Nobody Asked Me

CHAPTER I

ALISON EARLSTON lifted her suitcase down from the rack as the train drew into the clattering gloom of King’s Cross Station.

In one way, she was glad the journey was over, but she knew that the little shivers which were running down her spine now had nothing to do with the cold wind blowing in through the open window. They were just common or garden funk. She couldn’t disguise it from herself.

‘Leaving school represents a very serious step forward in your lives,’ Miss Graham had assured her fifteen senior scholars in a more-than-usually-solemn address the previous evening. ‘Probably much more serious than you yourselves realise at the moment.’

Fourteen scholars had wriggled a little, and privately thought it a rather stupid comment on the good times they intended to have. But the fifteenth-Alison-had stared at Miss Graham with her big brown eyes and thought without any conscious disrespect, ‘I bet I know a good deal more about the seriousness of my leaving than you ever will.’

For one could not imagine that Miss Graham-with her dignity and her authority-had ever known what it was to be a Poor Relation. And that, Alison knew, was her own unenviable position.

Not, of course, that anyone had ever used the expression in her hearing. In fact, anyone like Miss Graham was at considerable pains to throw a cloak of dignified geniality over the situation. But that didn’t deceive Alison. She had known once what it was to be loved and welcome, and she had no illusions now about the difference.

It didn’t do to think too much of that difference- although it was almost impossible to do otherwise just now, with the busy station scene bringing back the memory of so many homecomings. Mother smiling and eager, scanning each carriage with bright, enquiring eyes, until her ‘Alison darling!’ seemed to mark the real beginning of the holidays.

And Daddy, too-tall, much graver, but thrillingly attractive even to daughterly eyes-ready to greet her with the warm hug and kiss which told her how glad they were to have her home again.

Such dear familiar scenes, so reassuring in their constant repetition. Alison had always thought of them as going on for ever-or, at any rate, until the end of her schooldays, which seemed sufficiently like ‘for ever’ not to matter.

And then, just before her seventeenth birthday, tragedy had smashed its way into her life. Her parents had both been killed in a motor accident, and, when the first clouds of bewilderment had cleared, she had found that not only was she an orphan; she was an orphan without a peony to her name.

It seemed impossible that anyone so grave and responsible-looking as her father could have been an inveterate Stock Exchange gambler. But the state of his finances at his death, the gravity of the family lawyer, and the cool condemnation of Aunt Lydia, all went to support the inevitable conclusion.

He had gambled, recklessly. And, unfortunately, his death had come at a time when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb.

‘Criminal, of course,’ Aunt Lydia had said coldly, though without any real show of emotion. ‘But there is no satisfaction in reviling dead people. They can’t even answer one back.’

It was nearly three years now since she had summed up the situation thus, but, to the bewildered and grief-stricken Alison, those sentences had also summed up her aunt.

Until then Aunt Lydia had been something of an intriguing legend in her mind-something quite fabulously beautiful and quite fabulously rich.

Her first husband and Alison’s mother had been brother and sister, but he had died before Alison was born. She had often heard her mother describe how Aunt Lydia had come home to his family-an exquisitely lovely young widow with an exquisitely lovely little daughter, Rosalie.

‘She really was the most beautiful thing I ever saw Alison,’ her mother used to say. ‘Small and lightly built, with delicate features, red-gold hair, and violet eyes. Real violet; the kind you read about and never see.’

‘And did she look like a princess?’ Alison would prompt her with childish curiosity.

‘Well, yes, she did. I looked desperately ordinary beside her,’ Mother would confess ruefully. ‘And when you came along you looked a very ordinary brown-eyed poppet beside Rosalie.’

Alison never minded that, because it was all right being ordinary if Mother was ordinary too, and she liked to hear about her only relations, who sounded just like people out of a story-book.

Of course it had been inevitable that Aunt Lydia, with her red-gold hair and her violet eyes, should marry again. And she had. She’d married money-lots of it-when Alison was still a baby. The money was attached to someone called Theodore Leadburn. But, although Mother never actually put it into words, Alison always gathered that Uncle Theodore was of quite minor importance beside the money.

After that, it seemed, the meetings between Mother and Aunt Lydia became rapidly fewer. It was one thing to accept a home from her husband’s people when she was a penniless widow. It was quite a different matter to bother to keep up a connection with them when she had made a wealthy marriage.

There was never any actual break between them-nothing at all unpleasant-but Aunt Lydia was busy scaling golden heights, while Mother was busy being a perfectly ordinary person.

True, every Christmas Alison used to receive a very expensive-looking card, inscribed, ‘To dear Alison, with love from Cousin Rosalie,’ and she used to send back a not-so-expensive-looking card, inscribed, ‘To dear Rosalie, with love from Cousin Alison.’ But except for this annual outburst of affection, and an occasional letter from Aunt Lydia -on the Riviera or in Scotland or on a cruise-there was no communication between the families.

