He tucked her in as though she were a child, and that nearly broke her composure, but she dug her nails into the palms of her hands and made that one last effort to keep calm.
“Shall I put out your light?”
“Yes, please.”
He put out the light and there was darkness—blessed, blessed darkness. He shut the door—and she was alone. It was a relief and a sickening misery in one.
She said his name over and over again between gasping, broken sobs. She could cry now. There was no one to see her or ask questions. The tears came in an overwhelming flood. They poured down her cheeks and seeped between her fingers that were pressed hard against her face.
“I don’t understand,” she sobbed. “I don’t really know what they want me to do. Oh, I will try, but it’s so difficult when they know everything and I know nothing. I can only love him one way—and they seem to think that’s wrong. Oh, Tony, Tony—”
And then she thrust the sheet against her mouth, because her door had opened quietly.
“Anna.”
“Yes.”
“I was worried about you, dearest. Are you all right?”
“Why—did you think—I wasn’t?” She didn’t know how pitifully her little quick gasps broke up that sentence.
“I don’t quite know. Except that I had the strange feeling you were calling me. And—don’t you remember?—I promised I would always come.”
“Oh, Tony, I was calling you really.” She held out her arms to him in the darkness. “Don’t put on the light, but come here to me, please, beloved, please—please!”
She heard him feel his way quickly across to her. And then she was snatched up in his arms, so that her final “please” was sobbed against him.
“Little Anna! What is it? What is it?” He was holding her fast and kissing her. “Oh, sweetheart—your dear wet little face—and your beautiful hair all tumbled—and you’re so hot and trembling. What’s wrong, dearest?”
“I don’t like my room,” she stammered.
“Don’t like your room?” he repeated, a little bewildered.
“I wanted—to be—in your room ... The room where you were as a little boy ... I didn’t think it was wrong to want to be there ... I feel safe there ... I wanted your arms round me ... I thought that was what being loved meant ... I didn’t know it was—coarse to feel like that.”
She couldn’t help it if he heard the angry pain in her quivering voice.
“My darling, there isn’t anything coarse about it.” He was holding her still against him and speaking very gently. “It’s sweet and natural and adorable of you.”
“But you only kissed me good night and left me alone here. I—I thought you were ashamed of me after—after this evening.” Her voice was still troubled, but she was not sobbing now. There was such unutterable comfort in the way he held her hot hands in his.
“Listen my dear. I thought you were desperately tired and wanted to be left alone. I’m sorry—I was terribly stupid, I’m afraid, and I didn’t understand.”
“No, no,” she interrupted eagerly, “it was I who was stupid and didn’t understand.”
He stopped her by putting his mouth gently against hers. “Hush. You mustn’t think you’re the only one with things to learn. I have a lot to learn too.”
She gave him a long, sweet, grateful kiss at that, and then she felt him put out his free hand across the bed.
“What do you want?”
“Something to wrap round you.”
“Oh, Tony, why?”
“Because I’m taking you back to my room now.”
He found an eiderdown and, wrapping it round her, lifted her tenderly in his arms.
She lay perfectly still against him now. Nothing mattered. Nothing in the world. Not Katherine’s hatred, nor her aunt’s scorn, nor anything in this new bewildering life. Tony was not ashamed of her in spite of the awful things she had done this evening. He loved her and wanted her.
And that was all Anna asked.
At the breakfast table next morning the family met with every sign of polite cordiality. And, to her surprise, Anna too found herself doing her best to join in the peculiar social conspiracy to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
If this was what Tony’s family wanted, then this was what she must try to do. It was little enough to do for such a lover as Tony.
“Katherine was going to have a small party tonight, Tony,” Miss Roone said, “so we let the arrangements go on, because it seemed quite a good way of introducing Anna to some of our friends.”
“Yes, of course.” Tony narrowed his eyes for a second, but the expression was gone again almost before Anna could register it. “Who is coming?”
