‘Yours ever,
‘Vernon.’
She read it again and again, put it under her pillow when she slept, read it again the next morning. She was so happy, so dreadfully happy. It was not till the day after that she wrote to him. When the pen was in her hand she felt stiff and awkward. She didn’t know what to say.
Dear Vernon –
Was that silly? Ought she to say Dearest Vernon? Oh, no, she couldn’t – she couldn’t.
‘Dear Vernon, – Thank you for your letter.’
A long pause. She bit the stem of her penholder and gazed in an agonized way at the wall in front of her.
‘A party of us are going to the Howards’ dance on Friday. Will you dine here first and come with us? Eight o’clock.’
A longer pause. She’d got to say something – she wanted to say something. She bent over, and wrote hastily.
‘I want to see you too – very much. Yours, Nell.’
He wrote back:
‘Dear Nell, – I’d love to come on Friday. Thanks ever so much. Yours, – Vernon.’
A little panic swept over her when she read it. Had she offended him? Did he think she ought to have said more in her letter? Happiness fled. She lay awake, miserable, uncertain, hating herself in case it had been her fault.
Then had come Friday night. The moment she saw him she knew it was all right. Their eyes met across the room. The world changed back to radiant happiness again.
They did not sit near each other at dinner. It was not till the third dance at the Howards’ that they were able really to speak to each other. They moved round the crowded room, gyrating in a deep-toned, sentimental waltz. He whispered:
‘I haven’t asked for too many dances, have I?’
‘No.’
Queer how absolutely tongue-tied it made her feel being with Vernon. He held her just a minute longer when the music stopped. His fingers tightened over hers. She looked at him and smiled. They were both deliriously happy. In a few minutes he was dancing with another girl, talking airily in her ear, Nell was dancing with George Chetwynd. Once or twice her eyes met Vernon’s and they both smiled very faintly. Their secret was so wonderful.
At his next dance with her, his mood had changed.
‘Nell, darling, isn’t there anywhere where I can talk to you? I’ve got such heaps of things I want to say. What a ridiculous house this is – nowhere to go.’
They tried the stairs, mounting higher and higher as you do in London houses. Still, it seemed impossible to get away from people. Then they saw a tiny iron ladder that led to the roof.
‘Nell, let’s get up there? Could you? Would it ruin your dress?’
‘I don’t care about my dress.’
Vernon went up first, unbolted the trap-door, climbed out and knelt down to help Nell. She climbed through safely.
They were alone, looking down on London. Insensibly they drew nearer to each other. Her hand found its way into his.
‘Nell – darling …’
‘Vernon …’
Her voice could only whisper.
‘It is true? You do love me?’
‘I do love you.’
‘It’s too wonderful to be true. Oh, Nell, I do so want to kiss you.’
She turned her face to his. They kissed, rather shakily and timidly.
‘Your face is so soft and lovely,’ murmured Vernon.
Oblivious of dirt and smuts they sat down on a little ledge. His arms went round her, held her. She turned her face to his kisses.
‘I do love you so, Nell – I love you so much that I’m almost afraid to touch you.’
She didn’t understand that – it seemed queer. She drew a little closer to him. The magic of the night was made complete by their kisses.
2
They woke from a happy dream. ‘Oh, Vernon, I believe we’ve been here ages!’
Conscience-stricken they hurried to the trap-door. On the landing below, Vernon surveyed Nell anxiously.
‘I’m afraid you’ve been sitting on an awful lot of smuts, Nell.’
‘Oh, have I? How awful.’
‘It’s my fault, darling. But, oh, Nell! it was worth it, wasn’t it?’
She smiled up at him, gently, happily.
‘It was worth it,’ she said softly.
As they went down the stairs she said with a little laugh:
‘What about all the things you wanted to say? Lots and lots of them.’
They both laughed in perfect understanding. They re-entered the dancing room rather sheepishly. They had missed six dances.
A lovely evening. Nell had gone to sleep and dreamed of more kisses.
And then, this morning, Saturday, Vernon had rung up.
‘I want to talk to you. Can I come round?’
‘Oh, Vernon, dear, you can’t. I’m going out now to meet people. I can’t get out of it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I mean I wouldn’t know what to say to Mother.’
‘You haven’t told her anything?’
‘Oh, no!’
The vehemence of that ‘Oh, no!’ had checked Vernon. He thought: ‘Poor little darling. Of course she hasn’t.’ He said: ‘Hadn’t I better do that? I’ll come round now.’
‘Oh, no, Vernon, not until we’ve talked.’
‘Well, when can we talk?’
‘I don’t know. I’m lunching with people and going to a matinée, and theatreing again tonight. If you’d only told me you were going to be up this week-end I’d have arranged something.’
‘What about tomorrow?’
‘Well, there’s church –’
‘That’ll do! Don’t go to church. Say you’ve got a headache or something. I’ll come round. We can talk then, and when your mother comes back from church I can have it out with her.’
‘Oh, Vernon, I don’t think I can –’
‘Yes, you can. I’m going to ring off now before you can make any more excuses. At eleven tomorrow.’