Once, when Alison was about nine, there had been a different sort of card-very beautifully printed and impressive-looking-to state the rather astounding fact that Aunt Lydia had had two more children at one and the same time -a girl and a boy.

Alison thought it was exciting. But Daddy said, ‘Good God, that was a bad slip,’ and Mother said, ‘Hush, dear. Not in front of Alison.’ Which, of course, had fixed it in Alison’s memory.

But not long after that even the letters and the Christmas cards had ceased, and Alison scarcely even thought about the existence of her rich but shadowy relations… Until the awful day when she realised that, but for them, she was utterly alone in the world.

Aunt Lydia -looking thirty, although Alison knew she must be about forty-two-came down to the school to interview her niece and Miss Graham.

Even in her grief and misery Alison felt some curiosity at the legendary Aunt Lydia appearing at last. It took only a minute to see that her mother had not exaggerated the description of her aunt’s beauty. And, as she looked into the cold loveliness of those violet eyes, Alison dimly sensed the meaning of her father’s remark about the arrival of the twins, years ago. There was nothing sympathetic or motherly about Aunt Lydia.

For all her fragile loveliness she was a woman of great decision, and she seemed to have Alison’s unfortunate situation at her admirably manicured finger-tips.

‘There’s not a penny, my dear, and we may as well face the fact,’ she assured the wincing Alison. ‘I don’t know what your parents intended you to do-?’ She paused for a moment to allow her niece to fill in an awkward gap.

‘I was to stay at school until I was eighteen,’ muttered Alison.

‘Much the best thing,’ agreed her aunt, with some relief, Alison saw. Evidently she was glad to hear that her niece was disposed of for another year. ‘In any case, eighteen is quite early to leave school these days. We may even find it better to leave you here a little longer.’

Alison wondered whether she ought to explain that by then she expected to have reached the head of the school, and that it would only be wasting Aunt Lydia ’s money if she were to go over a year’s ground a second time. But perhaps it would be better to leave that for discussion during future holidays. And, in any case, her aunt’s next words made it stingingly clear that none of her money was concerned.

‘It seems quite a sound school-educationally,’ she said a little disdainfully. ‘Anyway, it is expensive enough. However’-she shrugged-’your uncle says he is willing to pay the fees, so I suppose there is no more to be said.’

‘It-it’s very kind of him,’ murmured Alison unhappily, and thought how queer it was that her aunt spoke exactly as though Uncle Theodore and his decisions had nothing whatever to do with her.

‘Yes, it is kind of him,’ agreed Aunt Lydia, pressing her lips together. And she listened with cold detachment while Alison stammered out some message of thanks to be conveyed to the unknown Uncle Theodore.

But if Alison imagined that future holidays would yield an opportunity of more friendly discussion, she was entirely mistaken. Her future holidays were spent alone-at school.

After the loving interest that her parents had always taken in her, it came as a terrible shock to discover that her holidays, and how she spent them, were of less than no importance to the people who were now acting as her reluctant guardians.

It was useless for Miss Graham to talk of her aunt’s many calls on her time. Alison knew-and she knew that Miss Graham knew too-the plain fact was that she was entirely unwanted.

After that, she was not surprised that her eighteenth birthday brought no decision about her leaving school.

For nearly two years longer she had the humiliating experience of lingering in the top class, pretending that she was passionately anxious to put in extra study.

Miss Graham-who was perhaps more understanding than Alison supposed-eased things slightly by giving her small tasks in connection with the younger girls, supervising their homework and so on. It somehow implied that she was something in the nature of a student-teacher, and one or two of the staff treated her as though she were a little more than an ordinary scholar.

It soothed the humiliating smart a little. ‘But it’s awful,’ thought Alison, ‘being here without any sort of label. Everyone’s labelled in a school, and if you haven’t one it’s as though there’s something wrong with you. I’m not a pupil or a teacher or even a student-teacher, really.’

And then, because she had a certain sense of humour, even at her own expense, Alison thought with a rueful little grin, ‘Well, I suppose my label really is "The Permanent Poor Relation".’

But it hurt all the same.

Then, just as people were beginning to say, ‘Why, you’ll be twenty next birthday, won’t you, Alison?’ Aunt Lydia wrote to say that she had ‘better leave at the end of the present term, and come home here until we decide what it is best to do with you.’

Alison had an uncomfortable suspicion that, even then, it had taken a firm and tactful letter from Miss Graham to move her aunt.

However, this at least was a step forward-’a very serious step,’ as Miss Graham had said-and so something like relief as well as dread had gone with Alison on her long journey to London.

Now that she was here-looking round the crowded platform and feeling that she was the only person in the whole of King’s Cross who was not being met-she realised that the dread was distinctly getting the upper hand.

