, and I’m not in the least vexed with you. But I want to talk to you a little, about this Captain Lane.”
Monica’s heart, already in her buckled shoes, seemed, at this, ready to sink through the floor.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 350