‘There’s Wilfrid! Fetch him, Michael!’
Michael crossed, and touched his best man’s sleeve; Desert’s face emerged, frowning. She saw him shrug his shoulders, turn and walk into the throng. Michael came back.
‘Wilfrid’s got the hump tonight; says he’s not fit for human society – queer old son!’
How obtuse men were! Because Wilfrid was his pal, Michael did not see; and that was lucky! So Wilfrid really meant to avoid her! Well, she would see! And she said:
‘I’m tired, Michael; let’s go home.’
His hand slid round her arm.
‘Sorry, old thing; come along!’
They stood a moment in a neglected doorway, watching Woomans, the conductor, launched towards his orchestra.
‘Look at him,’ said Michael; ‘guy hung out of an Italian window, legs and arms all stuffed and flying! And look at the Frapka and her piano – that’s a turbulent union !’
There was a strange sound.
‘Melody, by George!’ said Michael.
An attendant muttered in their ears: ‘Now, sir, I’m going to shut the door.’ Fleur had a fleeting view of L.S.D. sitting upright as his hair, with closed eyes. The door was shut – they were outside in the hall.
‘Wait here, darling; I’ll nick a rickshaw.’
Fleur huddled her chin in her fur. It was easterly and cold.
A voice behind her said:
‘Well, Fleur, am I going East?’
Wilfrid! His collar up to his ears, a cigarette between his lips, hands in pockets, eyes devouring.
‘You’re very silly, Wilfrid!’
‘Anything you like; am I going East?’
‘No; Sunday morning – eleven o’clock at the Tate. We’ll talk it out.’
‘Convenu!’ And he was gone.
Alone suddenly, like that, Fleur felt the first shock of reality. Was Wilfrid truly going to be unmanageable? A taxi-cab ground up; Michael beckoned; Fleur stepped in.
Passing a passionately lighted oasis of young ladies displaying to the interested Londoner the acme of Parisian undress, she felt Michael incline towards her. If she were going to keep Wilfrid, she must be nice to Michael. Only:
‘You needn’t kiss me in Piccadilly Circus, Michael!’
‘Sorry, duckie! It’s a little previous – I meant to get you opposite the Partheneum.’
Fleur remembered how he had slept on a Spanish sofa for the first fortnight of their honeymoon; how he always insisted that she must not spend anything on him, but must always let him give her what he liked, though she had three thousand a year and he twelve hundred; how jumpy he was when she had a cold – and how he always came home to tea. Yes, he was a dear! But would she break her heart if he went East or West tomorrow?
Snuggled against him, she was surprised at her own cynicism.
A telephone message written out, in the hall, ran: ‘Please tell Mrs Mont I’ve got Mr Gurding Minner. Lady Alisson.’
It was restful. A real antique! She turned on the lights in her room, and stood for a moment admiring it. Truly pretty! A slight snuffle from the corner – Ting-a-ling, tan on a black cushion, lay like a Chinese lion in miniature; pure, remote, fresh from evening communion with the Square railings.
‘I see you,’ said Fleur.
Ting-a-ling did not stir; his round black eyes watched his mistress undress. When she returned from the bathroom he was curled into a ball. Fleur thought: ‘Queer! How does he know Michael won’t be coming?’ And slipping into her well-warmed bed, she too curled herself up and slept.
But in the night, contrary to her custom, she awoke. A cry – long, weird, trailing, from somewhere – the river – the slums at the back – rousing memory – poignant, aching – of her honeymoon – Granada, its roofs below, jet, ivory, gold; the watchman’s cry, the lines in Jon’s letter:
Voice in the night crying, down in the old sleeping
Spanish City darkened under her white stars.
What says the voice – its clear, lingering anguish?
Just the watchman, telling his dateless tale of safety?
Just a road-man, flinging to the moon his song?
No! ‘Tis one deprived, whose lover’s heart is weeping,
Just his cry: ‘How long?’
A cry, or had she dreamed it? Jon, Wilfrid, Michael! No use to have a heart!
Chapter Four
DINING
LADY Alison Charwell, born Heathfield, daughter of the first Earl of Campden, and wife to Lionel Charwell, K.C., Michael’s somewhat young uncle, was a delightful Englishwoman brought up in a set accepted as the soul of society. Full of brains, energy, taste, money, and tinctured in its politico-legal ancestry by blue blood, this set was linked to, but apart from ‘Snooks’ and the duller haunts of birth and privilege. It was gay, charming, free-and-easy, and, according to Michael, ‘Snobbish, old thing, aesthetically and intellectually, but they’ll never see it. They think they’re the top notch – quick, healthy, up-to-date, well-bred, intelligent; they simply can’t imagine their equals. But you see their imagination is deficient. Their really creative energy would go into a pint pot. Look at their books – they’re always on something – philosophy, spiritualism, poetry, fishing, themselves; why, even their sonnets dry up before they’re twenty-five. They know everything – except mankind outside their own set. Oh! they work – they run the show – they have to; there’s no one else with their brains, and energy, and taste. But they run it round and round in their own blooming circle. It’s the world to them – and it might be worse. They’ve patented their own golden age; but it’s a trifle fly-blown since the war.’