Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  “No,” said Monica.

  Meeting “anybody” meant unmarried young men.

  One was taken to country houses in order to meet them. If none were provided, or if they were young men of whom nobody had ever heard before, Mrs. Ingram was indignant and felt that Monica had been invited on entirely false pretences. But gradually she was becoming less and less exacting. It seemed almost as though she would have welcomed Monica’s engagement to anyone at all.

  Her mother’s anxiety and disappointment seemed to Monica harder to bear than almost anything. Sometimes Mrs. Ingram would look at her daughter, thinking herself unobserved, with an expression of misery that was to Monica almost unendurable.

  Gradually it came to be an understood thing between them that this continual preoccupation, that overshadowed the whole of life, must never be mentioned.

  Even when Mrs. Ingram spoke of the engagements of other younger girls, or when Monica was asked to be a bridesmaid at Joan Miller’s wedding, they displayed for one another’s benefit a detached brightness that ignored everything below the surface.

  “Young Culmstock is going to marry that tall girl — Mary Collier. He’s one of the most eligible young men in London. I wonder how she did it.”

  “She’s rather good-looking, isn’t she?” said Monica with conscious generosity, for she had thought Mary Collier striking rather than good-looking.

  “Oh no, darling,” said her mother quickly. “I don’t think so at all. She’s much too tall for one thing. Well — she’s brought this off, or her mother has for her. I see the wedding is to be quite soon. No wonder. They must be terrified of his shying off at the last minute.”

  Mrs. Ingram always assumed that any engagement must be a precarious affair, and that a man conferring so tremendous a benefit as marriage should be put beyond the possibility of changing his mind as quickly as possible.

  Presently Monica found that most of the girls whom she had known in her first season had married. They were always very nice to her, and invited her to their houses, and talked cheerfully about its being her turn next, with only the faintest tinge of superiority.

  Monica, in return, hinted gently that she had had an unhappy love affair, and was certain that she could never care for anybody else. She also implied that she had refused two or three proposals of marriage. She never felt really certain whether she was believed or not; and then one day she found that Mrs. Ingram was talking, lightly and yet very definitely, about her disappointment that Monica did not wish to marry.

  “Of course, one doesn’t want to say too much about it, but there have been one or two people that I should really have been delighted with — only Monica won’t take them seriously. She says she doesn’t care about men. Well, of course, some girls are like that.”

  A dreadful recollection of the contemptuous incredulity with which she had seen similar statements received from other mothers of unmarried daughters seared Monica through and through. Of course nobody believed those things any more than they believed vague assertions about a man who was madly in love with one, but couldn’t afford to marry, or somebody who had gone abroad and asked one to “wait for him.”

  Such old, familiar subterfuges deceived nobody at all. If a girl reached the age of twenty-five and remained unmarried and was in no particular request, it was perfectly obvious that she and her mother had to say these things in order to try and save her face. But everybody knew, really, that she was a failure, and that men did not find her attractive.

  Even the servants knew, thought Monica. Parsons, becoming a privileged person as time went on, would enquire, half wistfully and half with curiosity, when they were going to have a wedding in the house.

  But after Monica’s third season she made such references less often.

  Vernon Ingram did not make them at all.

  He had once, after the episode of Christopher Lane, spoken very seriously to Monica, and she never willingly allowed herself to remember that conversation. He had accused her of nothing at all excepting vulgarity, and Monica fully realized all that the word implied of censure and of shame.

  She seldom thought of Christopher nowadays. The letter that she had received from him had destroyed the illusion of her ardent youth, and her infatuation had fallen dead with her self-confidence. She did not want to think of him, and was glad that he had gone abroad with his regiment and was no longer to be seen in London.

  Monica was utterly dissatisfied and afraid to admit it, even to herself, when she met Carol Anderson at a wedding.

