Thank Heaven Fasting (26 page)

“They'll come back,” suggested Monica maliciously.

He shook his head.

“You may be right, my dear, but I don't think so. I'm very peculiar in that way. Other people may change and get over things. I never do.”

There seemed no more to be said.

Although Mrs. Ingram had affirmed that Carol Anderson
was of no real use, his departure from London seemed to help her to come to a decision of her own.

She suggested to Monica that it would be nice to take a small house near the New Forest for August and part of September.

Monica agreed, as she would have agreed to any definite plan in her relief at seeing an end to the nightly discussions that never seemed to lead anywhere. She felt grateful to Mr. Pelham who had suggested that plan and had told them of a house that was to let provided the owners—cousins of his own—could find tenants whom they knew, or of whom they knew.

“They would be only too delighted at your taking the little place. It's quite a cottage, most charming, and in the very edge of the Forest. If you don't know that part of the world, Mrs. Ingram, you really ought to go there. But, of course, don't let me persuade you to anything, unless you really feel you'd like it.”

Mrs. Ingram did not, like Carol Anderson, protest that she was incapable now of liking anything. She thanked Mr. Pelham, declared definitely that she would write at once to his cousins, and suggested that he should himself come down and spend a few days with them if they did become tenants of the cottage.

Mr. Pelham gravely and gratefully accepted.

Three weeks later, he redeemed his promise.

Monica was a little doubtful as to his entertainment. The cottage was certainly, as he had told them, charming, but life there was very quiet and the chief occupation of the day was to walk in the Forest.

“What on earth shall we do with him if it rains?” she enquired.

“Darling,” said her mother impatiently, “it isn't as if he was a very young man. He'll be quite happy with the newspaper indoors, and after dinner we can always play cards, or have a little music. It's delightful to have the use of that good gramophone.”

In her gratification at finding a gramophone and a quantity of records, Mrs. Ingram had overcome her inability to listen to music. She said, perhaps truly, that a gramophone was not music.

Her prophecy concerning Mr. Pelham was proved correct.

He was a very easy guest, and in addition the weather was lovely and the Forest more beautiful than Monica could have imagined. It was a beauty that calmed and rested her, even while it made her heart ache in the perpetual loneliness of which she was always conscious, and which the presence of Mr. Pelham at first did little to dispel.

He knew the Forest well, and constituted himself Monica's guide on daily strolls that he invariably referred to as “rambles.”

Mrs. Ingram sometimes came with them in the mornings, starting out after eleven and returning very soon after twelve. Lunch was at one, and followed by a dawdling period in the garden or little shady drawing-room, and then Mrs. Ingram went to the room, and Monica and the visitor set out—this time more briskly—sometimes taking with them a picnic tea.

Their conversations were usually impersonal, except when Mr. Pelham embarked on a story—of which he had many—concerning mutual acquaintances. His detailed descriptions and reiterations on these occasions were apt to send Monica into a brown study, from which she roused herself periodically to grasp at the thread of the story, and ejaculate a comment or two.

He never seemed to resent any lack of attention on her part, and gradually Monica perceived that Mr. Pelham was coming to attach a certain sentimental value to their companionship.

She had known him so long, and had thought of him as being so much older than herself, that at first the realization startled her, and she felt disinclined to believe in her own intuitive conviction.

Then her mother suddenly put it into words.

She was alone with Monica in the drawing-room. Through the open French window they could catch a distant glimpse of the top of Mr. Pelham's panama hat showing over the back of a deck-chair, and of the sheets of the morning paper scattered all round him on the lawn. The angle of the deck-chair, no less than the discarded leaves of
The Morning Post,
seemed to indicate that Mr. Pelham was sleeping, after Sunday lunch and a cigarette.

“There's something very simple and nice about him,” said Mrs. Ingram abruptly. “After all, it might have been rather awkward, having him here without another man, or anything much to entertain him—but I think he's really quite happy.”

“So do I.”

“If you come to think of it, he's really one of the oldest friends we've got. At any rate since you grew up.”

“I know. I was thinking of that only the other day.”

“Were you, darling?” said Mrs. Ingram wistfully.

She looked at her daughter.

“Monica—do you suppose——?”

“No—oh no,” said Monica uncertainly. “I'm sure he wouldn't think of anything of that kind. He's not that sort of man, really, is he?”

“It's quite time he settled down.”

The phrase, with its implication of a butterfly-like past, was so inappropriate that they both smiled.

“The Marlowes always used to say that he'd been refused by at least six different girls.”

“The Marlowes!” ejaculated Mrs. Ingram, with great contempt. “As if the Marlowes knew anything about it! If he'd proposed to one of
them
he wouldn't have been refused, that's very certain.”

“I don't think he likes them.”

“I've yet to meet the man that does—except, I suppose, Cecily's ridiculous doctor, and she managed to choke
bim
off.”

“I wish I knew what was happening to poor Cecily.”

Mrs. Ingram made no effort to follow Monica's lead, and change the conversation. She remained silent for a few moments and then said:

“After all, he's thoroughly nice and sensible and quite-quite, and father liked him, I remember. You do think him nice, don't you, Monica?”

“Very,” said Monica laconically.

She was not in the least preoccupied with any consideration as to whether or not she thought Mr. Pelham nice.

All that she could think of was the exciting, bewildering, fantastic idea that at last, after all these years, she might find herself freed from the stigma of being a woman who had not been sought after by men.

It was incredible.

It was too good to be true.

Monica decided that it was of no use to think about it, and then thought of little else.

She knew that her mother, inwardly, was also profoundly excited.

Mr. Pelham, however, was calm, and gave no sign of any inner perturbation.

On the last evening of his visit it was very hot.

