FOR a moment Alison stood staring after her aunt until the door closed. Then she turned away and slowly began to mount the stairs.
Was it just tactlessness or real malice that made Aunt Lydia say these things? she wondered.
There hadn’t been the smallest reason to make such a comment, quite apart from the fact that it was very unfair to the unknown Jennifer.
‘She just wanted to make me feel uneasy and miserable,’ Alison thought. And then: ‘Well, I won’t give her that satisfaction. It’s all too petty and absurd to worry any sane person.’
But of course, she couldn’t dismiss it entirely from her mind like that. Instead, she remembered the interest in Julian’s voice when he had said, ‘Oh, Jennifer is good-looking-very.’
‘And what about it?’ Alison asked herself fiercely. Hadn’t he also said that he had known her and her brother for years? And, in that case, if he had been going to fall for her, he would have done so long ago.
She tried not to listen to the little voice which said that there had always been Rosalie before to occupy his thoughts. Now there was no Rosalie-only the other half of ‘a business proposition’.
Alison sighed impatiently as she tossed down her hat on her bed. She had better go and find something to do if being unoccupied meant having these ridiculous fancies’
She went down again to her aunt’s study, and put her head in.
‘Can I do anything for you, Aunt Lydia?’
She managed to make that sound quite pleasant, although her feelings towards her aunt were not cordial.
‘Yes, Alison, you certainly can. I have been wondering how I was to get through all this.’ Aunt Lydia fingered a not very formidable pile of correspondence. ‘It’s most awkward having you so much occupied just now.’
Alison forbore to ask if she would have found it any less awkward at any other time.
‘I’ll do them for you, shall I?’ she offered.
‘I wish you would.’ Her aunt immediately gave up her thin pretence of examining them herself. Then, after a pause, she added, ‘I suppose I mustn’t expect much help from you, now that you don’t feel it necessary to study me any longer.’
‘How she does judge other people by herself,’ thought Alison. ‘No wonder Uncle Theodore despises her.’
But aloud she said, ‘I don’t imagine I shall be so busy as all that, Aunt Lydia. I’ll still do what I can to help you, of course.’
Her aunt appeared satisfied with that, although she didn’t seem to think that any thanks were called for.
Presently Alison looked up and said, ‘Do you think Audrey would like to be my bridesmaid?’
‘I suppose so.’ Her aunt sounded completely indifferent. ‘I don’t see that it matters much in any case. The whole thing is rather a farce, isn’t it?’
Alison bit her lip angrily.
‘You don’t expect me to agree with that, I suppose?’ she said curtly, without looking up.
‘Well, I don’t know what else one can think. Everyone knows that until eight o’clock yesterday evening Julian was infatuatedly in love with Rosalie. By nine he appears to have proposed to you-or you to him, I really can’t imagine which-and we’re all asked to regard the affair as perfectly normal.’
Alison was completely silent, her pen motionless in her hand. Put like that, in her aunt’s tone of slightly plaintive ridicule, the whole thing sounded absurd and hollow.
Was that how it was going to seem to Julian when he had had time to cool down and regard the whole situation calmly?
She stared unseeingly at the sheet of notepaper in front of her. And then, quite a long time afterwards, when it seemed that her aunt had nothing to add to her crushing analysis, Alison slowly went on writing. But she was not very sure what she was writing about.
It took more than an hour of patient work to finish all that Aunt Lydia wanted done, and then Alison went upstairs to her own room once more.
Sitting on the side of the bed, she tried to review the whole situation quite dispassionately.
In the first impulse of that crazy proposal they had both agreed that they had nothing to lose. She saw now that that was not strictly true. To refuse to take dangerous chances always meant that you retained a certain negative sense of safety and peace of mind.
The moment you embarked on anything like this fantastic arrangement you said good-bye to any security. Just now she was feeling like someone who had started to cross a raging torrent by means of a single-plank bridge. She had lost her nerve half-way, and now she didn’t know which was more impossible-to go forward or to go back.
