Anna (60 page)

Lady Yarde put down the smelling-bottle sharply.

“Then of course you must come,” she said. “I never heard of anything so ridiculous as staying away. The only reason we didn't invite the other governesses was that they didn't dance; I remember quite clearly now. You dance, so it's only right you should be there. You can join in the Paul Jones at the end. It doesn't matter how many are on the floor for that.”

There was almost no dance at all. The Honourable Gervase Yarde was thrown when hunting and nearly broke his ankle. He had to be lifted back into the saddle and sat there swearing because his foot hurt him and because only two fields away he could hear the happy excited sound of a perfectly beautiful fox being broken up by the hounds.

He was brought back home and had to sit with his leg up on a stool while his ankle swelled up under its cold compress. Lady Yarde burst into tears when she heard.

“Now there can't be any dance,” she said. “It's spoilt everything. Gervase had better go to bed and we shall have to find some way of putting the people off. It's such a disappointment after all the trouble I've taken.”

Lord Yarde, however, took a different view of the affair.

“No need for it to have happened,” he kept saying. “Gervase was forcing the pace too much. Must have known there were rabbit holes there. Piece of damn' tom-fool riding. Deserved all he got.”

“But the dance,” Lady Yarde said feebly. “What are we to do about the dance.”

“Have it,” Lord Yarde answered briefly. “There isn't time to put anybody off. Do Gervase a lot of good to have to sit by and see other people enjoying themselves. Teach him to take more care of his horse in future.”

In front of the short mirror at the dressing-table, Anna was trying on her dress. It was black and very simple. It couldn't help being simple because it had cost so little. She had gone to the dressmaker who had made the frock for Delia and had asked for the cheapest, the very cheapest, dress that could be made. The request had secretly relieved the dressmaker: she told herself that no woman who had asked for such a thing would be in any position to expose her. And she hurriedly stitched up something in inferior velvet which she hoped would do for this one occasion, this solitary dance to which the little French governess had been so surprisingly invited. She had to admit, however, that the dress suited Anna remarkably well: she had the sort of figure which could carry any clothes.

“And now for my hair,” Anna was saying. “Whatever shall I do about my hair?”

It was still almost as fair as when she had been a girl, the pale golden sheen caught the light and reflected it. At first in Paris she had worn it in the many curls which the tongs of the little Greek hairdresser had left; then in Monte Carlo there had been a coiffeur who had invented new styles every time she had visited him. After that, the convent: she had worn it straight there, straight and cut short. And at Tilliards she had sought somehow to conceal its strange, rather disgraceful shortness, by pinning on a black bow at the back and drawing it up high over her temples.

But to-night she brushed out her hair so that it hung about her face; and she turned her head first this way and then that as she gazed into the mirror.

“I will show them,” she decided, “that I do not always have to look like a governess. I will do my hair to-night to please myself.”

When she had finished she went over to her valise and began searching there. At last she found what she was looking for—a pair of cheap paste ornaments that had once been on a dress. She had kept them because they were pretty.

“How is anyone to know that they are not real?” she asked
herself. “How is any one to know that I am not the richest daughter of the stupidest Earl in all Kent?”

But when she had studied her face a little longer she turned away from the mirror, dissatisfied.

“It's too late,” she admitted. “Too late. I've changed. I shall never be young again. Why did I bother how I did my hair?”

She looked at herself again in the mirror for a moment and then went along the corridor to the gallery of the hall. She paused there looking down. Below her were some dozen gentlemen of the county standing about, stoutish red-faced men with their hair brushed flat and a flower in their buttonholes. They didn't speak; they didn't smile; they simply stood there, avoiding each other and waiting for their wives to emerge from the cloakroom in the vestibule.

“To think,” Anna told herself, “that I bought this evening dress for
them.”

The uselessness, the futility of pretending even for a few hours that she belonged to their world, suddenly overwhelmed her.

