The House of Discontent (13 page)

“Not a bit of it,” she hurried on. “You mustn’t jump to the wrong conclusions. I suddenly remembered that Anthony Brierleigh had told me that he was going back tomorrow and I wanted to space out my few engagements. I thought if it was all the same to you, I would go out with you tomorrow and thus get two outings instead of one. It was horrible of me, wasn’t it, but you forced it out of me.”

“Oh, well, never mind,” Johnny said. “I’ll take you out tomorrow as well.” And he tried to laugh. But Patricia could see that she had suffered severely in his estimation, and she believed that Edward too was a little shocked by what she had told them. He was bound to think that she was at best a horrid liar. She was thankful that Uncle Peter was not there.

She had certainly succeeded in offering herself up as the sacrifice, but wouldn’t the real truth have been even worse? Anyway it was a great relief to know that she had hurt nobody but herself. One can gauge the measure of one’s own hurt but not of another’s, and therefore in a way it is always easier to suffer oneself.

The matter should have been dropped there, but unfortunately Patricia had had to make her revelation in front of Dorothy, and it was too good an opportunity for Dorothy to let slip.

“I take it you find life very dull here,” she began with heavy sarcasm “I’m so sorry we don’t do more to amuse you.”

Patricia was stung. She could think of no suitable retort, so she bit her lip and remained silent, but she was very, very angry. It was Edward who came to her rescue.

“Don’t be silly, mother,” he said. “You take everything so seriously. Why shouldn’t Patricia have a little fun?”

Dorothy having made her point, said no more for the time being. Edward was always able to silence her, but after he had gone she was to bring it up again and again and again. It was the first real peg that Patricia had given her on which to hang her insults and she was not going to give it up without a struggle.

CHAPTER
TEN

AFTER lunch, Patricia, Edward and Johnny went off to Shrewsbury to the cinema.

They were not a very cheerful party. Edward and Patricia were certainly suffering from acute depression, and they were all tired after their late night; but Patricia did make a tremendous effort to appear cheerful and take an interest in deciding which film they should see, though actually she didn’t care what it was. All she hoped for in the cinema was darkness and silence; but she had been taught by her father that one of the elementary courtesies of life was not to inflict one’s moods—especially one’s moods of depression—on others.

How she longed for her father just now! She knew that if he had been there she would not have got herself into this tangled web of deceit and conflicting emotion. He had always been such a help—her guide and teacher as well as her dearest friend.

They could see nothing in the darkness of the cinema when they first got in, and followed blindly the flash-light of the attendant who showed them to their seats. Patricia went in first, made her way along a half-empty row and sat down next to some stranger whom she could not see. The news was on at the moment, and in spite of her troubles she was soon taken out of herself by terrible pictures of a recent earthquake disaster. How incredibly selfish one was, she thought to herself, to become absorbed in one’s own petty little worries, hates and loves, when agony such as this was going on in another part of the world.

When the news was over, the lights went up for a minute before the big film, and Patricia found that she was sitting next to Anthony Brierleigh. The discovery affected her as if she had received an electric shock. He recognized her at the same moment that she recognized him, and they greeted each other with an inadequate and surprised “Hallo!”

Camilla also saw her, and leaned across Anthony to talk to her, and Johnny and Edward on her other side.

“Well, well, fancy you all being here! This is a surprise!” She talked lightly, but Patricia had a feeling that she was not altogether pleased to see them. No doubt she wanted to keep Anthony to herself.

The lights went down again. Patricia’s heart was pounding. For an hour and a half at least she would remain by Anthony’s side, and even if they did not speak another word to each other, the joy of his proximity alone was quite sufficient to keep her happy for as long as the film lasted.

It was a South Sea island picture. Patricia’s arm was touching Anthony’s almost imperceptibly, but even that slight contact with him was thrilling to her. All her good resolutions of a few moments before, of sinking herself and her own pettiness in the great agony of catastrophe, were forgotten. She existed for the whole length of the film only in an acute awareness of his closeness.

Camilla occasionally made some half-whispered comment on the film to him, but he hardly answered, and Johnny made a few remarks to Patricia, to which she made short replies, but apart from that they did not talk, and Patricia and Anthony said not a single word to each other.

After the big film there was a comic, and Patricia heard Camilla say in a low voice to Anthony: “Let’s go. We don’t want to see this, do we?”

