“I like it very much.”
“I suppose you’ve been having a very gay time?”
“Yes, I’ve had great fun. Of course, the season is really over now, isn’t it?”
Monica was speaking quite mechanically. She had caught sight of Christopher, and a delicious turmoil had invaded her. He was dancing with a girl in white—not pretty, Monica decided with relief—and in another moment or two it seemed certain that the two couples would pass one another. Mr. Pelham, gripping Monica rather too firmly, was steering her round and round in a determined, uninspiring dance.
They were close to Christopher and his partner.
“… any amount of tennis,” said the voice of Mr. Pelham, seeming very far away.
“Yes—oh, yes.”
Monica’s eyes and Christopher’s had met, had held one another’s gaze for a breath-taking instant.
“Then, if I accept Lady Marlowe’s very kind invitation for the last week-end in the month, I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you.”
“That will be delightful,” Monica replied, with only a dim understanding of what it was that would be delightful.
The dance came to an end.
“Shall we find somewhere to sit down?”
They wandered, rather vaguely, in the wake of other couples. Some men always found one a comfortable seat in an interesting sitting-out place at once—and others never did. Monica knew already that Mr. Pelham belonged to the latter category. Sure enough, every alcove, every sofa and arm-chair, was already occupied, and they were obliged to content themselves with two upright gilt chairs in a rather draughty corridor. Then Mr. Pelham, painstakingly, produced remarks about the band, the state of the floor, the number of people present, and the superiority of the country to the town in the months of July and August.
Monica offered perfunctory assents.
“The other day,” remarked Mr. Pelham, “I heard of a fellow who was sitting out a dance with a girl. They’d talked about all the usual things and didn’t seem to have anything more to say, and whatever he asked her she only seemed to answer Yes or No—so what do you think he suddenly said?”
“What?”
“He suddenly asked her: ‘Do you like string?’ Without any preliminary, you know,” said Mr. Pelham, with a joyless appreciation of his own anecdote. “Just ’Do you like string?’ he suddenly said.”
Monica, startled into attention, laughed uncertainly.
“It was so absolutely pointless, you see,” Mr. Pelham explained. “They’d talked about all the usual things and didn’t seem to have anything more to say, and so he just asked her, quite suddenly, ‘Do you like string?’”
“What did she answer?”
“I don’t know.”
There was a silence, until Monica, afraid lest he might guess that she was bewildered rather than amused, repeated: “Do you like string?” and then laughed again, and said: “Yes, that’s rather nice.”
“I don’t know what made me think of it just now,” her partner said. “But it struck me as being rather good. So absolutely silly, you know. Do you like string?”
He paid a further tribute of reflective laughter to his mot, in which Monica politely joined.
Then the interval was over, and Claude Ashe, standing in front of Monica, was saying formally:
“This is our dance, Miss Ingram, I believe.”
“Well, thank you very much,” said Mr. Pelham, and bowed as he turned away.
In the relief of finding herself with someone of her own age again, Monica sprang up, glad to let Claude take her back into the ball-room and begin dancing with her. She even spoke to him quite naturally, and without the self-consciousness usually inseparable from conversation with a man.
“I hardly know anybody here to-night and it’s the last dance I’m going to before we leave London; isn’t it a shame?’
“Yes, rather. I don’t know many people either.”
He paused, and Monica with a rush of returning self-consciousness thought with dismay that he might have interpreted her words into a hint that she had other dances to spare. How dreadful, if he should suppose that she wanted him to ask her for another dance!
Claude’s next words, however, showed him to have been thinking of something else.
“I really came to-night because I knew I should see you, and I—I wanted to ask you something.”
A pulse leapt in Monica’s throat.
Could he possibly be going to ask her to marry him?
To refuse even an entirely ineligible proposal in one’s first season would be a triumph. Mrs. Ingram would feel that her child was being a success, and would see to it that nobody who mattered remained unaware that Monica “had had a chance.”
“Did you?” she asked faintly.
“Yes. Have I—have I done anything to offend you?”
“Of course not.”
Monica’s elation left her as suddenly as it had come. She felt certain now that Claude Ashe, far from asking her to marry him, was going to demand an explanation of her ungracious avoidance of him—and she had no explanation to offer. A still more childish apprehension disturbed her. If Claude Ashe were seriously offended he might tell his sister Alice—perhaps he had done so already—and it would all come round to Monica’s mother, and she would certainly be vexed, and scold Monica. Scoldings from her mother still ranked as calamities in Monica’s estimation.
Claude Ashe, rather awkwardly, was elaborating his enquiry.
“I hope you don’t think me rude for speaking like this, but you see I really have felt most awfully worried about it. You see, I didn’t know what it was I’d done, exactly, but I felt sure that there must be something.”
“Oh no,” murmured Monica unconvincingly.
They bumped into another couple.
“I beg your pardon,” apologized Claude.
“You see, I don’t seem to have seen anything of you the last time or two we’ve met, and I was afraid you might be annoyed about something or other.”
