The Children's Book

“She looks a little forlorn,” he said.

“I sometimes think she would give anything never to see another work of art again,” said Imogen. “But that isn’t to say she does want anything in particular. She doesn’t talk to me. She doesn’t talk to anyone. She tries to talk to Philip but that isn’t easy. I wish you could help her,” she said, sounding not entirely sincere, “but I truly don’t see how. She’s been dancing, at least, some of the time.”

“I wish your father had come.”

“I don’t.” She opened her mouth to say something further, and closed it again. Her hands tightened on his shoulder. He held her with military firmness, and they turned a corner.

Dorothy was dancing with Humphry. Humphry was possibly the best dancer in the room. He said to her “Let me lead,” and she let him lead, and they began to move as though they were a single creature, swaying and tripping, making tiny chasing and concentrated steps, floating dreamily. His hand was hot and strong in the small of her back: both halves of her body, above and below his hand, moved as he dictated. He went fast—she had the sensation she had when she was a little girl, on roundabouts and helter-skelters. He said

“Well, you’ve been having a good time, young woman.”

“I have.”

“Your dress shows you off. A great success.”

He held her very close. They waltzed towards one of the great, full-length mirrors in the room, framed as though it were a door, in cast-iron painted as trompe-l’oeil sepia-brown marble. The mirrors were angled to give the illusion that the room was infinite, that you could step around an invisible corner into another shining space. It was clear that it was a mirror partly because a Greek or Roman nymph stood on a fat marble pillar with her back to it. She was modestly clutching, in her front, a sculpted flow of drapery, that covered her thighs, but not her bared breasts over which her hands were defensively clasped in an ancient, conventional pose. At the back, oddly, she was entirely naked. Her shoulder blades, fine waist, and rounded buttocks were exposed to the mirror, though not to the room. She distracted Dorothy, as her father whirled her towards the glass. She saw her own pale little face, staring dreamily over his strong shoulder, and her own small, female hand on his arm. She saw her unaccustomed high knot of hair, and the sleek, foxy red of her father. And then, as she turned, she looked back at the mirror, and saw the midnight-blue dress, and her bare back and shoulders, and the powerful hand planted on her waist, on the unaccustomed whalebone strips that shaped her.

“If you go on like this,” said Humphry “you’ll have them fighting over you.”

He said “Perhaps it’s true, what they always say, don’t you think?” She had no idea what he meant.

After the dance, the Todefright Wellwoods drove back to Portman Square, where they were staying with the London Wellwoods. Olive sat in the back of the carriage with Tom. Dorothy sat facing them, and put her head on her father’s shoulder. They didn’t speak much: they were sleepy and thoughtful.

Katharina sent the young people to bed, with a maid carrying milk, iced biscuits, and a small oil lamp with an etched glass shade. Dorothy always had the same bedroom when she came to Portman Square. It was small, and high up, looking out at the back over gardens. It was decorated in Katharina’s taste, in a froth of white muslin, sprigged with pink. The bed was a nest inside prettily swathed curtains. There was a washstand, with bowl and jug decorated with pink rosebuds on a china-blue ground, but no writing desk. Another young woman might have found all this nostalgic femininity charming after the plainness and brightness of Todefright. Dorothy didn’t. But she didn’t mind it, or feel at a loss in it.

She slipped out of her ball dress, and her petticoats—she didn’t need the maid to help, and told her so. Another maid would certainly be unhooking Griselda. She hung the midnight-blue dress neither carefully nor carelessly over a prettily upholstered dumpy chair, dropped her drawers on top of it and put on her plain, voluminous, white cotton nightdress, its bodice pleated by Violet. She thought she would read a little, before she turned out the light. She was trying to read fairytales in German to please Griselda. She was not a born linguist, and was ambivalent about fairytales.

Someone knocked at the door. She thought it would be Griselda, come to talk over the ball, and rather wished she wouldn’t. But she said, come in. It was Griselda’s house and she loved Griselda.

The door opened slowly and silently. It was not Griselda. It was Humphry, her father, in a silk dressing-gown covered with coiling Chinese dragons. He looked around for a chair—both the fat chair and the dressing-table chair were covered with abandoned female garments. He sat down beside his daughter, sinking into her flowery eiderdown, and said

“I thought we might talk about things.”

He was in an aura of whisky. Censorious Dorothy believed that both his wives—as she now thought of them— should do something to stop, or slow down, the whisky-drinking. She said

“I’m tired.”

He put an arm around her shoulder.

“You are such a lovely girl. I never thought you were going to be so lovely. Queen of the Rosebud Garden of Girls. My Dorothy.” Dorothy stiffened.

“There are things I ought to tell you. But I wanted so much to tell you—to tell you”—he stumbled—“how perfectly lovely—”

He breathed hot whisky at her. She shrank back, and he gave her a clumsy push, which unbalanced her. She turned her face into the pillow, and muttered, in a child’s voice, “Go away. Please. Get off.”

And then he put his hand, unequivocally, inside the white cotton folds and touched naked flesh. Dorothy ceased to be timid and confused, and became very angry.

“Don’t do that. Or I’ll scream. Or ring the bell.”

“I only want to play with you a bit. My darling.”

His face wavered over hers. One hand worked inside her nightdress. One came over her mouth. Dorothy bit it. She bit with all her strength and she was strong. She bit the soft cushion below the thumb, and her mouth filled with blood. She shook the hand in her teeth like a mongoose with a snake.

“Bitch,” said Humphry. He sat up. His hand was pouring blood on the white frilled bedclothes. He said “Have you got a hankie? We must stop this. That hurt.”

“It was meant to. How dare you? Here’s a hankie. It’s far too small. Girls have stupid hankies. Go and get the hand towel. Then I’ll tear something up and make a bandage. I haven’t got much I can