“Even though you’re Jewish?”
“Yes. Jews can be as snobbish as anyone else.” He would never know the real reason — that Bertie was not Solly’s child.
“Why didn’t you simply tell me what you were doing, and why?”
“I couldn’t.” Remembering those awful days, she felt choked up again and had to take a deep breath to calm herself. “I found it very hard to cut myself off like that; it broke my heart. I couldn’t have done it at all if I’d had to justify myself to you as well.”
Still he would not let her off the hook. “You could have sent me a note.”
Maisie’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. “I couldn’t bring myself to write it.”
At last he seemed to relent. He took a gulp of his wine and averted his eyes from her. “It was awful, not understanding, not knowing if you were even alive.” He was speaking harshly, but now she could see the remembered pain in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said feebly. “I’m so soriy I hurt you. I didn’t want to. I wanted to save you from unhappiness. I did it for love.” As soon as she heard herself say the word “love” she regretted it.
He picked up on it. “Do you love Solly now?” he said abruptly.
“Yes.”
“The two of you seem very settled.”
“The way we live … it isn’t difficult to be contented.”
He had not finished being angry with her. “You’ve got what you always wanted.”
That was a bit hard, but she felt that perhaps she deserved it, so she just nodded.
“What happened to April?”
Maisie hesitated. This was going a bit too far. “You class me with April, then, do you?” she said, feeling hurt.
Somehow that deflated his anger. He smiled ruefully and said: “No, you were never like April. I know that. All the same I’d like to know what became of her. Do you still see her?”
“Yes — discreetly.” April was a neutral topic: talking about her would get them off this dangerously emotional ground. Maisie decided to satisfy his curiosity. “Do you know a place called Nellie’s?”
He lowered his voice. “It’s a brothel.”
She could not restrain herself from asking: “Did you ever go there?”
He looked embarrassed. “Yes, once. It was a fiasco.”
That did not surprise her: she remembered how naive and inexperienced the twenty-year-old Hugh had been. “Well, April now owns the place.”
“Goodness! How did that happen?”
“First she became the mistress of a famous novelist and lived in the prettiest little cottage in Clapham. He tired of her at about the time Nell was thinking about retirement. So April sold the cottage and bought Nell out.”
“Fancy that,” said Hugh. “I’ll never forget Nell. She was the fattest woman I’ve ever seen.”
The table had suddenly gone quiet, and his last sentence was heard by several people nearby. There was general laughter, and someone said: “Who was this fat lady?” Hugh just grinned and made no reply.
After that they stayed off dangerous topics, but Maisie felt subdued and somewhat fragile, as if she had suffered a fall and bruised herself.
When dinner was over and the men had smoked their cigars Kingo announced that he wanted to dance. The drawing room carpet was rolled up and a footman who could play polkas on the piano was summoned and set to work.
Maisie danced with everyone except Hugh, then it was obvious she was avoiding him, so she danced with him; and it was as if six years had rolled back and they were in Cremorne Gardens again. He hardly led her: they seemed instinctively to do the same thing. Maisie could not suppress the disloyal thought that Solly was a clumsy dancer.
After Hugh she took another partner; but then the other men stopped asking her. As ten o’clock turned to eleven and the brandy appeared, convention was abandoned: white ties were loosened, some of the women kicked off their shoes, and Maisie danced every dance with Hugh. She knew she ought to feel guilty, but she had never been much good at guilt: she was enjoying herself and she was not going to stop.
When the piano-playing footman was exhausted, the duchess demanded a breath of air, and maids were sent scurrying for coats so they could all take a turn around the garden. Out in the darkness, Maisie took Hugh’s arm. “The whole world knows what I’ve been doing for the last six years, but what about you?”
“I like America,” he said. “There’s no class system. There are rich and poor, but no aristocracy, no nonsense about rank and protocol. What you’ve done, in marrying Solly and becoming a friend of the highest in the land, is pretty unusual here, and even now I bet you never actually tell the truth about your origins—”
“They have their suspicions, I think — but you’re right, I don’t own up.”
“In America you’d boast about your humble beginnings the way Kingo boasts about his ancestors fighting at the battle of Agincourt.”
She was interested in Hugh, not America. “You haven’t married.”
“No.”
“In Boston … was there a girl you liked?”
“I tried, Maisie,” he said.
Suddenly she wished she had not asked him about this, for she had a premonition that his answer would destroy her happiness; but it was too late, the question had been raised and he was already speaking.
“There were pretty girls in Boston, and pleasant girls, and intelligent girls, and girls who would make wonderful wives and mothers. I paid attention to some of them, and they seemed to like me. But when it came to the point where I had to make a proposal or back off I realized, each time, that what I felt was not enough. It was not what I felt for you. It wasn’t love.”
Now he had said it. “Stop,” Maisie whispered.
“Two or three mothers got rather cross with me, then my reputation spread around, and the girls became wary. They were nice enough to me, but they knew there was something wrong with me, I wasn’t serious, not the marrying kind. Hugh Pilaster, the English banker and breaker of hearts. And if a girl did seem to fall for me, despite my record, I would discourage her. I don’t like to break people’s hearts. I know too well what it feels like.”
Her face was wet with tears, and she was glad of the tactful dark. “I’m sorry,” she said, but she whispered so softly that she could hardly hear her own voice.
“Anyway, I know what’s wrong with me now. I guess I always knew, but the last two days have removed any doubts.”
They had fallen behind the others, and now he stopped and faced her.
She said: “Don’t say it, Hugh, please.”
“I still love you. That’s all.”
It was out, and everything was ruined.
“I think you love me too,” he went on mercilessly. “Don’t you?”
She looked up at him. She could see, reflected in his eyes, the lights of the house across the lawn, but his face was in shadow. He inclined his head and kissed her lips, and she did not turn away. “Salt tears,” he said after a minute. “You do love me. I knew it.” He took a folded handkerchief from his pocket and touched her face gently, mopping the teardrops from her cheeks.
She had to put a stop to this. “We must catch up with the others,” she said. “People will talk.” She turned and began to walk, so that he had to either release her arm or go with her. He went with her.
“I’m surprised that you worry about people talking,” he said. “Your set is famous for not minding anything of that sort.”
She was not really concerned about the others. It was herself she was worried about. She made him walk faster until they rejoined the rest of the party, then she let go of his arm and talked to the duchess.
She was obscurely bothered by Hugh’s saying that the Marlborough Set was famous for its tolerance. It was true, but she wished he hadn’t used the phrase
When they reentered the house the tall clock in the hall was striking midnight. Maisie suddenly felt drained