“Mostly my crowd,” Katherine explained carelessly. ‘The Forsythes and the Durhams, and Jeremy Deane—oh, and Angela Slater—you haven’t met her.” For a second the brother’s and sister’s eyes met.
“No, I haven’t met her,” agreed Tony coolly. “Who else?”
“About half a dozen others,” replied Katherine equally coolly. “Jennifer Forsythe rang up yesterday morning to ask if she could bring Mario Frayne. I couldn’t definitely say ‘no’ of course, so I had to agree. I don’t know why the Forsythes are so friendly with the man.”
“Oh yes, you do, Kate,” smiled her brother. “For the same reason that you agreed to let him come here. It’s nice to have the most famous actor-manager in London on your visiting-list even if his morals are a bit rocky.”
Katherine shrugged, and Anna said: “Surely he isn’t entirely English, with a name like that?” It really cost her an effort to join in the conversation at all, but she was determined to do her best.
“Oh no,” said Katherine. “The Frayne part is English of course. He was the son of Mortimer Frayne, the artist—but surely you must know of him! I thought everyone did. His name is a household word.”
“I—I don’t know very much about the theatre.” Anna stammered a little and gripped her hands together nervously under the table.
“Well, it isn’t of any special importance,” Hamilton said carelessly. “Frayne really is a superb actor, and very well known on the London stage. He’s about forty now, I imagine, and manages his own theatre. As Kate says, his father was Mortimer Frayne, the artist, and, since no one makes any secret of the fact, I suppose there’s no harm in adding that his mother was an Italian model whom his father didn’t bother to marry.”
“Well, scarcely,” interjected Katherine. “She wasn’t exactly the kind a man would marry. It would have meant social ruin.”
Anna felt her colour rising. But Hamilton merely said, with determined good temper: “You’re getting ethics and social values a little mixed, Kate, I think. But anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Frayne inherited remarkable good looks from both parents and more than his share of charm. I’m afraid he is a rather near approach to the Don Juan of the London stage.”
“Is he as good-looking as you?” was all Anna asked. Hamilton laughed and flushed, while Katherine and her aunt exchanged a glance.
“Why, Anna dear, I imagine Frayne’s admirers would consider me very much ‘an also ran,’ ” he said, good-humouredly. “But I’m vain enough to hope you won’t be too much dazzled by him, tonight to notice that I look passable in a dinner jacket.”
“Oh, ” Anna was suddenly reminded of something, and, however much it might be desirable to suppress unpleasant truths, this at least had to come out. “Tony, I—I haven’t anything to wear at a party.”
“I expect that there’s something in your trousseau that will do.” Katherine permitted herself that enjoyable little bit of malice.
“I—I didn’t have a trousseau,” stammered Anna.
“No trousseau?” repeated Katherine. Her tone was only mildly protesting, but it somehow gauged the appalling social depths of anyone who married without a trousseau.
‘Well, there’s plenty of time to buy something today,” Hamilton pointed out equably. “I have to go to
town myself this morning. Suppose you take Anna with you, Kate, and make a start on the trousseau-buying now.”
“Very well.” No one could have told from Katherine’s manner whether she were pleased or annoyed.
And so—with more money than she had ever had in all her life—Anna spent her first morning in London with her sister-in-law buying clothes.
“We’ll start with your dress for this evening,” Katherine told her, “and then we can buy everything to go with it. I’ll take you to Fanchette. She’s wonderful with rather unformed types.”
Anna did her best to look pleased at being treated like a mild mental defective, but she felt very nervous as she came into the softly carpeted grey and silver salon with Katherine.
“Fanchette” was a slim, dark-eyed Frenchwoman, so admirably preserved that no one would have been so silly as to try to guess her age.
“This is my new sister-in-law, Fanchette,” Katherine explained carelessly. “We want something for a small dinner-party tonight.”