He rang off. He hadn’t even told Nell where he was staying. She admired him for this masculine decision even while it caused her anxiety. She was afraid he was going to spoil everything.
And now, here they were, in the middle of a heated discussion. Nell had begged him to say nothing to her mother.
‘It will spoil everything. We shan’t be allowed to.’
‘Shan’t be allowed to what?’
‘See each other or anything.’
‘But, Nell, darling, I want to marry you. And you want to marry me, don’t you? I want to marry you awfully soon.’
She had her first feeling of exasperation then. Couldn’t he see things as they were? He was talking like a mere boy.
‘But, Vernon, we haven’t any money.’
‘I know. But I’m going to work awfully hard. You won’t mind being poor, will you, Nell?’
She said no since it was expected of her, but she was conscious that she did not say it whole-heartedly. It was dreadful being poor. Vernon didn’t know how dreadful it was. She suddenly felt years and years older and more experienced than he. He was talking like a romantic boy – he didn’t know what things were really like.
‘Oh, Vernon, can’t we just go on as we are? We’re so happy now.’
‘Of course we’re happy; but we could be happier still. I want to be really engaged to you – I want everyone to know that you belong to me.’
‘I don’t see that that makes any difference.’
‘I suppose it doesn’t. But I want to have a right to see you, instead of being miserable about you going round with chaps like that ass, Dacre.’
‘Oh, Vernon, you’re not jealous?’
‘I know I oughtn’t to be. But you don’t really know how lovely you are, Nell! Everyone must be in love with you. I believe even that solemn old American fellow is.’
Nell changed colour slightly.
‘Well, I think you’ll spoil everything,’ she murmured.
‘You think your mother will be horrid to you about it? I
’m awfully sorry. I’ll tell her it’s all my fault. And after all, she’s got to know. I expect she’ll be disappointed because she probably wanted you to marry someone rich. That’s quite natural. But it doesn’t really make you happy being rich, does it?’
Nell said suddenly in a hard, desperate little voice:
‘You talk like that, but what do you know about being poor?’
Vernon was astonished.
‘But I am poor.’
‘No, you’re not. You’ve been to schools and universities and in the holidays you’ve lived with your mother who’s rich. You don’t know anything at all about it. You don’t know –’
She stopped in despair. She wasn’t clever with words. How could she paint the picture she knew so well? The shifts, the struggles, the evasions, the desperate fight to keep up appearances. The ease with which friends dropped you if you ‘couldn’t keep up with things’, the slights, the snubs – worse – the galling patronage! In Captain Vereker’s lifetime, and since his death, it had always been the same. You could, of course, live in a cottage in the country and never see anyone, never go to dances like other girls, never have pretty clothes, live within your income and rot away slowly! Either way was pretty beastly. It was so unfair – one ought to have money. And always marriage lay ahead of you clearly designated as the way of escape. No more striving and snubs, and subterfuges.
You didn’t think of it as marrying for money. Nell, with the boundless optimism of youth, had always pictured herself falling in love with a nice, rich man. And now she had fallen in love with Vernon Deyre. Her thoughts hadn’t gone as far as marriage. She was just happy – wonderfully happy.
She almost hated Vernon for dragging her down from the clouds. And she resented his easy taking for granted of her readiness to face poverty for his sake. If he’d put it differently. If he’d said: ‘I oughtn’t to ask you; but do you think you could for my sake?’ Something like that.
So that she could feel that her sacrifice was being appreciated. For after all, it was a sacrifice! She didn’t want to be poor – she hated the idea of being poor. She was afraid of it. Vernon’s contemptuous unworldly attitude infuriated her. It was so easy not to care about money when you’d never felt the lack of it. And Vernon hadn’t – he wasn’t aware of the fact but, there it was. He’d lived softly and comfortably, and well.
He said now in an astonished kind of way:
‘Oh, Nell, surely you wouldn’t mind being poor?’
‘I’ve been poor, I tell you. I know what it’s like.’
She felt years and years older than Vernon. He was a child – a baby! What did he know of the difficulties of getting credit? Of the money that she and her mother already owed? She felt suddenly terribly lonely and miserable. What was the good of men? They said wonderful things to you, they loved you, but did they ever try to understand? Vernon wasn’t trying now. He was just saying condemnatory things, showing her how she had fallen in his estimation.
‘If you say that you can’t love me.’
She replied helplessly:
‘You don’t understand –’
They gazed at each other hopelessly. What had happened? Why were things like this between them?
‘You don’t love me,’ repeated Vernon angrily.
‘Oh, Vernon, I do, I do –’
Suddenly, like an enchantment, their love swept over them again. They clung together, kissing. They felt that age-long lovers’ delusion that everything must come right because they loved. It was Vernon’s victory. He still insisted on telling Mrs Vereker. Nell opposed him no longer. His arms round her, his lips on hers. She couldn’t go on arguing. Better to give oneself up to the joy of being loved, to say: ‘Yes – yes, darling, if you like – anything you like –’
Yet, almost unknown to herself, under her love was a faint resentment …
3
Mrs Vereker was a clever woman. She was taken by surprise but she did not show it, and she adopted a different line from any that Vernon had pictured her taking. She was faintly derisively amused.
