‘Julian.’
‘Yes?’
‘Is he entirely reliable?’ She couldn’t imagine why she had said that, once it was put.
‘How do you mean? He is perfectly honest in business. Only, he’s a born gambler,’ Julian said.
Do you mean by temperament, or that he literally plays cards for money?’
‘Everything. Cards, racing, stocks and shares. Yes-and in general temperament too. I’ve seen him lose three years’ salary in half an hour and win it all back again without turning a hair.’
‘And does he usually win in the end?’ Alison asked, a little fearfully.
Julian laughed.
‘I couldn’t say, Alison. He has never reached the stage of trying to borrow from me. That’s all I know. But then I dare say he knows it wouldn’t be any good.’
Alison glanced at his profile in the passing lamplight and thought it looked grim.
‘Wouldn’t you-wouldn’t you lend money to a friend, Julian?’ she said timidly.
‘Not for that reason. If you start lending to a gambler you soon find you have all the expense and none of the thrill-if there is any thrill.’
Then you have no leaning towards it yourself?’
‘Good lord, no. Do I look like a gambler?’
‘No,’ Alison was bound to admit. ‘No, Julian, you don’t. But I suppose this marriage is a bit of a gamble, isn’t it?’ she said consideringly.
‘I suppose it is.’ He looked amused. Though, if I remember rightly, you represented it to me as "a dead cert". Besides, what about your own risks, you little gambler, yourself?’ And, putting out his arm, he drew her against him.
‘I’ve told you-I’m willing to take the risk to get away from Aunt Lydia,’ she said doggedly, glad that she need not look at him.
‘And I’ve told you-I’m willing to take the risk in order to get this job in Buenos Aires,’ he mimicked her gently. ‘So we’re quits.’ And she felt him drop a light kiss on the top of her head.
It wasn’t a real kiss, of course-more the kind he might give Audrey. But somehow it sent Alison to bed that night infinitely comforted.
The next morning, Alison again had breakfast alone with her uncle. Aunt Lydia almost always chose to breakfast in her room, and Rosalie was either doing the same or else had already departed on some convenient visit which would probably be her way of avoiding any awkward meetings with her cousin.
Uncle Theodore looked up and gave her an impersonal ‘Good morning, Alison.’ But she thought he was not at all averse to having her there opposite him.’Well, what did you do yesterday?’ he asked, and she noticed that this time he even disregarded his paper to talk to her.
‘We-we bought my ring,’ Alison told him, a little anxiously, in case, for some reason, he should find it as unimportant as her aunt had.
‘Did you? Let me see it.’
Alison held out her hand, and he took it in his thin, dry fingers.
‘Ve-ry beautiful. Most unusual shade. Let me see it off your hand.’ Her uncle looked almost enthusiastic, and she remembered that Aunt Lydia had once said he was something of an authority on pearls.
She took off the ring and handed it to him. He examined it with such attention that she had the uneasy feeling he would have taken it out of its setting, if he had had the means handy, and weighed it and valued it there and then. Still, even this academic interest in her ring was welcome after Aunt Lydia ’s slighting treatment.
‘Yes That’s very fine.’ Her uncle handed the ring back. ‘Certainly Julian knows how to buy jewels for a woman. Diamonds suited Rosalie, and pink pearls suit you.’
The reference to Rosalie slightly disconcerted Alison. Then, on sudden impulse, she exclaimed, ‘Julian said the pearl was like me.’
‘Did he, indeed?’ Uncle Theodore looked amused. ‘Very pretty compliment-and nearer the truth than most.’
Alison laughed then, and felt glad, somehow, that she had told him. To have someone else appreciate Julian’s remark seemed to make it more real.
‘I’ve arranged about choosing my trousseau, too, Uncle Theodore.’
‘Oh? With your aunt, after all?’
‘Oh, no.’ Alison was very thankful to think that she would not have to have Aunt Lydia with her all the time, disparaging and sowing miserable doubts in her mind. Jennifer would be very much pleasanter company. ‘I took your advice and spoke to Julian about it. A friend of his is coming with me. We’re starting this morning, because there isn’t much time, is there?’