“It is Madame’s first party since her marriage?” the Frenchwoman asked, with a not unkindly glance at Anna.
“Yes,” Anna smiled at her.
“Then it must be something specially lovely.”
“Nothing that requires any style in the wearing, Fanchette,” said Katherine in French. “As you see, my sister-in-law has not yet acquired style.”
“Nevertheless, Madame has an exquisite figure,” replied Fanchette dryly, in the same language, “and I notice that she walks like a dancer. She shall see what we have.”
Somehow, Anna managed to keep her colour down during this conversation. She was helped by what she feared was an ignoble pleasure in the discovery that Katherine’s French was inferior to her own.
She watched with grave eyes while several dresses of the elaborately simple type were paraded for her benefit. Then she turned to Fanchette.
“My sister-in-law is quite right, you know,” she said gently, and she too spoke in French. “I really have none of what she means by ‘style’. Have you anything that is more picturesque than stylish?”
And this time it was Katherine who controlled her colour with difficulty.
Fanchette had an excellent sense of humour, and so she wanted to laugh, but, having an equally excellent sense of salesmanship, she contented herself with a smile.
“I know what you mean,” she nodded. “I think I have just you want. A moment. I will bring it to you myself, because I do not want that you see it on anyone but yourself. I think it is your own personality that will make it.”
She went away and, for the minute or two that they were alone, Anna and Katherine were perfectly silent.
Then Fanchette returned, and on her arm was a mass of green and gold. She spread it out for Anna to see—wide Arabian Nights trousers and long-sleeved blouse in glittering silk, with a tiny brown-and-gold brocade bolero.
Anna stood up without a word, and followed Fanchette with a smile on her lips to one of the fitting-rooms.
“Madame’s beauty is of a rare kind. She should always wear exotic styles in the evening,” Fanchette said, as she laced the little bolero and hung huge gold bell ear-rings from Anna’s ears.
Still wordless, Anna gazed at herself in the glass. The faintest flush had crept up under her honey-gold skin, and her hazel eyes looked almost green. The Frenchwoman fastened a wide glittering gold necklace round her neck, and stood back to admire the whole effect.
“Madame’s husband will be very proud of her in that,” she said with a smile.
And at that Anna did a quite extraordinary thing. She turned and put her arms round Fanchette and kissed her.
The Frenchwoman’s rather metallic composure broke for a moment.
“My child, you are sweet,” she said. “Shall we go and show Miss Roone what a beautiful sister-in-law she has?”
Anna nodded, and they went out together.
“But it’s like a fancy dress,” objected Katherine when she saw it.
“It is like the Arabian nights come to life,” retorted Fanchette, and Katherine shrugged and said, very well, if Anna liked it, she supposed she had better have it.
The rest of the shopping expedition was unimportant to Anna. She lived for the moment when Tony should see her in that outfit.
As soon as she was dressed that evening she ran along to Hamilton’s room.
“Tony, may I come in?”
“Of course.”
He was still in his shirt-sleeves and murmuring mild blasphemies about his studs, but he turned round with a smile to greet her. The smile faded slowly from his face and an almost awed look took its place.
He came towards her “Anna, how touchingly beautiful you are,” he said slowly. And he took her face very gently in his hands and kissed her mouth softly.
“Are you—are you proud of me?” stammered Anna, remembering what the Frenchwoman had said.
And at that Hamilton laughed, and lifted her right up off the ground. “I’m bursting with pride about you, you little goose. Now run on down and cover the fact that your husband is disgustingly late. Besides, I want my father to see you in that as soon as possible.”
Anna hung back for a moment. She didn’t want to go down alone! but if Hamilton wished her to go that was sufficient. And after all, he was proud of her, so why should she be afraid?
She went quickly along the passage; and then paused suddenly. Katherine’s door stood half-open and Katherine was speaking to someone. “My dear Angela, you simply can’t imagine ... She’s just a common little working girl. Of course, we’re simply shattered.”