Alison sighed and ruffled up her hair worriedly.
‘If only Aunt Lydia wouldn’t frighten me so much,’ she murmured.
That evening, she dressed with the greatest care, for she had an odd, proud little feeling that she must not let Julian down in front of his sophisticated friends. After all, it was the first time he was showing her off.
She put on the amber frock which had already seen her through such extraordinary adventures, and she brushed her hair until it looked like a gold silk cap.
Then she looked in the mirror, and saw that there was no need to put even the slightest touch of colour on her lips. They were soft and red and faintly damp like a child’s; and her eyes, wide and dark and velvety, were rather like a child’s too.
She was ready when Julian arrived, which seemed to amuse him a little.
‘You are a model of punctuality, Alison,’ he remarked. And she remembered that probably Rosalie considered it good policy to keep a man waiting indefinitely.
‘Well, I hate having to wait myself,’ Alison said candidly, ‘so I always take it that other people hate it too.’
‘A very proper and Victorian point of view,’ commented Julian, smiling, and he glanced at the amber dress as though he certainly had not seen it last night.
Alison’s small reserve of security deserted her.
‘Do you mean I look too Victorian in this?’ she asked nervously.
‘You look sweet,’ he told her carelessly. And, putting her evening coat round her, he took her out to the car.
To her surprise, there was a chauffeur to drive, that evening.
I didn’t know you had a chauffeur,’ she said involuntarily.
‘No? I have him mostly for long-distance driving. But sometimes in the evening, if I don’t want to be bothered with the car, he comes along. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. I just wondered. Julian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you very-I mean, do we have to keep up a good deal of social style when we-when we are married?’
He looked surprised.
‘I’m a pretty rich man, if that’s what you mean. I don’t know that I keep up very much style, as you call it, here. But of course out there there will be a big house to run, and a good many servants to look after, and a lot of entertaining to do. It’s just the natural thing there; part of the life, you know.’ And he smiled a little, as though the thought of it gave him pleasure.
‘And you really love the life, and want to get back?’
‘Of course, Alison.’ He sounded a trifle impatient, ‘That’s the sole reason for my side of this arrangement, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course.’
She spoke quickly, and hoped he didn’t notice how her colour had risen.
He might have noticed her colour and her silence, but just then the car drew up outside the floodlit portico of the Mirabelle, and he handed her out without comment.
There were a good many people in the spacious lounge, with its warm golden walls and its concealed lighting, but Simon and Jennifer Langtoft were not easy to overlook. They came forward at once, Jennifer in a frock of geranium red which owed nothing of its effect to ornament and everything to perfection of cut.
‘She’s the most finished person I’ve ever seen,’ thought Alison, and hoped that she herself didn’t look too much like a schoolgirl out for a treat.
But it didn’t seem to be any part of Jennifer’s social technique to make other people uncomfortable. She shook hands quite warmly and said:
‘I thought Julian told me you wanted advice about choosing your trousseau. But it looks to me as though you know all about what suits you already.’
‘She doesn’t want advice. She wants moral support.’ That was Simon Langtoft, speaking in a rather slow, lazy voice. ‘Then when she presents the bills to her father, or whatever poor wretch has the privilege of paying, she can justify everything by saying, "Well, Jennifer Langtoft says it’s absolutely necessary." Am I right?’ And he smiled straight into Alison’s eyes before he bent his head and lightly kissed her hand.
Alison had never had anyone kiss her hand before, and she found it rather thrilling and quite astonishingly gratifying. It would have seemed theatrical from most men, she supposed, but it was quite right as Simon did it.
‘No, I wasn’t really arguing it that way,’ she told him with a smile. ‘It’s only that I’ve never had to choose a big wardrobe before, and if Miss Langtoft doesn’t mind-’
‘I don’t mind in the least,’ Jennifer assured her. ‘I think the next best thing to buying expensive clothes yourself is to watch someone else being extravagant.’
