It was Michael’s most authoritative tone and without further argument, Mona obeyed. She stepped into the car and he leant across her to pull the door to and to tuck a warm fur rug round her legs. She said nothing, accepting his attentions thankfully, for she suddenly realised that her feet and ankles were freezing. The wind had blown her hair into a halo of untidy curls. Mona opened her bag and pulled out a looking-glass.
“I must look a freak,” she said trying to speak naturally.
Michael said nothing and made no effort to drive on. After a moment he bent forward and switched off the engine of the car. Mona stared at him.
“Why are we stopping?” she asked. “Aren’t you taking me home?”
“If that’s where you want to go?”
“Of course. That’s why I left.”
“Any reason?”
“I’ve got a headache and I feel tired and ill. Neither of which is particularly an asset in a party.”
Her head was aching and although perhaps the pain she suffered was more mental than physical, it had given her a sense of utter weariness and exhaustion.
“I’m sorry.” Michael spoke after a pause as if he had been pondering on her words.
“It’s nothing,” Mona said, “but somehow I wanted to get home and being selfish, I thought only of myself.”
“All right, I’ll take you home then if that’s what you want.”
Michael started up the car. Through the windscreen Mona looked across the lake and saw the house floating, as it were, in a bowl of silvery water. Breathtakingly beautiful, it still seemed to her that its high walls and roof looked down haughtily on the weakness of human nature. They drove on in silence. After a while Mona closed her eyes, to open them as Michael drew up at the door of the Priory.
“Are we there?” she asked unnecessarily.
Michael turned to look at her.
“You’re all right?” he questioned.
“I’m not likely to die during the night, if that’s what you mean,” Mona replied, trying to speak lightly.
There was a sudden tension between them, a tension of unspoken words, of accusations and demands. Suddenly Mona capitulated.
“I’m sorry Michael,” she said, and her voice was soft and yielding, “to have taken you away from your party.”
Michael stretched out his arm and to her surprise put it round her shoulders.
“They’ll get along quite well without me. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“You shouldn’t worry about me, I’m not worth it.”
Her tone was bitter and Michael’s arm tightened around her shoulders.
“You’re tired,” he said sympathetically.
Mona let her head rest for a moment against his shoulder.
“Yes, I’m tired, Michael, but it isn’t the sort of tiredness that can be cured by sleep. It’s an utter weariness of body and soul.”
“That’s unlike you.”
“Is it?” she asked. “Or is it unlike the idea that most people have of me? I feel as if for years now I have been acting a part and suddenly I am too tired to go on with it – and yet without the mask I am afraid of what I will find.”
He made no answer and they sat for some minutes in silence. There was something comforting in being able to lay her head against him and feel the strength of his arm supporting her.
‘How I wish I could remain like this,’ she told herself, ‘to drift into a kind of coma and not have to cope any longer with my difficulties and troubles. I suppose the point is that I have always had a man to look after me. There was always Lionel in the background to whom I could turn if I were desperate, but now there’s no one.’
She felt like crying so she galvanised herself into action.
“I mustn’t keep you here all night,” she said quickly. “Good night Michael, and thank you. I’m sorry I’ve been a nuisance.”
“You haven’t,” he replied, but the words were lost as she slammed the car door.
“Don’t get out,” she called, and was gone before he could stumble from the driving seat. He saw the door of the Priory close, and then turned the car for home.
Inside the house she switched on the lights quietly. Mrs. Vale was not only a light sleeper but she was also suffering from a heavy cold. Michael had been particularly anxious for her to come to his party, but instead she had gone to bed after tea, knowing that to go out in her condition would be no pleasure for herself or anyone else.
Mona crept upstairs. She did not want her mother to wake because she had no reasonable explanation for having come home alone, for leaving Char at the party. The fire was burning in her room, piled up by the attentive nanny before she went to bed. Mona undressed and wrapped herself in her dressing gown. She was crouching on the hearthrug, staring at the flames, when the door opened. She looked up, expecting to see her mother, but it was Char who came in.
“I didn’t hear the car,” Mona said.
She had meant to lock her door before she went to bed so that there could be no chance of Char coming to her room when she returned.
“Jarvis dropped me at the end of the drive,” Char replied drily. “He’s in a bad temper.”
“I’m sorry.” Mona felt the words were inadequate even as she said them.