“But why should I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Deadlock appeared to have been reached. They continued to dance in mutual dissatisfaction.
Monica, passing her mother, received a smile and almost imperceptible nod of approval. Mrs. Ingram was talking to an elderly man with a white moustache, and evidently pointing out her daughter to him. His slight smile and appraising glance followed her for a moment. Monica could almost hear his courteous comment: “Charming, indeed! Quite charming!”
It did not very much elate her. Old gentlemen always said that kind of thing, and, anyway, old gentlemen were not interesting.
Nothing was of the least importance, excepting the fact that the moment when she was to be with Christopher was coming, however slowly, nearer and nearer.
Even Claude’s anxious attempts at establishing an understanding between them seemed to matter very little.
“You’re sure you aren’t annoyed with me about anything?” he repeated.
“Of course not.”
“I was awfully disappointed that night we went to the White City. I never saw anything of you at all.”
“I—I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know you’d mind,” faltered Monica. Out of the tail of her eye she looked for her mother. If she went down to supper now it would be much too early, and she might be back in the ball-room when Christopher came to fetch Monica. But no, it was all right—Mrs. Ingram had not moved.
And Claude’s dance had come to an end.
They secured arm-chairs under a large palm that stood behind a high screen.
“May I get you an ice or something?”
“Yes please. I’d like something to drink. Lemonade or something, please.”
She watched him go with thankfulness. She did not want the lemonade. She wanted to be alone, so that she could think about Christopher and abandon herself blissfully to the rapturous anticipations that possessed her.
Claude Ashe came back only too soon.
Monica inwardly fell into an agony.
If people were leaving, then her mother would be certain to want to go very early indeed—even earlier than she had said. And Monica could not even plead that her programme was full, for she had no dances booked between the one that had just ended and numbers ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen—left blank on the programme, but promised to Christopher.
She was almost in despair when Claude took her back to the ball-room again.
“Shall we find Mrs. Ingram?”
“I’m going to meet my partner here,” lied Monica, taking her stand in the doorway, and hoping to remain there unobserved until her mother should have gone safely to the supper-room. She looked round for Christopher Lane but he was nowhere to be seen.
“I say, I hope we shall meet again before you go away,” said Claude Ashe, lingering.
“Yes, I do hope so.”
“Shall you be in the Park to-morrow by any chance?”
“We might be, after tea. Or perhaps in the morning. That’s no good for you though, is it?”
“I’m afraid not. But I shall try my luck round about six o’clock if I possibly can. There’s my partner looking for me, I’m afraid.”
Monica forgot him the moment after he had moved away.
If only she could see Christopher, perhaps they could slip away now, instead of waiting for Number Ten. The group of people round the door was thinning rapidly and the couples dancing were not very numerous. Claude Ashe had been right: people were leaving early.
Monica pressed herself closer against the wall. Usually she felt terribly self-conscious if she had to stand out a dance, but now she was aware of nothing at all except an anxious desire to escape her mother’s observation and to find Christopher. She began to pray frenziedly and incoherently:
“O God, let him come quickly. O do let him come now before mother sees me—please, please, God. I’ll be so good if only you’ll grant me just this one thing … please, God. Send Christopher here now, this minute. …”
God had answered her prayer!
Christopher was at her elbow.
“Aren’t you dancing this one? May I have it?”
“Yes, oh yes,” she gasped. And, true to the tradition that she must always, always appear to be in request, Monica added breathlessly:
“I expect my partner made a muddle—or I did—he hasn’t turned up——”
She followed Christopher Lane out of the ball-room—followed him blindly and with a wildly beating heart, up and up, until they emerged into a dimly-lit coolness, a deserted square of roof-garden, tented in with an awning and furnished with wicker chairs and cushions. Christopher, seeming to tower in the low-roofed enclosure, cast a swift glance round.
“We’ve got it to ourselves, thank Heaven!”
He turned to face Monica.
She did not know exactly what it was that she expected, but Christopher Lane gave her no time to wonder. He caught her in his arms and kissed her mouth and eyes passionately.
Completely carried away, Monica, her arms round his neck, her body pressed against his, returned his kisses. When at last his mouth released hers, Christopher almost lifted her to a chair, and sank down beside her, one hand clasping both of hers.
“Monica—darling—I love you.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
No one came to disturb them. Even the sound of the music far below was almost inaudible.
Monica let Christopher kiss her again and again. Intoxicated, she felt that for the first time she understood and was experiencing, the real meaning of life.
Time no longer existed.
It was with a violent start she was recalled to reality, when the roof-garden was invaded by half a dozen noisy intruders.
Monica, half lying in her lover’s arms, sprang erect, and put both hands to her wildly disordered hair.
“Oh, I must go down. I don’t know what time it is—how long we’ve been here——”
“It’s all right, sweetheart, I’m sure it is.”
He did not, however, attempt to detain her, and they went down the stairs.
Monica would have gone straight back to the ball-room, but Christopher laid a hand on her arm.
“I think you’d better slip into the ladies’ dressing-room first,” he said very low, and smiling at her. “Your hair just wants a touch.”