‘No getting her into bad ways, Jennifer,’ warned Julian. ‘Don’t forget that I shall be the husband and universal provider afterwards.’
‘I shall not forget,’ Jennifer said.
She spoke banteringly, just as the two men had, but for some reason the way she said those words-’I shall not forget-reminded Alison forcibly of what Aunt Lydia had said. And for a moment she felt extremely uncomfortable.
As they came into the more brilliantly lighted restaurant, Alison had a better opportunity of studying the brother and sister. She had thought at first they had no single feature in common, but now she saw that they were alike in one thing -their extraordinarily dark eyes, which were not merely dark brown, but an absolutely genuine black. Their intensity gave a tremendous arresting character’ to both faces.
In Jennifer, the eyes were bright and sparkling. They matched the smooth black hair which was moulded to her admirably shaped head in one sweep, except for where it turned back one side towards the crown of her head in a long curve of extreme severity.
‘She has hair like a classical statue,’ thought Alison. ‘I wonder how on earth it’s done.’
Her face, a trifle too thin for youthful beauty, was rather like that of a statue too, and her figure was faultless.
No wonder Julian had described her as good-looking.
And of Simon he had said that he was the sort women always ran after but never caught.
Yes, Alison could imagine that was true.
His eyes were much more dangerous than Jennifer’s- opaque and quite unfathomable, with a glance that was extraordinarily direct, but all the more disconcerting for that You could look straight into his eyes, but you would never read what was hidden there.
In sharp contrast, his hair was almost fair, with a rather ingenuous wave in it; his mouth was firm, but his chin quite unmistakably cleft.
Alison thought she had heard once that a man with a cleft chin was invariably charming but unreliable, and wondered if there were anything in it.
He was an extraordinary man, she thought, but undeniably attractive.
Then Jennifer wanted to discuss the important matter of the trousseau, and the men talked business together for a while. But, although Alison thought her mind was entirely on what Jennifer was saying, she really noticed, too, how curiously Simon’s voice changed when he discussed business matters. It became decided, abrupt and entirely different from when he was speaking to her.
‘Of course, it complicates things, your going to the other side of the world, and having summer in the winter and that sort of thing,’ Jennifer was saying. ‘But we’ll manage all right’
‘I think Jennifer has been reading up Buenos Aires in the Encyclopaedia Britannica all day,’ said Simon, turning to Alison again. ‘She knows all about the climate, products, and population by now.’
‘Don’t be silly. I knew before,’ Jennifer said.
‘Did you really? How revoltingly learned of you,’ Simon. observed.
‘Nonsense. I just happened to read it up some time ago,’ his sister explained.
‘Most eccentric. Whatever made you do that?’
Jennifer suddenly looked rather put out.
‘Oh, I-I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.’
‘And yet you remember the climate, products, and population. Extraordinary girl,’ said her brother.
Jennifer laughed, but Alison thought she was a little vexed, and when Julian said, ‘Would you like to dance, Alison?’ she agreed eagerly.
‘Settled everything satisfactorily?’ he asked when they were alone.
‘Yes. Jennifer is coming with me to-morrow morning. She is very kind and helpful.’
‘I knew she would be,’ Julian nodded. ‘She’ll take on anything in an emergency, and she always does the job well.’
Alison supposed it was ridiculous to wonder whether- given time-he would have asked Jennifer to help him out of the major emergency which had come upon him.
There was no doubt about it, she would have ‘done the job well.’
When they came back to their table, Simon asked her to come and dance with him. She couldn’t very well refuse, of course, but she had an odd reluctance to be alone with him, and perhaps be subjected to his half-bantering remarks once more.
But she need have had no fear. Nothing could have been more considerate and charming than his air towards her. He danced well, but he didn’t talk much, and what he said was interesting.
In the car on the way home, Julian asked, ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’
‘Very much indeed. I liked them both.’
