Thank Heaven Fasting (14 page)

“How?” faltered Monica.

“Do you suppose that a man like that is going to keep it to himself?” her mother enquired bitterly. “When a girl makes herself cheap, a young man loses his respect for her—naturally—and is quite ready to laugh about her with his friends afterwards.”

“He's not like that.”

“How do you know?” said her mother sharply. “You know nothing whatever about him, except that he has a very bad reputation and flirts with any girl who's weak and silly enough to give him the chance—and that he's behaved with you as a cad always does behave. Monica”—her mother drew a long breath—“it makes me perfectly sick to have to ask you such a thing, but I must do it. Did he take any liberties with you?”

Monica turned scarlet, and Mrs. Ingram, watching her narrowly, groaned.

“Did you allow him to kiss you?”

Monica burst into tears.

“What do you suppose father will say? Poor father, who's always been so proud of you!”

“Oh, don't, don't tell him.”

“Of course I must tell him. How could I keep a thing like that from him? Besides, he'll have to see the young man, and let him understand that we know what's happened.”

“But mother——”

“What?”

“Can't I—wouldn't you-Shan't I—be engaged to him?”

“Has he asked you to?”

Monica was unable to remember that he had. She stared at her mother in a miserable consternation.

“But we're in love with one another,” she said timidly, at last.

“My poor child, you don't know what you're talking about. A young man who's honourably in love with a girl asks her to marry him. He doesn't behave as he might behave with a—a vulgar little shop-girl. Oh Monica, my poor darling, I do pray God that you haven't destroyed your whole chances by this—this terrible business. If only we can keep people from finding out!”

Mrs. Ingram hid her face in her hands.

When at last she looked up and dried her eyes, there was an air of sheer exhaustion about her that terrified Monica still further.

“You must go to bed, and so must I. Don't come downstairs to-morrow morning. You can ring for breakfast when you wake up, and I'll come and see you later, after I've had a talk with father.”

“What will he do?”

“I don't know. Whatever it is will be wise and right. Gentlemen know much more about these things than we do. And I shall try and persuade him not to see Captain Lane until he's got over the first shock of it all.”

Mrs. Ingram, looking utterly worn out, preceded Monica upstairs. At the door of her own bedroom she paused and drew the girl towards her.

“My poor little thing, you know I'll do everything I can in the world to help you. I ought to have looked after you better.”

“No, no,” sobbed Monica, completely overwhelmed by a generosity that she had not expected and felt that she did not deserve. “Oh, please forgive me.”

“Yes, I do forgive you, my poor darling. Goodnight. God bless you. Try and sleep.”

Opening the door very softly, Mrs. Ingram went into her room, and Monica, more tired out than ever in her life before,
and now crying quite uncontrollably, dragged herself upstairs, holding by the banisters all the way.

She slept far sooner than she had expected. Her last waking thought was that at least the worst was over now that discovery had come. She knew that sooner or later she would have to confront her father, but it seemed to her inconceivable that he should address her directly on so emotional a topic. They had always kept on the surface of things. He preferred it so, she felt certain.

Actually, when she woke, soon after eleven o'clock, Monica felt hopeful, although her eyelids were stiff from crying, and her head ached. Christopher had said he loved her. His kisses had been wonderful. Perhaps it was all going to come right, as things always did in books.

“By this time to-morrow,” thought Monica, “I may be engaged.”

Her first shock came when Parsons entered the room, and asked if she might do Miss Monica's packing at once.

“Are we going, then, this afternoon?”

“Yes, Miss Monica. Had you forgotten?”

Monica had not forgotten, but she had somehow felt certain that the catacylsm of the night before would alter everything. Surely, they could not leave London before she and Christopher had met again?

“Did mother say I might get up, Parsons?”

“No, Miss Monica. She hoped you'd rest in bed till she came up to you. I daresay she won't be very long now. It's getting on for twelve o'clock.'

It was, however, more than an hour later that Imogen Ingram sought her daughter.

She was much more composed, and also more disposed to severity than she had been the night before.

“No, you can't get up just yet, Monica. Anyhow, you look completely washed out. I shall send up a glass of port with your lunch, and you're to drink it. Never mind whether you like it or not. Now, darling, listen to me. I've spoken to
other—and it's just as well I did, for almost directly afterwards I had a telephone call from a friend of mine—I'm not going to tell you who it was—and it seems that this story has got about already.”

Mrs. Ingram paused, and swallowed hard, but it was evident that she had steeled herself against any further display of emotion.

“Father says, and I think he's quite right, that you're so young it may be quite possible for you to live it down, and it's a very, very good thing that we're leaving London immediately. People will have found something else to talk about before we bring you back to London. But, oh, Monica—when I think——!”

“Mother,” said Monica desperately, “he wants to marry me—I know he does.”

“Did he say so?”

“No—at least, not exactly.”

“Either he did or he didn't. But he's not in a position to marry, even if he wanted to. I'm told that he has nothing at all, except his pay. It would be quite impossible, and a man who was a
gentleman
wouldn't dream of making love to a girl whom he couldn't afford to marry.”

A dreadful feeling of despair invaded Monica.

This
couldn't
be the end of everything, surely.

She began to cry.

Her mother looked at her in compassion and perplexity mingled.

“Do you think yourself in love with him, my poor darling?”

Monica nodded vehemently.

“If only it hadn't happened like this—if only he'd been another
kind
of young man, perhaps it could somehow have been possible,” said Mrs. Ingram. “Any husband is better than none at all, as I've always told you, and of course a girl who's been known to have any sort of adventure is very apt never to get any real chances. Men are so
terrified
of anything of that sort. How
could
you do it?”

Monica sobbed drearily.

