But all the same she hooked Mona’s dress and hurried downstairs.
‘I’m much too smart,’ Mona thought, looking at herself in the glass. ‘My old black velvet with its lace collar, would have been far more appropriate. Ah, well! it will give Michael something to think about. I’d like to know his real opinion of me.’
Her reflection told her that she was lovely.
Her dress of sunshine yellow chiffon picked up in some magical fashion the lights in her hair – it was startling and slightly daring, both in its colour and cut, and yet it had a grace and a glamour that only a Hollywood dressmaker could have imparted.
She wore emeralds in her ears and a great carved cabuchon emerald weighed down the third finger of her left hand. Lionel had bought it for her in Cairo. He had paid a fabulous price for it and, when she remonstrated with him for extravagance, he had laughed and kissed the palm of her hand.
“I wanted to see it on your finger,” he said. “I am still in two minds as to which is the most beautiful – your hand or the jewels with which I try to decorate it.”
Lionel had loved giving her beautiful things. He had been fastidious to an amazing degree. Only the most perfect jewels, the most exquisite and expensive clothes were good enough. He did not mind how much he paid, dressing her seemed to be one of his hobbies. Sometimes she asked herself if she was nothing more than a doll for which Lionel must search the world for exquisite trappings, sables from Russia, silver foxes from Canada, jade from China and rubies from Ceylon.
He would spend hours choosing her a present and yet sometimes she had a feeling that he chose it as much for himself, as a connoisseur adds to a collection in a cabinet. He aimed at perfection and yet Mona knew that perfection was important only as long as it affected him personally.
She must look lovely for him. She must wear wonderful clothes, sensational jewels and unique furs. But she must put up with tawdry, dingy lodgings when he could not be with her. She must travel alone, she must invite curiosity and gossip, she must associate with the riff-raff that thronged the second-rate hotels and the second-rate restaurants. She must never approach the best, the most amusing, or the most distinguished people in any city for fear in that way her life might overlap Lionel’s career and damage it. No, Lionel demanded perfection, but only where that perfection was a part of their joint existence.
‘Stop thinking about him,’ she told herself, and smiled at her reflection in the glass.
‘Mona Carsdale, ready to make her entrance into a new life,’ she said mockingly, ‘a brave new world of cabbages and cows, of furrows and farmers!’
She swept out of her tiny bedroom, along the passage and down the wide oak stairway.
Michael had just arrived and was standing in the hall below her. She called to him from the top of the stairs and he watched her coming down to him as warm and golden as the hot sun on some sandy beach.
“Well,” she asked as she reached the bottom step, “do I grace the occasion, or would you prefer a gentle little woman in grey?”
“I don’t believe you’d be subdued even in that,” he answered. “But before we start fighting, let me tell you – as I have already done once – that your looks have improved.”
“Before we start fighting!” Mona echoed with raised eyebrows. “Why should you suppose we’re going to do anything of the sort?”
“A foregone conclusion. I saw the glint of battle in your eyes as you came downstairs.”
“You’re quite wrong. Nanny’s been giving me a good talking to and I’m on my best behaviour tonight. I’m going to sit beside you, lisping prettily, ‘Oh, yes, Michael,’ ‘Quite right, Michael!’ ‘But how wonderful of you, Michael!’ How will you like that for a change?”
“I shall love it. Don’t forget to keep it up.”
“I won’t. Now watch me do my part gracefully.”
Mona opened the sitting room door and swept in. The doctor, his wife and General Featherstone were standing in front of the fire and Mrs. Vale was handing them glasses of sherry.
Mona was certainly at her best, Michael thought, as he watched her gratify the Howletts with her apparent joy at seeing them and delight the General by kissing his cheek and asking him if he had been faithful to her while she had been away. During dinner she kept the party amused, she was vivacious and witty, raising the whole tempo of the conversation by her levity.
Watching Mrs. Vale at the end of the table, Michael thought that her delight was almost pathetic. She was so proud of her daughter, so anxious to show her off and to have everyone think how wonderful. When the small but well-cooked meal was over, Mrs. Vale shepherded the women into the sitting room.
“Don’t be long,” she told the men, “and Michael, see that the General remembers to pass the port – when he is telling his best story he often forgets.”
Mona, leaving the dining room, linked her arm through Dorothy Howlett’s.
“And how have you been getting on?” she asked.
The doctor’s wife was the one person in the village with whom she had been on confidential terms before she married. She was a small, rather insignificant little woman. She had a face as frank and open as a child’s and so simple in outline that at times it was difficult to remember that she had the same number of features as anyone else. She had, too, what was commonly known as ‘a heart of gold’.
Dorothy Howlett’s good nature was proverbial, with the result that she was continually doing twice as much as she ought to do. She had a busy, clever husband to look after, she had four small children of her own and at the moment, three evacuees in the house. Yet she had undertaken not only the organisation of the W.V.S. but also the job of billeting officer for two villages, a task that required tremendous diplomacy and tact besides a certain amount of steely determination.
Dorothy Howlett did not complain – she never had a moment to herself, a holiday, or a day off from domestic troubles, but she appeared happy, and her adoration of her husband was very obvious.
‘Is this what a happy marriage means?’ Mona wondered.
She looked at Dorothy’s five-year-old evening-dress, which was beginning to split at the seam, and noted the grey growing in profusion in the brown hair that badly needed a set. Dorothy was a little flushed now from the dinner and the glass of port that Mrs. Vale had insisted she should have. She was talking with an almost pathetic eagerness, anxious to be pleasant and to respond to Mona’s vivacity.
“Oh, I am so glad you are back!” she exclaimed.
“Everyone’s being very kind,” Mona answered. “Do you know, quite a lot of people have said they are glad to see me and somehow I didn’t expect it.”
“But why not?” Dorothy asked. “We have all been longing for your return. I know I have.”
“Why?” Mona asked curiously.
Dorothy looked at her in surprise, then she saw she really wanted to know.
“Can’t you understand?” she said. “We all want waking up. We all want to be told that there’s a big world outside Little Cobble. You’re like a glimpse of some other life, even of another sort of civilisation, you’re like – oh, how can I put it? You’re like going to the cinema.”
Mona laughed.
“Oh, Dot, how lovely! I’ve never heard a better description. I only wish it were all true, instead of which I have come back dull and weary to lay my bones among you.”
There was a ring of emotion in Mona’s voice but before Dorothy could question her, they were joined by Mrs. Vale.