He nodded.
They are an interesting couple.’
There was a moment’s silence. And then:
‘Julian.’
‘Yes?’
‘Is he entirely reliable?’ She couldn’t imagine why she had said that, once it was put.
‘How do you mean? He is perfectly honest in business. Only, he’s a born gambler,’ Julian said.
Do you mean by temperament, or that he literally plays cards for money?’
‘Everything. Cards, racing, stocks and shares. Yes-and in general temperament too. I’ve seen him lose three years’ salary in half an hour and win it all back again without turning a hair.’
‘And does he usually win in the end?’ Alison asked, a little fearfully.
Julian laughed.
‘I couldn’t say, Alison. He has never reached the stage of trying to borrow from me. That’s all I know. But then I dare say he knows it wouldn’t be any good.’
Alison glanced at his profile in the passing lamplight and thought it looked grim.
‘Wouldn’t you-wouldn’t you lend money to a friend, Julian?’ she said timidly.
‘Not for that reason. If you start lending to a gambler you soon find you have all the expense and none of the thrill-if there is any thrill.’
Then you have no leaning towards it yourself?’
‘Good lord, no. Do I look like a gambler?’
‘No,’ Alison was bound to admit. ‘No, Julian, you don’t. But I suppose this marriage is a bit of a gamble, isn’t it?’ she said consideringly.
‘I suppose it is.’ He looked amused. Though, if I remember rightly, you represented it to me as "a dead cert". Besides, what about your own risks, you little gambler, yourself?’ And, putting out his arm, he drew her against him.
‘I’ve told you-I’m willing to take the risk to get away from Aunt Lydia,’ she said doggedly, glad that she need not look at him.
‘And I’ve told you-I’m willing to take the risk in order to get this job in Buenos Aires,’ he mimicked her gently. ‘So we’re quits.’ And she felt him drop a light kiss on the top of her head.
It wasn’t a real kiss, of course-more the kind he might give Audrey. But somehow it sent Alison to bed that night infinitely comforted.
The next morning, Alison again had breakfast alone with her uncle. Aunt Lydia almost always chose to breakfast in her room, and Rosalie was either doing the same or else had already departed on some convenient visit which would probably be her way of avoiding any awkward meetings with her cousin.
Uncle Theodore looked up and gave her an impersonal ‘Good morning, Alison.’ But she thought he was not at all averse to having her there opposite him.’Well, what did you do yesterday?’ he asked, and she noticed that this time he even disregarded his paper to talk to her.
‘We-we bought my ring,’ Alison told him, a little anxiously, in case, for some reason, he should find it as unimportant as her aunt had.
‘Did you? Let me see it.’
Alison held out her hand, and he took it in his thin, dry fingers.
‘Ve-ry beautiful. Most unusual shade. Let me see it off your hand.’ Her uncle looked almost enthusiastic, and she remembered that Aunt Lydia had once said he was something of an authority on pearls.
She took off the ring and handed it to him. He examined it with such attention that she had the uneasy feeling he would have taken it out of its setting, if he had had the means handy, and weighed it and valued it there and then. Still, even this academic interest in her ring was welcome after Aunt Lydia ’s slighting treatment.
‘Yes That’s very fine.’ Her uncle handed the ring back. ‘Certainly Julian knows how to buy jewels for a woman. Diamonds suited Rosalie, and pink pearls suit you.’
The reference to Rosalie slightly disconcerted Alison. Then, on sudden impulse, she exclaimed, ‘Julian said the pearl was like me.’
‘Did he, indeed?’ Uncle Theodore looked amused. ‘Very pretty compliment-and nearer the truth than most.’
Alison laughed then, and felt glad, somehow, that she had told him. To have someone else appreciate Julian’s remark seemed to make it more real.
‘I’ve arranged about choosing my trousseau, too, Uncle Theodore.’
‘Oh? With your aunt, after all?’