Of course, she knew her way about London from previous holidays, and she was quite capable of looking after herself; but it did seem a little callous of her aunt to have sent no one at all to meet her.

‘Taxi, miss?’ enquired a porter, whose solicitous air owed its origin partly to his hope of a tip and partly to the fact that even porters are sometimes sentimental creatures at heart, and he had noticed that Alison’s brown velvet hat and Alison’s brown velvet eyes were exactly the same shade.

‘Yes, please.’ It seemed the only thing to do, although she was very conscious of the small amount of money in her thin little purse.

He collected her shabby trunk from the luggage van, took her case, and found her a taxi. And Alison had no idea that it was the sweetness of her smile which made up for the smallness of her tip.

As she drove through the streets, she found her thoughts turning more and more to those happy far-off days when she used to come home to the delighted, affectionate greetings of her mother and father.

There seemed to be something so strange and melancholy about sitting all alone in a taxi, gazing out at the crowded streets, and trying to assure oneself that one was home from school for the last time.

Alison was uneasily aware of the fact that there was very little suggestion of ‘home’ about this particular return, and she sat on the extreme edge of the seat, her hands clasped nervously together, her eyes taking in the scene outside, but none of it really reaching her consciousness.

‘Of course, I am nothing to them,’ she told herself earnestly, trying to find excuses for the chilly absence of any greeting. ‘It would be silly to expect them to show delight at having me thrust on them.’

But her reason told her that there was a good deal of difference between ‘showing delight’ and ignoring someone altogether. And, by the time the taxi drew to a standstill, her heart was beginning to beat in heavy, uncomfortable thuds.

Her uncle and aunt had chosen to have their town house in one of the quieter and more dignified squares just behind Knightsbridge. Alison thought the solid exterior suggested Uncle Theodore’s bank balance rather than Aunt Lydia ’s beauty and elegance. But, the moment the door was opened, the glimpse of the hall beyond conjured up the picture of her aunt.

The servant seemed surprised at her appearance.

‘I’m Miss Earlston-Mrs. Lead burn’s niece,’ Alison explained. ‘I think she is expecting me.’

‘I don’t think Mrs. Leadburn expected you until Thursday, miss,’ the servant said. ‘But she is in, if you’d like to see her.’

‘What else did she expect me to do?’ thought Alison, coming into the hall. She felt extraordinarily uncomfortable. It was bad enough to have to present yourself before unfriendly relatives when they were expecting you. It was ten times worse when they were not.

She found she was gritting her teeth painfully hard as the maid showed her into a long, light room, with a respectful murmur of, ‘Miss Earlston has arrived, madam.’

‘Alison!’

Her aunt (looking not a day older than before) got up from a chair by the window and came forward.

‘But, my dear, I didn’t expect you until Thursday.’ Her frown was quite slight, but it somehow conveyed to Alison that she was extremely annoyed and put out. It was not an encouraging greeting from her nearest relation after two years’ silence.

‘Didn’t Miss Graham write to you?’ Alison asked timidly.

‘Oh, yes, she wrote to me.’ Aunt Lydia sounded faintly scornful. ‘These schoolmistresses seem to think one has nothing to do but read letters and write them in return. But I am sure she said you were coming on Thursday, not Tuesday.’

‘Oh,’ Alison felt very much like a chicken that had come out of its shell too soon and now didn’t know how to get back.

Her aunt turned away to a desk and ran through some papers, while Alison stood there wondering what she was expected to do or say. It wasn’t as though there were anywhere else she could go-not anywhere in the world. For a moment she felt panic-stricken.

‘Yes, here we are.’ Her aunt picked up a letter with an air of aggrieved triumph. ‘I knew I was right. Thursday.’ She held out the letter.

The typed lines suddenly blurred before Alison’s eyes.-She blinked quickly and managed to force back the tears. At nearly twenty, one didn’t weep openly.

‘Yes. I’m-terribly sorry,’ she said a little huskily. ‘Miss Graham’s secretary is a bit careless. I suppose she must have typed the wrong day.’

‘Well, of course, one doesn’t want to be unreasonable, but one does feel one has the right to expect a certain amount of accuracy about things like dates,’ Aunt Lydia said plaintively, with an air of fastening full responsibility on Alison. ‘It’s most terribly inconvenient, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.’

‘She speaks as though this were a three-roomed cottage,’ thought Alison. She felt desperately, sickeningly forlorn. It was really rather ridiculous to pretend that one inconspicuous niece made such a difference in this enormous house.

‘Well, sit down, child, now you’re here. Did you have a good journey?’ And then, before Alison could reply, she added, ‘Now, what am I going to do with you? You see, I have two very busy days in front of me, and I think I’m just going to have to ask you to make yourself quite scarce for the time being.’

‘Yes. I don’t mind. Really, I don’t mind.’ Alison was eager to make up for her resentment of a minute ago.

