Nobody Asked Me

CHAPTER III

ALISON was ready and waiting when Julian arrived next morning-a morning which had dawned in cloudless perfection.

As they left London, the faint mist of morning still clung about the houses of the outer suburbs, like the last vestige of sleep about waking eyes. And Alison, sitting very quiet beside Julian in the big grey Daimler, thought how perfect life was.

Then, just as she was beginning to wonder if she ought to make some sort of conversation, he said:

‘What kind of breakfast did you have, Alison?’

‘Nothing very much. Why?’ Alison looked a little surprised.

‘I thought so. We will stop at the next place and you’ll have a proper meal.’

‘But I really don’t need it,’ she protested.

‘No? Well, perhaps I do,’ he said carelessly, and Alison was pleasantly aware that the matter had been taken out of her hands. It was a very long while since anyone had bothered about her having proper meals.

At the next likely-looking place he drew the car to a standstill, and they went in to have breakfast.

There was nothing overbearing about his attitude-in fact, most of the time he gave the impression of the most casual supervision. But, just as on that first evening, Alison was conscious of quiet, deliberate care for her behind that half indifferent manner.

And she was glad that it should be so.

Afterwards they went on, Julian driving fast, but with a sureness that left Alison without a qualm.

Along the white, dusty roads they sped, past fields where the corn was slowly turning golden, where poppies danced in the wind and cornflowers nodded to marguerites. And over it all hung the thick, sweet scent of clover lying warm in the sunshine.

Across the fields the cloud shadows trooped, following each other in endless procession on and on to the west. And, watching them, Alison thought, ‘Whenever I smell clover, and whenever I watch sun and shadow together, I shall think of this day again and be happy.’

‘Do I drive too fast for you, Alison?’ he said at last. ‘You’re very quiet.’

She roused herself a little. ‘No. I like it. Ought I to be talking?’

‘No, my child.’ He gave that thoughtful smile, but without turning his head to look at her. ‘You’re a very restful little presence, sitting there beside me. I only wondered what you were thinking of that kept you so silent.’

‘Oh.’ Alison coloured slightly at the compliment. ‘I was just trying to impress it all very clearly on my mind,’ she explained slowly, ‘so that afterwards I can be happy all over again when I think about it.’

Julian laughed softly.

‘There isn’t anything very dramatic for you to remember, I’m afraid. Just a car drive. You’ll soon forget it.’

‘Oh, no. Such a very happy car drive,’ she said shyly. ‘And I think happiness is the most lasting thing in the world.’

He frowned thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I agree with you there.’

But Alison nodded firmly.

‘It’s true. Just think how you take out a pleasant memory and look at it over and over again; and it’s always bright. But the tragic ones grow dim and lose their outlines. I used to think when I first lost Mother and Daddy that I should never forget the shock and misery, but I very seldom think of that part of it now. Instead, I remember odd, delightful things, like going with my mother to buy my first party frock when I was a little girl, or hearing Daddy say he was proud of me when I passed my first school exam, or seeing them both trying not to look too brazenly gratified when I won a ridiculous cup for rather indifferent swimming.’

Julian turned his head for a moment and gave her a quick, kindly smile.

‘You are a good little philosopher, Alison. But, all the same, I think temperament has a lot to do with your argument. I’m afraid what I remember are the hard, bitter things. The times when I’ve been wildly angry or-’

‘Hurt,’ finished Alison quietly as he hesitated.

‘I wonder why you said that?’ He spoke thoughtfully. ‘I’m not very easily hurt, you know. I’m really rather insensitive!’

‘Oh, no.’ It was Alison who smiled then. ‘You’re not in the least insensitive.’

‘But I don’t think you really know much about me, Alison,’ he said.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘What, for instance?’

She was amused to see that he found himself a not at all disagreeable topic of conversation.

‘Well-that, for one thing. You’re sensitive, very proud, rather on the look-out for slights, extremely determined, easily hurt, and unusually passionate.’

‘Good God!’ said Julian slowly. ‘And I’ve been thinking of you as a nice, unobservant little schoolgirl.’

‘Well, don’t,’ Alison advised him curtly.

‘What makes you think that I’m passionate?’ he asked with sudden stiffness, as though her final words had only just penetrated.