‘Oh, no.’ Alison was very thankful to think that she would not have to have Aunt Lydia with her all the time, disparaging and sowing miserable doubts in her mind. Jennifer would be very much pleasanter company. ‘I took your advice and spoke to Julian about it. A friend of his is coming with me. We’re starting this morning, because there isn’t much time, is there?’
‘No, I suppose there’s not,’ her uncle agreed. ‘When do you leave? Early November?’
‘Yes.’ It gave Alison a queer feeling to realise how near it was.
‘It’s a big step for you, Alison.’ Her uncle thoughtfully spread butter on a piece of toast.
‘Y-yes, I know.’ Something in his tone made her wonder what was coming next.
Then he shot a look at her.
‘You are genuinely fond of Julian, aren’t you?’
‘Why-yes, Uncle.’ Alison spoke after a second’s hesitation. It was true enough, of course, but, when she remembered the exact circumstances of the case, she felt all the guilt of having told a lie. She did love Julian, yet she must pretend to him that she didn’t, and to everyone else that she did. It was a terrifying network.
‘Well, Alison’-her uncle spoke rather deliberately-’I don’t often give advice to people of your age. For one thing, I know how little effect it usually has. But I should be sorry to see you make the mistake that so many women do.’
‘And what is that?’ Alison asked in a small voice.
He looked up and smiled.
‘You needn’t sound so alarmed. I don’t imagine it applies to you. But don’t ever marry a man for any reason but the one you give to him. He invariably finds you out-and usually much sooner than most of you expect.’
Alison sat there wordless. She tried desperately to produce a little laugh, but she couldn’t. It stuck in her throat and made her want to cry instead.
Her uncle couldn’t possibly know the truth, of course. He was thinking of women like Aunt Lydia, who pretended love and married for money. But the odd significance of the remark gave her an almost superstitious chill.
Suppose Julian ever did find out? Discovered that her talk of ‘a business proposition’ was all sham? Found that he had saddled himself with a fond wife for whom he didn’t care in the least? Suppose-
With a tremendous effort, she dragged herself back to the present. Her uncle was looking at her now a little puzzledly, she thought.
‘I-I’d marry him just the same if he were quite a poor man. Is that what you mean?’ she got out at last.
He didn’t answer directly, but he gave a satisfied little laugh. And after a moment he said:
‘And who is this friend of Julian’s who is going to advise you?’
‘Someone called Jennifer Langtoft. I met her last night. She seemed very nice.’
‘Langtoft? Simon Langtoft’s sister, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hm! Couple of adventurers,’ her uncle remarked disagreeably.
‘Julian says he is perfectly trustworthy in business,’ Alison felt bound to say.
‘Oh, that may be. Though I should never trust that type far myself,’ Uncle Theodore declared. ‘That wasn’t quite what I meant.’
But he didn’t offer to say what he did mean, and Alison felt a little diffident of asking. In any case, so far as she was concerned, the Langtofts had been kind, and. as they were not likely to figure in her life for more than a week or two, the matter didn’t seem of very great importance.
‘Well, Alison,’ her uncle said-and she realised that he had taken out his cheque-book and was beginning to write in it-’if you’re beginning on your shopping to-day, you had better feel you have something behind you.’
Alison flushed a little, and smiled as her uncle handed her the cheque. Then, as she glanced at the amount, she went scarlet and then quite pale.
The cheque was for a thousand pounds.
‘But, Uncle Theodore!’ Alison pushed back her chair and got rather unsteadily to her feet. ‘I couldn’t possibly take all this. It’s-it’s a fortune!’
‘Nonsense,’ said her uncle. ‘I’m certain Rosalie will be extremely dissatisfied with twice that amount.’
‘It’s nothing to do with Rosalie. It’s just between you and me. And I-I don’t know what to say.’ Alison threw her arms round her uncle’s neck and kissed him.
