Albert, with his looks, talents and new-found fame, would soon, she thought, become the centre of that semi-artistic social set which is so much to the fore in London. He would be courted and flattered, his opinions accepted, and his presence eagerly sought after: while she, instead of being his one real friend, the guiding star of his life, would become its rather dreary background. She imagined herself growing daily uglier and more boring. People would say: ‘Yes, poor boy, he married her before he had met any other women. He must be regretting it now that it’s too late.’
Jane, who at all times was inclined to take an exaggerated view of things, and whose nerves had been very much on edge since the fire in Scotland, was now incapable of thinking calmly or she would have realized that a few press notices, however favourable, and a commission from Sir Isaac Manuel, although very flattering to a young artist, do not in themselves constitute fame. She had a sort of wild vision of Albert as the pivot of public attention, already too busy being flattered and adulated to speak to her for more than a minute on the telephone. She imagined herself arriving at the Chelsea Galleries for their luncheon appointment and finding that he had forgotten all about her and gone off with some art critic and his wife instead.
At last Jane believed that all these things were quite true, and by the time she had finished dressing she was in a furious rage with Albert. Unable to contain herself, she wrote to him:
Darling Albert,
I have been thinking about you and me, and I can see now that we should never be happy together. You have your work, and now this tremendous success has come you won’t be wanting me as well, and I think it better from every point of view to break off our engagement, so good-bye, darling Albert, and please don’t try to see me any more as I couldn’t bear it.
Jane.
Quickly, for fear she should change her mind, she gave this note to the chauffeur and told him to take it round at once to Mr Buggins’s house.
She then went back to her bedroom and cried on the bed. She cried at first because her nerves were in a really bad state. After about half an hour she was crying for rage because Albert had not come round to see her or at least telephoned; but soon she was beyond tears, and her heart was broken.
‘If he loved me he wouldn’t let me go like that. This silence can only mean that he accepts: that the engagement is really broken off. Oh, God! how can I bear it? I can’t go on living! I shall have to kill myself.’
The telephone-bell rang and Jane, with a beating heart, took off the receiver. ‘This must be he!’ It was her mother’s sister asking what she wanted for a wedding present.
‘China,’ said Jane feverishly, ‘china! china! china! Any sort of china! Thank you so much, Aunt Virginia.’
After this she felt that she had reached depths of despair which she did not even know to exist before. She sat in a sort of coma, and when the telephone-bell rang again, she knew that it could not be Albert.
But it was.
‘Darling, Jane, it’s a quarter-past one. Have I got to wait here for ever?’
‘Oh! is it really so late? Didn’t you get my note, Albert?’
‘No, what note? Can’t you come, then?’
‘Yes, in a moment. I wrote to say I should be late, but I won’t be long now.’
‘Well, hurry!’
‘Yes, sweetest. Oh, I do love you!’
Jane rang up Mr Buggins.
‘If there’s a note from me to Albert will you be an angel and burn it? Thank you so much. Yes, isn’t it splendid! No. I’ve not seen him yet. We’re lunching together so I must fly.’
CHRISTMAS PUDDING
TO ROBERT BYRON
Prologue
Four o’clock on the first of November, a dark and foggy day. Sixteen characters in search of an author.
Paul Fotheringay sat in his Ebury Street lodgings looking at the presentation copies of his book, Crazy Capers, which had just arrived by post. He thought of the lonely evening ahead of him and wondered whether he should telephone to some of his friends, but decided that it would be of little use. They would all be doing things by now. He also thought of the wonderful energy of other people, of how they not only had the energy to do things all day but also to make arrangements and plans for these things which they did. It was as much as he could manage to do the things, he knew that he would never be able to make the plans as well. He continued sitting alone.
Walter Monteath was playing bridge with three people all much richer than himself. He was playing for more than he could afford to lose and was winning steadily.
Sally Monteath was trying on a dress for which, unless a miracle happened, she would never be able to pay. She looked very pretty in it.
Marcella Bracket was ringing up a young man and hinting, rather broadly, that he should take her out that evening.
Amabelle Fortescue was arranging her dinner-table. She wondered whether to put a divorced husband next to his first wife, and decided that it would be a good plan; they always got on famously with each other now that this was no longer a necessary or even a desirable state of things.
Jerome Field slept in his office.
Miss Monteath, nameless as yet, slept in her pram.
Bobby Bobbin, at Eton, was writing a note to an