Alison thought unhappily of him with Rosalie in the library and was silent.

‘Anyway, I don’t think you quite know what you’re talking about,’ he told her sharply.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Alison.

And after that they drove on some way in silence. But once she noticed that his colour rose, and she wondered with a little scared amusement which part of her speech he was remembering.

About noon they stopped at a converted farmhouse, where a homely-looking woman gave them lunch, and insisted on waiting on them personally.

She spoke of Alison to Julian as ‘your young lady’, which seemed to amuse him. But Alison couldn’t help thinking it would not have amused Rosalie.

Afterwards, they wandered among the pinewoods that stretched for miles away from the farmhouse. The sparkle had come back to Alison’s eyes and a faint, clear colour to her cheeks. She took off her hat, and the warm, light wind lifted little strands of her hair and stirred the thick fringe on her forehead.

‘What pretty hair you have, Alison,’ he said, pleasantly but quite impersonally.

‘Aunt Lydia says that my fringe is ridiculous,’ Alison remarked non-committally.

‘She’s quite wrong. It’s most attractive.’ She had an odd impression that he enjoyed contradicting something Aunt Lydia had said, and the next moment he added, ‘But then your aunt and I don’t agree on many things.’

‘You don’t like Aunt Lydia, do you?’ Alison said frankly.

‘Not in the least,’ he replied just as frankly.

‘Nor do I.’

And they both laughed.

‘Let’s sit down here.’ Julian cleared some cones from under a group of trees, and they sat down on a carpet of soft pine-needles.

Alison leaned her back against a tree, and he lay on the ground beside her, propped on his elbow.

‘Anyway, you won’t have to bother about Aunt Lydia when you’re married,’ she reminded him. ‘You and Rosalie are going to live in South America, aren’t you?’

He nodded. ‘In Buenos Aires.’

‘Are you glad? To be going back, I mean.’

‘In a way, yes. ‘He moved a little uneasily. ‘I don’t know quite how it will suit Rosalie.’

She wondered if he knew how worried his eyes looked when he said that.

‘Has she said anything about it?’

‘Yes. She’s not at all keen.’ He spoke with obvious reluctance.

Alison wondered dispassionately what on earth was inducing Rosalie to do anything on which she ‘was not at all keen’. She supposed Julian must have a very great deal of money. It never entered her head that any question of affection could be concerned.

‘Will you have to be there long? Couldn’t you perhaps just be engaged until you come back?’ she suggested.

‘No.’ He looked startled and annoyed. ‘It would mean two years at least. And, in any. case, it’s the kind of job where it is essential to be a married man. Socially it’s the most important position on the firm, and there is a great deal of entertaining to be done. An unmarried man couldn’t possibly do what was required. Besides,’ he added starkly, ‘I couldn’t bear to wait for Rosalie all that time.’

Alison stared down at her hands as they lay very still in her lap.

‘You’re terribly in love with her, aren’t you?’ she said simply.

He flushed a little.

‘Yes. Desperately,’ he said, and looked at her almost resentfully.

She was silent, thinking that ‘desperately’ was probably literally correct.

After a minute he spoke again. ‘I know. You’re wondering why, aren’t you? You can’t understand it because you don’t like her yourself?’

She still said nothing. There seemed nothing to say.

‘It isn’t that I’m blind to anything like her-her unkindness to you.’ He spoke slowly and unhappily. Then he rolled over suddenly and dropped his head on his arms with a sort of angry despair. ‘It doesn’t seem to make any difference,’ he said in a muffled voice. ‘I’m just as crazy about her. I don’t expect you could understand.’

‘Yes, I think I do.’ And, just for the moment, Alison put out her hand and touched the tumbled dark head, but so very, very lightly that he couldn’t possibly have known.

He looked up presently and smiled.

‘I’m sorry. It’s ridiculous to tell you all this.’

‘No, it isn’t. One has to tell someone these things sometimes,’ Alison said gravely.

He sighed impatiently. Then he took her hand absently and began to play with her fingers. ‘It’s so easy to tell you, Alison. You keep so still and don’t make idiotic exclamations when one says impossible things.’

She smiled slightly. ‘But I like it when you tell me things about yourself-impossible or otherwise.’