Her aunt smiled slightly but without a trace of warmth. ‘Like one of those electric fires that look like burning logs,’ thought Alison angrily, ‘and then when you hold out your hands to them there’s no heat at all.’

‘You had better have your tea in the schoolroom with Theo and Audrey,’ said Aunt Lydia thoughtfully. ‘Then there is your unpacking to do, and it won’t hurt you a bit to go to bed early to-night. In fact, the rest will do you good after your long journey.’

‘Are Theo and Audrey the twins?’ Alison asked.

‘Yes. They are nearly eleven now, you know. They both came home from school yesterday. Audrey fancies herself as something of an enfant terrible, I believe, but Theo is quite a nice child when Audrey doesn’t put ideas into his head.’

Aunt Lydia spoke as though they were the offspring of some remote acquaintance.

Just then the door opened and a tall, grey-haired man came in. Her aunt’s, ‘Oh, hello, Theodore,’ told her this must be her uncle, but she thought with surprise that he was not at all like the money-making Uncle Theodore of her imagination.

Thin, and with a rather long, melancholy face, he had much more the air of a student than of a successful financier. He stooped a little and had a slight air of perpetual weariness. But perhaps making enough money to satisfy Aunt Lydia was a weary business, thought Alison with youthful shrewdness.

‘Here is Alison arrived two days too early, Theodore,’ said Aunt Lydia. ‘It’s very inconvenient, but I suppose one must make the best of it.’

‘I don’t see why it should be inconvenient,’ retorted her husband a little disagreeably. ‘The house is surely big enough. How do you do, Alison?’ And even the formal politeness with which he took Alison’s hand was welcome after Aunt Lydia ’s utter lack of interest in her.

‘Thank you-I had a very good journey,’ Alison told him.

‘Well, it seems to me it is quite a good thing that you arrived to-day,’ her uncle said. ‘Now you’ll be in time for Rosalie’s party or dance or whatever it is she’s having this evening.’

Alison was aware of a peculiar quality in the few seconds’ silence which followed that. Then her aunt said smoothly, ‘I think Alison will be too tired after her journey to bother about parties on her first evening.’

‘Nonsense, my dear.’ Uncle Theodore’s voice was quite as smooth in return, and Alison was astounded to realise the current of antagonism running between her uncle and aunt. ‘A four hours’ journey couldn’t possibly tire anyone of Alison’s age. What is she? Nineteen? Twenty? Just the age to enjoy a party, and it’s a good opportunity for her to get to know the young set that come here.’

Aunt Lydia pressed her lips together, and Alison saw that she had no wish whatever for her niece to ‘get to know the young set’ or come to Rosalie’s party, or, in fact, do anything except make herself quite scarce, as she herself had said.

Alison was by nature rather slow to anger, but she had a streak of obstinacy that could do queer things with her usually sweet temper. And that streak began to make itself felt now, fortified by Uncle Theodore’s obvious disapproval of her aunt’s meanness. So that when her aunt said, ‘I don’t expect the child has a suitable dress or anything,’ she replied impulsively:

‘Yes, I have, Aunt Lydia, and I’d love to go to the party.’

After all, there was the dress she had worn at the last prize-giving. It wasn’t new, of course, but she did look nice in it.

‘Very well,’ Aunt Lydia said, and no one could have guessed-or, at least, Alison could not-whether she were annoyed or completely indifferent.

Without any further protest, she took her niece upstairs, first of all to the small but quite attractive, light room which was to be hers, and then along to what she called the schoolroom, where the twins were already having their tea.

‘Here is your cousin Alison,’ she explained, with that little smile which did not warm her eyes. ‘She is going to keep an eye on you during the holidays. I’ve noticed that you both need it. She will have her meals with you and go out with you when you go for walks, and so on.’

Then she turned to Alison again, as she stood there listening silently to this catalogue of her duties.

‘You had better make a good tea with the children now,’ she said. ‘Your uncle will be out this evening, and Rosalie and I shall be having something light in our own rooms, so there won’t be any proper dinner. Come down about half-past eight-if you’re quite sure you want to come.’

And, without any further attempt to make her niece feel at home, she went out, leaving Alison and the two children to take stock of each other.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and then Audrey said darkly, ‘I hope you aren’t going to spoil our holidays.’

But Alison was on familiar ground now, and knew how to deal with difficult little girls.

‘I hope not,’ she agreed. ‘And I hope you’re not going to spoil mine either. I’m only just home from school myself, and I’m as glad as you are that it’s holidays.’

‘Oh.’ Audrey looked extremely taken aback. ‘But you look quite old for school. How old are you?’

‘I think she isn’t young enough to be asked,’ observed Theo mildly.

Alison laughed. ‘I don’t mind. I’m nearly twenty… And I’m simply starving,’ she added.

‘Well, come and have tea,’ Audrey said with a faint show of cordiality, and Theo asked politely, ‘Shall I make you some toast?’

