Imogen was across the room in a flash, just as Miss Jarrold pulled the purple packets and Nicky’s letter out of the pockets.
‘Whatever’s all this?’ she went on.
‘They’re mine,’ said Imogen, snatching them from her.
Miss Jarrold was so startled she stepped back with a resounding crack on some 78s of the Mikado.
‘Imogen,’ thundered the vicar, ‘where are your manners, and what have you got there?’
‘Nothing,’ she muttered, going as red as a GPO van.
‘Love letters and photos,’ said Mrs Connolly calmly, who disliked the vicar intensely, and had seen exactly what was inside the pocket. ‘No girl likes to lose those, do they, love? Oh look, there’s Lady Harris at the door. I expect she wants to discuss the refreshments with you, vicar.’
‘Ah, yes, indeed. Welcome, welcome,’ said Mr Brocklehurst in a ringing voice, finishing off the Mikado altogether as he went towards the door.
For a minute Imogen and Mrs Connolly looked at each other.
‘Thanks,’ stammered Imogen. ‘That was terribly kind.’
‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ said Mrs Connolly. ‘My Connie’s been on them things for years. I’d beat it if I were you, before your Dad has second thoughts. Have a nice time. ’Spect you’ll come back brown as a berry.’
‘Seems in a hurry,’ said Miss Jarrold innocently. ‘Is she courting?’
‘Happen she is,’ said Mrs Connolly, who knew perfectly well Miss Jarrold read all the cards that came through the Post Office. ‘She hasn’t told me owt about it at any rate.’
The last few hours were a torment, but at last Imogen was on the train to London, her small suitcase on the rack. Her mother, Juliet and Homer, drooping and looking gloomy, stood on the platform. Suddenly Imogen felt a great lump in her throat. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so awful and boring the last few weeks. I’ll make it up to you, really I will,’ she said, leaning out of the window. ‘I wish you were coming too.’
‘We’ll all miss you,’ said her mother.
‘Don’t forget to send me a card,’ said Juliet.
‘Be careful about drinking the water,’ said her mother.
‘Remember chastity begins and ends at home,’ said Juliet. ‘Here’s something to read on the train,’ handing her a parcel as the train drew out. In it were copies of the Kama Sutra and The Sun is my Undoing.
Gradually the dark stone walls, the mill chimneys, the black-grimed houses, the rows of washing and dirty white hens in the gardens were left behind. She was on her way.
Chapter Five
An hour and a half from London she started doing her face. Half an hour away she decided she looked awful and took all her make-up off and put it on again. The new, very cheap dress, ivy green with a white collar, which had looked so pretty when she’d tried it on in the shop, was now crumpled like an old dishcloth. Her new tights were making spiral staircases round her ankles. The train drew into King’s Cross. Imogen was one of the first off, pushing her way through the crowd, radiant smile at the ready like a British Railways’ ad. She had lived this moment so often in her mind. People rushed forward to kiss people and gather up their suitcases. No one came forward to claim her. The kissers dispersed and still no Nicky. She was sure she’d told him she was arriving on the eight-thirty train.
The station clock jerked agonisingly round to nine-ten. Two drunken sailors lurched up to her and lurched away when they saw the frozen expression on her face. She struggled not to cry.
Then, like an Angel of Mercy, loping aross the station, in the same white suit and an orange shirt, came Nicky. ‘Darling, sweet love! God, I’m sorry. What can I say? There’s the most God-awful traffic jam in Piccadilly. Are you all right? Has half London been trying to pick you up?’
‘Oh,’ said Imogen, half-laughing, half-crying, ‘I’m so, so pleased to see you.’
As he kissed her, he smelt of drink and, she thought, of scent. Perhaps it was her own scent, new yesterday, which she wasn’t yet used to.
‘Come on,’ he said, picking up her suitcase.
In the taxi he took her hand. Imogen was too besotted to realise the roads were quite clear.
‘We’re going straight to Matt and Cable’s, the people we’re going to France with. You’ll like them. He’s a lunatic Irish journalist and she’s a model.’
‘A model?’ Imogen tugged surreptitiously at her wrinkled stockings. She hoped she wasn’t too glamorous. Then she remembered with relief, ‘Oh, but they’re the engaged couple.’
‘Well, not engaged exactly, just co-habiting. But I had to bend the facts a bit to reassure your father.’
They arrived at a huge block of flats. Imogen was disappointed Nicky didn’t kiss her. There would have been plenty of time as the lift climbed to the tenth floor. Instead he smoothed his hair in the lift mirror. There was no answer when he rang the door bell, so he pushed open the door and shouted, ‘Anyone at home?’
Footsteps came from the back of the flat, a waft of scent flooded the hall. ‘Darlings! You’ve arrived,’ said a girl in a light drawling voice. ‘How are you?’
Her red dress was slit to the thighs. Her lips were as crimson as her painted toe nails, which peeped out of high black sandals. She had delicate cat-like features, sly, slanting eyes the colour of watercress and carefully tousled inky-black hair snaking down her back. Except for her suntan she might have stepped out of a Beardsley drawing. There was something serpentine, too, in the way she coiled herself round Nicky, kissing him on the cheek and murmuring:
‘Darling, marvellous to see you.’
‘Imogen, this is Cable,’ he said, disengaging himself too slowly for Imogen’s liking. The girl stared at Imogen incredulously for a minute and then a slow smile spread over her face. ‘Welcome to London,’ she said. ‘Did you have a good journey? I’ve been packing since dawn and I’m completely exhausted. Where’s your luggage?’
Nicky held up Imogen’s dog-eared suitcase.
‘Heavens,’ said Cable. ‘Is that all? Matt will adore you. I’ve filled three suitcases already and he’s griping about my taking a fourth. Come and have a drink.’
‘Can I go to the loo?’ said Imogen, who didn’t want to, but was desperate to repair her face before Nicky could compare her any more with this ravishing creature.
‘Down the passage on the left,’ said Cable. ‘We’ll be in here. Do you think five bikinis will be enough, Nicky?’
What price Lady J’s motheaten red bathing dress now? thought Imogen savagely as she combed the tangles out of her hair. Her face was all eyes in a for-once pale face. She pinched some of Cable’s rouge, but it made her look like a clown so she rubbed it off again.
She found Nicky and Cable in a room where everything seemed scarlet — carpet, curtains, and every inch of wall that wasn’t covered by books and pictures. Even the piano was painted red, and in one corner stood a huge stuffed bear wearing a scarlet regimental jacket.
‘Oh, what a heavenly room,’ sighed Imogen.
Cable looked at her with surprise. ‘Do you think so? Matt’s taste — not mine. He’d been here a year when I moved in, so the damage was done. It’s hell to keep tidy,’ she added, pointing to the papers billowing out of the desk, and the piles of books and magazines on every available surface.
In one chair sprawled a basset hound who thumped his tail but made no effort to get up, and on the sofa, snoring gently, lay a very big, very long man.
‘He was playing poker all night,’ said Cable sourly. ‘He’s been lying there since he came in at half-past eleven this morning.’ She kicked him, none too gently, in the ribs. ‘Come on, Sloblomov, wake up.’