The House of Discontent by Esther Wyndham Page B

“and the dress will be much more suitable really when the weather is warmer.”
    “If you give a party at this time of year you never know what sort of evening you are going to get,” Anthony went on. “It may suddenly start to snow and then nobody turns up. It can be awfully disappointing.”
    “That’s right,” Patricia agreed. “Perhaps the whole thing will have to be put off.”
    “But in two or three months’ time, in the spring, we will be absolutely certain of the weather and we’ll have a perfect riot of a time. And you and your cousin can spend the next few weeks planning and arranging it all.”
    Mary’s eyes had lit up and she was smiling.
    “Does that make you happier, darling?” Patricia asked.
    “Oh, yes. It will give me something lovely to think about while I have to be here ... Oh, dear, I wish my head would stop aching.” And Mary closed her eyes.
    “We must leave you now,” Patricia said. “You must try to sleep.” She bent over and kissed her cousin gently and they went quietly out of the room.
    In the passage outside she said to Anthony: “That was kind of you. But will you really do it? I don’t want her to have another disappointment. One feels things so terribly keenly at that age.”
    Anthony lifted one corner of his mouth in a funny little crooked smile that he had. “At that age!” he repeated. “Are you so very much older yourself?”
    Patricia blushed furiously. “Mary is particularly young for her age,” she said. “That is part of her charm and her sweetness.”
    “And you are particularly old, I suppose?” he asked.
    “One grows up quicker when one lives abroad,” she replied primly.
    “So you are frightened that I will disappoint Mary?” he asked.
    “It would be very hard on her.”
    “I’m surprised at you,” he said. “Didn’t you hear me say to her ‘I promise you’?”
    “I’m sorry,” Patricia said.
    “And so you ought to be,” he replied.
    They found Edward waiting for them outside the front door. “There’s nothing more we can do here, is there?” he said. “We’ll come and see her again tomorrow. There’s still time to go to Ludlow if you like.”
    Patricia hesitated. She felt an extraordinary reluctance to part from Anthony. She looked towards him, but his face was impassive. She wished with all her heart that he would say: “Don’t go to Ludlow, but stay here and skate.” He said nothing, however.
    “Sir Anthony did suggest this morning that we might perhaps skate this afternoon,” she began a little timidly.
    “That’s very kind of him, but I’ve quite forgotten how to skate,” Edward said. “I think I’ll go to Ludlow, anyway, but you do just what you like.”
    Patricia glanced at Anthony again quickly, but he wasn’t even looking at her. If only he would repeat his invitation now, if only there had been so much as an invitation in his eyes, but she could tell nothing from his silence and his averted head.
    What should she do?
    She hesitated as long as she could, but Anthony still said nothing and gave no sign, so at last she turned to Edward and said: “All right, let’s go to Ludlow.”
    With a curt “Good-bye,” Anthony turned on his heel and walked quickly away down the avenue. They passed him a few moments later on the motor-bicycle, but he did not look up as they sped by.
    Patricia experienced an extraordinary feeling of desolation as they left him behind, and his slim figure became a speck in the distance. In his presence she had felt alive as never before in her life, and now, not only did she feel a sudden sense of deadness, but also an uncomfortable feeling that she had done something to forfeit his good opinion.
    Nevertheless, when they got to Ludlow she made a great effort to appear natural and gay, for she had been brought up not to show her feelings in public. But the sense of depression inwardly persisted, and she was absent-minded when Edward talked to her because she was still living in retrospect