‘He nearly always burns it,’ Audrey interjected scornfully.

‘Never mind. I like it well done,’ Alison said, and watched, rather touched, while the little boy hacked a slice off the loaf with great solemnity and stuck it on the end of a toasting-fork.

‘They’re nice children, really,’ she thought. ‘And I’d rather have tea with them than with Aunt Lydia.’

They were a good deal alike-pale and stocky, with nondescript hair and well-set blue eyes, but without a trace of their mother’s beauty. They must have been something of a shock to her after the lovely Rosalie, Alison reflected absently.

But they were willing to be friendly, and to Alison, whose heart had been aching badly, that was extremely sweet.

‘Are you going to Rosalie’s party?’ Audrey asked, as they sat eating buttered toast and drinking milky tea.

‘Y-yes,’ Alison admitted a little doubtfully.

‘I suppose that’s because you’re a relation and not really a governess.’ Audrey spoke with an air of knowing all about the social arrangements of the household.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Have you got a nice dress?’ was the next question.

‘Fairly nice.’ Alison was beginning to wonder about the suitability of her dress after all.

‘It’s best not to have a very nice one,’ was Theo’s startling comment.

‘Why?’ Alison couldn’t help asking.

‘Because Rosalie always likes to have the best dress there,’ Audrey said promptly, and Theo nodded in agreement.

‘Oh.’ Alison felt apprehensive. But it didn’t seem quite right to let the children discuss Rosalie with her on these lines. So she merely said, ‘Rosalie is very pretty, isn’t she?’

‘She thinks so,’ said Audrey.

‘She is,’ said Theo at the same moment.

Alison thought it best to change the subject.

‘Have you always had a governess until now?’ she asked.

‘We did until Theo went to his prep. school, and then Mother said I’d better go to boarding-school, too.’ Audrey seemed to be the one who usually made the explanations. ‘Miss Kennedy-that was our last one-stayed on for a little while. I think she just did writing letters and that sort of thing for Mother in term time, and then of course she was there to spoil our holidays when we came home.’

Alison wondered uneasily whether this were to be her role in future: unpaid nursery governess in the holidays and general run-about for her exacting aunt at other times. Her heart sank a little further.

‘Can I come and help you unpack?’ Audrey asked.

‘If you like.’ Alison got up. ‘There isn’t a great deal to do, but I should like your company if Theo doesn’t mind being on his own.’

‘Oh, no, that’s all right, thank you,’ Theo said, and she thought they both looked rather touchingly gratified at having their wishes consulted.

It was perfectly true. She was glad of the little girl’s company. It helped to stem the tide of loneliness and fear which threatened more than once to engulf her.

‘Not that I don’t expect to stand on my own feet,’ Alison thought unhappily. ‘I didn’t expect to be made a fuss of, but it’s so-so blighting to feel on every hand that you’re a perfect nuisance.’

When everything was unpacked, Audrey took herself off to play draughts with Theo before going to bed.

When the little girl had gone, Alison sat on the side of her bed and stared out of the window at the trees in the square.

She was probably being a fool to think of going to that party to-night, she told herself. Aunt Lydia quite evidently hadn’t wanted her, and Alison felt instinctively that Rosalie’s welcome would be no warmer.

Better go quietly to bed and keep out of the way, accept at once the position which Aunt Lydia was firmly outlining for her. After all, she was only there on sufferance. And Aunt Lydia had evidently entirely forgotten the days when she had come home to Mother’s family and been welcomed at once as one of them.

But Uncle Theodore had spoken no less than the truth when he had said she was ‘just the age to enjoy parties’- and so few of them had come her way.

Alison might be scared and lonely and forlorn, but at the back of that the most distinct feeling of all was a very definite and obstinate desire to go to that party.

It seemed such a harmless wish, really. It couldn’t possibly matter to Aunt Lydia if just one quiet girl were added to her guests. And, on her first day out of school for more than two years, Alison found the prospect of an evening in her lonely little bedroom very disagreeable.

‘I’m going,’ she decided defiantly. ‘After all, Uncle Theodore obviously never thought of my doing anything else.’

Her spurt of bravery lasted while she was dressing, but when she was ready she went slowly over to the glass to see if her reflection would do anything to bolster up her fading courage.

The light was poor, and the room showed darkly behind her like the background of an old picture. Uncomfortably aware that she looked anything but smart or ‘with it,’ Alison wondered if perhaps the girl in the glass looked a little bit like an old-fashioned picture with her long, fair hair and childish fringe.

The simple white dress which had seemed so pretty when she had gone up in it to receive ‘First Prize in English Literature, and Second in European History’ didn’t somehow suggest a smart London party, however small and informal.

‘But I don’t care. I’m going,’ Alison told herself in a husky but determined whisper.

