“Come back to me, you’ve got to come back to me.”
Mona knew then that no decision would be required of her. She would go to him because she was his. Because life held nothing, no interest, no joy, when he was not there.
After that she remembered packing up the flat as in a dream.
People came and went. They told her how wonderful she was not to mind parting with all the beautiful things that had been hers in her brief married life. They told her, too, how her bravery and courage over poor Ned’s tragic death was an inspiration to all who met her.
They couldn’t understand that it was difficult for her even to think of Ned, who had killed himself trying to break the record from London to John O’Groats in a mad race when every competitor must wear a grey top hat and spats.
It had been one of Ned’s ridiculous, publicity-seeking jokes, which had ended, as usual, in headlines – but this time the last that Ned himself would ever invoke. What did it matter what people said or did? Mona wondered. That Ned’s mother was resentful and reproachful, that Ned’s trustees were horrified when it was discovered that his entire fortune had disappeared and that only debts remained? What did anything matter but that in ten days’ time she would be in Paris?
And so, in the spring, Mona had gone to the Paris she had always dreamt of, to the Paris that had seemed more bewilderingly beautiful than any dream, any fantasy.
The tiny flat at the top of the Champs-Élysées with a view over the roofs and chimneys of the city, the exquisite things with which Lionel surrounded her, the clothes he bought for her, the jewels with which he decked her, they all mingled in a kaleidoscope of colour, of music, and of passion merging into the throbbing, pulsating happiness of knowing that she loved and was loved.
Now, looking back, it was easy to forget the long hours of loneliness, the days that had passed like centuries, the nights of tortured longing when Lionel could not come to her. When she had nothing to do but to stare out of the window, when she might make neither friends nor acquaintances but must wait, seeming to herself only an aching want, the incarnation of all yearning, of all desire.
Then Lionel would arrive and everything would be forgotten except that they were together.
It was seldom that they could go out in case he was seen. Generally they stayed in that tiny flat, content to be together, wanting nothing in the world save each other and their love, which consumed them both like a burning, searing flame. At the sound of his key turning in the lock, Mona’s heart would leap. She would rush across the room into the tiny hall and without the need for words, without explanations, his arms were round her, their lips would be seeking each other’s hungrily.
Yes, Paris had been the happiest, the gladdest, the most vivid time in her whole life, but Paris had not lasted. Lionel had been moved to Egypt. He need not have accepted the position and over his decision he and Mona had their first row. It was then that she had run away, leaving Paris, the flat and Lionel’s presents behind. Without a word she had come speeding home to the Priory, arriving without explanation or any previous announcement of her intentions.
“Here I am,” she said defiantly.
“Have you lost your job, darling?” Mrs. Vale had asked.
Mona remembered then that she had told her mother that she had a position in Paris as buyer for an English shop.
“Yes, I’ve lost everything,” she replied briefly.
The words in themselves at least were true. But after three days the summons came. Lionel on the telephone, Lionel in London demanding to see her. Because she was weak or because she knew it was inevitable, she went up to London to see him.
‘To say goodbye,’ she told herself, knowing just how feeble and easily shaken her resolution would prove.
She had been shown into the suite he had engaged at Claridge’s. He kept her waiting for a moment in the sitting room and then he came through the door from the bedroom. His expression was stern, but suddenly at the sight of each other everything was forgotten except an irresistible joy.
She was in his arms again, she was touching his hair, pulling his dear face down to hers…
“Oh, my sweet, how could you?” he asked.
Joyfully, through the tears and laughter, her answer came,
“I must have been mad! How could I ever live without you? How could I, my darling?”
And so she went to Egypt. It was Lionel’s wish and she went. Lionel always had his own way. She was the one to suffer, and yet wouldn’t she have suffered more if she had remained behind? She remembered once Nanny saying,
“There are givers and takers in this world, and mark my words, there are many more takers than givers.”
Lionel was one of the “takers”. Imperiously he demanded of life its best. He demanded, too, that his desires should always be satisfied, that he should have what he wanted unconditionally.
‘He always got it,’ Mona thought wearily.
But for the people who were left behind when he had gone, there were debts to be paid, debts different from poor Ned’s, but nevertheless debts – of suffering and loneliness, unhappiness and reparation, which would have to be paid in full.
Eight
Mona was waiting for Dorothy in the Howlett’s sitting room.
The doctor’s house was an ugly red brick building with high square rooms, which always appeared out of proportion whatever you did to them, but Dorothy Howlett had done her best to make them fresh and cheerful. It was not her fault if the years of hard wear had taken the shine from the furniture, the colour from the yellow chintz curtains and the pile from the brown carpet. The room had a shabby, threadbare appearance, but it also had an atmosphere of home.
There were a few photographs dotted about, a pile of mending in a basket stood on the window-seat, and a child’s toy car showed underneath the flounce of the soft-cover, while a blue Persian kitten slept peacefully on the hearthrug.
There was nothing pretentious or ornate about the room. The chairs were big, comfortable, and good of their kind – the rugs were cheap but in good taste and there was a big pile of logs in an old oak cradle by the fireplace waiting to be put on the fire.
The door opened and Dorothy Howlett came in.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mona,” she said apologetically. “It’s that awful woman again!”
There was no need to ask whom she meant. There was only one “awful woman” in Little Cobble who was continually upsetting everybody.
“What’s she done now?” Mona asked sympathetically. “And don’t look so worried, Dot, it puts years on to your age.”
Dorothy Howlett pulled off her hat and ran her fingers through her greying hair.
“I’ve given up thinking about my age long ago,” she said, “but if it registered what I feel, I’d be in a bathchair!”
She picked up a log and put it on the fire.