“Yes, I’d rather like to see it, if you don’t mind,” he replied. “I think it’s going to be real slapstick, and I enjoy that more than anything.”

Patricia let out her breath in a sigh of relief. She hoped it would be a long film. But, alas, it was all too short, and then came the news again, so there was nothing for it but for them all to get up and leave.

They all stood talking for a little while in the vestibule downstairs.

“Let’s go and have tea somewhere all together,” Johnny said.

Camilla frowned furiously at him, but only Patricia noticed it.

“No, I think we’d better be getting back,” Edward said nobly. It was noble of him, because he must have longed to stay with Camilla, but he knew that she would want to be alone with Anthony, and was therefore trying to make it easy for her.

“There’s no hurry to get back, is there?” Anthony asked, “Come on, I know where we can go. It’s quite gay, and you can dance there if you want to. It’s a place called the Camel.”

“Oh, I know it,” Johnny said. “Yes, let’s go there. You go on and we’ll follow you.”

It was already dark when they got outside. Anthony and Camilla went off together in Anthony’s car, while the others got into Johnny’s.

“Look here,” Edward said before they had started, “I’m not coming on to this place. I’m not going to butt in on Camilla’s afternoon. You two can go if you like, and in that case I will find my own way home, but I think it will be jolly unkind of you if you do. It was darned bad luck on her running into us like that.”

“Then of course we won’t go,” Patricia put in quickly.

“Oh, what rot!” Johnny exclaimed. “Anthony asked us to go. He wanted us all to go together, and it’s an awfully amusing place. Patricia will enjoy it.”

“I’m not thinking of him,” Edward said. “I’m thinking of Camilla.”

“Oh, she’s not nearly as gone on him as you imagine,” Johnny said. “Or as she imagines, for that matter. Camilla’s like that. She thinks it a point of honour to make every man she meets fall in love with her, and she’s piqued because Anthony hasn’t. She doesn’t mean it unkindly, but she’s always been like that. She can’t help it. It’s a sort of game with her—the game she enjoys most and is best at. I adore Camilla, as you know, but I know her inside out, and I know just what she’s up to. She’s aching for Anthony to propose to her—and do you know why?” Johnny held the question.

Edward could not help wanting to know. “Why?” he asked.

“So that she can have the ineffable satisfaction of turning him down,” Johnny announced triumphantly. “I know that for a fact, because she told me so, and she never troubles to deceive me. She thinks he is stuck-up and needs taking down a peg. She thinks it is her duty as a woman to humble him, but as for being in love with him—bah! Camilla has never been in love in her life yet. What she needs before she falls in love is the cave-man stuff. Someone like you, Edward, is too kind to treat her rough, and Anthony is too proud, and besides, he doesn’t care, but I guarantee that the first man who does the real cave-man stuff on her, she will fall for, hook, line and sinker.”

“Nonsense,” Edward protested, struggling against his desire to believe Johnny. “Anyway, I’m not coming, whatever you say, but there’s no reason why you two shouldn’t go and spoil their party if you want to.”

Patricia repeated indignantly that of course she wouldn’t go, although, in truth, she was longing to go with all her heart; but she was not going to lay herself open to Edward’s reproaches. Besides, she did see the justice of what he had said; it had been bad luck on Camilla running into them like that. And then again, Johnny might be wrong. It was difficult to believe that Camilla was not really in love with Anthony. It was impossible for Patricia to imagine that any girl who knew him was not in love with him. Did brothers ever really know the innermost hearts of their sisters?

“Don’t be so silly, both of you,” Johnny said impatiently. “Come on, Patricia, let us go. Edward needn’t come if he doesn’t want to, but I don’t want to go home yet, and I don’t see why he should spoil our fun. If they don’t seem to want us we can go on somewhere else, but the Camel is far the best place.”

“Well, you do what you like,” Edward said. “I’m getting out here.” And he opened the door of the car.

“Oh, wait, Edward!” Patricia cried in distress.

“Come on, Patricia!” Johnny urged. “You said you would spend the afternoon with me. Don’t be a spoilsport.”

Patricia hesitated, and in the meantime Edward got out and banged the door of the car behind him.

“Well, that settles it, anyway,” Johnny said. “He’s behaving like a perfect fool. Come on, we’ll go and enjoy ourselves,” and he let in the clutch.