The colour was whipped out of Anna’s face. She stood there for a moment, her fists clenched, her breath coming in little hurting gasps. Then she fled—blindly, furiously—down the stairs.
She was only three steps from the bottom when she realised there was someone in the hall below—someone who came forward and stood staring up at her, where she had halted, breathless and startled.
“Why, you little ghost of old Baghdad,” he said slowly, “what are you doing on a London staircase? You ought to be leaning from a wrought-iron balcony, breathing vows of love to a desert sky.”
It seemed tame to say “I’m Mrs. Roone,” after that, but it was the literal truth and so Anna said it. Where at the man laughed, showing the most beautiful teeth she had ever seen.
“Oh no, you’re not,” he said, and he calmly put his hands round her slender waist and lifted her lightly down the last three steps. “You’re Scheherazade.”
Anna didn’t know whether to laugh or to be annoyed at that; and the next second she realised that Katherine and another girl were half-way down the stairs and could scarcely have failed to see the peculiar little scene.
However, Katherine coolly descended the rest of the stairs and said: “Good evening. It’s Mr. Frayne, isn’t it?”
And Anna watched the so-called Don Juan of the London stage bow over Katherine’s hand and apologise smilingly for having arrived before his friends.
After that, other people were arriving, and Tony had joined them, and everything was a confusion of introductions, which gradually resolved itself into the ordered formality of a dinner-table, set as Anna had never seen a table set before.
She prayed frantically that she would make no mistakes. She knew that, as Tony’s altogether unexpected new wife, she had all eyes on her from time to time. And she knew equally well that Katherine was hoping she would make mistakes—that half her intention in asking these smiling, pitiless people was that she should make a humiliating fool of herself in front of them. Then Tony would see her as she was—a common little working girl.
For a moment a choking sense of panic assailed her again. Under her long lashes she gave a hunted glance round the table. And then she saw that Mario Frayne was looking at her. He gave her a lazy little smile of reassurance, and suddenly Anna’s nerve steadied again.
She remembered what Fanchette had said—that her husband would be proud of her, and som
ething in Frayne’s laughing dark eyes told her the same thing. Unconsciously, she drew deeper breaths of confidence. Tony should be proud of her. This was her great chance not to let him down.
She was still too shy to take much part in the conversation, but with Tony one side of her she felt fairly safe, and the man on the other side took singularly little interest in her. So she occupied some of the time in watching Mario Frayne.
It was perfectly true. Frayne was almost as handsome as it was possible to be. Tall and powerfully built, he had, nevertheless, a grace that was typically Latin. His thick dark hair was a little inclined to stand up, as though the radiant vitality in him permeated even that; his eyes—which were being used now with considerable effect on Katherine—were brilliant and laughing; his skin was warmly brown; his mouth unexpectedly firm, and his teeth quite superb.
But it was his complete unselfconsciousness that made him a centre of interest. He cared less than nothing, obviously, for the effect that he was making, and all the time his flame of almost insolent vitality made him impossible to ignore.
No doubt, thought Anna, he did and said a thousand things that Katherine and her friends would call “impossible” in anyone else, but because he was so incredibly uncaring, so insolently good-looking, he carried them with him.
Anna had never heard the expression “animal magnetism,” and so she didn’t know that was what he possessed in an almost terrifying degree. But she did know quite instinctively that here was someone who probably made most men do what he wanted—and certainly most women.
And then Miss Roone was getting up from the table, and Anna realised with horror that she was going to be alone with Katherine and the terrifying young women who were her friends. Tony wouldn’t be there to help her, and—ridiculously enough—she thought, nor would Mario Frayne.
She forgot that she was beautiful, that her dress was designed to make Tony proud of her. She only knew that this was the most terrifying thing that had happened yet, as she moved stiffly into the other room, among incredibly smart and self-possessed young women, who talked what seemed to her almost a foreign language.
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