‘So you children think you are in love with one another? Well, well!’
She listened to Vernon with such an expression of kindly irony that despite himself his tongue flustered and tripped.
She gave a faint sigh as he subsided into silence.
‘What it is to be young! I feel quite envious. Now, my dear boy, just listen to me. I’m not going to forbid the banns or do anything melodramatic. If Nell really wants to marry you she shall. I don’t say I won’t be very disappointed if she does. She’s my only child. I naturally hope that she will marry someone who can give her the best of everything, and surround her with every luxury and comfort. That, I think, is only natural.’
Vernon was forced to agree. Mrs Vereker’s reasonableness was extremely disconcerting, being so unexpected.
‘But as I say, I’m not going to forbid the banns. What I do stipulate is that Nell should be thoroughly sure that she really knows her own mind. You agree to that, I’m sure?’
Vernon agreed to that with an uneasy feeling of being entangled in a mesh from which he was presently not going to be able to escape.
‘Nell is very young. This is her first season. I want her to have every chance of being sure that she does like you better than any other man. If you agree between yourselves that you are engaged that is one thing – a public announcement of your engagement is another. I could not agree to that. Any understanding between yourselves must be kept quite secret. I think you will see that that is only fair. Nell must be given every chance to change her mind if she wants to.’
‘She doesn’t want to!’
‘Then there is certainly no reason for objecting. As a gentleman you can hardly act otherwise. If you agree to these stipulations, I will put no obstacle in the way of your seeing Nell.’
‘But, Mrs Vereker, I want to marry Nell quite soon.’
‘And what exactly do you propose to marry on?’
Vernon told her the salary he was getting from his uncle and explained the position in regard to Abbots Puissants.
When he had finished she spoke. She gave a brief and succinct résumé of house rent, servants’ wages, the cost of clothes, alluded delicately to possible perambulators, and then contrasted the picture with Nell’s present position.
Vernon was like the Queen of Sheba – no spirit was left in him. He was beaten by the relentless logic of facts. A terrible woman, Nell’s mother – implacable. But he saw her point. He and Nell would have to wait. He must, as Mrs Vereker said, give her every chance of changing her mind. Not that she would, bless her lovely heart.
He essayed one last venture.
‘My uncle might increase my salary. He has spoken to me several times on the advantages of early marriages. He seems very keen on the subject.’
‘Oh!’ Mrs Vereker was thoughtful for a minute or two. ‘Has he any daughters of his own?’
‘Yes, five, and the two eldest are married already.’
Mrs Vereker smiled. A simple boy. He had quite misunderstood the point of her question. Still, she had found out what she wanted to know.
‘We’ll leave it like that, then,’ she said.
A clever woman!
4
Vernon left the house in a restless mood. He wanted badly to talk to someone sympathetic. He thought of Joe, then shook his head. He and Joe had almost quarrelled about Nell. Joe despised Nell as what she called a ‘regular empty-headed society girl’. She was unfair and prejudiced. As a passport to Joe’s favour, you had to have short hair, wear art smocks and live in Chelsea.
Sebastian, on the whole, was the best person. Sebastian was always willing to see your point of view, and he was occasionally unusually useful with his matter-of-fact common-sense point of view. A very sound fellow, Sebastian.
Rich, too. How queer things were! If only he had Sebastian’s money, he could probably marry Nell tomorrow. Yet, with all that money, Sebastian couldn’t get hold of the girl he wanted.
Rather a pity. He wished Joe would marry Sebastian instead of some rotter or other who called himself artistic.
Sebastian, alas, was not at home. Vernon was entertained by Mrs Levinne. Strangely enough, he found a kind of comfort in her bulky presence. Funny, fat, old Mrs Levinne with her jet and her diamonds and her greasy black hair, managed to be more understanding than his own mother.
‘You mustn’t be unhappy, my dear,’ she said. ‘I can see you are. It’s some girl, I suppose? Ah well, well, Sebastian is just the same about Joe. I tell him he must be patient. Joe’s just kicking up her heels at present. She’ll settle down soon and begin to find out what it is she really does want.’
‘It would be awfully jolly if she married Sebastian. I wish she would. It would keep us all together.’
‘Yes – I’m very fond of Joe myself. Not that I think she’s really the wife for Sebastian – they’d be too far away to understand each other. I’m old-fashioned, my dear. I’d like my boy to marry one of our own people. It always works out best. The same interests, and the same instincts, and Jewish women are good mothers. Well, well, it may come, if Joe is really in earnest about not marrying him. And the same thing with you, Vernon. There are worse things than marrying a cousin.’
‘Me? Marry Joe?’
Vernon stared at her in utter astonishment. Mrs Levinne laughed, a fat, good-natured chuckle that shook her various chins.
‘Joe? No, indeed. It’s your cousin Enid I’m talking about. That’s the idea at Birmingham, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, no – at least – I’m sure it isn’t.’
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