“I don’t see what else anybody can expect, in war-time. It’s always the same thing. These girls go dashing about all over the place, and meet every sort and kind, and think they’re in love, and they’re so damned independent nobody can stop them doing anything they please.”
“Too right,” murmured Lady Rockingham. “It’s propinquity, don’t you know what I mean. If you’re going to have officers billeted here, Reggie, it’s quite a good thing that Jess is joining up.”
“Ah,” said the General.
He appeared to ponder for a moment.
Venetia Rockingham’s large and lovely eyes rested upon him thoughtfully.
“What’s Colonel Lonergan like?” she asked presently. “The other one — the young one — is quite a bore, isn’t he, but I thought Lonergan was an interesting type, don’t you know what I mean. Very Irish of course.”
The General’s reply was indirect.
“Has Val told you that she knew him years ago, when my father was at the Embassy in Rome?”
“She did say something — Reggie darling! Don’t tell me he’s the one there was the fuss about!”
The General nodded.
“But that one was a music teacher, or an art student, or something.”
“Well, it’s the same chap. He draws pictures and gets paid for them in peace-time — but I’m bound to say he strikes me as being a good soldier.”
“Is he married?”
“Not that I know of. In fact, my dear, between you and me and the gate-post, I’m not perfectly certain that he isn’t after Val now. He was by way of being a pal of Primrose’s, which might have meant anything or nothing with a girl like her — but if you ask me, he’s much more inclined to play the ass about Val.”
Venetia’s eyes glittered with interest and amusement.
“How too intriguing. Of course I won’t say a word to a soul — anything to do with the family is always sacred to me, as you know. And I’ve always been so terribly fond of darling Val. But just tell me one thing, Reggie — how long has he been here?”
“Since Saturday.”
“But this is only Monday night, and he’s been out all to-day.”
“She met him at the Victoria Hotel for luncheon. Not,” said the General, “that there’s the slightest reason why she shouldn’t, but it isn’t like Val. Not at all like her. And there’s been a most extraordinary amount of sitting over the fire and talking. What she can have to say to a chap like that, whom she’s only known for two days, beats me.”
“Of course, if they knew each other before — —”
“Twenty-five years ago!” broke in the General.
“Valentine’s at the sort of age when women want to take a last fling, don’t you know what I mean. The girls are grown-up, and it’s her last chance of having any fun, especially living down here, poor pet.”
“Fun! What on earth does she want with fun? She isn’t a girl of twenty.”
“If she was, it wouldn’t be half so dangerous. I must say, I’ve always rather wondered why she never married again.”
They both glanced up at Humphrey’s portrait as though seeking an explanation there.
“She’d never marry a chap of Lonergan’s sort,” said General Levallois. “What on earth have they got in common?”
“Women like Val are so terribly romantic,” sighed her sister-in-law. “The kind that always remembers her first love, and I suppose he was her first love.”
“Dam’ nonsense,” said the General angrily.
The music in the drawing-room had stopped and they could hear Jessica’s voice directing the changing of a record.
“Where the devil is Val now?” suddenly demanded the General. “Don’t tell me she and Lonergan are fox-trotting, or whatever they call it, with the rest of them in there.”
Venetia stood up.
“I’ll see what’s going on,” she said, “and come back and tell you.”
She moved over to the open doorway and, herself in shadow, stood gazing into the lighted drawing-room.
The gramophone — a very old one — was stridently giving forth the opening bars of a waltz.
“Hallo, aunt Venetia! Come and dance,” shouted Jess. “I’ll work the gramophone, and you can have Hughie.”
“No thanks, Jess darling.”
Venetia’s gaze, unhurried, swept the room. It looked strange and ghostly, with its bare boards and isolated clumps of white-sheeted furniture under the glittering chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling.
Primrose was dancing with Charles Sedgewick and Venetia had leisure for a passing reflection: Good Heavens, he dances exactly like a professional.
Hughie Spurway stood with Jess beside the gramophone.
Her dog lay curled up on the shrouded seat of an armchair.
At the far end of the long room, the door that opened into the little breakfast-room was closed. From beneath it, a bar of warm red light was plainly visible.
“Come on, Hughie,” said Jess.
As they began to dance Lady Rockingham turned away and went back to where General Levallois sat over the fire.
XIII
“Sweetheart, when are you going to marry me?” asked Lonergan.
He had drawn Valentine into his arms and her head was resting against his shoulder.
The shuffling feet of the dancers and the raucous blare of the gramophone next door went on, unheeded by either of them.
She did not answer immediately and he asked quickly:
“Do you still want to marry me?”
“More than anything on earth, Rory.”
“Dearest love. I get frightened, you know, from time to time.”
She looked up at him and smiled, but he saw that her eyes were wet.
“So do I.”
“I know, love.” He stooped and kissed her eyelids.
“Not about anything fundamental, Rory. Not about us. But about Primrose — partly — and other things. Silly things. Unimportant, really.”
