Thank Heaven Fasting Read online

  “I think Cecily’s starting a cold,” she said now, her face suddenly falling into exaggeratedly tragic curves.

  “I don’t think I am.” Cecily said. Her eyes looked terrified, as though the issue was one of great magnitude. It was, indeed, obvious that it was so to the sisters.

  “You always say that.” Frederica was suddenly tense with fury. “If only you’d say at once when anything was the matter—but you always go on and on, saying it’s nothing.”

  Cecily turned her scared gaze imploringly on Monica, as though to ask “Can you wonder at it?” But she said nothing.

  “Perhaps you can stifle it, if it is a cold, till after Thursday.” suggested Monica. She could see the relief on Cecily’s far too expressive face at this lightening of the subject.

  But Frederica could not let it go.

  “You don’t know what Cecily’s colds are like.” she said darkly. “You think it’s just an ordinary cold, that’s over in three days. But with her, it may go on her chest at any moment, and mean nights and nights of coughing——”

  They couldn’t stop her, although both of them had heard her say the same thing many times before.

  Monica shrugged her shoulders, but Cecily looked as though she might be going to faint.

  There was a knock at the door, and the footman, young and trim in black livery with yellow facings, stood on the threshold.

  “If you please, her Ladyship wishes the young ladies to come to the drawing-room.”

  “Thank you, William. Is it a visitor?”

  “Yes, Miss Frederica. Mr. Pelham is here.”

  “Who’s Mr. Pelham?” enquired Monica, as William shut the door behind him.

  “Oh, he often comes to dinner. He’s a friend of mamma’s, a barrister. It’s very useful, knowing him, because he isn’t married, and she can usually get him when she wants an extra man.”

  “Mother says that Lady Marlowe is perfectly wonderful about men. She always has enough.”

  “I know.” said Frederica. She did not look as triumphant as she should have looked, and Monica dimly guessed why. Lady Marlowe, witty and vivacious, and still handsome, attracted men. That was why they came to Belgrave Square. Not for any other reason.

  “Do you suppose we’re all expected to go down?” asked Cecily.

  “William seemed to think so. But I should think you’d much better stay in one atmosphere. It’s much warmer in the drawing-room than it is up here, and you’ll only feel the difference afterwards.”

  “Come on,” said Monica impatiently. “The way you fuss, Fricky! It’s absurd. I can’t think why Cecily stands it. She ought to tell you to mind your own business. She’s old enough to look after herself.”

  Monica went out of the room, not looking at Frederica. She knew that to suggest rebellion on Cecily’s part was to attack Frederica where she was utterly and helplessly vulnerable. Her furious possessiveness could brook no hint of a possible thwarting.

  On the landing outside the double-doors of the drawing-room, all three paused for a moment and, quite unconsciously, assumed entirely new and artificial expressions before going in.

  Monica put her shoulders back, and raised her chin, the echo of countless adjurations to “hold up” returning automatically to her mind, as it always did in the presence of either of her parents.

  Frederica and Cecily did not do the same. Both were intensely conscious of their height, and stooped partly from the wish to minimize it, partly from sheer lack of vitality. They gave limp and chilly hands to the greeting clasp of the visitor, and withdrew from the contact quickly, obscurely disliking it.

  Mr. Pelham was introduced to Monica.

  Already, before entering the room at all, indeed from the moment that she had heard he was unmarried, something that lay far below the layers of conscious thought, had asked the never dormant question: “Will he——?”

  Mr. Pelham did not look young. He was heavily built, with a dark moustache, thinning dark hair, and rather prominent brown eyes. Still, he was tall and smiled agreeably as Monica shook hands with him. She noticed that he did not smile at Frederica or Cecily.

  “Fricky, darling,” said Lady Marlowe, “I want you to go and send a telephone message for me. Go and fetch a half-sheet of notepaper and a pencil from the writing-table, and put down just what I tell you.”

  Lady Marlowe’s instructions were always explicit.

