The Blue Rose (15 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ROSE meanwhile went back into the Botticelli with a heart so heavy that she did not know how she was going to face the rest of the day. If she could have gone home now alone and waited there for Stephen’s eventual return it would not have been so bad, but to have to spend the rest of the afternoon
and
the evening with Tony seemed more than she could bear.

“Let’s go into the park,” Tony said when she got back. “It’s such a beautiful day. Much too nice for a movie.”

“Very well.” She would have preferred to go to a cinema because then she would not have had to talk, but she felt too weak and miserable to impose her own will.

Francie looked at her anxiously. “Before you go,” she said, “come with me upstairs for a moment, will you? I want to show you that new dress I was telling you about
...
Will you excuse us, Tony? I won’t keep her long, I promise you.”

Rose went with Francie gratefully. She was the only person she could talk to, and she longed at this moment to unburden her heart to someone.

The Earles were now living over the shop and Rose followed Francie up the short flight of narrow stairs into her pleasant little sitting-room looking on to the street.

“What’s the matter, ducky?” Francie asked immediately. There was never any beating about the bush with her.

“Oh, it was so awful,” Rose replied, flinging herself down on the sofa. “I hadn’t told Stephen about Tony meeting me here. I hadn’t had a chance to tell him. Tony only rang up this morning. I asked him to lunch at the house but he refuses to come there or to meet Stephen. I suppose I ought then to have told him that in that case I couldn’t see him, but you know what it is. I feel so sorry for him and a bit guilty still
...
I was going to tell Stephen this evening, and I know he would have understood—but then him arriving unexpectedly like this
...
And I got nervous. It must all have seemed very queer to him—very fishy
...
Oh, Francie, what am I to do? I feel so utterly wretched. He’s so angry with me. He drove off with such an expression on his face and without even looking at me. He just said good-bye in such a cold, hard voice. I don’t know how to live through the rest of the day till he comes home and I can make it up with him. And I’ve got the whole evening to get through too
...”

“I know just how you feel,” Francie said soothingly, “but, you know, it’s not really as bad as you think. He’ll come back probably feeling a bit ashamed of himself for making a mountain out of a molehill and you’ll have a glorious reconciliation and everything will be even better than before. You can explain it all to
him
...”

“I did when I went out with him to the car just now, but he wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t melt him at all. His face was like a stone. I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“He was angry. You’ve probably never seen him angry before. You’re lucky that he gets angry so seldom. But men are like that when they do lose their tempers. They’re quite different from us. You can’t bring them round in a moment. You have to let their anger work itself out. And they’re apt to hang on to it too because I believe secretly they rather enjoy it
...
But it will all come right, I promise you. Cheer up. If he didn’t love you he wouldn’t be angry, that’s some comfort, isn’t it?”

Yes, it was a great comfort. It comforted her more than anything else Francie could have said, and it was in a less despondent frame of mind that she returned to Tony in the bar.

II

Tony was really very sweet and understanding about it all. “I thought at first it was a plot to bring us together,” he said, “and then I realized that he had turned up unexpectedly.”

“Yes, and you see what trouble you’ve caused me by refusing to meet him,” Rose replied as they walked away from the Botticelli, “and by not allowing everything to be open and above-board. I ought never to have consented to meet you if you wouldn’t come to my house and meet my husband. It’s my own fault. It’s not fair to blame you.”

“I’m so sorry, Rose. I didn’t realize. It’s all my fault. I’d do anything to undo it. I see now how it is. You are terribly in love with him, aren’t you?”

“Oh, Tony, you know I am. I’ve never made any secret of it.”

“It hurts like hell,” he said, “and yet it makes it easier in a way, I believe, to know for sure. I never really believed you when you told me that other time. It had all been so quick. I didn’t see how you had had
time
...
I thought it was his money. Oh, I don’t mean that you were marrying him for his money, but that his money had swept you off your feet, made you
imagine
you were in love
...
He’s a nice chap though. I thought he would be small and fat with a pot-belly.”

“Oh, Tony, how can you!”

“It’s everyone’s idea of the rich banker.”

“It’s horrid to be so prejudiced.”

“I daresay I should have been just as prejudiced against anyone you’d chosen to marry if it comes to that
...
Well, again I say I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do to
show it, but there isn’t, so
...”

“Yes, there is! You can come to dinner to-morrow night and behave in a civilized way and meet him and make friends with him and show him that there isn’t any hole
-
and-corner business between us. Will you do that?”

“I’d do anything to make things better for you.”

“Thank you, Tony
...
Good, then you will come? We’ve got a dinner party. You play bridge, don’t you? That’s wonderful. That will make us ten. I don’t play but you can cut in.”

Rose was much happier after she had made this arrangement. She was sure it was the right thing to do.