Patricia had been forced to do what she was secretly longing to do, and there is perhaps no pleasanter thing in the world.

Johnny drove straight to the Camel and found a good parking-place. They got out and he took hold of Patricia’s arm and led her firmly up to the entrance. It was a relief to pass from the darkness outside into the warm glare of this super tea-shop.

They immediately perceived Anthony and Camilla sitting at a corner table. Anthony got up as they approached and pulled out a chair for Patricia. “We were afraid you weren’t coming,” he said.

“Hoped is more like it,” Camilla put in under her breath. Then she turned to Johnny and whispered fiercely: “You are a cad, Johnny.” Patricia was not intended to hear, but she did hear.

“Have you been here before?” Anthony asked her in a conventionally conversational tone.

“No, never,” she replied. She looked round her. There was a small orchestra, playing on a raised dais at one end of the room. They were playing soft, dreamy waltzes.

A waitress came up to them to take their order. Anthony and Camilla had already been served. Patricia did not want anything to eat, but she believed that a strong cup of tea might perhaps alleviate the sick, excited

feeling in her stomach which was really rather disagreeable. Johnny, however, took the ordering out of her hands. “Chocolate for me,” he said, “tea for the lady, and as many sandwiches and cakes as you can let us have ... Come on, Patricia, let’s go and dance while we are waiting. I can’t waltz properly, but you won’t mind, will you?”

She got up, smiling, and he led her by the hand on to the dancing-floor, which was very crowded.

“This is a jolly place, isn’t it?” he said. “The
th
e
dansant
is such a good form of entertainment. I want to bring Mary here when she’s better. Do you think she’ll be better soon?”

“I hope so.”

“They didn’t mind us joining them a bit,” Johnny said.

“I thought I heard Camilla say something to you which rather showed that she
did
mind—very much,” Patricia replied.

“Oh, no, that was only a joke! Camilla and I understand each other perfectly.”

Johnny had only spoken the truth when he said that he couldn’t waltz. He had very little sense of rhythm, and kept tripping over his own feet, not to speak of his partner’s. Patricia stole several glances over his shoulder at the table where Anthony and Camilla were sitting. Camilla was talking hard at him, but he seemed to be saying very little. He was Smoking a cigarette and looking, not at Camilla, but down at his plate.

“You know, I think I’m almost too bad to go on with this,” Johnny said. “I’ve kicked you black and blue, haven’t I? I’m a wizard at the tango, or anything else for that matter, but I just can’t waltz.”

“That’s because you try to waltz in a modern way,” Patricia replied. “If you held your partner away from you you’d get into the rhythm much better. The waltz is an old-fashioned dance, and should be danced as such.”

They went back to the table.

“My partner unfortunately agrees that I’m no good at it,” Johnny announced as they sat down.

“Oh, it’s a boring dance, anyway!” Camilla put in.

“I like it better than anything,” Patricia said.

“Do you?” Anthony asked. “So, do I. Let’s try it together then, shall we?” He stubbed out his cigarette and got up.

“I thought you didn’t like dancing,” Patricia could not help saying.

“Waltzing is quite different,” he replied.

From the moment they started to dance Patricia realized that he really did know how to waltz. There is perhaps no more delightful sensation in the world than waltzing with a really good partner, and they were lucky, for the floor was less crowded just then and the orchestra had begun to play
The Merry Widow.

He held her almost at arm’s length and twirled her fast and yet gracefully in perfect time to the music. She was enjoying it so much that she almost forgot with whom she was dancing, and Camilla and Johnny, watching them, noticed a smile of pure delight on her face. They danced until the music stopped and then Anthony held her close for a moment, waiting for it to go on again, but the members of the orchestra were putting aside their instruments for a ten minutes’ interval.

“What a pity,” he said. “Well, I suppose we must go and sit down.” And for an instant Patricia believed—or was it only her imagination?—that he pressed her close before letting her go. Oh, if only she could have been sure afterwards that it had not been her imagination!

When she was back at the table she drank her tea, which was cold by this time, but she still did not feel that she could face any food. When they had finished Johnny said: “Do you mind if we go now, Patricia?”

She was surprised; she didn’t want to go in the least, but she heard herself answering politely: “No, of course not.”

“Don’t go,” Anthony said.

“I’m afraid we must if you don’t mind,” Johnny replied.