The Leaping Flame
©1942
‘And there are those
Through whom the stream flows slowly,
Often dim and grey, but never still.
Its flow unceasing, ceaseless,
Till – as dawn breaks in a sable sky –
The purpose of its moving stands revealed,
The path of God – the leaping flame of life.’
One
‘Hell, I look awful!’
Mona knelt on the seat of the railway carriage and stared at herself in the looking-glass. She was too thin and there were dark lines heavily scored under her eyes.
‘Overdressed, too,’ she thought, and reaching up, she unclasped the diamond brooch from her shoulder. She stared at it for some moments. The diamonds were exquisitely set in platinum – French workmanship of course as no one could design or set jewels like the French. But it wasn’t of its beauty that Mona was thinking as she turned it over in her hands then hurriedly, as if she could not bear to look at it any longer, put it away in her handbag.
How vividly she could remember Lionel giving her that brooch. They had been in Naples. They had dined together and just before midnight they had walked out onto a wide marble balcony. Beneath them lay the city, its golden lights glittering and flashing, and in the distance was Vesuvius, silhouetted against the velvet sky, and not far away a young voice of haunting beauty was singing a serenade.
It was a night of stars, which the sea reflected on its smooth surface – smooth, yet moving gently and rhythmically, like a woman’s sleeping form. Mona had leant forward with her arms on the cool stone of the balustrade. She could feel the soft night breeze on her face, smell the fragrance of flowers and hear, above the murmur of the city, Lionel’s voice ask softly,
“Are you happy, darling?”
She had turned towards him. No need for words – he could read the answer in her eyes, in the expectant parting of her lips.
Then, breaking in upon the enchantment of the moment midnight had struck, came the tinkling chimes from many parts of the city, clear and melodious on the night air.
“Many happy returns of the day, my darling.”
Lionel had kissed her and for a moment they had clung together, a moment so ecstatic, so pulsating with wonder and loveliness that Mona shut her eyes, wanting it to last until eternity. Then he had released her and drawn a small pink leather case from his pocket.
“For you, my sweet.”
She had opened her eyes to thank him but it was difficult not to look at the man she loved rather than the present he offered. She had opened the box and drawn in her breath.
“Oh, it’s too marvellous! Put it on for me.”
He had pinned it where her dress ended low between her breasts.
“It suits you,” he said.
Thinking more of the touch of his fingers than of his gift she had whispered,
“I wish it could stay there forever. I wish we could stay here forever.”
“Darling, I can think of better places – not so public,” he had laughed, and broken the intensity of her mood so that she had laughed too.
How wonderful Lionel had been that night. How old had she been? Nineteen? No, twenty. Five years ago! How far away it seemed now! How lost – that quivering, breathless happiness…
Mona was suddenly conscious that she was still kneeling and staring with unseeing eyes at her reflection in the railway carriage mirror. She stood up, steadying herself against the swaying movement of the train. Again she looked at herself in the glass. The brooch was gone but it made little difference. She could not alter the cut of her clothes, the richness of silver foxes, the elegance with which the curls of her red-gold hair lay against her ears. Every inch of her screamed sophistication, polished poise, ‘a woman of the world’ and she knew just how flamboyant she would appear in Little Cobble.
She made a slight grimace at her reflection. Oh well, what did it matter? But she unpinned a spray of orchids from the furs lying across her shoulder – purple orchids, fragile, exotic and romantic.
How long, she wondered, would it be before she was given such flowers again? That nice man had scoured Lisbon for these.
“To bring you luck,” he murmured as he said goodbye.
She had let him kiss her hand and then her cheek. What did it matter? She would never see him again and he had been kind this last month while she had waited for a seat in an aeroplane to bring her home.
“You were made for orchids,” someone had once told her.
She had forgotten now who it was but she could recall the tone of voice in which the nameless one had spoken. Perhaps it was true. Orchids were useless, beautiful flowers without any scent.
‘That’s me,’ Mona thought. ‘Something decorative without a soul.’
Then she laughed out loud at her own theatricalism.
‘How serious I am becoming – and what a bore!’
She glanced out of the window. She would arrive in another five minutes.