‘You’re very comforting,’ he told her with a little smile.

And she thought, ‘I wish I could put my arms round you and hold you and comfort you properly.’

But she couldn’t, of course. So. she said nothing, and presently, when he spoke again, it was not about himself and Rosalie.

‘What are your uncle and aunt’s plans for your future, Alison?’

Alison shrugged.

‘Uncle doesn’t approve of girls working, and says he is only too happy to give me a home. Aunt Lydia quite approves of my working, so long as I do it for her and don’t expect any sort of payment. It’s rather a vicious circle.’

Julian looked disturbed.

‘Probably your aunt will take you about much more, and treat you more like a daughter, when Rosalie is married.’

‘I dare say.’

Alison thought how pointless all that would be-when Rosalie was married.

‘In which case you’re certain to get married.’ Julian was calmly following out the line of Alison’s future.

‘Perhaps nobody will ask me,’ she said lightly, because it hurt rather to have him say these things.

He laughed a little.

‘That’s the real Victorian Alison speaking,’ he said, and his tone was as light as hers. ‘I imagine half the girls of today do most of the asking themselves. But you’re much too attractive ever to have to resort to that.’

He spoke with sincerity, but so impersonally that Alison gritted her teeth.

‘In a minute he’ll tell me I shall make a marvellous wife for some lucky man,’ she thought grimly.

And’ so that he shouldn’t, she jumped to her feet and said, ‘Don’t you think it is time we were getting back?’

He agreed lazily, and they slowly made their way back to the farm.

The woman asked if they had had a nice walk, and, when they said they had, she added understandingly that the woods were ‘grand for sweethearting’.

‘I’m sure they are,’ Julian said gravely. But Alison said nothing-just went a little pale. She wished she could have blushed instead. It would have made her look silly, of course, but at least it would have kept things on a lighter plane.

As it was,’ Julian suddenly seemed to notice, and said, ‘Alison, you’re tired. I must have let you walk too far.’

‘No, I’m all right,’ she assured him But for a moment she savoured even this perfunctory concern with pleasure.

And perhaps it was not so perfunctory, really. For he saw to it that she made a good tea, and then afterwards he settled her comfortably in the car, with cushions behind her and a light rug over her knees.

She lay back quite silent, content in the memory that he found her ‘a very restful little presence’ like that. And as they slipped past the fields and orchards once more in the lengthening shadows of the evening, she felt at peace again -even though her one day was nearly over.

A few golden stars were just beginning to prick their way through the evening sky as the car drew up at her uncle’s house.

Julian helped her out and stood with her on the pavement for a moment to say good night.

‘Won’t you come in?’ Alison asked.

But he said no, he had a supper engagement and was already late.

‘It’s been so beautiful,’ she began, and then she suddenly found great difficulty in going on. ‘I wish I could tell you-’ She bit her lip. Then she added in a low voice, ‘You do understand, don’t you?’

‘My dear child’-he took her hand kindly-’you really mustn’t make so much of it. I too have to thank you for a delightful day.’

Alison looked up and smiled then, her composure quite restored.

‘I’m glad you enjoyed it too.’

He stood watching her as she ran up the steps. Then, as she turned, with her key in the door, he just raised his hand in farewell, and got into the car and drove away.

‘It’s over,’ thought Alison, and went into the house.

To her surprise, her aunt called to her from the dining-room.

‘Is that you, Alison?’

‘Yes, Aunt Lydia.’ Alison went reluctantly towards the room. Neither her aunt nor Rosalie had been expected back until the next day.

‘Where have you been, my dear?’ They both looked up with some curiosity as Alison came in.

And all at once Alison felt very much afraid of the real answer to that question. But it would be absurd, of course, to make any mystery about it. So she said, as naturally as possible, ‘I’ve been out driving with Julian.’

‘With whom?

‘With Mr. Tyndrum;’ Alison corrected herself nervously under her aunt’s amazed scrutiny.

‘Really, Alison?’ Aunt Lydia ’s manner was very cool and collected now. ‘How did that come about?’

‘It was quite by chance, Aunt Lydia.’ She wished it didn’t sound so absurdly like justifying herself. ‘He rang up yesterday because he had left his cigarette-case here. Then, when he found I was on my own and not doing anything today, he asked me if I’d like to go driving. I suppose he was just-just at a loose end.’