  It was a secret misery now, to Monica, to attend a wedding, and she knew that her mother, too, suffered; but they always went, with a gallant pretence that there was no undercurrent of sick envy and mortification.

  This time, it was the bridegroom’s family by whom the Ingrams had been invited. They had never met the bride, but Monica had heard — with a quick sense of relief — that she was not a very young girl. Twenty-seven.

  “Older even than I am. So perhaps — —” thought Monica, standing beside her mother in church, and glad that her black fox furs and big black hat, tilted to one side of her head, suited her so well.

  There were plenty of men, although most of them were probably married.

  The bridegroom was bald, and not very interesting. It was said that he habitually drank a great deal too much, and Monica, since the announcement of the engagement, had heard surreptitious jokes as to the probability that he would arrive drunk for the wedding. The best man, people said, would have his work cut out.

  Monica looked at the best man, standing decorous and frock-coated at the chancel rails. He was tall and good-looking, rather pale and serious, as though he were feeling more sense of responsibility than the bridegroom, who was red-faced and cheerful, and whispering behind his hand to his relations in the front bench. Monica barely gave him a glance.

  She was concentrating her attention upon the best man, partly because she knew him to be unmarried and partly because she was attracted by his good looks.

  At the reception afterwards he was introduced to her, and remained beside her for a length of time to which she was by now unaccustomed, for her great anxiety to please made her conversation forced and spasmodic.

  Seen at close quarters Monica perceived that Carol Anderson was not quite as young and handsome as distance had led her to expect. There was something faintly theatrical about his good looks. He might possibly be about the same age as herself.

  “He might do,” was the message flashed by her subconscious mind, as they exchanged the commonplace observations proper to the occasion.

  She liked his voice, and his rather plaintive smile, and heavy-lidded eyes of a tint between dark-hazel and grey.

  They talked about weddings, and Anderson remarked that the traditional society wedding was in fact a relic of barbarism.

  “Making so much fuss about something that in reality concerns only two people,” he explained. “If a man and a woman do decide to live together, it seems to me a purely personal affair. They can make it a legal contract, if they want to, by going before the Registrar together.”

  “I’m afraid I like the idea of a church wedding,” said Monica, smiling.

  With some men, it was better to agree with everything they said, if they were to think one intelligent and responsive — but she knew instinctively that Carol Anderson would be more interested if she said what she really felt.

  “Is that because you’re religious, or because you like white satin and orange-blossom?”

  “A little of both — but especially the white satin and orange-blossom, I think.”

  “Well, I don’t blame you, because they’d be most becoming. And I hope you’ll let me come and admire you when the time arrives.”

  “Wouldn’t it be against your principles?” asked Monica with mock seriousness.

  He replied in the same vein.

  “There are some things — and people — for whom it’s worth while to sacrifice one’s principles.”

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bsp; “That’s very nice of you. The least I can say in return is that I’ll sacrifice mine, and come and witness your legal contract at the Registrar’s office, when it takes place.”

  There was the faintest hint of an enquiry in her voice at the last words.

  A curious change passed, for one instant, over Anderson’s face. It was rather a withdrawal than a change of expression, and it was so fleeting that Monica wondered if she had not, perhaps, imagined it.

  He answered almost immediately.

  “That’s charming of you. As a matter of fact, in my particular case, theories are not very likely to turn into practice. But I’ll take the will for the deed, and be just as grateful to you.”

  “Don’t you approve of marriage, then?”

  “Very much,” he returned, laughing. “Won’t you have a glass of champagne?”

  Monica accepted, and they raised their glasses to one another. A little thrill of excitement and pleasure went through her as their eyes met. She felt certain that he liked her.

  The certainty was confirmed when Mrs. Ingram, joining Monica with the intention, evident to her daughter, of suggesting departure, as evidently changed her mind and smiled at Monica happily and confidently. Monica introduced Mr. Anderson.

  “Do come and see us some time. We’re always at home on Sunday afternoons,” said Mrs. Ingram.