‘There, Alison.’ He patted her shoulder firmly. ‘There’s no need to be so emotional about it. Having taken on the responsibility of your welfare, I naturally expect to see you decently provided for when you marry.’
‘Don’t try to explain it away,’ Alison said, rubbing her cheek against him affectionately. ‘It’s so wonderful of you.’
Her uncle gave her a kiss, and pushed her away, but not ungently.
‘You’re a good child,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll be happy with your Julian.’
‘Oh, I shall, I shall,’ Alison told him fervently. And at that moment she believed it.
As soon as he had gone, she ran up to her room to get ready. She was to meet Jennifer at their flat in Chelsea, and her uncle’s kindness had already given a delicious air of excitement to the whole business.
It was not only his actual generosity. It was his whole attitude. Everything was so different, so different, if only someone showed a little kindly interest.
The very sun shone more brightly, she thought when she got outside.
The Chelsea flat, if rather less solidly dignified than her uncle and aunt’s house, was at least as luxurious. And, as a quiet-voiced manservant ushered Alison into the black and oyster lounge, she couldn’t repress the amused reflection that Simon Langtoft had certainly not gambled away all their money.
Jennifer came in almost immediately, and seemed pleased at Alison’s admiration.
‘Yes, it’s a nice flat, isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘I’m rather proud of it, because I’m responsible for choosing all the decorations here. Simon is crazy about a cottage we have in Sussex, so he lets me do what I like here, and I let him have a free hand there. Then we can’t quarrel.’
‘But I shouldn’t think you ever quarrel, anyway,’ Alison said with a smile.
‘No, practically never. I’m pretty good-tempered and he is very, so there’s scarcely ever an explosion Would you like to see the rest of the place? It won’t take s moment.’
Alison thought she would, and Jennifer led the way through the spacious and beautifully arranged flat.
It was just as she was going out of Jennifer’s bedroom that Alison saw the photograph of Julian Not exactly the Julian she knew. Younger, not quite sure of himself, and a tiny bit sulky.
‘Why that’s Julian, isn’t it?’ she said involuntarily.
‘Yes. Jennifer picked up the photograph and held it out to her ‘Have you never seen that one of him? It was very good at the time.’
Alison took it wordlessly. Of course she had never seen it. She had never seen any photograph of Julian, nor shared any part of his life. She felt a wave of angry pain which she was ashamed to identify as jealousy.
She pretended to study the photograph intently, and at last Jennifer said:
‘You’ll have to get him to give you a copy if you like it so much.’
‘Yes;’ Alison said rather flatly, as she handed the photograph back But of course she could never ask Julian for a photograph Anyone else could. Any casual. half interested, uncaring acquaintance. But she couldn’t because if might imply something that she dare not have implied.
Yet Jennifer had his photograph-and she kept it in her bedroom.
It was an absurdly small incident to spoil the whole morning, and yet, struggle as she would to be sensible about it, Alison was unable to shake off her resentment and depression.
As she sat beside the capable Jennifer in the little car which she drove herself, as she listened to her, obviously in her element, at the famous dress-house to which they went, Alison thought more than once:
‘She would have been perfect in the position of Julian’s wife. I wonder if she is thinking that too?’
For Alison was beginning to realise that, open and gay and vivacious though Jennifer seemed, she didn’t really give away any more than the deliberately inscrutable Simon.
‘Perhaps that is the secret of appearing sophisticated and finished,’ Alison thought wistfully. And then, a trifle anxiously, ‘I shall have to learn how to do it too, if only for Julian’s sake.’
There were a lot of things she was going to have to learn for Julian’s sake.
‘And I don’t mind. I’ll try so hard-so terribly hard,’ Alison told herself with passionate sincerity. It was ridiculous and pathetic, but she suddenly found that, instead of watching the languid mannequins as they swayed past, she was praying frantically, ‘Give me a little time-just a little time. Please, God. I’ll learn to be like these people, so that Julian will be happy with me. Only don’t let him notice the difference and be disappointed, before I have time.’