“I know,” he repeated. “It’s the same with me. The thought of the adjustments we’ll both have to make — and your family — they’re not going to take this lying down, I’d have you know.”
“There’s your family, too. I mean Arlette.”
“True for you, as we say in Ireland. But all those problems we’ll face together, darling. There’s really only one thing that matters now.”
“I know.”
The music stopped, and they heard Jessica and the two young men arguing and laughing, and Jess’s flying feet rushing across the room.
“Val, my beloved, there’s only one thing for it. We haven’t a lot of time anyway and I may be sent off anywhere at any minute. Will you marry me as soon as I can get a special licence?”
“You know I will.”
“It’s Primrose that’s distressing you.”
“Yes. It would be difficult to tell her anyhow but now — —”
“Would it be any better if I did it?”
Valentine shook her head.
“You can talk to her, of course. I don’t know about that — you must judge. But I must tell her — and Jess and Reggie too.”
“Will you do that to-morrow, love?”
“Yes.”
“God bless you!”
He kissed her, holding her closely against him.
“I’m happy,” said Valentine below her breath, her shining eyes looking into his. “I’m madly happy. You’ve made the whole of life quite different.”
They were together until a sudden startling and violent crash against the communicating door caused them to move quickly apart.
“In the name of Heaven!” ejaculated Lonergan.
He opened the door.
Jess, on the floor, was screaming with laughter.
“Aunt Sophy got under my feet and I simply skidded,” she shrieked happily. “My legs just shot away from under me. It was too funny for anything!”
Lonergan pulled her to her feet.
“H
ave you hurt yourself?” Valentine asked.
“Gosh, yes. I shall be black and blue to-morrow, I should think. I bet I shan’t be able to sit down for a week.”
“What’s happened?” called Venetia Rockingham’s voice from the hall.
“Only Jess making a forced landing,” said Charles Sedgewick. “No harm done.”
“That’s all you know about it,” Jess protested. “I’m not sure I can walk, even.”
“I’ll carry you.”
She screamed and laughed as Sedgewick picked her up, her long legs kicking, and carried her into the hall.
“Take aunt Sophy, Hughie!” shrieked Jess.
Hughie Spurway made a grab at the dog, which eluded him with ungainly caperings.
Primrose gave her scoffing laugh.
“What for would a great old dog like that one need carrying at all?” demanded Lonergan. “Get on with you, aunt Sophy!”
He gently shoved the dog with his foot.
Aunt Sophy, delighted, plunged along beside him.
Hughie’s face was drawn and his eyes looked miserable.
All of them went back to the fire in the hall.
“Well, a nice row you’ve been kicking up in there,” said the General leniently. “Good God, Jessica, what do you think you’re doing?”
Sedgewick, laughing and out of breath, deposited his struggling burden on a broad sofa.
She gave voluble vent to her mock-indignation.
The fringes of Valentine’s shawl were caught in a chair-back and she mechanically began to disentangle them.
Primrose took out a cigarette.
Hughie went up to her and offered her his lighter.
They moved away from the circle, Primrose saying something inaudible between her teeth.
“Colonel Lonergan, do tell me if you’re any relation to a most entertaining creature called Willie Lonergan who used to hunt with the Quorn, years and years ago.”
“I am not, so far as I know.”
By an almost imperceptible gesture Venetia invited him to come and sit beside her, and Lonergan, smiling, went.
“He knew everything there was to know about a horse — like most Irishmen — but I can’t remember what part of Ireland he came from. He married a girl called Patsy Berresford and they went to live in the Shires somewhere and then one somehow lost sight of them, don’t you know what I mean. But I’m sure he was Irish.”
“Probably, if he was called Lonergan. There are quite a few of them, but whether I’m related to all or any of them, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Which Berresford was that?” asked General Levallois.
Venetia told him. She gave genealogical details and the General, interested, supplemented them.
They talked about people — people who were nearly all related to one another, and bore names well known within very narrow limits.
Lonergan, falling silent, idly pencilled outlines on the back of an envelope. His eyes were narrowed and his long upper lip pressing firmly down upon the full lower one.
Presently Lady Rockingham engaged him in conversation once more, this time talking about pictures.
It was impossible to say that she knew nothing about art: on the contrary, she had a good deal of information, both about art and about artists, that went considerably beyond the usual range of the amateur’s stock phrases. Her judgments, glibly uttered as they were, were founded on premises that commanded respect, even from a listener as critical, and as nearly hostile, as Lonergan just then was — for her personality antagonized him and he resented her evident determination to draw him out.
Their conversation continued.
The General withdrew behind a newspaper, and Valentine, the fringes of the shawl released once more, leant back in an armchair and from time to time spoke, when appealed to by her sister-in-law.
Sedgewick, Primrose, Jess and Hughie had retreated from the hall altogether.
Jess and her dog reappeared just when Lady Rockingham had declared that she really must go to bed.
“What are you all doing?” she asked her niece.
“Nothing. Just sitting about. I was wishing I had some sweets,” candidly remarked Jess.