  “I should like to so much. Next Sunday, if I may,” declared the young man promptly.

  Mrs. Ingram pretended to hesitate.

  “Next Sunday — we’re not going away this week-end, Monica, are we? No, that’s all right. Then do come, Mr. Anderson. That’ll be too delightful.”

  She turned away, and Monica knew, with the intuition peculiar to those who live together, that her mother was eagerly anxious not to break up her tête-à-tête with the young man.

  But Carol Anderson, as best man, could not long remain talking to Monica, and in another moment he was called away.

  She saw him again at the end of the afternoon, when the bride and bridegroom were saying good-bye to their friends. Most of the guests were crowding round the entrance of the hotel, preparing to wave enthusiastically when the car, already surreptitiously decorated with a satin slipper and a large horse-shoe, should drive off. Monica, standing on the pavement in Brook Street, smiling resolutely, suddenly caught sight of Mr. Anderson, looking taller than ever in his silk hat, hastening towards one of the foremost in the long line of waiting cars and carriages.

  He paused as he passed her, then turned back.

  “I’m dashing ahead, to look after them at Victoria, and all that. You never saw such a mountain of luggage!”

  They laughed together.

  “Good-bye. I shall look forward to seeing you next Sunday. You’re in the book, I suppose?”

  “Oh yes — I’m so glad you’re coming.”

  He raised his hat, smiled at her, and was gone.

  Neither Monica nor Mrs. Ingram made any reference to Carol Anderson as they drove home together half an hour later. They agreed that it had been a pretty wedding, and Mrs. Ingram made none of her usual criticisms on the bride and bridegroom. It was as though she felt that she could afford to be generous. The thought came to Monica quite involuntarily.

  As they stood on their own doorstep whilst Mrs. Ingram searched her pocket, hidden in the folds of her skirt, for her latch-key, a large black cat sidled along the area railings, and then came up to them, pressing itself against the closed door.

  Monica stooped to stroke its fur.

  “Hullo, pussy — where have you come from?”

  “Here it is — —” Mrs. Ingram unlocked the door. “Don’t let that cat — —”

  But the cat had already darted into the hall.

  Monica laughed.

  “I’ll turn it out,” she suggested.

  To her surprise, her mother laid her hand on her arm.

  “Never mind. Perhaps it’s a good omen,” she said seriously. “They say a black cat’s lucky. It may be going to bring you luck, Monica.”

  With a sudden rush of compassion, mingled with quite unreasoning self-reproach, Monica realized imaginatively something of the piteous strain under which her mother lived. It must indeed be from some hidden depths of for lornness that Imogen Ingram, who was neither superstitious nor sentimental, could have so spoken!

  They left the black cat undisturbed at the head of the stairs that led down to the servants’ quarters in the basement.

  That evening, and the day following, Monica was aware of a lightening in the atmosphere of the house. It was as though a new spirit of hopefulness was hovering on the threshold, not yet admitted, but seeking admittance.

  On Saturday afternoon Mrs. Ingram, elaborately casual, enquired of her daughter whilst they sat at tea together in the drawing-room:

  “Who was that young Anderson who was best man at the wedding the other day, darling? It just gave his name in The Morning Post, without saying if he was any relation or anything.”

  “I don’t know, except that he’s in the City. He told me so.”

  “Stockbroking, I suppose. Well, that might be all right,” Mrs. Ingram said musingly, evidently speaking her thoughts aloud. “But you don’t know what Andersons.?”

  “No, mother.”

  “Anderson might mean anything, of course.”

  There was a pause.

  “Have you finished your tea, darling?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Then run down to the library, like a good girl, and bring me up Burke, will you?”

  Monica obeyed without comment. Her mother became absorbed in the pages of the big red book. When she at last closed it, there was an air of faint satisfaction on her face.