They sat in deck chairs in the park and Tony allowed her to remain silent with her eyes shut. It was lovely sitting there with the sun hot on her eyelids. At half past five they went into a Lyons for tea and afterwards Rose said that she must go home and change for the theatre.

“I can’t change,” Tony said, “I’ve got on my best suit already!”

“Oh, you’re perfectly all right. You’re very smart. It’s so easy for a man, he can wear the same thing at all times of day—but I shall have to put on something else, especially as we’re going on to the Savoy.”

“I’d rather not go there if you don’t mind,” Tony said. “I can’t afford a place like that and I want to give you dinner.”

“Don’t be stupid, Tony. I’ve suffered enough to-day from your pride. Stephen particularly asked you to take me there, and anyway I want to go there because he may possibly get back earlier than he expected and come and join us there
...
You can come back to the house with me while I change
...
Oh, no you can’t; I’d forgotten; there’s nobody there so you mustn’t come back. We’ll meet again at the theatre.”

III

Their seats were in the middle of the fourth row of the stalls. Stephen would never go to a play unless they could get seats in the middle, between rows three and six. He always said that if he couldn’t get the seats he wanted he would rather not go at all. Rose was very well aware how spoilt he was in little things, but if he couldn’t get his own way in these little things he never made any fuss. He just simply wrote the thing off with some such remark as, “Well, it’s just too bad for the play”, implying that it was more the play’s loss than his own.

Rose had hardly sat down when she felt herself tapped on the shoulder. She turned round quickly to find Miss Davies sitting just behind her. Her heart leapt with pleasure, for after all Miss Davies was almost a part of Stephen.

Miss Davies introduced her to her sister, who was with her, and Rose, in her turn, introduced them both to Tony. “We were very lucky to get seats for this at the last moment,” Miss Davies said, “but my sister had set her heart on seeing it.”

“It is so very kind of you and Mr. Hume,” the sister said.

Rose was at a loss.

“Mr. Hume very kindly said that we could get tickets for anything we liked this evening through your agency,” Miss Davies put in quickly.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” Rose said.

“And I’m very glad to meet you, Mrs. Hume,” the sister said. “I’ve heard such a lot about you. But from what Mary told me I didn’t think you’d be here this evening. Mr. Hume gave her the tickets after lunch as he said he wouldn’t be using them himself as he was taking you down to dine by the river, and then he rang up an hour later and told her to send them round to your house and get some others for ourselves, so we imagined that you had already promised them to someone else
...
Someone’s kicking me
...
Oh, it’s you, Mary. What are you
...
? Oh!”

Fortunately the lights went down at that moment, and then the curtain went up, but Rose did not see for the first few minutes what was taking place on the stage. So that was the truth of it, was it? Stephen had come that afternoon to take her off to the river and then, finding that she had made a rendezvous with Tony—and what must have seemed to him a secret rendezvous—he had driven off on his own in anger. There
was
no business to take him off to the country. That had been an excuse, a lie
...
Then where had he gone? Where was he now? Who was he with? When would he come back?

Perhaps he would never come back!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ROSE lay in bed that night waiting for Stephen to come home. He had not turned up at the Savoy Grill and at midnight she had asked Tony to take her home. She had said good-night to him on the doorstep, reminding him that she would be expecting him the next evening at about half past seven.

She had hoped against hope that she would find that Stephen had already come in, and when she saw his black hat on the hall table her heart gave a little leap, but then she remembered that the hat had been there when she got back to change earlier in the evening. Stephen had been hatless when he came to find her at the Botticelli.

The drawing-room and study were in darkness, and when she went upstairs she found that all was dark there too. She opened their bedroom door gently and turned on the light, willing with all her strength that Stephen might be there asleep in bed; but the room was empty. There was just a chance, of course, that he might have gone to sleep in his dressing-room, but when she looked in there that bed too was empty. How silent and desolate the house was without him. Her heart felt almost as if it were breaking.

She got into bed quickly and lay there with the lights out except the ones by the bedside, straining her ears for a sound of him. What could be keeping him? Why was he so late? Did it really mean that he was not coming home at all?
...
And then she heard his key in the lock, the sound of the front door closing, and her heart began to race. Should she go down to welcome him? Her instinct was to do so, but reason told her that it was better she remain where she was; it would be better to see what mood he was in and then suit her own behaviour to his
...
But why didn’t he come up? No doubt he was having a nightcap
...

At last she heard the click of the light being turned off in the hall and she knew that he was coming slowly upstairs. Her heart was almost suffocating her. But even now he did not open the door of their room. Instead he went into the dressing-room next door. Was he going to stay there? She would give him a quarter of an hour and if he had not come by then she would go to him.

But it was not more than ten minutes before he opened the communicating door. He was in his dressing-gown and pyjamas. Somehow she had expected him to look different, and it was a wonderful relief to find that however different he might be feeling in his heart his beloved face was just the same.