After dinner Mrs. Ingram sat by the open window of the drawing-room, slowly fanning herself. She urged Monica and Mr. Pelham to go out into the garden and seek a breath of air.

“Come too,” suggested Monica.

“No, darling, I'd rather sit still. I never knew such heat! I'm sure there's a storm coming.”

“I hope not,” said Mr. Pelham, “I was going to suggest that we might wander to the edge of the Forest. It would be cool there.”

“The dew will be rather heavy, under the trees—but still—only you must take a wrap with you, Monica, my child—one never knows.”

“Mother! I
couldn't
catch cold!”

“Girls always say that—but their mothers know better!”

Mrs. Ingram, in an access of archness that caused Monica to flush hotly, looked at Mr. Pelham, as though inviting him to exchange a glance with her over the incredible rashness and ignorance of young girls.

Feeling as though she were being made a fool of, Monica went into the hall and fetched a white serge tennis-coat.

“Allow me,” said Mr. Pelham, taking it from her.

Her mother watched them with approving eyes.

“Why not come too?” Mr. Pelham said persuasively.

Instantly Monica felt aggrieved. Did he
want
the company of a third person?

“No, really, thank you. I'm more comfortable resting here.”

“We shan't be very long,” Monica observed curtly.

She stepped out into the perfect stillness of a summer night.

“Look
at the stars!”

Mr. Pelham gazed upwards.

“‘Star of the evening, beautiful, beautiful star,'” he said. They passed down the garden, and outside into the road beyond. Already they were on the edge of the Forest. The hush was profound.

“Do you think it would be unwise to sit down here for a moment or two? Let me put your coat down for you, to protect your dress.”

He carefully laid her coat across a fallen tree-trunk, and Monica sat down upon it. As Mr. Pelham took his place beside her, she was suddenly reminded of the afternoon that she had spent sitting on a fallen tree-trunk with Carol Anderson on a Surrey common.

Monica supposed that she could very easily have fallen in love with Carol. She had been near to it, that day on Hindhead. Afterwards, unacknowledged disappointment had gradually been merged into affection born of understanding, and of his curious dependence on her.

Although the possibility of falling in love with him had been killed, Monica felt that she could have loved Carol warmly and maternally had she become his wife, and that his
weakness would neither have angered her nor have roused her contempt. Perhaps, as his sense of security strengthened, he might even have grown away from his childish posturings and pretences….

“…so that, having made my little confession, I ask you, Monica, most earnestly, if you will become my wife.”

Monica was so much startled at the realization that Mr. Pelham was actually proposing to her, and that she had failed to hear anything he had said excepting the last few words, that she nearly fainted.

For an instant, everything swayed round her, and she felt intensely sick.

In a blind, feeble gesture, seeking to steady herself, she put out one hand.

Mr. Pelham gently took it into one of his own, and patted it with the other.

His earnest, prawn-like eyes were fixed upon Monica's face.

“I would do everything I possibly could to try and make you happy. I've thought for some time that we—we should be very well suited to one another, if I may say so. Won't you say Yes, Monica?”

With a flood of incredulous joy and relief, that such a moment should have come to her after all, Monica, in a strangely unsteady voice, answered him.

“Yes.”

“You have made me very happy, and done me a great honour,” said Mr. Pelham solemnly.

He stood up.

His movements, although lacking in spontaneity, were not uncertain.

After an instant's pause, he bent and kissed Monica's lips once, very deliberately.

The contact neither pleased nor displeased her, although it faintly startled her.

She was thinking of the rapture with which her mother would receive their announcement.

“You have made me very happy,” Mr. Pelham repeated.

Monica smiled up at him tremulously.

“I'm very happy too,” she said simply.

“Shall we stroll a little further? I mustn't let you catch a chill. I shall be taking care of you now, you know.”

He helped her up from the log, and then drew her hand through his arm.

“There,” said Mr. Pelham, in a tone of satisfaction. “Quite like an old married couple already.”

NOW THAT she was no longer either unhappy, anxious, or continually conscious of humiliation and failure, Monica was astonished at the rapidity with which she regained a great measure of her lost prettiness.

Life seemed too good to be true.

The days flew by, filled with shopping expeditions, visits to dressmakers, photographers and jewellers, and inspections of possible flats and houses.

Mrs. Ingram was even more radiant than Monica.

She was anxious that the wedding should take place as soon as possible, and a day was fixed, six weeks from the date of Monica's engagement, and announced at the same time.

For a week before the announcement appeared Monica was busy writing to relations, or old friends, who must not be allowed to learn the news first from the columns of
The Morning Post.

One of the earliest letters that she wrote was to Carol Anderson, in Scotland.

Although she had been faintly in love with him, it was with pure relief that Monica told him of her impending marriage thankfully realizing that she need no longer depend upon the tenuous link that bound them for her sole hope of credit in the eyes of the world.

Carol's answer startled her very much.

He wrote with great brevity, the merest conventional phrase of congratulation, and announced that he should be in London the following week, and must see her immediately.

Could it be possible, she thought, that he was jealous? Monica's newly revived vanity expanded further at the thought, and she allowed her mind to dwell on it for a
moment, wondering what on earth she should do if Carol came and told her that he loved her, and would not allow her to marry anybody else.

At once, the question answered itself.

Carol might say, and even believe, that he loved her, but how far was he to be relied upon?

Herbert Pelham had asked her to marry him. He was in earnest. He stood for security and, above all, for the removal of Monica's reproach amongst women.

The years of anxiety and suspense had taught her their lesson. Not for Carol Anderson, or for anyone or anything in this world, would Monica relinquish the blessed certainty of becoming a wife.

She saw Carol alone, in the Eaton Square drawing-room, about a month before her wedding-day.

She noticed at once that he looked ill, and very unhappy.

“Monica!”