“I can help him,” said Peter.
“Oh, all right,” said Douglas. “I suppose I’m too bad-tempered for you to put up with me. I’d better go to bed.”
“That’s right,” said Alison cheerfully. “I’ll
c
ome up soon. Sure you’ve finished your tea?”
He did not answer. He got slowly up from his chair, and took Peter’s arm. The two of them went out of the room, and Alison turned back to Priscilla.
“Have another cup of tea, Priscilla, with me.”
“Yes, my dear, I will. I do hope Douglas isn’t going to be difficult again. He used to be
so
difficult.”
“I don’t think he will be, once he gets used to the idea of slowing up a bit. We must keep him amused, Priscilla.”
“I don’t think I would be much good at that,” Priscilla said. “That must be your job, Alison.”
“Yes, of course,” said Alison, not wanting Priscilla to think she was being asked to do anything more.
A little later, Alison went upstairs and knocked at the door of Douglas’s room. His voice told her to come in.
“Hullo,” she said. “You look very comfortable.”
“Yes, I am,” he said. “Come over here.”
She went to the bedside.
“Sit down,” he said, “and give me your hand to hold. Sorry, Alison, if I was rude to you.”
“Think nothing of it,” she said.
“I felt everybody was holding out on me.”
“But now you don’t?”
“No. Pete explained everything. And I believed him.”
“But you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Women are such silly creatures,” he said. “They think they are keeping you happy by keeping things from you, but really they’re only filling you with anxiety.”
“Well, you see now that I did tell you the truth.”
“I know. You’re a sweet exception. Forgive me?”
“Yes, of course. I don’t care how much you snap at me, Douglas. You can make me your whipping-boy, if you like. But you hurt Peter, you know, when you talk like that. He is so fond of you, and he can’t bear to see you suffering.”
Douglas laughed. She looked at him quickly.
“That’s funny,” he said. “He said exactly the same as you. He said: If you want to swear, Doug, swear at me as much as you like; but Alison is so fond of
you, and can’t bear to see you down and depressed, so don’t hurt her by speaking to her like that.”
Alison laughed.
“Oh well,” said she, “you’ll end up by having nobody to swear at; and perhaps that won’t be good for you.”
“Funny,” said Douglas, “how considerate of each other you are, you and Peter.”
“It isn’t funny at all. Peter is always courteous and considerate of everybody; and I think of him because I’m so grateful to him for everything he has done for me.”
“Oh yes?” said Douglas.
“While you, you brute, are not grateful for anything.”
“Oh yes, I am. I’m grateful for you, Alison; and don’t you ever forget it, not even if I bite your head off. I wonder why I don’t fall in love with you?”
She smiled.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But please don’t, because it would complicate matters.”
“No, I won’t. I love you already, in a nice, warm, friendly fashion, but I don’t want to be in love with you. When I fall in love, I want it to be quite different; not nice and warm and friendly.”
“How, then?” asked Alison, curiously.
“Oh, with fire and water, and fighting and making up, and passion and pestilence.”
“You’re quite mad,” said Alison. “And it sounds horribly uncomfortable. I should think you would have had enough of discomfort.”
“The other way sounds too settled-down,” said Douglas. “I never want to settle down, once I get out of this. I want continual movement.”
Alison sighed. Continual movement, she thought. See where that brought him before; will he never learn?
Next day, wondering how she was going to keep his days filled for him, she asked him if he had no friends he would like to see.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “There were plenty of them in the early days, but you know how it is, one loses touch. They used to come and see me in the hospital, and I used to think they came from a sense of duty, and I suppose I froze them off a bit. Only one, Bill Brown, I’d like to see again; and I don’t know where he is.”
So Alison rang up Guy and asked him to co-opt George, and invited them to come and see Douglas. They came several times, delighted to see Alison again as well; sometimes straight from their offices to a late tea, sometimes to coffee after dinner in the evening. At the first week-end, after playing tennis all the afternoon, they came to dinner. Alison planned that it should be a special dinner, and enlisted the help of the cook, and arranged that Douglas should get up to have it with them. She watched him carefully all the evening for the first sign of tiredness, and decided that the good it did him more than outweighed the wear and tear on him. After the meal, they installed Douglas on a comfortable sofa in the drawing room, placed the card table before him, and all played cards, in a somewhat hilarious but enjoyable fashion. At ten o’clock, Alison said he must go to bed, and Guy and George escorted him to his room, helped him prepare for bed, and then left him to return to Alison.
Priscilla, having joined them at dinner, had decided she could best escape their company for the rest of the evening by going to see a film, and had not yet returned. So that Guy and George found Alison alone in the drawing room.
“I suppose we should push off,” said Guy.
“Oh, not yet, it is quite early. Have another drink.” So they sat talking with Alison until they were disturbed by Peter, who seemed surprised to see them there. Alison said:
“Guy and George have been very nobly helping me to keep Douglas amused.”
“Very kind of you both,” said Peter, helping himself to a drink.
“We allowed Douglas to get up to dinner,” said Alison, “but we watched him very carefully for tiredness, and packed him off to bed early.”
“Was that wise?” asked Peter, remembering that these same young men could be rather rowdy on occasion.
“I think so. He was very quiet, and he was getting awfully bored in bed.”
“I suppose,” said Peter, suddenly remembering something, “that you wouldn’t both care to have dinner with him again to-morrow? I have an invitation for Alison, and I’m afraid she might not go if it means leaving Douglas alone.”
“Well, I could,” said Guy. “What about you, George?”
“Yes, I’m all right. I have to play tennis in the afternoon, but
can be here by dinner time.”