And two minutes later she was descending the wide, shallow stairs with a firmness she was far from feeling.

A friendly servant in the hall below volunteered the information that ‘madam is in the long drawing-room’, and pointed out the door to her.

Long was the right word, thought Alison with dismay as she stood at the door and saw, across terrifying vistas of space, Aunt Lydia-a picture of slender elegance in the most beautiful black evening dress she had ever seen.

The girl in the short ice-blue dress who was leaning her arm on the mantelpiece and looking down into the fire must, of course, be Rosalie.

At Alison’s entry, her aunt gave a slight exclamation, and Rosalie turned. Her eyes were ice-blue too, and her hair, which seemed to be gathered together on her beautifully poised little head in a careless pile of curls, was a wonderful shade somewhere between auburn and bronze.

She didn’t say a single word of greeting as she watched her young cousin all the way across the long drawing-room. Then Aunt Lydia said:

‘Is that the only dress you have, Alison?’

‘Yes.’ Alison felt the colour deepen in her cheeks.

‘Oh, dear.’ Her aunt’s air suggested that things had really become too much for her.

‘What’s the matter with it?’ Alison wished that nervousness wouldn’t make her sound so rude.

‘Nothing,’ Rosalie said, speaking at last in a slow, cool voice. ‘Nothing at all-except that it’s rather like a nightdress.’

Fury suddenly burnt up Alison’s nervousness.

‘Thank you,’ she said swiftly. ‘To dear Alison, with love from Cousin Rosalie, I suppose?’

‘Now, don’t bicker, girls,’ Aunt Lydia said without the slightest show of interest. ‘The dress is dreadfully unfortunate, of course, but, well-’ She shrugged.

‘At least it shows which of us is the poor relation, you mean,’ retorted Alison, whose temper was getting out of hand.

‘But that’s just it,’ drawled Rosalie, looking all over her in a way that made her wince. ‘Who wants poor relations hanging about? They’re always so embarrassing, and quite dreadfully in the way.’

‘Hush, Rosalie,’ said her mother mildly, while the furious, incredulous tears started into Alison’s eyes. She was no match for Rosalie in a duel of this sort, and, with a little gasp of anger and misery, she turned to rush out of the room and upstairs again.

But at that moment the first of the guests began to arrive, and it was impossible to make her escape.

Alison scarcely knew what she said in answer to the one or two perfunctory remarks which were made to her. In each case her aunt had introduced her carelessly as, ‘My little niece, Alison, just home from school.’ And her tone of tolerant boredom would have prevented anyone from wishing to make the little niece’s acquaintance.

It’s too bad of her,’ thought Alison wretchedly. ‘Making me sound like a schoolgirl.’ It had been difficult enough being deliberately kept at school until one was twenty, without being made to feel like a child among grown-ups now.

Oh, why, why had her aunt and cousin said such cruel and hurting things? They had not only destroyed any pleasure she could have in the party; they had destroyed every bit of confidence and poise she had.

She knew she was smiling too much, from sheer nervousness, but the muscles of her face seemed beyond her control, and she kept on finding herself with her back almost pressed against the wall. It required a real physical effort to launch herself among the gay, laughing, chattering crowd. And when she did, no one took the slightest notice of her.

They all appeared to know each other-called each other by Christian names or preposterous nicknames, exchanged quick-fire repartee, not perhaps specially witty, but all bearing the hall-mark of their own particular type and language. They were well dressed, stylish, absolutely sure of themselves.

‘It’s no good. I ought never to have come,’ thought Alison desperately. ‘I’m the most utter, utter outsider among them.’

She was back again by the wall, half hidden by the curtain of a long window, burning with the shame of her own inadequacy. She wondered if her aunt would be unbearably amused and triumphant if she slipped away to the solitary safety of her own room. It would be a terrible hauling down of her flag, of course, but that chilly little room which had seemed so lonely before appeared like a haven of refuge now.

Alison glanced across the room. Aunt Lydia was leaning back in her chair, sipping a drink and smiling up at a tall man beside her. The odd thing was that he wasn’t smiling at all in return, although Aunt Lydia ’s manner verged on ingratiating.

With an interest that was a slight check to her own personal misery, Alison watched him until he turned a little so that she could see him almost full face.

He was older than most of the men there-thirty at least, dark, powerful, and unusually good-looking.

‘Not specially good-tempered,’ thought Alison, who was, without knowing it, quite a shrewd judge of people. ‘Certainly not a "drawing-room man". I wonder why Aunt Lydia ’s making such a fuss of him?’

But perhaps Aunt Lydia was not exactly making a fuss of him, because just then he flushed slightly at something she said, and looked up with an arrogant little lift of his eyebrows, and Alison saw how startlingly light his grey eyes were against the dark skin of his face.

She hadn’t taken ‘First Prize in English Literature’ for nothing, and she thought suddenly, with an odd little feeling of amusement, ‘He has what the Victorian novelists used to call "a flashing eye"!’

