“Why did he say grace? He doesn’t as a rule, so we all sat down. Do you suppose we’re going to receive something very special?”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Do you know what it is?”
He said drily, “Wait and see.” And then, “Where have you been, and what are you doing?”
“Been? All over the place. Doing? My duty of course. Don’t I always?”
“Well, shall we say what form has it been taking? You’re not a W.A.A.F., or a Wren, or an A.T., are you, by any chance?”
The green eyes looked mournful, the red head was shaken.
“I feel I might go off pop if I signed papers and promised to do what I was told. I just sit in an office and translate things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Ssh! Not a word! What would you say if I told you I could read Icelandic at sight?”
Elliot laughed.
“I should say you were lying.”
“And you’d be too-too right. What it is to be a brain! How many things have you invented since 1941? It was 1941 the last time I saw you, wasn’t it?”
“It was.”
She nodded.
“Last New Year’s Eve. I kissed you under the mistletoe. Perhaps I will again if you’re good.”
“I don’t feel at all good, I’m afraid.”
She raised brows which were becomingly darkened to match the darkened lashes.
“How odd, darling! How do you think Phyllida is looking?”
If she hoped for a rise she didn’t get one.
“I haven’t had much opportunity of judging, have I?”
Lydia darted a glance at him.
“No, you haven’t, so I’ll tell you. She’s too pale, she’s too thin. She’s unhappy, she’s bored, and she’s tied up hand and foot. What are you going to do about it? You can be thinking up the answer whilst I talk to Dicky. And don’t stab me in the back, because it’ll make a mess of my brocade, and I can’t afford a funeral this month anyway-not after paying my income tax and the rent of my flat.”
The last words were said over her shoulder. Before they were fairly out of her mouth Dicky was saying,
“Look here, fair’s fair. I took you in, didn’t I? You’ve got to talk to me till Aunt Grace is done with Frank.”
Elliot addressed himself to a sulky and offended Brenda. It took so little to offend her that on any other occasion he might not have bothered to bring her round, but in the circumstances he had to be talking, to be interested, occupied-anything but the discarded husband lingering superfluous on the scene. He exerted himself to such purpose that Brenda relaxed sufficiently to inform him that she was thinking of joining the Women Police.
“What a marvellous idea!”
She stared suspiciously.
“What do you mean by that, Elliot?”
“What should I mean? I think it’s a perfectly splendid idea.”
Brenda sniffed.
“Well, I can’t say that I do, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. But if you grant the necessity for women police you will agree that they require a personnel, and that being the case, I feel it my duty to apply for enrollment.”
“I expect you’ll enjoy it.”
The pale eyes stared aggressively from between those very light lashes. He found himself thinking, “Why on earth doesn’t she dye them?” and then remembered that there had been a row, a really epic row, because Lydia suggested her doing so. Phyllida had told him all about it. Echoes of her voice-the way she had looked… He stiffened, and heard Brenda disclaim any intention of enjoying herself. Dicky was saying to Lydia,
“I suppose you know that you’re giving me palpitations every time I look at you.”
“ ‘Heart-throbs’-by Richard Paradine.” Lydia gazed back at him soulfully. “What a pity you can’t work it off in verse. It would get it out of your system beautifully, and I’d love to have a book of poems dedicated to me. White leather, I think, with a little gold tooling and ‘To Lydia’ inside-or perhaps just ‘To L-.’ What do you think?”
“The critics might get ribald about ‘To L-.’ What about ‘To Lydia whom I adore’?”
“‘Because she never is a bore,’” said Lydia. “What would you rather be, Dicky-hideously, revoltingly ugly and very amusing, or frightfully beautiful and dull? I’ve never been able to make up my mind.”
“You don’t have to-you’ve got the best of both bargains.”
She sketched a kiss and blew it at him.
“Thank you, darling-and all the nicer because it isn’t true. If it wasn’t for my hair and my complexion and the fact that I dye my eyelashes, I’d be nothing but Irene’s younger sister-‘A plain little thing, but not her fault, poor girlr so we must be kind to her.’ And so much better for my moral character, because I would simply have had to go in for the domestic virtues-the only refuge of the plain.”
Dicky’s head swam a little. It always did when Lydia looked at him like that. He said,
“Look here, do you want me to propose to you whilst you’re eating turkey? Because that’s where you’re heading.”
“I don’t know-” said Lydia, in a meditative tone. “It would be a new experience-no one’s ever done it before. But a man did once tell me he adored me when we were having mulligatawny soup, and he choked in the middle and very nearly passed out. It was rather unnerving, and my soup got cold whilst I thumped him on the back. So perhaps not. I’d hate to spoil the turkey.”
Phyllida was between Albert Pearson and Mark Paradine. Conversation with Albert was instructive rather than entertaining. He was always ready to tell you the distance from Saturn to the earth and from Colombo to Singapore, or the exact number of vitamins in the new margarine, or the origin of coal, or all about who invented steel-a mine of information produced in such a manner as to rob it of any possible spark of interest. Long practice enabled Phyllida to smile and let instruction pass her by.
When he had finished telling her a few facts about concrete, she turned back to Mark, and thought as she turned how unhappy he looked. Irene on his other side was talking to James Paradine. Mark was for the moment unattached. His face in repose was so gloomy that it worried Phyllida.
She said, “What are you thinking about?” and smiled.
The heavy lines relaxed.
“Nothing worth talking about, Phyl.”
“Well, what shall we talk about? Have you been reading anything good lately?”
He took the opening with relief. They talked about books, about films, about music. To Elliot on the other side of the table they seemed very deep in conversation. The épergne screened them, but once when Phyllida leaned sideways he saw her shining eyes and brilliant cheeks. The champagne in her glass was untasted-it was something else which had lighted all her candles. As he pursued a rather laboured conversation with Brenda he was wondering just what had lighted them. His first sight of her in the drawing-room had showed her pale and listless. Or was that just his imagination? No, it wasn’t. His heart had turned over because she looked so pale.
Brenda Ambrose was staring at him with an air of offence.
“Really, Elliot-I don’t believe you heard what I was saying!”
He dragged his thoughts from Phyllida and made the best amends he could.
The turkey disposed of, a flaming plum-pudding was set before James Paradine, while Lane and a parlourmaid handed jellies and mince-pies. It was when Phyllida was helping herself to a spoonful of jelly that the turn of her body brought her into Elliot’s view. He saw her, and looked away. The eyes which he had wrenched from her face became fixed upon the hand with which she was steadying the proffered dish. It was her left hand, and it was as bare as the day she was born-a bare hand and a bare arm- nothing to break the line from shoulder to wrist, from wrist to fingertips. The painful colour rushed into his face, burned there, and receded slowly, leaving him cold. It had not occurred to him that she would take off her wedding ring. Catching him unprepared like that it was like a slap in the face.