‘Funny reading that just now,’ Paul went on, ‘because last night I had just such a dream myself. Would you like to hear it?’
Philadelphia stifled the feeling of acute boredom which comes over those about to hear the dreams of others, and said that she would.
‘Well, it was a very odd dream indeed. You and I and Michael were going down to Brighton for the wedding of the Prince Regent to Mrs Fitzherbert. We took first-class return tickets. But when we arrived at the Pavilion, where the wedding was to be held, we found that all the people there were French, and dressed in clothes of the time of Louis XIV, and Michael was very much put out by this. He said to me, loudly and angrily, “This is really too much. These people to begin with are not English, most of them don’t know the Regent, even by sight, and they haven’t had the common decency to dress in the proper clothes of the period. Besides, Sheridan isn’t here, and Mrs Fitzherbert has gone off to the Y.W.C.A. in a rage. I don’t blame her, I must say, but I do feel annoyed that we have been dragged all the way down here, first-class for nothing.” So we all came straight back to London, first-class.
‘Now in the whole of that dream, which was long and quite involved, I was only really impressed by one important fact, which was that we travelled first-class. I woke up with the words “first-class” on my lips, and can still, although the rest of the dream has practically faded from my mind, see most clearly in my imagination the upholstered seats with arms, clean white lace antimacassars and little views of Bath and Wells in our first-class carriage.’
‘Very strange,’ said Philadelphia, burning the pieces of Michael’s letter. Life itself, she thought, as she went upstairs to dress for dinner, was stranger than dreams and far, far more disordered.
18
‘Jerome,’ said Amabelle.
Jerome looked up from his weekly, rather shamefaced, perusal of the Tatler.
‘Yes, Amabelle?’
‘I’ve got some news to tell you.’
‘What’s that, my dear?’
‘I’m going to marry Giles Stanworth.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said Jerome, and buried his face in his hands.
‘Amabelle – it isn’t true, is it?’ he said, a minute later; ‘you don’t really mean it, do you?’
‘Yes, you know, it’s quite true. The banns are going to be called tomorrow in the village church – not in this village, because Giles says the parson here is really a papist, but in Hogrush. It’s jolly exciting, don’t you think? We’re being married at the beginning of February, down here. I shall wear a hat, of course, and we both hope that you’ll give me away, darling.’
‘I shall do no such thing.’
‘Then Bobby will have to.’
‘Are you off your head, Amabelle? I really never heard such scandalous nonsense in all my life. Only think of that poor man dragged up to Portman Square, out of his element, wretched, bored –’
‘I don’t think of it for a moment. Giles would never leave his precious farm, not even for me; besides, I shouldn’t ask him to. I’m looking forward to living in the country myself.’
‘My dear, you are being a little bit childish, aren’t you?’
‘No, darling, not in the least. However, I suppose I had better explain the situation to you quite clearly, then perhaps you’ll see my point of view for once. First of all, then, I happen to be very fond of Giles, and I adore his little boy.’
‘If you’re so anxious to be married, why not marry Michael?’
‘Because Michael bores me into fits, and I don’t like being laughed at by my friends and acquaintances. People always laugh when a woman marries someone fifteen years younger than herself, quite right, too.’
‘I don’t understand why you want to marry at all. Aren’t you happy?’
‘If you would listen to me for one single minute –’
‘Oh, all right, go on.’
‘The real point is, old boy, that I am forty-five. You didn’t know that, did you? Still, there it is. Now what happens to women like me, unattached but not unattractive women, when they are over forty-five? It’s very tricky, I can tell you. They gradually begin to get taken up by boys at Oxford, who rather like being seen about with them and all that, but who really regard them as a cross between a fortune-teller, a nanny, and an interesting historical character who has somehow managed to live on until the present day. I’ve seen it happen over and over again, haven’t you, honestly? And at about fifty-five or so people start saying, “How wonderful Amabelle looks for her age. Of course she must be well over seventy now, why, when I was a girl she was quite an old woman.” It’s an awful, and, as far as I can see, an inevitable fate, and it seems to me more dignified to retire before it overtakes one.’
‘I think you are wrong,’ said Jerome. ‘You have been feeling depressed, I suppose, and no wonder in this ghastly house, but that is no reason for making such a terrible mistake. You’ll be miserable, bored and miserable living down here always. Giles Stanworth is very nice, of course, I think he is charming, but what interests have you in common?’
‘The Fluke, for one. You wouldn’t believe how passionately I am interested in the Fluke. There is another fascinating disease called the staggers too, he tells me; horses have that. Then the rotation of crops –’
‘Can’t you be serious for one minute?’ cried Jerome in exasperation. ‘I see nothing to joke about in the fact that you are jeopardizing your whole future happiness for a crazy idea like this. Look here, Amabelle, if you must marry, marry me.’
‘Darling Jerome, you are sweet. But what would Mrs Nickle say?’ Mrs Nickle had been Jerome’s housekeeper for twenty years. ‘No, no, my dear, that would never do. Besides, strange