But just then someone turned on the radio, someone appeared and whisked away the rugs from the polished floor, and the animated groups began to break up into equally animated couples.

With an instinctive bid for safety, Alison slipped right behind the curtain into the deep embrasure of the window. She didn’t know which would be more awful-to stand about as a perpetually smiling wallflower while everyone else danced, or to be forced to try out what was, after all, only schoolgirl dancing among these incredibly finished young people.

It was cold here by the window, and she shivered in the despised frock. She was conscious of weariness too, after the strain of the last few hours, and there was nowhere to sit down. She stood first on one weary foot and then on the other.

‘A good opportunity for her to get to know the young set,’ Uncle Theodore had said. And ‘just the age to enjoy parties.’ She felt her mouth quiver perilously as she thought of the fiasco it had all been, and clamped her little white teeth down hard on her lower lip. She wouldn’t cry-she wouldn’t.

Through the curtain the sounds of the music came to her and snatches of conversation: then something much more connected as Rosalie and someone else stopped beside the curtain.

‘She seems to have disappeared now,’ Rosalie said.

‘She means me,’ thought Alison, with a nasty prickle down her spine.

‘Does it matter?’ That was the dark-eyed, rather feverish-looking youth who had been paying Rosalie so much attention during the evening.

‘No. Except that I rather wanted to plant Bobbie Ventnor on her. He’s quite tight already, and I’d like to see her cope with him. It would be funny to have him trying out some of his really fruity stories, with her all blushing and shocked in her little white nightie.’

‘I hate her! Oh, I do hate her!’ thought Alison passionately, clenching her hands.

‘Yes-where did she get that funny little thing she’s wearing?’ Rosalie’s companion sounded bored and faintly disgusted.

‘I don’t know. I imagine she made it herself.’ And they both laughed as they moved off again.

‘I must get away,’ Alison thought wildly. ‘I don’t care what Aunt Lydia thinks-I don’t care what anyone thinks. I hate them all. I must get away.’

She peeped round the curtain. It wasn’t so far to the door and the way was fairly clear.

Two seconds… three seconds… and she had slipped through the crowd and gained the comparative quiet of the hall. Her foot was actually on the bottom stair when she heard two girls come laughing along the upper landing. Panic seized her, and she fled across the hall. Wrenching open the nearest door, she slipped inside the room and closed the door behind her.

The room was in darkness except for the firelight which flickered upon rows and rows of books. This must be the library. She would be safe here. None of those cruel, careless people would find anything to interest them in a library.

She groped forward past the dark shapes of chairs and tables, the sobs rising thickly in her throat. Kneeling down on the rug, she spread out her cold hands to the warmth. The tears began to come, and little quivering sounds of grief broke the heavy stillness of the room.

She wasn’t defiant or even hopeful any more. She was lonely and heartsick and humiliated.

‘What is the matter?’

Alison started violently at the sound of the deep, quiet voice. She dashed her tears away with the back of her hand and stared round. A man was sitting quite near her, leaning back in a deep armchair and watching her-the man who had been talking to Aunt Lydia.

He looked neither amused nor specially concerned. He was merely waiting for her reply.

Alison stared down at the rug in silence. But some sort of answer had to be made, so at last she said rather sulkily, ‘It’s-it’s my dress.’

‘Your dress?’ He looked slightly surprised. ‘What’s wrong with your dress? It seems to me like any other dress.’

‘Well, no one else seems to think so. They think it’s like a-a nightdress.’ Alison’s voice quivered again.

‘Suppose you stand up and let me see it properly?’ he said, apparently giving the matter all his grave attention.

Alison stood up, and he stood up too, towering above her in the firelight.

‘It’s longer than the current fashion, of course,’ he said, considering her. ‘But I don’t know that it is any the less attractive for that. After all, "the correct thing" is always merely a matter of period. In fact’-for the first time a slight smile touched his mouth-’you look rather like a little early Victorian heroine.’

‘Do I?’ A slow, pleased smiled lifted the corners of Alison’s mouth. Then she laughed suddenly. ‘Why, how funny! And I thought-’ She stopped abruptly and coloured.

‘What did you think?’

‘Oh, nothing.’ Alison looked a little confused.

‘Please tell me.’

‘I thought just now-in the other room-that you were rather like a Victorian hero.’

‘I? Good God, do I suggest mutton-chop whiskers and valentines?’

‘Oh, no!’ Alison’s laugh was shocked. ‘Only you have- you have what they used to call "a flashing eye".’

‘Indeed!’ He looked extremely astonished and not specially pleased. ‘And pray when did you see me flashing my eyes?’

‘Please don’t be cross.’ Alison touched his arm rather pleadingly, which also seemed to astonish him greatly. ‘It was just that I thought my aunt said something which angered you.’

