The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(20)

‘Well, it’s taught you well.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No, thank you, Audrey. I’ve been feeling so low recently. You’ve made me very happy today. I shall enjoy your party tonight.’

‘Me too.’

‘Will you promise me a dance?’

‘Of course.’

‘May I ask you a favour?’ he said suddenly, his head tilted on one side, a frown creasing his forehead. She nodded.

‘I hate to ask this of you . . .’

‘Please do, I’m sure I won’t mind,’ she replied, hoping that she wouldn’t.

‘Will you dance with Louis?’

Audrey blinked at him in amazement. ‘Of course,’ she replied, barely able to restrain the smile that tickled her lips.

‘If you set a good example, Audrey, I believe the rest of the community will follow. Everyone thinks so highly of you.’

‘Don’t worry, Cecil, I’d be pleased to,’ she said confidently.

Cecil relaxed his shoulders and sighed with gratitude. ‘You have a very sweet nature, Audrey. No one else has been so generous to Louis. I’m afraid he won’t thank you, but I thank you on his behalf.’

‘I don’t need thanks, everyone deserves a chance,’ she replied, not knowing what else to say. But Cecil thought her the kindest, most gentle human being he had ever met. Later when he thundered up and down the polo field Audrey was on his mind and in his heart and he didn’t care that he kept missing the ball because he had finally met the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

For Audrey a bath was always a sensual experience. Scented with rose and lavender oils she lay in the pink water surrounded by steam, left alone to sink into her secret world of dreams. Isla’s shrill voice rang down the corridor as she argued with Albert but Audrey was far away with Louis, sitting on the top of a green mountain where they could lift up their hands and touch the sky. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the music they had created together at the piano and his words that had transported her into his world of make-believe. She closed her eyes and recalled every moment with such intensity that she might as well have been living them again. She pictured his sandy hair and dared to run her hands through it, feeling with her fingertips the texture and breathing in the spicy male scent which clung to his scalp. She touched his face, the lines that extended out towards his temples from his eyes and those that happiness had imprinted on his cheeks with each smile and with each burst of laughter. Then she found the furrows that melancholy had carved deep into his skin and she kissed them lightly in a bid to erase them and the memories that lived in them. She lay in the bath until the water had cooled and the steam had condensed. She opened her eyes and reluctantly emerged from the realm of fantasy. She had read all about the pain of love in literature but now she understood it. Her limbs ached and her heart strained against the excess of emotion that flooded into it. She knew her mother would be appalled and she didn’t even risk imagining what the Crocodiles would say if they knew how her soul longed for Louis. But she was unable to arrest her growing affection. She could think of nothing else but him.

The dining room at the Hurlingham Club spilled over with an abundance of arum lilies and gardenia, lilacs and honeysuckle, drowning the musty smell of old wood and formality with their intoxicating perfume. The tall doors opened out onto the gardens which were bathed in the amber light of evening and misty with humidity. Audrey stood on the threshold with her sister and watched the sun set into a pink sky. Contrary to fashion Audrey and Isla wore their hair in long bouncing curls that fell thickly down their backs to their small waists and gently curving hips of blossoming womanhood. Their silk dresses reached the ground and rustled like autumn leaves when they walked, showing off the gentle slope of their bare shoulders and the luminosity of their skin. Isla’s dress was ice green to match her eyes while Audrey had chosen duck egg blue. They both wore long gloves and grown-up faces, aglow with excitement. ‘I love this time of day,’ Audrey sighed, thinking of Louis. ‘It’s so romantic, you long for it to last, but suddenly it’s gone, taking all this beauty with it. I suppose part of the attraction is its transient nature.’

‘Who are you going to dance with then?’ Isla asked, much too animated to dwell on such a commonplace thing as a sunset. ‘I’m going to dance with everyone. In fact, I’m going to dance all night without stopping. I suppose you’ll dance with Cecil till dawn.’

‘Perhaps,’ she replied cagily and a small smile caused her lips to quiver at the corners. There was only one man she wanted to dance with.