Blushing hotly, Monica obeyed.
The cloak-room was empty, except for a maid who looked rather strangely at Monica.
She dared not linger, but put her hair in order as quickly as possible, and powdered her burning face. Her eyes shone back at her from the glass with an extraordinary effect of size and brilliancy.
Feeling certain that Christopher had waited for her in the corridor outside, Monica turned swiftly, and almost collided with her mother in the doorway
Unaware of the instant alteration in her own expression, Monica only realized that her mother was deeply disturbed.
“Monica! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where have you been?”
“I—I—Is it late?”
“Yes. Put on your cloak directly.”
Involuntarily Monica’s eyes went to the corridor beyond. Mrs. Ingram had swept past her into the cloak-room.
Christopher Lane was nowhere to be seen.
Monica and her mother received their wraps in silence, and in silence went to the entrance. Everywhere, lights were being extinguished. The brougham stood, almost alone, at the kerb.
Then the ball was over?
Monica dared not speak. She had never in her life been so frightened, but underlying her fright and quite definite sense of guilt was the rapturous memory of what had happened. She could not feel that anything else would really matter in the end.
Her mother did not speak at all. She was very pale, and her lips were closely compressed. In the darkness of the narrow brougham she drew her fur-and-satin wrap closely round her shoulders and leant back in the corner, avoiding any contact with Monica.
Once, as the car took them swiftly down the empty breadth of Piccadilly, Monica attempted to speak.
“I’m very sorry——”
Mrs. Ingram winced, and put up her white-gloved hand in a quick movement.
“No, I don’t want to hear anything at all until we get home.”
Then they were to have it out at once—not wait until the morning? That, at least, was a relief.
Eaton Square was reached only too quickly.
As they passed through the hall, Monica saw that it was past three o’clock.
Mrs. Ingram went straight into the library, switched on one green-shaded reading-lamp, and shut the door behind Monica. Then she turned and faced her daughter.
Monica was prepared to hear that she had behaved disgracefully in disappearing from the ball-room, and in keeping her mother waiting interminably, and she had a graver fear that her mother knew, or meant to find out, with whom she had spent the evening. Beneath all her fear and shame exultation still possessed her, and she felt like the heroine of a novel. Moreover, she had made up her mind, swiftly and on impulse, to tell the truth. It would have to come out in the end, and her parents had better understand at once that she and Christopher were in earnest. They hadn’t had time to discuss anything at all, reflected Monica in blissful astonishment, but they loved one another, and what else mattered?
She clenched her hands beneath her cloak, bracing herself to meet her mother’s severity.
But Mrs. Ingram, after one long, unwavering look, astonished and terrified Monica by suddenly dropping into a chair, covering her face with her hands, and breaking into hard, irrepressible sobs.
Chapter VIII
It was not at once—it was not, indeed, for years—that Monica fully realized the disastrous results of her love affair with Christopher Lane. Yet, even on her
return home after the ball, she learnt something of the extent to which she had jeopardized her own chances of happiness and success in life.
Imogen Ingram, with tears pouring down her face, terrified her daughter the more because she was heartbroken rather than angry.
“How could you do it, Monica—how could you, darling? A man who isn’t even a gentleman!”
“He is—he is!” Monica protested passionately, for she thought the accusation a most terrible one. To say that man wasn’t a gentleman was to put him outside one’s life altogether and for always.
“You know nothing about him—except that I told you to have nothing more to do with him. And now you see how right I was. As if a gentleman would ever have behaved like that to a young girl!”
For Mrs. Ingram had known, without questioning Monica at all, that Captain Lane had been her companion. Someone had seen them leaving the ball-room and had innocently said so when Mrs. Ingram began to enquire anxiously where Monica could be. No one, it appeared, had known about the sitting-out place on the roof.
“I went round everywhere, myself, as quietly as I could without letting anyone know what I was doing—but, naturally, I couldn’t go over the whole of that huge building—and I hadn’t any idea there was such a place as a roof-garden. Was anyone else up there?”
“Not at first. Right at the end, one or two people came up. No one I know,” said Monica hastily. “Oh mother, I hadn’t the least idea it was so late.”
“Late! Everything was over. I had to pretend that you’d gone home with friends, and skulk about near the dressingrooms, waiting for you—but it’s no use hoping that people won’t come to hear about it. That kind of thing always gets out, sooner or later.”
“How?” faltered Monica.
“Do you suppose that a man like that is going to keep it to himself?” her mother enquired bitterly. “When a girl makes herself cheap, a young man loses his respect for her—naturally—and is quite ready to laugh about her with his friends afterwards.”
“He’s not like that.”
“How do you know?” said her mother sharply. “You know nothing whatever about him, except that he has a very bad reputation and flirts with any girl who’s weak and silly enough to give him the chance—and that he’s behaved with you as a cad always does behave. Monica”—her mother drew a long breath—“it makes me perfectly sick to have to ask you such a thing, but I must do it. Did he take any liberties with you?”
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