‘Your aunt?’

‘Yes. Mrs. Leadburn. I’m Alison Earlston, her niece.’

‘Then why haven’t I seen you before?’ he asked abruptly. Alison was surprised to find how pleased she was at the implication that he came to the house often.

‘I only arrived to-day,’ she explained.

‘I see. So you’re Rosalie’s cousin-and this is your first day here?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she did nothing whatever towards introducing you to the others or putting you at your ease?’ There was a faintly grim look about his mouth now.

‘N-no,’ Alison felt bound to admit.

‘Of course not.’ He stared thoughtfully at her for a moment as though he were considering something very carefully. ‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘You must let me repair the omission.’

‘What do you mean?’ Alison shrank a little at any hint of going back among the others.

‘I mean-will you please come and dance with me now?’ he said with a rather charming little bow to her. ‘And let me introduce you to the one or two less poisonous among the others.’

‘Oh, no-please-I think I’d rather not go back.’

‘If you would do it-to please me.’ He smiled full at her suddenly, and Alison was astounded to see how it changed his face. There was no doubt about that smile warming his eyes, and for a moment it gave an air almost of sweetness to his firm, uncompromising mouth.

‘I’m afraid mine is only rather schoolroom dancing,’ she said shyly.

‘It doesn’t matter. There’s no need to do anything complicated.’

‘All right, I’ll come,’ Alison said. Then she looked up. ‘Do I-do I look as though I’d been crying?’ He examined her face judicially in the firelight.

‘I think you’d better dry your eyelashes a bit,’ he advised.

‘Oh.’ Alison searched unsuccessfully for her handkerchief.

He produced his without a word and handed it to her.

Alison laughed a little and dried her eyes. ‘Thank you very much. I don’t know what I’ve done with mine. I always lose it when I haven’t a pocket. There doesn’t seem anywhere to put it.’

‘No,’ he agreed politely, ‘it must be a problem.’ Alison wondered a little if he were laughing at her. But, even if he were, it didn’t hurt.

She went back with him into the other room. He put his arm carelessly but firmly round her, and she found herself drawn into the throng, dancing easily, lightly, happily. It was all so much simpler than she had expected.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ He bent his head for a moment to look at her.

‘Oh, yes!’

‘Well, then, you must smile a little and look happy,’ he told her. ‘That’s part of the-the campaign.’

‘Is it?’ Alison laughed, and looked up to see that he was smiling too. It was an extraordinarily attractive smile, she thought.

His whole air of interested attention was indescribably soothing after the earlier humiliations, and Alison suddenly felt passionately grateful to him.

‘I’ll always remember this, and like him,’ she told herself. ‘I wonder who he is?’

Somebody rather important, she thought, for, as they passed Aunt Lydia, Alison saw her look their way with slight astonishment not unmixed with displeasure.

‘You dance very well,’ her partner said just then. ‘With a little practice you will be a beautiful dancer.’ He spoke without a hint of the patronage which had been meted out to her ever since she had arrived. He was merely stating a fact.

Alison coloured, and looked her pleasure.

‘You’re being most terribly kind to me,’ she said.

‘Oh, no.’ He smiled down at her-that smile for which Alison was already beginning to watch. ‘You are very easy to be kind to, you know.’ And Alison felt that her happiness was complete, because it was at that very moment that they passed Rosalie.

The momentary surprise on Rosalie’s face was at least equal to that of her mother; the displeasure was very much deeper. Alison would have been more than human if she hadn’t enjoyed that moment intensely.

And all the rest of the evening she was made pleasantly aware of her new friend’s half careless but very efficient championship. No one had any chance of being rude or unkind to her again. He introduced her to several people- he appeared to know everyone-but she had the impression that behind his choice of partners for her was very real care and thought.

It was right at the end of the evening that he said to her, ‘I shall probably look in to-morrow, so I shall see you then.’

Alison was staggered at the implication that he intended to continue his role of protector and friend.

‘But really,’ she said earnestly, ‘it’s too kind of you. You needn’t bother, you know.’

He looked rather coldly surprised at that, she thought; and said, ‘Naturally I shall expect to see a good deal of you now.’

Alison didn’t know quite what to make of this.

She watched him go over and say a slightly formal good night to her aunt and Rosalie, and then he came back to her.

‘ Good night.’ He took her hand. ‘And sleep well-after your rather complex first day.’

‘Good night. And thank you-thank you, more than I can possibly say,’ Alison replied eagerly.

‘No, no. Not at all.’ He dismissed that at once.

Then, just as he turned away, she put her hand on his arm and said shyly, ‘You haven’t told me your name, you know. Won’t you tell me before you go?’

He turned back and looked at her in blankest astonishment.

‘But I thought you knew. At least, I assumed you did-I don’t know why. I’m Julian Tyndrum-Rosalie’s fiancé:’