Читать книгу East Is Always East - Pamela Wynne - Страница 10

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John Maxwell had taken many more women out to dinner than the head steward at his Club thought he had. Only that they had not been the sort of women that he would take to his Club. He knew exactly how to make a woman feel happy and at her very best when she was taken out. When at last, at about three minutes before half-past six, Mrs. Metcalfe stood in the hall of 129 Ferndale Road he was also there ready and waiting for her.

“I’m early, I know,” Mrs. Metcalfe began to speak before she had finished coming down the stairs. “But I was so dreadfully afraid that my clock might be wrong.”

“You’re not in the least early. This clock is always wrong,” said John promptly and untruthfully. The large round clock that had kept perfect time for at least twenty years stared spikily at John as though it would gladly have stabbed him with the long hand that was pointing towards him and that registered exactly three minutes to the half hour.

“The car is here and waiting,” he went on. For one ridiculous moment John had been so terribly afraid that it might not have been. He loved Mrs. Metcalfe’s youthful eagerness and had a ridiculous longing that nothing should happen to distress it.

“A car! how lovely!” Mrs. Metcalfe really did look very nice. Her small face was sheltered and softened by the high enveloping collar of her fur coat. She had darkened her eyebrows a little and also her eyelashes. Both looked softer and more luxuriant because of it. She had added a little rouge to her rather pale face. This anxious making-up had taken more than half an hour. Mrs. Metcalfe had stared into her looking-glass until she felt as if her face belonged to somebody else. Too much make-up was so ghastly. But a little made you look nicer, especially if you were dining somewhere where the lights were not shaded. Men sometimes did not think about that. But she would not touch her lips. She had always hated that. Besides.... And then Mrs. Metcalfe crushed down the thought that would come, however much she tried not to let it. Of course, though, he never would. He wouldn’t want to, to begin with.

“Yes, I always have a car when I go out for the evening like this. It makes it ever so much more comfortable,” said John. By now they were going down the steps. The page-boy ran on ahead of them and excitedly wrenched open the nice shiny door of the Daimler. He knew Mr. Maxwell very well indeed; he gave him foreign postage stamps whenever he happened to have them.

“The Arts and Services Club,” said John, standing on the pavement and speaking to the chauffeur. But he had taken quite a minute to settle Mrs. Metcalfe comfortably into her seat first. He knew exactly how to do it, too. Mrs. Metcalfe gave a little excited gasp as he drew himself out again backwards and spoke to the chauffeur, and then got in again.

“Comfortable?” John was smiling. He looked very nice in his evening dress with the white silk scarf tucked round his neck. His thin black overcoat was just right. “I hope you don’t mind me without a hat,” he said.

“Oh no, I like it,” said Mrs. Metcalfe. A child going to its first pantomime could not have been more excited than she was then. She stared out like a child as the car steered its smooth way along Ferndale Road and out into Queen’s Gate.... Along past Harrods’, Woolland’s and Hyde Park Corner. Crowds of people getting in and out of omnibuses. Poor things, thought Mrs. Metcalfe, snuggled in her corner and knowing that when she got out of the car her dress would be right and that she wouldn’t have to tug surreptitiously at it because it was too short somewhere, or anything like that.

“You know we really are rather early. I think we’ll go for a little drive first,” said John. He blew through the speaking-tube and the chauffeur slowed down and slanted his head a little to the left. He nodded twice at John’s briefly spoken order and did an elaborate manœuvre round the Royal Artillery Memorial outside St. George’s Hospital. Then he slid into the Park with a deep melodious blast from his horn.

“We’ll waste time by going round Regent’s Park,” said John. “At least, we won’t waste it, because I’ve got something to say to you.” During the ten minutes’ drive from Ferndale Road John had been thinking very hard. In a week from now Mrs. Metcalfe was sailing for India. In a little more than twelve hours from now her daughters would be back again. Conflicting claims were often very urgent with a woman of this type, especially when they clashed with her inclinations. He had better not waste any more time.

