The House of Discontent (9 page)

Dorothy seemed surprised.

“Yes, certainly,” she answered, “but I don’t know that any of us will be allowed to see her. She has to be kept perfectly quiet.”

“I’ll wangle it,” Anthony said in a quiet voice to Patricia. “Matron is a great friend of mine.”

Mary was not permitted to see them all together. First her mother and father went in, but they only stayed a few minutes, and then Patricia and Anthony entered the sickroom. Edward said that there really wasn’t much point in his going in again as there were so many of them; he would come and see her again tomorrow.

Anthony went straight to Mary’s bedside and bent over her and took her hand.

“Look here,” he said, “don’t be disappointed about the dance. I promise you I’ll give a party for you later on when you are quite better. It will be much more fun than Camilla’s because the weather will be better, and you’ll be the centre of it all, for I will be giving it especially for you. You can ask anyone you like and we’ll have lots of fun.”

“Yes,” Patricia put in, “and the dress will be much more suitable really when the weather is warmer.”

“If you give a party at this time of year you never know what sort of evening you are going to get,” Anthony went on. “It may suddenly start to snow and then nobody turns up. It can be awfully disappointing.”

“That’s right,” Patricia agreed. “Perhaps the whole thing will have to be put off.”

“But in two or three months’ time, in the spring, we will be absolutely certain of the weather and we’ll have a perfect riot of a time. And you and your cousin can spend the next few weeks planning and arranging it all.”

Mary’s eyes had lit up and she was smiling.

“Does that make you happier, darling?” Patricia asked.

“Oh, yes. It will give me something lovely to think about while I have to be here ... Oh, dear, I wish my head would stop aching.” And Mary closed her eyes.

“We must leave you now,” Patricia said. “You must try to sleep.” She bent over and kissed her cousin gently and they went quietly out of the room.

In the passage outside she said to Anthony: “That
was
kind of you. But will you really do it? I don’t want her to have another disappointment. One feels things so terribly keenly at that age.”

Anthony lifted one corner of his mouth in a funny little crooked smile that he had. “At that age!” he repeated. “Are you so very much older yourself?”

Patricia blushed furiously. “Mary is particularly young for her age,” she said. “That is part of her charm and her sweetness.”

“And you are particularly old, I suppose?” he asked.

“One grows up quicker when one lives abroad,” she replied primly.

“So you are frightened that I will disappoint Mary?” he asked.

“It would be very hard on her.”

“I’m surprised at you,” he said. “Didn’t you hear me say to her ‘I promise you’?”

“I’m sorry,” Patricia said.

“And so you ought to be,” he replied.

They found Edward waiting for them outside the front door. “There’s nothing more we can do here, is there?” he said. “We’ll come and see her again tomorrow. There’s still time to go to Ludlow if you like.”

Patricia hesitated. She felt an extraordinary reluctance to part from Anthony. She looked towards him, but his face was impassive. She wished with all her heart that he would say: “Don’t go to Ludlow, but stay here and skate.” He said nothing, however.

“Sir Anthony did suggest this morning that we might perhaps skate this afternoon,” she began a little timidly.

“That’s very kind of him, but I’ve quite forgotten how to skate,” Edward said. “I think I’ll go to Ludlow, anyway, but you do just what you like.”

Patricia glanced at Anthony again quickly, but he wasn’t even looking at her. If only he would repeat his invitation now, if only there had been so much as an invitation in his eyes, but she could tell nothing from his silence and his averted head.

What should she do?

She hesitated as long as she could, but Anthony still said nothing and gave no sign, so at last she turned to Edward and said: “All right, let’s go to Ludlow.”

With a curt “Good-bye,” Anthony turned on his heel and walked quickly away down the avenue. They passed him a few moments later on the motor-bicycle, but he did not look up as they sped by.

Patricia experienced an extraordinary feeling of desolation as they left him behind, and his slim figure became a speck in the distance. In his presence she had felt alive as never before in her life, and now, not only did she feel a sudden sense of deadness, but also an uncomfortable feeling that she had done something to forfeit his good opinion.