‘No, I suppose there’s not,’ her uncle agreed. ‘When do you leave? Early November?’
‘Yes.’ It gave Alison a queer feeling to realise how near it was.
‘It’s a big step for you, Alison.’ Her uncle thoughtfully spread butter on a piece of toast.
‘Y-yes, I know.’ Something in his tone made her wonder what was coming next.
Then he shot a look at her.
‘You are genuinely fond of Julian, aren’t you?’
‘Why-yes, Uncle.’ Alison spoke after a second’s hesitation. It was true enough, of course, but, when she remembered the exact circumstances of the case, she felt all the guilt of having told a lie. She did love Julian, yet she must pretend to him that she didn’t, and to everyone else that she did. It was a terrifying network.
‘Well, Alison’-her uncle spoke rather deliberately-’I don’t often give advice to people of your age. For one thing, I know how little effect it usually has. But I should be sorry to see you make the mistake that so many women do.’
‘And what is that?’ Alison asked in a small voice.
He looked up and smiled.
‘You needn’t sound so alarmed. I don’t imagine it applies to you. But don’t ever marry a man for any reason but the one you give to him. He invariably finds you out-and usually much sooner than most of you expect.’
Alison sat there wordless. She tried desperately to produce a little laugh, but she couldn’t. It stuck in her throat and made her want to cry instead.
Her uncle couldn’t possibly know the truth, of course. He was thinking of women like Aunt Lydia, who pretended love and married for money. But the odd significance of the remark gave her an almost superstitious chill.
Suppose Julian ever did find out? Discovered that her talk of ‘a business proposition’ was all sham? Found that he had saddled himself with a fond wife for whom he didn’t care in the least? Suppose-
With a tremendous effort, she dragged herself back to the present. Her uncle was looking at her now a little puzzledly, she thought.
‘I-I’d marry him just the same if he were quite a poor man. Is that what you mean?’ she got out at last.
He didn’t answer directly, but he gave a satisfied little laugh. And after a moment he said:
‘And who is this friend of Julian’s who is going to advise you?’
‘Someone called Jennifer Langtoft. I met her last night. She seemed very nice.’
‘Langtoft? Simon Langtoft’s sister, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hm! Couple of adventurers,’ her uncle remarked disagreeably.
‘Julian says he is perfectly trustworthy in business,’ Alison felt bound to say.
‘Oh, that may be. Though I should never trust that type far myself,’ Uncle Theodore declared. ‘That wasn’t quite what I meant.’
But he didn’t offer to say what he did mean, and Alison felt a little diffident of asking. In any case, so far as she was concerned, the Langtofts had been kind, and. as they were not likely to figure in her life for more than a week or two, the matter didn’t seem of very great importance.
‘Well, Alison,’ her uncle said-and she realised that he had taken out his cheque-book and was beginning to write in it-’if you’re beginning on your shopping to-day, you had better feel you have something behind you.’
Alison flushed a little, and smiled as her uncle handed her the cheque. Then, as she glanced at the amount, she went scarlet and then quite pale.
The cheque was for a thousand pounds.
‘But, Uncle Theodore!’ Alison pushed back her chair and got rather unsteadily to her feet. ‘I couldn’t possibly take all this. It’s-it’s a fortune!’
‘Nonsense,’ said her uncle. ‘I’m certain Rosalie will be extremely dissatisfied with twice that amount.’
‘It’s nothing to do with Rosalie. It’s just between you and me. And I-I don’t know what to say.’ Alison threw her arms round her uncle’s neck and kissed him.
‘There, Alison.’ He patted her shoulder firmly. ‘There’s no need to be so emotional about it. Having taken on the responsibility of your welfare, I naturally expect to see you decently provided for when you marry.’
‘Don’t try to explain it away,’ Alison said, rubbing her cheek against him affectionately. ‘It’s so wonderful of you.’
Her uncle gave her a kiss, and pushed her away, but not ungently.
‘You’re a good child,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll be happy with your Julian.’
