The train was passing through a well-remembered bit of flat, dismal country and the weather might have chosen its mood specially to greet her – a grey day, a mist on the horizon, the fields wet and muddy from recent rains.
‘Typical English weather,’ she told herself. ‘I might as well get used to it.’
Funny to think how long it was since she had last seen the dreary dampness of an English winter. Four, or was it five years since she had been home? It was difficult to be sure, but her mother would be able to tell her exactly.
At the thought of her mother Mona made an impatient gesture. Here was really the reason for her self-criticism. Darling Mummy – how eagerly she would be waiting – killing the fatted calf, of course, for the return of the prodigal daughter.
‘And what shall I say to her?’ Mona asked herself. ‘Mother, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee?’
That, at least, would be appropriate and truthful. Yet was she going to tell the truth? Hadn’t she planned in her own mind to announce that she had come back to help her country.
“I understand there is work for every Englishwoman however unskilled.”
How easily, how convincingly she would say it! No! – she was sick of lies, sick of subterfuge. Hadn’t she had enough of them these last years? She’d tell the truth – she’d say,
“I’ve come home because I’m broke.”
That was the truth, anyway, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. And supposing Mummy asked,
“But, darling – what did you do with the salaries you told me you were getting all these years, the sums you got as secretary to that American millionaire? As companion to that delightful Frenchwoman? For running that little dress shop in Cairo?”
Or was it Cannes? Why hadn’t she kept a list of the things she was supposed to have done? She had forgotten them now, forgotten the lies she had invented, the convincing answers she had given to the questions from home. She couldn’t even remember the names of the people with whom she was supposed to have been. They had been clever names, too.
Sometimes Lionel and she would amuse themselves by inventing them. Sometimes she would take them from the character in a play or from the gossip columns of some local paper, and then she would go on to describe the person wittily and in detail. Having written them down, across the world her lies would wend their way by aeroplane, by train, by ship, until finally they reached their destination at the Priory.
Now they would be waiting for her, those pages and pages and pages of lies, preening themselves like the white pigeons on the grey gables. That was a good simile because they were white lies after all…
‘Yes, white,’ Mona told herself fiercely, as if someone had contradicted her.
And if white lies had kept Mummy happy and free from worry, wasn’t she justified in telling them? How could she have told the truth? How could she have begun to explain? Now, perhaps, she might have to! Not if she could avoid it, but there was always the possibility that she would not be able to go on lying. What was it Nanny used to say when she was a child?
“Be sure your sins will find you out.”
Dear old Nanny. She would be waiting too, getting excited now at the thought of seeing her.
The train was slowing up. Mona threw the spray of orchids under the seat and started collecting her things – the crocodile dressing-case, the soft pale-blue cashmere travelling rug, the mink coat of dark, specially selected skins – they all seemed incongruous in her present situation with a third-class ticket in her handbag.
When she had tipped the porter that would leave her exactly ten shillings in the world. Of course, when she got to the bank, she might find that some of Ned’s ridiculous shares had paid at last, but it seemed unlikely in wartime. Oh well, she was lucky to get home at all. There were many English women abroad in a far worse position than herself, left completely penniless without even the price of their ticket home.
Now the train had stopped. She opened the door and saw Dixon standing on the station. How old he looked! of course he must be over seventy, but she had even thought of him as an old man when he had first taught her to ride a pony!
“Here I am, Dixon.”
She held out her hand.
“It’s fine to see you, Miss Mona.”
Dixon never could remember that she had another name.
“I’ve got a mass of luggage in the van. Is there a porter?”
“There’s one of them women about somewhere,” Dixon replied. “Ted was called up last week. Reckon us’ll have to move it ourselves.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Mona said. “The cabin trunks are very heavy.”
“Maybe someone will give us a hand,” Dixon said laconically as they walked down the platform together.
His optimism was justified. A couple of soldiers assisted and soon all Mona’s numerous pieces of luggage were piled on the platform, their foreign labels looking like a flight of butterflies, she thought, a bright, frivolous touch on the otherwise dreary station.
She thanked the soldiers graciously.
“It’s a pleasure,” one of them told her.
People always found it a pleasure to do things for Mona there was something appealingly feminine about her and if she needed help men appeared as if by magic.
“Reckon us won’t get all this in the trap,” Dixon said, scratching his head.
“Dixon, you don’t mean to say you’ve brought the little governess cart?”
“It’s that or nothing nowadays,” Dixon replied. “Us put up the car at the beginning of the war.”
“Well, we certainly can’t get even half these in on one journey,” Mona said. “What are you going to do?”
“Robinson will bring ’em up when he brings the coal,” Dixon said. “It’ll be all right.”
Mona looked slightly apprehensive at the idea of her luggage resting cheek by jowl with the sacks of coal, but there was nothing for it, and soon, with only her dressing case beside her, she was being driven away from the station in the old governess cart in which she had driven round the countryside as a child.
“How is my mother?” she asked.