Nevertheless, when they got to Ludlow she made a great effort to appear natural and gay, for she had been brought up not to show her feelings in public. But the sense of depression inwardly persisted, and she was absent-minded when Edward talked to her because she was still living in retrospect in that exciting atmosphere which Anthony Brierleigh created around himself, and she could not keep her thoughts away from him.

She was glad when the afternoon was over—glad when the day was over—and she could snuggle down into bed and let her mind wander uninterruptedly over the events and conversations of that morning.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ON the three successive mornings—Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday—Patricia went to the hospital to see Mary. Twice Edward took her and once she bicycled by herself, but on none of these occasions did she see Anthony again, though each time she saw in the distance people skating on the lake. She could not help hoping, longing even, to run across him, and each time when she had to come away without seeing him she experienced a sharp pang of disappointment

Wednesday was the day of Camilla’s dance. Mary was quite reconciled now to the idea of not going. For one thing, although she was getting on as well as could be expected, she was feeling too ill to care about anything very much; for another, Anthony’s promise to give a party entirely for her in the spring had more than compensated her for missing Camilla’s.

Patricia was a little worried as to what to wear for the dance. She asked Edward’s advice: should she wear a long or a short evening dress? Edward replied: “I so much prefer long dresses. I think those ballet-length things, as they are called, are perfectly hideous. They are neither one thing nor the other.” This made up Patricia’s mind for her; not that she altogether agreed with him, but as he was to be her escort for the dance she wanted to please him. She decided to wear one of her favourite dresses—an organza in a lovely bronze colour rather like autumn leaves, copied from a Paris model.

In the early part of the afternoon she pressed the dress very carefully. Her thoughts were still running on Anthony Brierleigh, and while she was ironing she could not help wondering whether he would be at the dance, and, if so, what he would think of her dress. She gave herself an hour in which to have her bath and dress and make up her face. They were dining at The Knowle and then Edward was taking her on to the dance in a hired car. She was a little late for dinner, and the others had already gone into the dining-room when she appeared. She entered rather shyly, her colour high.

Dorothy was for a moment speechless with jealousy when she saw her, and then she said sarcastically: “It isn’t a Court ball or anything that you are going to, you know!”

“You’re certainly a sight for sore eyes,” Edward said. “Goodness, it’s nice to see a girl all dressed up!”

“You certainly brighten our little house,” Peter agreed, smiling at her. “Your father must have been very proud of you as his hostess.”

Patricia’s heart warmed towards him. His kindness took all the sting out of Dorothy’s words, and she loved him for talking to her constantly about her father. He seemed to be the only one who realized how much they had meant to each other.

“Well, perhaps it’s just as well Mary isn’t able to go,” Dorothy said. “I’m afraid she would have looked very shabby beside you!”

“But I was going to lend her a dress,” Patricia answered quickly, and then wished with all her heart that she could have swallowed her words, for Dorothy retorted: “Oh, were you really? Without consulting me at all, I suppose?”

“Well, anyway, Mary isn’t going,” Edward put in for the sake of peace.

The rest of dinner went off without further unpleasantness, and soon afterwards Edward and Patricia started out. Peter came to see them off at the door and handed Edward a, thick rug to put over Patricia’s knees. Edward got into the hired car and sat close beside her and tucked the rug round them both.

“Hold on to me,” he said. “It will be warmer.”

Obediently she took his arm and he took hold of her hand under the rug.

There was something very pleasant about driving in the dark like this, warmly wrapped up, with the anticipation of an exciting evening in front of her. She wondered what her feelings would be on the return journey. She had a funny kind of intuition that this evening was going to be in some way momentous—so much so that she was a little frightened of arriving. She hoped that the drive would be a very long one. She didn’t want to get there yet; she wasn’t ready for it; she was nervous.

Here in the darkness and comparative warmth of the car, with her hand in Edward’s, she felt safe, but the moment she got out and entered the house she would find herself among the crowd of strangers under brilliant lights and she would feel lonely and frightened.

She had always found it very easy to talk to Edward and it was easier than ever now, for he was asking her all about her life in the East and seemed to be really interested in what she told him. The drive was over much too soon. The car stopped and Edward said: “Well, here we are, I suppose,” and she heard herself exclaiming in dismay, which was almost panic: “Oh, not already!”