She sat up on her elbow when he came in.

“Not asleep yet?” he asked casually.

The very ordinariness of his tone froze the words that had been about to pour out of her heart—words that would have told him of all her love and anxiety. Instead she said in a voice as casual as his own: “I haven’t been in very long.”

“How was the play?”

“Rather disappointing. We had supper afterwards at the Savoy Grill as you said. I hope you really meant it. Tony didn’t like putting it down to you.”

“But I hope he did. Of course I meant it.”

“Where have you been?”

“To see old Mrs. Murchie—near Andover. I’m her trustee, you know, and as she can’t get to London any more because of her phlebitis I had to go down and see her. I had to stay and have dinner with her and then she kept me talking afterwards. She hardly sleeps at all herself and can’t understand why anyone else should want to.”

“You must be tired,” she said.

“I am.” He had got into bed while he was talking and now he switched off the light by his side of the bed. “Goodnight,” and he leant towards her and kissed her briefly. “Aren’t you going to turn out your light?”

She put her hand out and turned off the switch. She must talk to him and it would be easier in the dark.

“Stephen?” she said.

“Yes?”

“When you came to the Botticelli this afternoon it was to take me into the country, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Miss Davies was at the theatre with her sister, sitting just behind us, and I discovered about the tickets
...
Oh, it wasn’t Miss Davies,” she added quickly, anxious not to get his secretary into trouble. “She didn’t say anything. It was the sister
...
”

“Well?”

“And then you changed your mind, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Was it because you found me with Tony?”

“No, Rose, it wasn’t because of that. I just suddenly changed my mind. I had no right to take a whole afternoon off merely for pleasure. It seemed suddenly the perfect opportunity of going to see Mrs. Murchie. I ought to have gone ages ago
...
I could have taken you with me but I was afraid it would bore you. It seemed much better that you should go with Tony to the theatre—much more fun for you.”

“Then you weren’t angry at seeing me with Tony?”

“Not in the least.”

“You know I hadn’t met him secretly, don’t you? But it was stupid of me. He didn’t want to come to the house
...”

“I don’t blame him.”

“Don’t you?” she asked in surprise. “But I should have said that in that case I couldn’t see him, shouldn’t I?”

“You should always do what you yourself feel to be right. Trust your own judgement, Rose.”

“That
was
my judgement—that I shouldn’t see him unless he was prepared to meet you. But now I have made it all right. He is coming to dinner to-morrow—or rather it’s to-day now. You don’t mind, do you?”

“I’m delighted.”

“He plays bridge.”

“Good
...
Shall we go to sleep now?”

“Then you’re not angry with me?”

“Of course I’m not angry with you. Go to sleep.”

“All right
...
Good-night, darling.”

“Good-night, darling. Sleep well,” but in spite of the endearment she felt miles away from him—or rather she felt that he was miles away from her. What was the matter? Why couldn’t she get close to him?

His deep regular breathing soon told her that he was asleep, but sleep was as far away from her as he was. He must realize that there was some kind of barrier between them and if he loved her at all how could he go to sleep so quickly and peacefully?
...
The truth must be that he didn’t love her. He was bored with her. He didn’t care what she did. He wasn’t jealous of Tony simply because he was no longer in love with her
...
What was she to do? Let him go, or try to win him back? But how could she win him back? There must be a way. She could not give up her happiness without a struggle
...
She must become a different person. That would be Clare’s advice. She must become gay, mysterious, glamorous. But how was she to become all that—specially when her heart was so heavy?
...
But at least he had come back to her. She had been so afraid that he would not come back. Anything was better than that. She had been given another chance and she must seize it. She would make a start that very evening. He would see her at the dinner party to-night as he had never seen her before.

II

There was always rather a rush in the morning because Stephen had a way of going to sleep again after Antonio had called him. Whatever time he had had to get to the office Rose was sure that there would have been a rush.

“I don’t suppose I shall be in much before seven,” he told her as he was drinking his coffee. “I’ve got one of those ghastly City cocktail parties this evening. No women. But I’ll get home as soon as I can
...
Who’s coming to dinner?”

“The Frentons, Robin, the Crawfords, the Cave-Smiths and Tony. That makes ten in all.”

“Do you think you ought to ask Robin quite so much without Gai?” Stephen asked.

“But I only ask him to make up a bridge eight,” Rose replied in some surprise. “It’s so difficult to get an odd man.”

“But we seem to have him every time.”

“He always seems to be available.”

“All the same, I wonder what Gai feels about it.”

“But she doesn’t play, and if I ask her too it’s so dull for her. It means she has to sit and talk to me all the evening and we’ve exhausted all we have to say to each other ages ago
...
Anyway, it isn’t as if they were engaged. I don’t know why they’re not
...”

“Nor do I. Robin’s behaving very badly if you ask me, though I suppose it’s none of my business
...
Well, I must be off.”