“I have only one life,” she kept saying. “And that is with Annette. This dance means nothing to me.”

When she was half-way down the last flight of stairs, Lord Yarde turned and caught sight of her.

“Who's that?” he asked.

“It's Anna,” Lady Yarde told him hurriedly, as though she were trying to cover something up. “I told her that she could come.”

Lord Yarde looked at Anna again and his gaze dwelt for a moment on the pale flame of her hair, on the high sloping shoulders, the slimness of her figure in the close black velvet.

“Good Lord!” he said.

Even Lady Yarde was surprised.

“My dear,” she said to Anna, “Your appearance. You look too … too …”

But the sentence remained unfinished: the arrival of another stoutish red-faced man leading a lady on his arm cut it short for ever.

Anna walked on alone towards the ballroom. As she did so she noticed that the eyes of the gentlemen waiting for their wives followed her curiously. The fact amused her.

“So it
was
for them that I bought this dress,” she thought. “How romantic they must all suddenly be feeling.”

The string band in the gallery was already playing one of Mr. Strauss's waltzes and a few couples were rather self-consciously turning on the empty floor. The men were all big-boned and full-
blooded, and the girls held politely in their arms had the fascinating and uncertain freshness of youth about them. As Anna looked, it was their extreme youth that impressed her.

“I was like that once,” she told herself, and she remembered Rhinehausen again.

Over by the couch at the far end of the ballroom was another group of young people not dancing. In the centre of the group sat Gervase, his damaged ankle—much bound up—thrust out in front of him, and a stick with a rubber ferrule resting against the cushions. The simple fact that he was hurt seemed to excite something in the breast of every young lady, and they crowded round him in admiration. Gervase, his face very red and shining and his short curls oiled till they glistened, was basking in this orgy of popularity: he liked having people brought up to him as though he were royalty. He kept smiling and guffawing and pulling at the lapels of his scarlet jacket.

Anna glanced at him.

“How like an enormous schoolboy he is,” she thought. “A schoolboy in the holidays with no master to correct him.”

Then Delia came running up to her. She was with a thin tall girl who didn't know what to do with her hands. Whilst she was talking she kept clasping and unclasping them, sometimes gripping her right elbow behind her back with her left hand, sometimes raising a small lace handkerchief unnecessarily to her nose. Delia introduced Anna hastily and inaudibly, and then went on with their conversation. They were discussing a horse called Gadfly. Both girls spoke of him—of his height, his colour, his strength, his speed, his intelligence, his gentle nature, his courage—as though something had been added to life simply by knowing Gadfly: it was clear that if such a thing had been possible either of these horse-infatuated young women would have been proud to be his bride.

“She's French,” Delia said suddenly, remembering her manners. “She lives with us.”

The tall thin girl smiled a trifle incredulously.

“Do you like it here?” she asked.

“She rides,” Delia answered for her.

The tall thin girl looked relieved.

“Perhaps you'd like to come and ride with us sometime,” she suggested. “We've got three horses need exercising—they're just eating their heads off. Delia must bring you over to lunch.”

Delia raised herself on her toes and whispered loudly in her companion's ear.

“She's our governess,” she said.

The tall thin girl blushed deeply: she realised that she had blundered.

“I … I'll write to you,” she said vaguely and, her smile fading, she turned away.

It was while Anna was alone that Captain Webb came up to her. He looked very spruce and upright in his dress clothes and there was that shy smile which seemed somehow to be out of place with the closely cropped grey hair. In his buttonhole he was wearing a carnation.

He stood beside her, looking down at his feet and saying nothing. Anna felt sorry for him. He seemed to be so much out of his element somehow.

“Do you like dances?” she asked at last.

Captain Webb cleared his throat.

“Not much in my line,” he replied. “Bit of a duty visit this, you know.”

“But you
should
dance,” Anna told him. “It would be good for you.”

“Too old,” he said briefly.

Anna paused.

“It is really very difficult trying to carry on a conversation with Englishmen,” she thought.