‘Oh, I shall, I shall,’ Alison told him fervently. And at that moment she believed it.
As soon as he had gone, she ran up to her room to get ready. She was to meet Jennifer at their flat in Chelsea, and her uncle’s kindness had already given a delicious air of excitement to the whole business.
It was not only his actual generosity. It was his whole attitude. Everything was so different, so different, if only someone showed a little kindly interest.
The very sun shone more brightly, she thought when she got outside.
The Chelsea flat, if rather less solidly dignified than her uncle and aunt’s house, was at least as luxurious. And, as a quiet-voiced manservant ushered Alison into the black and oyster lounge, she couldn’t repress the amused reflection that Simon Langtoft had certainly not gambled away all their money.
Jennifer came in almost immediately, and seemed pleased at Alison’s admiration.
‘Yes, it’s a nice flat, isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘I’m rather proud of it, because I’m responsible for choosing all the decorations here. Simon is crazy about a cottage we have in Sussex, so he lets me do what I like here, and I let him have a free hand there. Then we can’t quarrel.’
‘But I shouldn’t think you ever quarrel, anyway,’ Alison said with a smile.
‘No, practically never. I’m pretty good-tempered and he is very, so there’s scarcely ever an explosion Would you like to see the rest of the place? It won’t take s moment.’
Alison thought she would, and Jennifer led the way through the spacious and beautifully arranged flat.
It was just as she was going out of Jennifer’s bedroom that Alison saw the photograph of Julian Not exactly the Julian she knew. Younger, not quite sure of himself, and a tiny bit sulky.
‘Why that’s Julian, isn’t it?’ she said involuntarily.
‘Yes. Jennifer picked up the photograph and held it out to her ‘Have you never seen that one of him? It was very good at the time.’
Alison took it wordlessly. Of course she had never seen it. She had never seen any photograph of Julian, nor shared any part of his life. She felt a wave of angry pain which she was ashamed to identify as jealousy.
She pretended to study the photograph intently, and at last Jennifer said:
‘You’ll have to get him to give you a copy if you like it so much.’
‘Yes;’ Alison said rather flatly, as she handed the photograph back But of course she could never ask Julian for a photograph Anyone else could. Any casual. half interested, uncaring acquaintance. But she couldn’t because if might imply something that she dare not have implied.
Yet Jennifer had his photograph-and she kept it in her bedroom.
It was an absurdly small incident to spoil the whole morning, and yet, struggle as she would to be sensible about it, Alison was unable to shake off her resentment and depression.
As she sat beside the capable Jennifer in the little car which she drove herself, as she listened to her, obviously in her element, at the famous dress-house to which they went, Alison thought more than once:
‘She would have been perfect in the position of Julian’s wife. I wonder if she is thinking that too?’
For Alison was beginning to realise that, open and gay and vivacious though Jennifer seemed, she didn’t really give away any more than the deliberately inscrutable Simon.
‘Perhaps that is the secret of appearing sophisticated and finished,’ Alison thought wistfully. And then, a trifle anxiously, ‘I shall have to learn how to do it too, if only for Julian’s sake.’
There were a lot of things she was going to have to learn for Julian’s sake.
‘And I don’t mind. I’ll try so hard-so terribly hard,’ Alison told herself with passionate sincerity. It was ridiculous and pathetic, but she suddenly found that, instead of watching the languid mannequins as they swayed past, she was praying frantically, ‘Give me a little time-just a little time. Please, God. I’ll learn to be like these people, so that Julian will be happy with me. Only don’t let him notice the difference and be disappointed, before I have time.’
‘Alison, how serious you are!’ Jennifer turned from a discussion with the saleswoman, and laughed slightly. ‘Don’t you like any of these?’
‘Oh, yes!’ Alison felt she would not have dreamed of insulting this elegant salon and its dazzling occupants by suggesting she didn’t like anything. Besides, she did like them. Only, even with Uncle Theodore’s cheque in her handbag, it was hard to believe that any of these Rosalie-like creations were really to be hers.
However, the next two hours did a good deal to convince her otherwise.