“What invitation have you for me?” asked Alison.
“One from the Winlakes. They are having a reception in the evening, and a small dinner party beforehand. Erica tells me you said you would go and see her—or allow me to take you—and I think you might find it interesting.”
“I’d love it,” said Alison, “if Guy and George will come here.”
So that next evening saw her wearing her prettiest dress, and looking her very best, to be taken out by Peter. She wondered if Lydia would be there, resigned to the fact that she probably would, yet hoping not. She thought that even Lydia would have to admit to herself that the evening dresses Alison chose for herself were far more suitable than those Madame Roseanne had helped Lydia to choose. But Lydia was not there. She was spending the week-end with other friends, and so missed what was a minor triumph for Alison.
There were twelve people at the dinner party, and they were accustomed to seeing Peter with Lydia, and were surprised to find him with a new partner. Not all of them knew she was Peter’s ward. They saw her as very young, certainly; surely a little too young for a man of Peter’s calibre and maturity; but very pretty and most attractive in her engaging frankness. She was also very well gowned. Nor was she at all lost in the somewhat technical conversation at the dinner table; for since all the guests were figures from the world of the arts, the talk turned upon the arts, chiefly music. She had heard Charles, for instance, in Paris and Salzburg and Lisbon. She had met Monsieur Rostand in Milan when he was guest conductor at La Scala. For such a young person, she had certainly been around, they concluded; and wondered why they had not met her before.
After dinner, a great many other people arrived, and Mrs. Winlake, who seemed to have taken Alison under her wing, introduced her to more celebrities; of concert platform and of the stage, of the pen and the brush. The Norwegian tenor, for whom the dinner and reception were being held, sang for them and was enthusiastically applauded. It reminded Alison of many other receptions she had been to; often when she was so young that she still had fair pigtails swinging behind her, with big bows of ribbon at their ends.
Peter came to her when the singing was over.
“Are you enjoying yourself? he asked her.
“Yes. Very much. It is like a piece out of my old
l
ife.”
“Ah. Yes.” He wondered if that made her sad, but she did not look sad. “You must often have met people like this.”
“Not lately. When my father was alive, yes. Even after that, everybody asked Mother. But she did not care to go without him, and so she went less and less. Also, of course, she was not feeling so well, after a while. But even then, people were very good to me. They used to send me tickets for concerts, and invite me to visit at their homes. I did visit Maria Micotti, and Ilse Gerhardt, several times; and, of course, at their houses it was just Open Sesame for artists.”
“There is a friend of Ilse’s here now. Elisaveta, the dancer. Do you know her?”
“Oh yes,” cried Alison. “Where is she?”
“Talking to Erica. Come over with me.”
Alison went with him to join a small group; but before Peter could remind Elisaveta of Alison, they had recognised each other.
“Alison,” cried Elisaveta, and they embraced joyfully, while the curious among the guests raised their eyebrows a little more. “How is it you are here? Where was it we met last? Oh, I know, at Ilse’s house.”
“At Vado,” supplemented Alison.
“Of course. Oh, the fun we had, all together. What a long time ago.”
“What a lot has happened to you, Elisaveta. You are famous, and an international artist.”
“And Ilse, too. But she doesn’t sing in England yet. Erica, Alison is an old friend of mine. Almost, we were in the same cradle.”
“How you exaggerate, Elisaveta,” said Alison. Her eyes were sparkling, she was flushed and gay and excited. Peter realised how much she had missed her old world, when a glimpse of it could reanimate her like this. He should, he censured himself, have seen to it that her old world was more often available to her.
“Well, we were twice at school together, weren’t we?”
“Oh dear, those schools! They were always changing when I was very young.”
“For me, all my life,” said Elisaveta, “until it was simply useless to go any more to school. Once, we were together for about eight weeks, before your parents moved on to another place.”
“But once for two terms, when you were at the school of dancing.”
They went on reminiscing, and the others in the group gradually produced their own conversations. Peter, drawn into conversation with the Norwegian tenor and Charles (for he was, in fact, prepared to back the young tenor), nevertheless kept his eye on Alison; reproaching himself more and more as he saw how vivacious she was with Elisaveta. He should have known, he told himself, that it would be dull for her in the Mayfair house, unless he provided some interest. He should have remembered the sort of life that Edward and Laura always lived. Just because he had seen Alison in Lisbon, sad and quiet and apparently without friends, he should not have forgotten what was her usual milieu. He made a resolve that he must take her about more to affairs of this sort.
She and Elisaveta had been joined by a young American, who had made a wonderful collection of out-of-the
-
ordinary folk songs of his own country, and was now collecting folk songs of many other countries. He was explaining how the folk music of any country interested him, as an expression of the growth of that people. Peter knew that this was a subject dear to Alison’s heart; he had often heard her softly strumming on his piano while she sang the songs of Tirol, or Bavaria, or Italy, or Provence. He was not surprised when he heard her softly singing something over to the young American, with Erica and Elisaveta standing by, listening.
Suddenly, he saw how much at home she was. Really more at home, he decided, than when she was laughing and playing with Douglas. This was her milieu. My milieu, thought Peter, rather than Douglas’s; and he wondered how it would work out, if anything developed between those two young people, for Douglas was really a bit of a Philistine. There was no other word for him. All the arts meant absolutely nothing to him. But Peter wondered if that was of such importance; he had seen for himself how happy they were together.
At last, when people began to leave, Peter came to fetch Alison. She was now in a circle that included Charles and Erica, a young violinist and a rather extreme painter. As soon as she realised that Peter was ready to leave, she began to say her goodbyes.