‘I suppose he was,’ said Rosalie, and that was her sole contribution to the conversation.

‘Well, you’d better have something to eat now,’ her aunt observed.

So Alison had a very uncomfortable and rather silent supper, and thought how different everything tasted from the other meals she had had that day.

She wanted to say rudely to Rosalie, ‘You needn’t go on looking like an offended sphinx. He spent a good deal of the time telling me how much he loved you.’

But she couldn’t do that, so instead she went to bed.

The next day, no reference whatever was made to Alison’s excursion, and it looked as though even her aunt and Rosalie had decided it was harmless.

Aunt Lydia kept her running about on innumerable errands during the morning and half the afternoon. But at last even she was satisfied, and Alison had a little time to herself.

She was guiltily conscious of owing Audrey a letter. The twins were due home from school the following week, and she supposed she ought to make sure that the child had the last of her weekly letters.

Fetching her writing-case and a fountain-pen, Alison went into the library. For a moment she stood quite still, looking round and reconstructing the scene when Julian had come to tea.

Only a couple of days ago. It didn’t seem possible. The significance of the last two days was worth all the long pointless weeks she had spent in this house while nothing was happening.

‘Alison!’

That was Aunt Lydia. An angry impatience took hold of Alison. She would not always be at her aunt’s beck and call. She wanted a little time to herself-just a little time to sit and think over the lovely hours of yesterday.

She slipped behind a heavy curtain. Curled up in the corner of the window-seat there, she would be fairly safe.

‘And even if she looks in here, I shan’t take any notice,’ Alison thought rebelliously.

But she heard no more, so probably Aunt Lydia had decided she was out.

Alison opened her writing-case and dutifully began:

‘Dear Audrey,-You will hardly know Lucifer when you see him next week. He is growing into a splendid cat-’

She paused and looked dreamily away out of the window, trying idly to recall anything about Lucifer’s activities that week which seemed worthy of chronicle. In Audrey’s estimation he still ranked first among topics of interest.

This time yesterday they had just come back from their walk, and that absurd woman was saying how grand the woods were for sweethearting.

How surprised she would be if Julian took Rosalie there one day. She’d wonder which of them really was the sweetheart.

But he couldn’t take Rosalie there. He couldn’t.

How lovely the fields had looked as they drove homeward. She could see them now, slipping past in the mellow evening light, as they drove on-and on-and on-

Gradually her fair head drooped against the shutter. Her writing-case slipped from her knee on to the window-seat.

It was so quiet there. Only the sound of Alison’s own soft, even breathing.

She sank deeper and deeper through layers of sleep, lost entirely for a while to the world of problems and perplexities.

And then, from a long way off, something seemed to break the tranquillity, something which made her stir uneasily and catch her breath in a troubled little sigh.

She opened her eyes, to find the light had changed a good deal. She must have slept a long time, hidden here behind the curtain. The next moment she realised that she was no longer alone. There were two people in the library, beyond the sheltering curtain. Two people talking in angry voices.

‘But it’s utterly unreasonable of you, my dear-’

That was Julian’s voice, she realised with a start, And then Rosalie’s cut across it, cold and incisive.

‘It is not unreasonable. You raise heaven knows what sort of a row if I look at another man, and then, the first moment I’m out of the way, you hawk some cheap little piece round the country for the whole day.’

Alison pressed back against the shutter, sick with terror and dismay. There was no possible escape, and yet she couldn’t, couldn’t go on listening to this scene.

‘There’s not the slightest need to abuse Alison. She’s not cheap, and I don’t know what on earth you have against her.’

‘Have I to listen to another recital of Alison’s virtues? If you think so much of her, hadn’t you better-’

‘Damn it all, Rosalie!’ He evidently lost his temper completely at that point. ‘I’ve told you again and again- the girl’s nothing whatever to me. I don’t care two pins about her. She’s a nice child, of course, but just a little relation of yours. I should think no more of taking her out motoring than I should of taking Audrey to the Zoo.’

There was a faint cracking sound as Alison slowly crushed in the cap of her fountain-pen, which she had quite unknowingly picked up.