“Look here,” he said, and he cleared his throat a little as he spoke. “I want to tell you something. Give me your nice little hand. No, don’t give it to me, I can find it for myself,” said John, slipping his hand under the soft plush rug.

“What ... ?” Mrs. Metcalfe’s voice failed in her throat.

“Why, I love you,” said John. “Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous when I have known you for so short a time. But I suppose it is one of those cases when time doesn’t matter. You’ve always belonged to me, I expect: at least, I feel as if you had. Well, what about it?” he ended tenderly, smiling at her look of alarm.

“I don’t feel as if I ...” Mrs. Metcalfe, her hand quivering in the strong one that held it, gasped.

“I know. I know it must be a fearful shock to you,” said John suddenly. “How could it fail to be? You see, I’ve not led up to it at all: I thought it better not to, somehow.”

“The girls ...” quavered Mrs. Metcalfe.

“I’m not talking about the girls, I’m talking about you and me,” said John quietly. “The girls will come presently: of course, they’ll have to, I know that. But at the moment you and I are the more important. Do you love me? If you don’t, of course it’s hopeless. But if you do....”

“I do,” said Mrs. Metcalfe instantly.

“Thank God for that!” said John soberly. Then after a little pause: “I thought it got dark earlier in September,” he said discontentedly, and he turned from his quiet contemplation of Mrs. Metcalfe’s illumined face to stare impatiently out of the window.

“No, not till about seven,” said Mrs. Metcalfe tremulously.

“Bother!” said John. And then he turned to her. “Now we can,” he said. “It’s deserted here, thank goodness.”

“Oh no, wait!” gasped Mrs. Metcalfe. Her face was flushing and paling. “I’ve always felt there was something so desperate about a kiss,” she said. “I can’t—yet.”

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” John could have kicked himself for his crude stupidity.

“No, I’m so frightfully stupid,” said Mrs. Metcalfe, her hand trembling in his.

“You’re not in the least stupid. I am,” said John. He blew through the speaking-tube again. The chauffeur turned round and nodded, then headed for the Club.

“We’ll have a lovely dinner,” he said. “And not speak of this again, if you’d rather not, until we’re on our way home. I brought you out to enjoy yourself, I’m not going to spoil it all for you by worrying you. Better?”

“I never was anything but quite well and blissfully happy,” said Mrs. Metcalfe frankly. “It’s because of that. It’s—it’s too much, somehow. It’s not that I don’t want you to kiss me,” stammered Mrs. Metcalfe. “It’s only that I feel when you do I shall ...”

“I know, and thank God you do feel like that,” said John abruptly. “I understand absolutely. And now here we are.” He drew her hand out from under the rug. “If I kissed this you wouldn’t go absolutely off the deep end, would you?” he twinkled. He held her hand a little below his mouth.

“Someone in that omnibus will see,” said Mrs. Metcalfe tremulously.

“Let them: it will do them good,” said John mischievously. He lifted her prisoned hand to his mouth and turning it so that the soft palm curved upwards he buried his lips for a moment in it. And then he sighed and let it go again. “The Club,” he said. “Just in time.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Metcalfe had shrunk further back into her corner and was staring at him with eyes that were suddenly very bright indeed.

“I won’t promise to behave quite so well on my way back from the theatre,” said John briefly, as the car slid into the kerb and the minute page-boy came dashing down the Club steps.

“No?” and then Mrs. Metcalfe suddenly became speechless. She could not have said anything else if she had had to do so. And she hadn’t. John was already helping her out of the car and shepherding her up the steps with a careful hand on her arm. He showed her where to go and leave her coat, handing her over to another chubby page-boy for her final directions. And then he went off himself to hang up his own coat and brush his hair. It needed it, surely, thought John, passing a quick hand over the shining neatness of his head and then glancing at himself in the glass and seeing that it didn’t need it after all.