Jennifer was not at all overbearing. She gave Alison’s own timid suggestions an attention which Aunt Lydia would have scorned to show, and contented herself with advising from her greater experience, without making Alison feel mentally deficient.
It was when the question of her wedding-dress itself arose that Alison became unexpectedly positive.
‘She is too young for the hardness of dead white,’ the saleswoman said. ‘She needs the softness of old ivory.’
‘Something cloudy in effect, I think,’ began Jennifer, frowning thoughtfully.
‘I want something like this, please.’ Alison determinedly held out her hand, on which the pink pearl glimmered rosily.
Jennifer smiled, a little puzzled, but the saleswoman said, ‘I know what you mean. Wait. There is some silk we had from Paris. this morning.’
She disappeared behind the grey curtains at the end of the salon, to return a minute or two later with a roll of silk. She tossed a great fold of it over her hand. so that it cascaded to the floor with the semi-opaque milkiness of alabaster Then under it she put a length of silk that was the pink of a winter sunset.
‘Beautiful!’ Jennifer said. ‘That warm glow is heavenly. It will be specially becoming for you, Alison.’
Alison said nothing at all. She silently stretched out her hand and very gently stroked the silk.
Afterwards. when they were having lunch together, Jennifer said:
‘I suppose you are going to have some sort of a honeymoon before you leave England, even if it’s only a long week-end?
‘I suppose so.’ Alison, acutely conscious of knowing no more about it than Jennifer, felt unable to add anything to that.
Besides, somehow, the very mention of their honeymoon had turned quite another side of her future life towards her.
So much had been said and thought and planned about the more public part of this queer marriage What people were to think: the wedding which was to appear so normal on the surface: the life they were to lead out in Buenos Aires-every point had been studied to give the right effect.
‘Was it tactless of me to ask about your honeymoon? Perhaps it’s a dead secret?’ Jennifer was smiling.
‘Oh, no!’ Alison assured her earnestly. ‘We-we just haven’t decided yet, that’s all.’
‘I see Only you were so silent and thoughtful.’
She really must manage better than this!
‘I was wondering what I would choose for my going-away outfit,’ Alison lied gallantly.
‘Oh.’ Jennifer could evidently understand being silent and thoughtful about that. ‘If I were you, I should wear that little suit you are having in the deep, dusky pink. It will go wonderfully under Julian’s wedding present. He’s giving you a mink coat, isn’t he?’
‘Mink!’ Alison couldn’t hide her gratified astonishment. ‘Is he?’
‘Why, yes. Didn’t you know?’ Jennifer seemed amused. ‘He telephoned me this morning about it, so that we could keep that in mind when we were choosing other things. I thought he must have told you too.’
‘Well. he said something about a fur coat,’ Alison admitted ‘But I hadn’t supposed it would be mink.’
‘Why not? It will suit you beautifully.’
‘Yes, I know. It would suit anyone. But it’s so frightfully-sumptuous. I’d never imagined myself in mink.’
‘You are a funny girl,’ Jennifer told her. ‘I believe it’s that artless, unworldly air of yours that men find so attractive.’
‘What men?’ Alison said, opening her brown eyes very wide.
Jennifer laughed.
‘Well Julian for one, of course.’
‘Oh, yes-of course-Julian.’
‘And Simon too.’ Jennifer shot a queer, amused glance across the table.
‘Simon? What makes you think he finds me attractive?’
‘He said so, And I can assure you, Alison,’ Jennifer added, as she pushed away her coffee-cup, ‘that I never remember his admitting before that he found any girl attractive.’
Alison didn’t know quite what to say in answer to this statement, so she remained silent.
But, during the next few busy, bewildering weeks, she remembered it more than once with a slight feeling of reassurance For if the sought-after Simon Langtoft found her attractive, surely it was not so unreasonable to hope that one day Julian would find her so too?
Aunt Lydia. having once had to bow to the inevitable, rather unexpectedly insisted on managing the wedding arrangements. She hadn’t wanted the wedding at all, but, since it was there, in her family-a matter for the admiration or criticism of her circle-every detail should be stage-managed perfectly.
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