She was only hearing what she already knew, of course, but to have it put into words, driven home with the force of Julian’s angry indifference-that was something rather different.

If only she had made her presence known before they had got as far as this! It was unspeakable of her to be listening to anything so entirely personal. Yet to interrupt now would be worst of all.

To add to her misery, she was terribly cramped. Very cautiously she moved her stiff, aching knee. One inch. Two inches. And then her forgotten writing-case slid to the ground with a loud thump.

There were two startled exclamations, a moment of stupefied silence, and then Alison did the only thing left to do-she pushed aside the curtain and came out into the open.

Julian stared at her, something like dislike mingling with his astonishment. Rosalie said calmly, ‘Next time you are cataloguing Alison’s virtues, don’t forget to mention eavesdropping.’

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, Alison?’ Julian’s voice was harsh with annoyance.

‘I’m sorry-I fell asleep there-behind the curtain.’

Rosalie laughed and made an expressive little grimace.

‘It’s quite true.’ Alison spoke doggedly. ‘I didn’t wake up until you-you’d said quite a lot.’

‘Which you heard in your sleep, I suppose?’ Rosalie said drily.

‘Oh, be quiet, Rosalie,’ Julian exclaimed impatiently. ‘There’s no need to doubt what the child says.’ But, whether he believed her or not, Alison could see that he wished her at the other end of the earth. ‘It was stupid of you not to interrupt at once,’ he added sharply.

It was, of course. Impossible to explain her bewildered hesitation which had made her let the minutes slip by. But, in any case, there was no need to treat her like some silly little girl. She put up her chin suddenly with a proud little gesture, and her mouth looked very obstinate.

‘Perhaps it was just as well I did hear what you were saying,’ she told them shortly. It concerns me as well as you, after all. If Rosalie wants any reassuring-’

‘She doesn’t,’ Julian said coldly. ‘Rosalie is now perfectly satisfied about my motives.’

‘Oh, I don’t think I need worry about your motives anymore, Julian,’ Rosalie observed coolly. ‘Perhaps I ought to look elsewhere for the source of trouble.’

‘For God’s sake, Rosalie-’ began Julian, evidently in the last stages of exasperation.

But Alison interrupted furiously.

‘Just what do you mean?’ She faced her cousin, her eyes bright with anger.

‘Julian has assured me most convincingly that he has no interest whatever in you.’ Rosalie mustn’t detect the slightest quiver on her face. ‘I should like to be as sure that you have no interest in him.’

‘Rosalie, are you crazy?’ That was Julian. But neither girl took the slightest notice of him.

Alison spoke into the electric-charged silence.

‘It’s ridiculous that I should even have to say it. I have no interest whatever in Ju-in Mr. Tyndrum. Perhaps that will satisfy you.’

Then she pushed past Rosalie and ran out of the room, her breath coming in little gasps, and her heart-beats nearly choking her.

This was the worst of all. Oh, much the worst! He could never think of her now without distaste and alarm. For he loved Rosalie so blindly, and held her so insecurely, that he was bound to fear anything that threatened his hopes.

And then her own denial. She felt an almost superstitious dread when she thought of that.

Flinging herself face downwards on her bed, she lay there for a long while, almost motionless. And she thought, as she had that time she believed he had played with. her-’I never want to see him again.’

But she meant it no more now than she had then.

She couldn’t tell whether Rosalie said anything to her mother about. what had happened. Aunt Lydia ’s manner was always difficult to read at the best of times. But the fact remained that the following day she said:

‘Alison, my dear, I’ve been thinking it is time you had a breath of sea air. You’ve been in town quite long enough.’ Alison couldn’t help thinking in her turn how very little that fact had disturbed Aunt Lydia up till now. But she tried to look attentive as her aunt went on: ‘I am arranging that the twins shall go straight from school to their old Nannie in Sussex. She has a very lovely cottage on the coast there, and they often spend part of their holidays with her. It will be ideal for you too, and I know how you will enjoy it.’

‘Thank you, Aunt Lydia,’ Alison said dutifully. Then, quite involuntarily, she added, ‘Oh, poor Audrey won’t see Lucifer now.’ But she really thought, ‘And nor shall I see Julian.’