“Too bad, you poor pet. But at least it’s good for one’s figure to go without.”
“One thing about being in the WAAF, I suppose there’ll be a NAAFI or something where one can get chocolate. ‘Smatter of fact, Charles thinks he can get me some to-morrow. He’s going to try.”
Lady Rockingham laughed indulgently as she turned to go upstairs.
“I’ll come and see if you’ve got all you want,” said Valentine. “I’m afraid Esther is a very inexperienced housemaid, Venetia.”
“Darling, too marvellous of you to have anyone. I can’t imagine how we’re all going to live when every single domestic in the country has left us, don’t you know what I mean. Good-night, Reggie. Good-night, Colonel Lonergan.”
“Good-night, Lady Rockingham.”
Lonergan looked straight at his hostess.
“Are you coming down again?”
“Yes, in a few minutes.”
The General heaved himself to his feet.
“I’ll turn out the lights, Val. No need for you to bother.”
“It’s all right, thank you, dear,” she said gently. “I want to come down for a little while.”
The General gazed at her, then, seeming to realize that there was nothing more to be said, dropped slowly back into his chair again.
“I’ve some writing to do,” Lonergan announced. “So I’ll be off to the office. Jess, where can I get hold of Charles?”
“I’ll send him. We were all in the schoolroom. You aren’t going to make him do any work to-night, are you?”
“I am. Not for long, though.”
“Gosh! Fancy you being so strict. You’re like my old headmistress was.”
“I am not like any headmistress that ever lived, you bold brat.”
Jess laughed as she went off.
Valentine and her sister-in-law laughed also, as they went upstairs together and, in Venetia’s bedroom, she began at once to speak of the Irishman.
“What an attractive creature he is, my dear. Such a pity he’s from South Ireland, Reggie tells me.”
“I don’t think it makes a lot of difference. He doesn’t agree that Eire should be neutral. He’s lived too much abroad to have any very nationalistic, hard-and-fast point of view, I think.”
“Oh, one quite feels that. Darling, do tell me, is he the artist you flirted with years and years ago in Rome and there was such a ridiculous fuss about?”
“We were both very young, then,” said Valentine, smiling.
“Good Heavens, how too extraordinary his turning up again. Well, I think he’s a charmer and must have been too devastating as a penniless art student. Just like something in one of Mrs. Humphry Ward’s novels. Of course, girls of our date — though I’m years older than you are — were never allowed to marry their first love, were they? One lives to be thankful, I suppose.”
“Do you think that many girls marry their first love nowadays?”
“Darling, I trust not. It’s nearly always disastrous. Do just imagine yourself, wedded to an artist, and an Irishman — and I suppose he’s an R.C.?”
“Yes.”
“And as Bohemian as possible. Artistic temperament, and all that.”
“No, I don’t think so. And Bohemianism is rather out of date, Venetia, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m sure Bohemians don’t make good soldiers.”
“I suppose he’s married?”
“No.”
“Don’t let him start anything with Primrose, darling,” Lady Rockingham suavely advised. “I should think he quite easily might — I saw him look at her once or twice, don’t you know what I mean — and I want her for poor darling Hughie.”
“Oh no, Venetia.”
“My dear, it would be the very best thing in the world for both of them. He’s absolutely crackers about her, and he’d be in
Heaven if she accepted him and that would get him and his wretched nerves all calmed down, don’t you know what I mean. That’s absolutely all that’s wrong with him — simply nerves. And, being frankly a thoroughly worldly woman, as you know, I’m all for a good match. One knows who he is, and there’s quite a lot of money. A girl like Primrose is much more likely to make a success of marriage if there’s money, so that they can get away from one another when they want to.”
“I quite agree. But I don’t think she’d marry a man so much weaker than she is. I hope she wouldn’t.”
“Well, my dear, whatever she does you may be sure she won’t consult you or me about it. Boys may confide in their mothers, but girls certainly never do. I hear the most amazing stories about darling Primrose and the second-rate people she will go about with in London, and I think it would be the greatest relief to know she was safely married.”
Valentine moved a small chair nearer to the fire.
“I do hope you’ve got everything you want and won’t be cold. I suppose she’s filled your hot-water bottle?”
“Darling, don’t try to snub me. I simply won’t be snubbed.”
“It’s only that Primrose is capable of managing her own life, Venetia, and she’d very much resent my discussing it with anybody.”
“You’re just the same little adorable prig that you always were, darling. Well, all I’ve got to say is, let Hughie have a fair chance, and keep your Irish friend where he belongs. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised to hear that he’d made one pass at you and another one at Primrose. He looks to me capable de tout, don’t you know what I mean.”
Lady Rockingham sat down before the dressing-table and began to strip her slim fingers of their glittering sapphire and diamond rings.
She had raised her hands to unfasten the clasp of her pearl necklace when Valentine, still standing by the fire, began to speak. Venetia could see her reflected in the mirror, but Valentine’s face was turned away and her eyes fixed upon the fire.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 530