Patricia was shown upstairs to Mrs. Grey’s bedroom where the ladies were to leave their wraps. “You will wait for me, won’t you?” she asked Edward.

“Yes, I’ll be about somewhere. If I’m not in the hall I’ll be just inside the door of the dance room.”

Patricia found the cloakroom full of girls she had never seen before, all laughing and chattering together. She felt very much out of it, and wished with all her heart that Mary was with her. She had been out an unusual amount for a girl of her age, but never before to a party where she knew so few people.

She went back to the hall as quickly as she could. Edward was not there. Several young men were standing about, obviously waiting for their partners, but she did not know any of them. The double drawing-room from which the strains of dance music were coming was at the end of a passage, and she hurried towards it looking for Edward. He was not just inside the door as he had said he would be, but glancing quickly over the room she saw him at the other side of it already dancing. The girl he was dancing with had her back to Patricia but when she turned round, Patricia saw that is was Camilla—Camilla in white, with flowers in her hair, smiling and radiant.

Patricia stood by the door, feeling very silly. She did not know a soul. She had not expected Edward to dance attendance oh her all evening, but she had relied on him to introduce her to people. She looked round in the hope of seeing Mrs. Grey, but there was no sign of her. They had arrived rather late and Camilla and her mother had both stopped playing hostess.

For the first time in her life Patricia found herself a wallflower, and discovered it to be a very disagreeable sensation. It was a badly organized party because there were a number of young men standing about obviously longing to dance and there was no one to introduce them. Out of shyness, Patricia carefully avoided meeting their eyes, because she was afraid that they might think she was inviting them to take pity on her by asking her to dance.

She glanced at the room again. Edward was still dancing with Camilla. She felt a sharp spasm of annoyance with him and was tempted to run away home in the car, leaving him to fend for himself. She tried to bring an intelligent attitude to bear on the position in which she found herself. “After all,” she argued with herself, “what does it matter? Nobody knows me here and anyway I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.”

And then suddenly she realized that she did care very much what somebody thought of her—she cared very much what Anthony Brierleigh thought of her. Fortunately, he was not there, but supposing he arrived and found her standing like this against the wall, without a partner, talking to nobody?

The mere idea covered her with shame and confusion. He mustn’t find her like that. When he arrived (if he ever did arrive) she wanted him to find her as Camilla was now, dancing, laughing and gay. Until that moment she had not realized (or, if she had realized, had not owned to herself) that she had been looking forward to this dance primarily because it might afford the opportunity of seeing him again. If she had known for certain that he was not going to be there would she have looked forward to it in quite the same way?

She was lost in this thought when suddenly Edward and Camilla danced up to her. Camilla held out her hand.

“How naughty of Edward to leave you,” she said. “You poor thing, you don’t know anyone here, do you? Where on earth has mother got to? Now who shall I introduce you to? You must meet my brother, Johnny. Where has he got to? Oh, there he is over there ... Johnny! ... Oh, bother, here’s the Paul Jones!”

The band had struck up the well-known tune, and the young men who had been standing about without dancing moved eagerly into the middle of the room. “I’ll introduce you afterwards,” Camilla said, taking Patricia’s hand and leading her into the circle.

When the band broke off into another tune Patricia danced with the man she found opposite to her—a stranger. “I was watching you by the door just now,” he said, “and trying to summon up courage to ask you to dance.”

“I wish you had,” she replied. “I don’t know anybody here except my cousin and he was already dancing.”

“I wish I had, too, now,” he said. “It’s a pity to have wasted all this time, but I didn’t like to somehow. You looked so awfully grand and forbidding.”

Patricia laughed outright. “How terrible,” she said. “I didn’t feel it, I assure you. I was quaking inside and just standing there longing to be asked to dance!”

He laughed, too, and held her suddenly closer. The tune of the Paul Jones started again. “Oh, bother!” he exclaimed. “But you’ll let me ask you to dance again, won’t you? To think of all that time I wasted!”