‘Lucifer?’ Her aunt laughed slightly. ‘Don’t be silly. Lucifer will still be here when you all come home.’

‘And so will Julian,’ thought Alison. But that wouldn’t be any business of hers, of course.

She travelled down to Sussex the next day-’so that you’ll be there when the twins arrive,’ Aunt Lydia said. Alison couldn’t see much reason for this quite extraordinary haste, and wondered again if Rosalie had told her mother anything.

But perhaps, in any case, the nicest thing at the moment was to be right away from the whole miserable business.

The twins’ one-time Nannie was a kindly, practical woman, and she said at once that what Alison needed was ‘building. up’. And after a quiet day or two of complete rest and constant care Alison felt more than ready to welcome Theo and Audrey.

They arrived by the same train, laden with luggage, news, and holiday plans.

Audrey gave Alison an entirely unexpected kiss, and Theo, too, seemed very pleased to see her. The world began to look a much pleasanter place at once, for Alison was immediately aware of the fact that the twins had a very definite place for her in their holiday scheme.

Alison found their uncompromising ways very refreshing. More than once in the weeks they spent down there together she looked at them and thought, ‘Are they really Aunt Lydia ’s children?’

It didn’t seem possible that such an insincere and artificial person could have produced anything so downright as Audrey.

‘It must be Uncle Theodore coming out in them,’ she decided amusedly, and her opinion of her uncle went up accordingly.

From time to time Aunt Lydia wrote, sometimes at considerable length, and nearly always about nothing at all. She and Rosalie were paying a round of visits. She spoke of it a little as though it were forced manual labour. But, since she had no wishes but her own to consult in the matter, Alison felt there must be compensations somewhere.

Uncle Theodore, rather to her surprise, wrote regularly once a week to the twins, and very often included a formal but kindly message to herself.

‘He’s quite a good sport really,’ remarked Audrey tolerantly, when she. had read out extracts from one of his letters. ‘I’m sorry we shan’t see him when we go home next week.’

‘Not see him? Won’t you really, Audrey?’ Alison felt sorry for them, but they took it with the rather terrifying callousness of children.

‘No.’ Audrey shook her head. ‘You see, it’ll be September already when we get home, and we go back to school on the twelfth. Still, he says we shall be home for a day or two for Rosalie’s wedding at the end of October. So we shall see him then.’

‘Must we go to Rosalie’s wedding?’ asked Theo gloomily.

And at the same moment Alison said sharply, ‘October? Is Rosalie getting married in October?’

‘So Daddy says in the letter.’ Audrey evidently hadn’t thought it worthy of mention before.

Alison strolled over to the window and stood there staring out. But she saw nothing of the sea and sky beyond the cottage garden.

It was just a matter of weeks now.

Towards the end of the following week they all three returned to London. Alison half envied Audrey her rapturous reunion with Lucifer, and thought whimsically, ‘Lucky child. Her separation is over.’

There were a great many things to be done before the twins returned to school, and Alison had a busy ten days, shopping, arranging, and packing for them.

‘And after this there’ll be the rush for Rosalie’s wedding. You will be busy,’ Audrey said. I do hope she won’t want me to be a bridesmaid.’

‘She won’t,’ said Theo. "You aren’t pretty enough.’

‘No, I expect that’s what she’ll think,’ agreed Audrey, quite unoffended. ‘Anyway, she knows I’d only stand on her train or something as she went up the aisle.’

Alison said nothing. She was thinking of Julian waiting there for Rosalie as she went up the aisle.

She was scared to find herself counting each day as it slipped away.

When she said good-bye to the twins she thought, ‘Next time I see them they will be here for Julian’s wedding.’

When her uncle returned a few days later, she thought, ‘There will scarcely be much time for him to go away again before Rosalie’s wedding.’

Rosalie herself was scarcely ever in the house. Alison supposed she was visiting, or else that she was out with Julian.

Then one evening her uncle said at dinner, ‘Does Rosalie still consider that she is living in this house? She never seems to be here.’

‘She naturally wants to get all the fun she can before she leaves London,’ Aunt Lydia retorted coolly.

‘Fun!’ Her husband laughed shortly. ‘How does Julian take to all this-fun?’