  She looked very smart and bright and sparkling in her green afternoon dress, with a diamond butterfly pinned to the front of it, and her brown hair curling neatly under the almost invisible mesh of the hair-net.

  As Frederica obeyed, an almost imperceptible nod and glance from her mother sent Cecily to sit by Mrs. Ingram, to make polite conversation about the ball.

  Monica realized that she, the visitor, was to be given the chance of talking to the only man present.

  Evidently he realized it too, for he made a slight gesture as of pushing forward one of the many small arm-chairs that stood about in pairs, between silk-shaded standard lamps, small tables crowded with framed photographs, and still smaller tables destined to support, at the most, a stray tea or coffee cup.

  Monica sat down, and Mr. Pelham sat down, carefully drawing up the knees of his dark-grey striped trousers as he did so.

  “Have you been to the Academy yet?” said Mr. Pelham.

  “Yes, twice. Have you?”

  “Not since the Private View. Were you there then?”

  “No. We went on the Opening Day. It was terribly crowded.”

  “I expect it must have been. It still is, I believe.”

  “Yes, I expect so. In fact, it was, the second time we went.”

  “When was that?”

  “About ten days ago. My father took me. It was very crowded then. I mean, there were crowds of people there.”

  “I expect there were. Did you like any of the portraits?”

  “I liked the Sargeants,” said Monica, knowing that this was the right thing to say.

  “Yes, they’re good, aren’t they?”

  Mr. Pelham, at this point in the conversation, was obliged to get up and open the door for Frederica, who had received her mother’s instructions and was going downstairs to the telephone.

  Monica, glancing swiftly round, caught the gleam of approval in her mother’s tiny smile.

  She had succeeded in sustaining her conversation with Mr. Pelham without any of those pauses that might have indicated that he was finding her something less than interesting. Monica fixed her eyes upon him, as he closed the door behind Frederica, and tried to look as though taking it for granted that the break in their duologue had been a temporary one merely.

  But there was an empty chair next to Lady Marlowe’s corner of the sofa … he might go and take that. Monica redoubled her alertness of her gaze. Almost, she had her lips parted, as if just about to speak.

  Mr. Pelham closed the door carefully, turned round, hesitated for the fraction of a second, and then returned to his place next to Monica.

  She was careful not to glance away from him, but she could feel her mother’s imperceptible sigh of relief.

  Monica knew that her mother was pleased with her, and she was pleased with herself.

  It looked as though she might be going to turn out attractive to men.

  Chapter II

  On Thursday afternoon, before the ball, Monica was told by her mother to go upstairs and lie down.

  “Otherwise you won’t look fresh for to-night, darling. And the hairdresser’s coming at seven o’clock. He can do me first, and then you.”

  “I shan’t sleep,” protested Monica.

  “Never mind. You’ll be resting. Now let me see——”

  Mrs. Ingram consulted a list. She had been entirely absorbed in lists during the past three weeks.

  “Let me see … cards for the dinner-table, yes, that’s done … speak to Mrs. Horben about the salted almonds … telephone to the Stores—now what was that for, I wonder—send round to Gunter’s
about the ice-pudding—Monica, what are you hanging about for? I told you to go and lie down.”

  “Can’t I help you, mother?”

  “You can help me best by doing what you’re told, directly you’re told,” said Mrs. Ingram firmly.

  Monica went upstairs.

  She did wish that her mother would not talk to her as though she were still a child. Once, she had ventured to say so, in a moment of intimacy, and Mrs. Ingram had kissed her and answered gently: “To me, you can never be anything but my baby, even if you live to be a hundred.”

  To the irrational tenderness of such a declaration, no dutiful and affectionate daughter could make any reply.

  Monica’s bedroom was on the fourth floor, a flight of stairs higher than that of anybody else—except, of course, the servants, who didn’t count. They were at the very top of the house, next door to the boxroom. Indeed, Monica had a dim idea that the kitchen-maid actually did sleep in the box-room, but dressed and undressed with one of the other maids, in another room. Her window looked out on to the Square, and she gazed down for a moment at the striped awning already lowered over the balcony. It hid from her any view of the street, but she knew that another awning was in process of being put up, at the front door, and that strange men in dirty white aprons were hurrying up and down the steps, carrying in cardboard boxes and pots of azaleas and smilax.