‘Alison, how serious you are!’ Jennifer turned from a discussion with the saleswoman, and laughed slightly. ‘Don’t you like any of these?’
‘Oh, yes!’ Alison felt she would not have dreamed of insulting this elegant salon and its dazzling occupants by suggesting she didn’t like anything. Besides, she did like them. Only, even with Uncle Theodore’s cheque in her handbag, it was hard to believe that any of these Rosalie-like creations were really to be hers.
However, the next two hours did a good deal to convince her otherwise.
Jennifer was not at all overbearing. She gave Alison’s own timid suggestions an attention which Aunt Lydia would have scorned to show, and contented herself with advising from her greater experience, without making Alison feel mentally deficient.
It was when the question of her wedding-dress itself arose that Alison became unexpectedly positive.
‘She is too young for the hardness of dead white,’ the saleswoman said. ‘She needs the softness of old ivory.’
‘Something cloudy in effect, I think,’ began Jennifer, frowning thoughtfully.
‘I want something like this, please.’ Alison determinedly held out her hand, on which the pink pearl glimmered rosily.
Jennifer smiled, a little puzzled, but the saleswoman said, ‘I know what you mean. Wait. There is some silk we had from Paris. this morning.’
She disappeared behind the grey curtains at the end of the salon, to return a minute or two later with a roll of silk. She tossed a great fold of it over her hand. so that it cascaded to the floor with the semi-opaque milkiness of alabaster Then under it she put a length of silk that was the pink of a winter sunset.
‘Beautiful!’ Jennifer said. ‘That warm glow is heavenly. It will be specially becoming for you, Alison.’
Alison said nothing at all. She silently stretched out her hand and very gently stroked the silk.
Afterwards. when they were having lunch together, Jennifer said:
‘I suppose you are going to have some sort of a honeymoon before you leave England, even if it’s only a long week-end?
‘I suppose so.’ Alison, acutely conscious of knowing no more about it than Jennifer, felt unable to add anything to that.
Besides, somehow, the very mention of their honeymoon had turned quite another side of her future life towards her.
So much had been said and thought and planned about the more public part of this queer marriage What people were to think: the wedding which was to appear so normal on the surface: the life they were to lead out in Buenos Aires-every point had been studied to give the right effect.
‘Was it tactless of me to ask about your honeymoon? Perhaps it’s a dead secret?’ Jennifer was smiling.
‘Oh, no!’ Alison assured her earnestly. ‘We-we just haven’t decided yet, that’s all.’
‘I see Only you were so silent and thoughtful.’
She really must manage better than this!
‘I was wondering what I would choose for my going-away outfit,’ Alison lied gallantly.
‘Oh.’ Jennifer could evidently understand being silent and thoughtful about that. ‘If I were you, I should wear that little suit you are having in the deep, dusky pink. It will go wonderfully under Julian’s wedding present. He’s giving you a mink coat, isn’t he?’
‘Mink!’ Alison couldn’t hide her gratified astonishment. ‘Is he?’
‘Why, yes. Didn’t you know?’ Jennifer seemed amused. ‘He telephoned me this morning about it, so that we could keep that in mind when we were choosing other things. I thought he must have told you too.’
‘Well. he said something about a fur coat,’ Alison admitted ‘But I hadn’t supposed it would be mink.’
‘Why not? It will suit you beautifully.’
‘Yes, I know. It would suit anyone. But it’s so frightfully-sumptuous. I’d never imagined myself in mink.’
‘You are a funny girl,’ Jennifer told her. ‘I believe it’s that artless, unworldly air of yours that men find so attractive.’
‘What men?’ Alison said, opening her brown eyes very wide.
Jennifer laughed.
‘Well Julian for one, of course.’
‘Oh, yes-of course-Julian.’
‘And Simon too.’ Jennifer shot a queer, amused glance across the table.
‘Simon? What makes you think he finds me attractive?’