  “I thought so. He’s one of the Gloucestershire Andersons. His mother must have been a Crawshay-Allen. The father is still alive: married a second time only a few years ago — a Miss Fowler — and lives at the place in Gloucestershire.”

  “Does it say if he’s the only son?” Monica asked, her voice made carefully careless.

  The faintest possible hesitation, preceding Mrs. Ingram’s reply, warned Monica’s abnormally sharpened perceptions that the answer was not altogether what she would have liked it to be.

  “There’s a child — a boy — by the second wife. Still — it might make no difference — —”

  Monica made no reply to the elliptical statement. It was not difficult to understand the implications that it carried, and she resented them the more bitterly because exactly the same train of thought had flashed through her own mind.

  When she woke on Sunday morning, it was to the instant recollection that Carol Anderson had said he was coming that afternoon to Eaton Square.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t come, though, after all. Young men were not reliable. Monica strove to arm herself against the possibility of acute disappointment.

  Neither she nor her mother made any reference whatever to the expected visitor.

  The day followed its customary routine: church at St. Peter’s in the morning, a walk across the Park — cold and unexhilarating in the raw chilliness of February — Sunday roast beef, apple-tart, Stilton cheese and celery, at home, and, soon afterwards, Vernon Ingram’s announcement that he was going round to the Club.

  “We’re not expecting anyone, or going anywhere, this evening?” he enquired.

  “No, dear. There’s nothing.”

  “Then I shall try and get a rubber or two and perhaps dine at the Club.”

  His wife and daughter were not unaccustomed to such an announcement on Sundays. Mrs. Ingram always ordered a cold supper that night, so that the servants might go to church, and there was a certain monotony about the weekly menu of cold beef, cold tart, and cold bundles of cheese-straws.

  Monica often thought that her father’s Club, where he could meet his friends, play cards, see all the latest illustrated papers, and order as varied a dinner as he chose, whatever the day of the week, must serve him as an agreeable refuge. She herself, of cour
se, did not belong to a Club, and even had she done so, women’s Clubs were usually uncomfortable and dingy, with badly cooked and served meals, and fires that refused to burn up.

  At half-past three Mrs. Ingram, who had been leaning back in a corner of the sofa, with a Mudie novel open upon her lap, sat up very erect and said that Monica had better go and change her dress.

  “In case anyone turns up.”

  “Won’t this do?”

  “No, darling. The collar is crumpled. Tell Parsons to wash it for you to-morrow morning — and the cuffs, too. And run upstairs and put on the green velveteen. It suits you.”

  Monica also thought that the green velveteen dress suited her, and felt grateful to her mother for having suggested it. She sighed with pretended reluctance and went upstairs.

  It was cold in her bedroom, and Monica wished that she were allowed to have a fire there. There was always a fire in Mrs. Ingram’s bedroom from four o’clock onwards, but she said that in Monica’s case it was quite unnecessary, except in illness or very cold weather.

  Monica unfastened her blue-serge dress, stepped out of it so as not to disturb her hair, and left it on the floor for the housemaid to put away. She went across to the wardrobe, shivering in her short-sleeved petticoat-bodice and silk underskirt. The petticoat-bodice wouldn’t do under the velveteen frock, which had a rather low-cut neck. It’s bow of blue baby-ribbon had a way of appearing above the opening of her frock that compelled her to tuck it in again continually. Monica decided that it was too cold to divest herself of anything at all, so after pinning down the recalcitrant blue bow, she put on a princess petticoat over all the rest, and then the green velveteen.

  It certainly was a very pretty dress, and it was extraordinarily comfortable, as well as becoming, not to wear a high collar.

  Monica looked at herself in the glass.

  It occurred to her sometimes that she was not as pretty as she had been at eighteen. Her face was certainly paler and much thinner, and the loss of a tooth showed a gap when she smiled. But her hair was a satisfaction to her — brown and abundant, puffed out on either side of her head, and regularly and carefully waved at least once a fortnight.