  Really, the ball might almost have been taking place at Mrs. Ingram’s own house. But it was only a dinner-party before the ball.

  Monica slowly drew the green blind half-way down between the rose-pink silk curtains, filling the room with a soft, summery gloom.

  The pink silk eiderdown quilt had already been turned back over the brass rail at the foot of the bed, and the crisp, smooth linen sheet folded a little away from the pillow. Evidently Mary, the housemaid, had guessed that Miss Monica would be told to rest, before the tremendous excitement of the evening. Slowly Monica began to undress. Sometimes, in order to save herself trouble, she tried to lie down without taking off her stays, but it was never endurable. In the same way, it wasn’t worth while trying to avoid the business of taking one’s hair down. The hairpins hurt, and sooner or later they fell out, and, in any case, it had all to be done again as soon as one got up.

  So Monica went to the dressing-table, and took down her hair altogether, laying the thick black hairpins, and the thin “invisibles” into two tidy little heaps beside the pad that supported her sausage-curls. Hastily she brushed back her hair, wishing that it were longer—it only reached to her shoulders—and plaited it in a small tail. For a moment or two she gazed earnestly at the reflection in the glass.

  The Viyella nightgown—her mother did not think anything but Viyella really ladylike—thick things in the winter and thin in the summer—made her look very childish, with its little frills at neck and wrists, and neat row of buttons down the front. It was cut so as to fall in ample folds, and reminded Monica of a choir-boy’s surplice. Moved by a sudden, incomprehensible impulse, she drew it tightly round her from the back, until the outline of her figure—rounded breasts, flat waist, and curving hips—was startlingly visible.

  Shame assailed her, and she released the flannel folds abruptly and sprang into bed.

  Anxious not to analyse her own immodest impulse, and indeed to forget it as quickly as might be, Monica looked round her room, consciously dwelling on the decoration, the arranging and furnishings that she and her mother had decided upon together as soon as Monica “grew up.”

  The wallpaper was a pattern of pink roses, crawling luxuriantly in and out of a silver-grey trellis work. Monica was not entirely satisfied with it. Her first idea had been to have a yellow room, but neither her father nor her mother had thought that at all a good idea, so that it had had to be abandoned. Still, after all, pink was pretty.

  The china on the wash-stand was pink—little bouquets of roses tied with pink ribbon, on a white background—and the mats of the dressing-table were of pink Roman satin, covered with white spotted muslin. One lay beneath each of the bottles, brushes, trays, and boxes belonging to the embossed silver “dressing-table set” that Monica’s father had given her on her sixteenth birthday. The back of each silver piece showed a raised reproduction of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ “Heads of Angels.”

  The furniture itself was all painted white, so was the narrow little mantelpiece on which stood the collection of china animals, dating from nursery days. The pictures were framed in gilt—mostly “copies from the flat” of Swiss scenery, and Italian peasantry, but there were also reproductions of one or two “really good” pictures. These had been given to Monica from time to time, usually on birthdays, and she always felt that she ought to have liked them much better than she really did.

  Her books, in a small open bookcase by the bed, she viewed with a much more real satisfaction. There was a set of Dickens, a set of Scott, a set of Ruskin, and several volumes of poetry. The storybooks—she was a little bit ashamed of all the L. T. Meades, and the Fifty-two Stories for Girls series—Monica still kept in the schoolroom. She was allowed, now, to read the books from Mudie’s in the drawing-room, provided that she asked her mother’s leave first, as to each one. The most individual thing in the room, Monica always felt, was the large coloured picture of the Emperor Napoleon that hung over the fireplace.

  She had bought it with her own money, after deciding that Napoleon was her favourite hero. Mrs. Ingram had not, at first, been very pleased at this act of independence. She had not, however, forbidden the hanging of the picture, saying only: “It’s a phase, darling. All girls go through it, I suppose.”