‘He said so, And I can assure you, Alison,’ Jennifer added, as she pushed away her coffee-cup, ‘that I never remember his admitting before that he found any girl attractive.’
Alison didn’t know quite what to say in answer to this statement, so she remained silent.
But, during the next few busy, bewildering weeks, she remembered it more than once with a slight feeling of reassurance For if the sought-after Simon Langtoft found her attractive, surely it was not so unreasonable to hope that one day Julian would find her so too?
Aunt Lydia. having once had to bow to the inevitable, rather unexpectedly insisted on managing the wedding arrangements. She hadn’t wanted the wedding at all, but, since it was there, in her family-a matter for the admiration or criticism of her circle-every detail should be stage-managed perfectly.
The artificiality and insincerity of it all wearied. Alison, but she thought it best to let her aunt have her own way.
In contrast, she was touched to something between laughter and tears by the brutal frankness of Audrey’s letter.
‘Dear Alison,-I’m glad you got Julian after all,’ she began without preamble. ‘He was much too nice for Rosalie. But it was a near thing, wasn’t it? I don’t mind being your bridesmaid, and I’ll try not to step on your train. I’ve written to Theo about a present for you. Mother will probably buy something in our name to make it look good among the other presents, but we’d like to give you something ourselves. What would you like? Anything up to ten shillings. We can’t spare more as we have spent most of our pocket-money for the term. Write and tell me what you choose. Lots of love.-Audrey.’
They are darlings,’ Alison thought warmly. ‘I’d rather have the present they’re going to squeeze out of their pocket money than all the others. Except perhaps Julian’s present,’ she added after a moment, and smiled to herself.
Julian brought her his present himself, on the evening before their wedding day.
The last trunks had been packed and stood there now outside her bedroom door, new and shiny, all ready labelled for their journey across the world. Her wedding-dress, with its cloud-like veil of rosy tulle, hung, almost solitary, in her wardrobe. Even her smaller suitcases were packed, ready to accompany her on the motoring week-end in the West of England which was to be their honeymoon.
Every link with her old life was snapping, Alison thought, as she went downstairs to join Julian in the library.
He insisted on her putting on the coat there and then, and he stood there regarding her with an expression of unmistakable pleasure.
‘Oh, Julian, it’s lovely!’ As she nervously smoothed her hands over the rich, silky fur, Alison longed suddenly to be able to kiss him. It seemed tragic and ridiculous that she was going to marry him to-morrow, and yet she had never kissed him.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ he said. ‘You look sweet in it.’
‘Julian ‘ She didn’t attempt to go to him.
‘Yes.’
‘May I kiss you for it?’
‘Why. Alison child, of course.’ He came over to her at once. But before he could touch her, there was a knock at the door, and a servant announced, ‘Mr. Langtoft.’
‘Simon!’ Julian turned, with something like annoyance as well as surprise.
Simon came straight across the room. He looked as nearly agitated as Alison could imagine him looking, and it frightened her suddenly.
‘I’m sorry to barge in like this.’ His voice had lost its slow laziness ‘But this cable has just arrived at the office for you. I thought you’d better have it at once.’
Alison watched the two men with a curious sort of detachment as they stood there under the light, like figures on a stage.
She saw Julian rip the cablegram out of its envelope, read it and then go slowly white.
‘What is it, Julian?’ she said in a whisper. ‘What is it?’
He handed her the paper without a word, and slowly she read the squarely printed letters:
‘CANCEL FLIGHT ARRANGEMENTS BUSINESS CRISIS NECESSITATES ENTIRE REARRANGEMENT OF OFFICE HERE. WRITING AIR MAIL. FARADAY.
She was very distinctly conscious of the loud ticking of the clock in. the silent room, of the nervous opening and closing of Julian’s hand, of the rustle of the cablegram in her own fingers. And then-somehow, much more startling and significant than all of these-that Simon Langtoft was watching her intently with those curious black eyes of his.