Aunt Lydia ignored his question, as she frequently did when he said anything she disliked.

‘Is she out with Julian to-night?’

‘No. With Rodney Myrton.’

Uncle Theodore frowned. ‘Who on earth is this Rodney Myrton? It isn’t the first time she’s been out with him. And what’s Julian got to say about her running around with another man five weeks before her wedding-day?’

‘I haven’t discussed it with Julian,’ said Aunt Lydia, taking the second question first. Then she added, ‘Rodney Myrton is extremely attractive-plenty of money-and only two people between him and the title. One is an old man, and the other seems determined to kill himself on the racing track. She met Rodney in Scotland this summer. You’ll probably see him at her birthday dance next week.’

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ began her husband, ‘that you’re more than half advising Rosalie-’

‘I never advise Rosalie,’ Aunt Lydia said coldly.

Just for a moment Alison thought there was going to be something of an explosion. Then, quite unexpectedly, her uncle turned to her, his usual calm completely restored.

‘And are you going to have a new dress for the dance, Alison?’ he asked.

‘I-I don’t think so,’ Alison said, extremely surprised.

Well, do you want one?’ Her uncle looked amused.

‘Alison already has quite a nice evening frock,’ Aunt Lydia said.

‘A new one?’

‘Not exactly,’ Alison admitted.

Her uncle took out his note-case and coolly handed her four five-pound notes.

‘Then get yourself one.’

‘Uncle!’ Alison sprang up and kissed him impulsively. ‘How simply wonderful of you!’

‘She doesn’t really need it,’ Aunt Lydia remarked.

But her husband only replied drily, ‘Well, I’ve never known Rosalie need a dress enough to kiss me for paying the bill.’

It was impossible to consult Aunt Lydia about the buying of the dress, and so Alison had the full delicious responsibility on her own shoulders. But, strangely enough, she knew which dress she wanted the first moment she saw it.

Softest, shimmering amber chiffon over satin, like sunlight seen through a glass of sherry-with a tiny yoke and sleeves, its full skirts swirling just to her knees.

As she slipped into it, she knew that no other dress would ever do. It had about it that odd, sweet whisper of Victorian days-but no one, not even Rosalie, could say this dress resembled a nightdress.

Distinctly and quite shamelessly, she thought, ‘I want Julian to see me in this.’

And Julian, of course, would be at Rosalie’s birthday dance.

When she came down on the night of the dance, Alison thought that surely Aunt Lydia must say a word of approval.

But Aunt Lydia had no eyes for her young niece. She was standing talking to Rosalie, and her face wore an expression as near to consternation as any Alison had seen there.

‘You can’t do it this way, Rosalie,’ she was saying. ‘You can’t possibly.’

But Rosalie, almost insolently lovely in a gown of silvery white, seemed to think she could-whatever it was.

‘He turned the laugh against me at one dance, Mother. I haven’t forgotten that. To-night it’s he they’ll find amusing.’

‘Your father will be terribly angry.’ Aunt Lydia didn’t offer that as though she thought it would have much effect.

It had none.

Rosalie merely replied indifferently, ‘He’s not my father.’

Alison wondered what Rosalie had been doing now, but the murmur of arriving guests prevented any questions, even if she had dared to ask any.

She looked curiously at her cousin, taking in every line of her. Her beautiful burnished hair in its careless curls, the lovely set of her head and shoulders, the perfect line of her figure, her delicate hands-

And suddenly Alison’s eyes nearly started from her head.

On Rosalie’s left hand, where Julian’s diamond should have sparkled, a magnificent ruby hung, like a drop of blood.

For a moment her mind went completely blank. And then, with a shock of horror much worse than the first, she realised that Julian was greeting her slightly agitated aunt. Julian-smiling, cool, utterly unprepared for what was to happen in the next few minutes.

‘Julian!’ She was beside him, unaware that she had called him by his Christian name.

But in the same second Rosalie said ‘Julian’ too. And he turned to her first.

‘I must speak to you for a moment.’ Rosalie was perfectly calm. She put her hand on his arm. Her left hand.

Alison saw his gaze drop to that ruby.