  Monica had felt foolish, but had stuck to Napoleon. She liked the feeling of having originated a cult for herself.

  Beside the bed stood a little table with a framed photograph of Monica’s father and mother, taken almost before she could remember them, a Bible and Prayer-book, and a copy of the Imitation of Christ, bound in limp green leather. A reproduction of the Sistine Madonna hung over the bed.

  There had been a moment when Monica, really doubtful whether she was not at heart an atheist, had wished to take this down, and to substitute yet another Napoleon, but she had never found courage to do anything so entirely likely to lead to disaster. Besides, it wouldn’t have been of any use. She would never have been allowed to take down the Madonna and Child. And after all, it was—like the pink wallpaper—very pretty, and reminded her of her childhood.

  In these virginal surroundings, Monica lay and thought about her first ball.

  She was deeply excited.

  Nobody knew what might happen at a first ball.

  There were stories about girls who had received proposals at their first balls, or even actually become engaged. Mrs. Ingram had many times told her daughter of the almost historic case of the aunt of Frederica and Cicely.

  “She was Claire Bell—the youngest of all the family—and she went to her first ball when she was seventeen. She was very pretty, as they all were, and, of course, she had the advantage of two sisters who were already out, and could introduce men to her. Well, Sir Felix Craner saw her, and asked to be introduced, and he danced with her once or twice, and the very next morning he called on her father, and asked if he might propose. You can imagine how delighted the Bells were—three daughters still unmarried, and they weren’t at all well off. And Claire married this very rich man before she was eighteen! Of course,” Mrs. Ingram was apt to conclude the story with a sigh, “things like that don’t happen every day.”

  “She must have been awfully pretty.”

  “She was pretty, I must say. But it isn’t always prettiness that does it. As a matter of fact, Claire lost her looks very soon after. Still, what did that matter? There she was, married and settled at seventeen.”

  It seemed an almost unrealizable ideal.

  One could not hope to be as brilliantly successful as all that. Still, it would be glorious to dance every dance, and to feel that one’s partners were admiring one’s dress, and one’
s dancing, and one’s looks. Monica knew that she was, for instance, prettier than either Frederica or Cecily, who were both so much too tall, and held themselves so badly. It certainly was not only because she was a visitor that Mr. Pelham had talked so much more to her than to either of them. Mr. Pelham might be elderly, and not very good-looking, but still, he was a man.

  Monica, dozing, dreamed that she was wearing an engagement ring, and that Frederica was jealous.

  At four o’clock, her mother’s maid brought her a cup of tea and a plate of sponge-fingers.

  Parsons was good-natured, and fond of Monica. Otherwise she would certainly never have stumped up from the pantry, right down in the basement, but would have sent Mary.

  “Thank you very much, Parsons,” said Monica politely. She sat up in bed.

  “What’s mother doing?”

  “Resting, Miss Monica. She’s been on her feet all day long, and the master’s just come in, and said she was to have a lay-down if it’s only for half an hour.”

  “Oh, is father downstairs?”

  “Yes, Miss Monica. He’s just come in,” repeated Parsons.

  “Well, I should think I might get up now, and go downstairs, wouldn’t you? The hairdresser isn’t coming till seven.”

  “I don’t know what madam’s orders were, Miss Monica, but if she didn’t say nothing special, then I’ should think you might go down.”

  “It isn’t as if I hadn’t had a doze. I went right off. I know I did, because I had a dream.”

  Monica gave a self-conscious little laugh, at the remembrance of the dream.

  She had an absurd feeling that a dream like that might be a kind of good omen. It might even mean that she really was going to be engaged quite soon.

  “Can I help you, Miss Monica?”

  “No, thank you, Parsons. I can manage.”

  “Then, please Miss, could I come and fasten your dress for you not a minute later than half-past six?”

  “But the hairdresser?”

  “You’ll want your dress on before he does your hair, Miss Monica, otherwise you’ll never be able to get it over your head safely.”