He was nearly at the door when Rose suddenly thought of something dreadful. “Tony hasn’t got a dinner jacket,” she exclaimed. They always wore evening clothes for their dinner parties. Rose had copied the habit from Clare.

“Well, ring everybody up and tell them we are not changing,” Stephen said. “Personally I shall be only too glad not to have to change.”

As soon as Stephen had gone Rose rang up Clare to tell her that they would not be changing that evening. “A young friend of mine from the country is coming,” she explained, “and he doesn’t possess a dinner jacket.”

“Oh, how tiresome,” Clare said. “Can’t he hire one? I think it’s so sordid not dressing.”

“Stephen says he will be glad not to change.”

“Oh, well, so be it
...
What time are you expecting us? The usual, or do we have to have high tea for your young man from the country?”

“Of course not. Between half past seven and a quarter to eight?
...
And Clare? I rather feel like having a new dress for this evening. Where do you think
...
?”

“Is it for the young man? Is he the one I saw you with in a taxi that day?”

“No, it’s not for the young man
...”

“For Stephen then? Is he straying already?”

Rose bit her lip. “No, it’s for myself entirely,” she retorted. “But I don’t quite know where to go. It mustn’t be too expensive
...”

“Why on earth not? Stephen can afford it.”

“I don’t think he can.”

“What nonsense, of course he can afford to dress you properly. I’m very glad you’ve brought the matter up. It’s high time you changed your style of dressing. It was all right to dress like a little miss from the country when you first came to London, but you owe it to Stephen now not to look so much like a country bumpkin
...
Come and lunch with me and I’ll take you somewhere afterwards.”

“Where?”

“Never you mind. You wait and see. Leave it to me.” Rose met Clare for lunch at a smart sandwich bar in Berkeley Street, and almost the first thing Clare said to her was: “I’ve been on to Stephen and he’s given me
carte blanche
...

“You mean you’ve been on to him at the bank?” Rose was aghast. “But he hates being rung up about trifles.”

“Does he? He’s never given
me
that impression. Anyway, he couldn’t have been sweeter. He’s delighted that I should have taken you in hand. He said that he had been wanting me to for a long time but hadn’t liked to suggest it himself in case it was too much trouble for me. Silly boy. He ought to have asked me. He should have known that I would be only too delighted
...”

“You shouldn’t have asked him. I wanted it to be a surprise,” Rose said indignantly. Her cheeks were burning with mortification.

“But I had to, my dear,” Clare defended herself. “When you said you couldn’t afford a good dress I had to find out how much we could spend to know what kind of place to take you to, and, as I thought, Stephen can perfectly well afford the best. He has asked me to stock you up
...
But I’m very glad you asked me to-day as you may not be seeing me for some time. I’m probably going to America next week.”

“Oh, how lovely for you. What part?”

“New York. I met a very rich American woman over here the other day who wants me to do up her new apartment for her. A lovely job. I can’t think of anything I should enjoy more, but I shall hate leaving Clive.”

“Can’t he go with you?”

Clare shook her head. “He wouldn’t be able to get away, and anyhow he would be bored stiff in New York. You’ll have to be kind to him while I’m away
...
”

“How long are you going for?”

“That depends
...
And I may not go at all, so don't say anything to anybody. Don’t even tell Stephen. One feels so much a fool if one announces a marvellous new job and then it comes to nothing.”

After lunch they merely crossed over the road and entered the portals of a very grand-looking dress shop decorated in pale grey—pale grey pile carpet, pale grey velvet curtains and crystal chandeliers—and smelling of expensive scent. A stout woman in a grey satin dress and with a rather bogus French accent came forward to meet them. She seemed to know Clare very well and to be expecting them, and she ushered them to two grey velvet armchairs and placed a little table between them with a grey porcelain ashtray on it.

Rose had never seen Clare looking more perfectly at home.

Three mannequins began to parade for them while the stout woman stood beside them making comments on the clothes as they passed by. Every now and again she breathed: “Madame would look divine in that,” and Clare agreed: “Yes, that would suit her to perfection.” But as a matter of fact Rose did not like any of the dresses very much. They were all what she called “fussy”, but they were very much the sort of clothes that Francie would have revelled in.

When the woman was called away for a moment, she whispered to Clare: “Do you get your clothes here?”

“Gracious no, I can’t afford to come here,” Clare replied. “And anyway, these would all be too young for me.”

“I don’t like them very much. Can’t we go where you get your clothes? You are so beautifully dressed always.”

“My style wouldn’t suit you at all, my dear. It’s much too severe. It goes with my white hair. But that black taffeta would suit you down to the ground. The great thing about dressing is to know what
suits
you. Your clothes are all very well, but they don’t suit you—at least they don’t suit your present position. They are much too
ingénue
...
And that blue lace would be divine on you too.”