Captain Webb gave no sign of helping her.

“But you still ride,” she said. “Dancing is no more tiring than riding.”

“Still ride!” Captain Webb repeated, and there was something in his voice that made Anna think that she had offended him. “How old do you think I am?” he asked suddenly.

Anna dropped her eyes: she was aware that as soon as she did so Captain Webb plucked up the courage to raise his.

“I hadn't really thought,” she answered. “I should say that you were perhaps—perhaps forty.”

“Forty-six,” Captain Webb said firmly. “Neither more, nor less.”

Anna did not reply but stood instead looking at the dancers. Some of the men who had found their wives were now dancing with them. They swung past, these matrons, hot and a little awkward, seeking to recapture in the music something of their vanished youth. Anna began moving her foot so that the toe showed under the hem of her long skirt.

Then the band stopped, and Captain Webb felt safe again.

“Like some claret cup?” he asked. “I'll go and get it for you?”

Anna shook her head.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I shall just sit here and watch the dancers.”

They stood there in silence for a few moments until the band struck up again. It was a slow waltz, this time specially put on for the older couples. As soon as he heard the first bars Captain Webb bent forward.

“Used to dance this once,” he said. “Didn't know they still played the thing.”

He drew himself up and began smoothing out his waistcoat. Anna looked at him and saw that he was blushing.

“Like to try it?” he asked at last. “Mind you, I shall have to take things carefully. Never any good at reversing.”

He offered her his arm, and they went through into the ballroom together. Captain Webb carried his head high like a bridegroom.

On the floor, however, his confidence temporarily left him. He held her nervously and seemed afraid that somehow the dancing might bring them too close together. Every mistake he made he covered up with a short dry cough.

“Sorry if I was a bit abrupt that day in the wood,” he said. “Been meaning to apologise.”

“Oh, but it was all my fault,” Anna told him. “I shouldn't have been there at all.”

They were crossing over the entrance to the ballroom when Lord and Lady Yarde came in. Lord Yarde was the first to see them. He stopped and gripped Lady Yarde's arm.

“Good Lord,” he said. “Look at Webb.”

Lady Yarde hesitated and then began to apologise.

“Just fancy,” she said. “It's the first time since Polly died.”

And, as she said it, she felt a sudden lump come into her throat when she remembered Captain Webb's one romance and how he had been really rather a handsome young man in his late twenties at the time. The pang was only temporary, however, as she could no longer quite remember what Polly had looked like: all that she could recall was that she came from over Sissinghurst way and rode a big bay hunter on the snaffle.

But it was not only Lord Yarde that had seen Anna dancing: Gervase had been studying her down the whole length of the ballroom.

“Who's the one in black?” he asked at length. “The one with the hair!”

There was no one there who knew her.

“I don't believe those jewels are real,” one of the girls in the group remarked. “I had a look at them as she went past.”

“The hair is,” Gervase answered; and the girl turned away from him, recognising that she had been snubbed. She was very dark herself, and suspected fair hair instinctively.

It was not until Lady Yarde came over to see if his ankle was still hurting that Gervase was able to find out about Anna.

“Oh that,” said Lady Yarde vaguely. “That's Anna. The new governess. She's devoted to Delia. Quite worships the child.”

“She's a damned good dancer,” Gervase answered.

“That's probably because she's French,” his mother answered. “Foreigners always pick up that sort of thing more quickly than we do.” She looked down at his bandaged foot and nodded meaningly. “Now don't try to do anything silly,” she said, “or you may really hurt your ankle. Just you sit there and I'll bring Mrs. Dyson's gal over to you. They've just taken the Abbey, you know. He's something in the City.”

But when Lady Yarde and Mrs. Dyson's gal returned, the band had stopped and the couch was empty. Gervase had got up and had hobbled impressively across to where Anna and Captain Webb were now standing. Captain Webb had taken out his handkerchief and was wiping his forehead vigorously.