“Don't go on crying like that. It's dreadfully bad for you and it will make your eyes so red.”

“Must we go away to-day?”

“Indeed we must. Besides, what would be the object of staying on in London?”

Monica dared not answer that she thought she might see Christopher again, and wanted to do so more than anything else in the world. Instead she asked:

“Is father going to see—him?”

“No. He says much better not. It seems that his Regiment is likely to go out to India quite soon, and we shall take care, very good care, that he doesn't meet any of us again before then.”

What a lot they had managed to find out, thought Monica drearily. It seemed impossible to her that she and Christopher Lane would not meet again, and at the bottom of her heart was still a hope that he, who loved her, would come to her, and put everything right.

“Now, darling, I needn't ask you to promise me that you will never, to anyone, say one word of this. Above all, not to Frederica and Cecily Marlowe. Their mother is a great friend of mine—I'm devoted to her—but she doesn't care what she says, so long as she has a good story to tell, and she knows everybody in London worth knowing. Our one hope is to let this die down of itself.”

“Yes, mother.”

“I'll talk to you again later. Rest a little while longer, darling, and you can get up after lunch and come down just before we start. We're leaving at three o'clock. Don't be afraid of meeting father—he's much upset, naturally, but he's quite ready to forgive you.”

Monica returned her mother's kiss.

She felt dazed and wretched, and entirely drained of any initiative.

Presently her lunch was brought to her. On the tray lay an envelope addressed to herself.

She knew the handwriting and tore it open, breathless.

“DARLING LITTLE MONICA,

“I'm afraid I got you into trouble with your lady-mother last night. I'm so awfully sorry, and would have loved to help, but thought the best thing I could do was to clear out, as there really wasn't much explanation to offer, was there?!! Your friendship has been perfectly wonderful, and I shall never forget it—or you, needless to say. I do wish I'd had a chance of saying good-bye properly—just my luck that you should be leaving town just now.

“However, who knows when we may meet again, and meanwhile, don't forget me, and you may be sure that I shall often think of you and how sweet you've been to me.—Yours,

C.L.

“P.S.
Do write sometimes.”

Monica read the letter all through twice—the first time so quickly that she could hardly take in the meaning of the words, and the second time very slowly.

So it was quite true, and her mother had been right.

Christopher Lane was a cad. He hadn't, ever, really loved her and wanted to marry her. He'd just been taking advantage of a girl who had made herself cheap, and had allowed him to “take liberties” with her.

Before the tidal wave of pain and humiliation that had risen on the horizon of consciousness had actually broken, engulfing her youth and her confidence in herself and in life, Monica had time for that flash of astonished conviction:

Her mother had been right all the time.

It was a conviction from which she was never again wholly to free herself.

Imogen Ingram's despairing hope that no one need ever know of Monica's indiscretion was not wholly realized.

It was in vain that she invented variations of the true story: Monica had fallen in love with someone who could not afford to marry; Monica had broken off an engagement
with a very nice man whom she did not love in
that way;
Monica had been obliged to refuse someone whom she
did
love.

None of these explanations were whole-heartedly accepted as accounting for the dimming of Monica's prettiness, the quenching of her gaiety, and the new expression of anxiety that sprang now and then into her face.

Her second season was not a success. She began to be “difficult” and to say that she did not care about dancing. She made no new friends, and she ceased, altogether, to be attractive to men.

With extraordinary rapidity time was slipping by. Monica was no longer a young girl in her first season. She was doing her second season, then her third—and then no one kept count any more. Imperceptibly, she joined the ranks of those whose “grown-up”-ness was taken for granted.

And nothing had happened.

She could not, herself, have told at what stage it was that the secret, gnawing anxiety, which soon never left her, first came into existence. The terrible affair of Christopher Lane did not seem to be directly responsible, heart-breaking and humiliating though it seemed at the time and for long afterwards. But when Monica came back to London after a summer spent in desperate attempts to conceal from everyone that anything was the matter, things seemed different.

It had proved impossible to keep her indiscretion entirely secret. Old friends had questioned Mrs. Ingram, Lady Margaret Miller's youngest daughter had told her mother of various conjectures, and Alice Ashe—as tactless as she was kind-hearted—had taxed Monica directly with having fallen in love, adding, with an obvious wish to console her, that poor Claude was perfectly miserable.

A landmark was reached on the day that Mrs. Ingram, just before Monica's twentieth birthday, said without preliminary:

“After all, poor Claude Ashe was very devoted to you, wasn't he? He might not be utterly impossible.…”

Two years earlier, Monica knew, her mother would not
have said, or felt, that Claude was anything but utterly impossible. That she should now view him in another light was the measure of her dismay, her gathering apprehension.

Claude Ashe still asked Monica for dances when they met in a ballroom, and he was once or twice invited to dinner in Eaton Square. Monica, however, knew with intuitive certainty that he was no longer attracted by her. Gradually she began to realize that the change was in herself, rather than in him. She was not, any longer, attractive.

The knowledge frightened her more and more.

It seemed impossible that she should be like Frederica and Cecily—one of those innumerable girls who would give anything to get married and never had the chance. Ever since she could remember Monica had heard of women, young or middle-aged, of whom that was said, half-contemptuously and half-compassionately. People had only ceased to say it of Frederica and Cecily because it was now taken for granted, and, moreover, their mother had given up taking them into Society, and allowed them to spend most of the time in the country with an old governess, with whom they still went for walks as they had done in their schoolroom days. Sometimes Monica went to stay with them; but she found the visits depressing, and her mother still said: “Visits of that kind are no real use. You don't meet anybody there, do you?”

“No,” said Monica.

Meeting “anybody” meant unmarried young men.