And then, suddenly, unable to bear the rest, she pushed her way, unheeding, through the crowd of early arrivals- out into the hall. Scarcely knowing what she did, she ran up the stairs and along to her room. She was possessed by a sort of unreasoning panic, as though she had seen someone run over in the street, and must get as far as possible away from the scene.

Up and down her little bedroom she walked. She had often fled here, wretched, lonely, oppressed by her own misery; but now no thought of herself came near her mind. It was Julian, Julian-and the heartbreak and humiliation he must be suffering.

She could visualise that scene downstairs with Rosalie, for no one knew better than Alison how cruel her cousin could be when her spite was roused.

And Julian would be so bewildered, so utterly unprepared and unarmed against such a terrible attack. Rosalie would force him to show his feelings, to give himself away in a manner he would never forget And she would be amused and triumphant because she had contrived to humiliate him.

It wasn’t as though any of the others would have a grain of sympathy either. They too would find it thoroughly amusing and piquant to break off an engagement this way.

Aunt Lydia herself might have been shocked in the first moment of learning Rosalie’s intention, but her consternation was not prompted by any feeling of sympathy for Julian. She was merely concerned in case Rosalie should go too far and incur the disapproval of anyone who mattered.

He would be surrounded by enemies, enemies who were all the more bitter because they smiled. And there would be no one to appreciate his feelings or care in the least. No one, that was, except herself.

Suddenly Alison was brought up short.

She shouldn’t be up there, panicking in a corner like some ridiculous child. There was nothing she could do for him-nothing at all. But at least she ought to be there, to stand by him in some way-if only by just being there. She must go now, at once.

Down the stairs she ran, almost as quickly as she had fled up them, and, as she hesitated on the bottom step he came out of her aunt’s little study.

He looked white and extremely bewildered, and one lock of his dark hair seemed inclined to fall damply over his forehead. For a moment he stared at Alison as though he. didn’t see her. Then he crossed the hall in two or three strides.

‘Alison-’ His hand closed on her bare arm painfully.

‘Yes, I know.’ Alison spoke very gently, and put her hand lightly over his.

‘Come into the library,’ he said abruptly. ‘I must talk to you-to someone.’

She came without a word. She wondered if he knew he was still gripping her arm.

‘You know about it? What Rosalie has done?’ He spoke in little, staccato sentences.

‘Yes.’

‘But I don’t understand.’ He passed his hand bewilderedly over his eyes. ‘What have I done?’

‘I’m afraid-I’m afraid, Julian, it’s just that she wants someone else.’

‘Yes, yes.’ He spoke with weary impatience. ‘I understand that I can’t bear it, but I can understand it. Only this-this unspeakable humiliation. To tell me-almost in front of those people. To wear another man’s ring before I knew she’d taken off mine. How could she?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alison whispered, feeling terribly inadequate.

‘She-we were to be married in less than four weeks.’ He spoke half to himself. ‘She must have known how she felt before this. She must.’

Alison thought so too, but could find nothing to say.

Julian turned away in a sudden passion of misery.

‘She did it on purpose. She staged it.’ He gave a furious little laugh that made Alison wince. ‘Well, she’s done me one good turn. She’s cured me of my madness for her at last. I could never care for her again. Never!’

‘Don’t, Julian!’

Alison felt she couldn’t bear to see him snatch at that little rag of pretence, to hide the naked misery of his humiliation.

He sat down heavily, and just for a moment he put his head in his hands.

‘It’s true.’ He spoke sullenly. ‘I don’t care about her as a person any more-not after such baseness. All I care about is the unspeakable way she’s broken everything up. I can’t take on the South American job now. I can’t get away.’ He said that last sentence with a sort of angry forlornness that brought the tears to Alison’s eyes.

‘Julian,’ she said gently, longing to put her hand on his hair, but not daring to touch him… ‘Julian, the first awfulness will pass, you know. It couldn’t feel like this for very long.’

‘I’m not thinking of that part of it,’ he insisted with dreary, childish obstinacy. ‘I’m thinking of my lost chance in Buenos Aires -that job I can’t take unless I’m married. I don’t care a damn about losing Rosalie as a person. I’m concerned about losing her as a wife.’

There was a long, heavy silence, which neither of them seemed able to break.

And then it was Alison who spoke.

‘I suppose I wouldn’t do?’