Chapter 15
What drinks, dinner and Lady Maud’s assiduous coquetry had done for Dundridge, dancing had undone. In particular her interpretation of the hesitation waltz – Dundridge considered the probability of a slipped disc – while her tango had threatened hernia. All his attempts to get her to do something a little less complicated had been ignored.
“You’re doing splendidly,” she said treading on his toes. “All you need is a little practice.”
“What about something modern?” said Dundridge.
“Modern dancing is so unromantic,” said Maud, changing the record to a quickstep. “There’s no intimacy in it.”
Intimacy was not what Dundridge had in mind. “I think I’ll sit this one out,” he said limping to a chair. But Lady Maud wouldn’t hear of it. She whirled him on to the floor and strode off through a series of half-turns clasping him to her bosom with a grip that brooked no argument. When the record stopped Dundridge put his foot down politely.
“I really think it is time I was off,” he said.
“What? So early? Just one more teeny weeny glass of champers,” said Lady Maud, relapsing rather prematurely into the language of the nursery.
“Oh all right,” said Dundridge choosing the devil of drink to the deep blue sea of the dance floor. They took their glasses through to the conservatory and stood for a moment among the ferns.
“What a wonderful night. Let’s go out on the terrace,” said Lady Maud and took his arm. They leant on the stone balustrade and looked into the darkness of the pinetum.
“All we need now is a lovers’ moon,” Lady Maud murmured and turned to face him. Dundridge looked up into the night sky. It was long past his bedtime and besides not even the champagne could disguise the fact that he was in an ambiguous situation. He had had enough of ambiguous situations lately to last him a lifetime and he certainly didn’t relish the thought of Sir Giles returning home unexpectedly to find him on the terrace drinking champagne with his wife at one o’clock in the morning.
“It looks as if it’s going to rain,” he said to change the topic from lovers’ moons.
“Silly boy,” cooed Lady Maud. “It’s a lovely starlit night.”
“Yes. Well, I really do think I must be getting along,” Dundridge insisted. “It’s been a lovely evening.”
“Oh well if you must go…” They went indoors again.
“Just one more glass…?” Lady Maud said but Dundridge shook his head and limped on down the passage.
“You must look me up again,” said Lady Maud as he climbed into his car. “The sooner the better. It’s been ages since I had so much fun.” She waved goodbye and Dundridge drove off down the drive. He didn’t get very far. There was something dreadfully wrong with the steering. The car seemed to veer to the left all the time and there was a thumping sound. Dundridge stopped and got out and went round to the front.
“Damn,” said Dundridge feeling the flat tyre. He went to the boot and got the jack out. By the time he had jacked the car up and taken the left front wheel off, the lights in the Hall had gone out. He fetched the spare wheel from the boot and bolted it into place. He let the jack down and stowed it away. Then he got back into the car and started the engine and drove off. There was a thumping noise and the car pulled to the left. Dundridge stopped with a curse.
“I must have put the flat tyre on again,” he muttered and got out the jack.
In the Hall Lady Maud switched off the ballroom lights sadly. She had enjoyed the evening and was sorry it had ended so tamely. There had been a moment earlier in the evening when she had thought Dundridge was going to prove amenable to her few charms.
“Men,” she said contemptuously as she undressed and stood looking at herself dispassionately in the mirror. She was not, and she was the first to admit it, a beautiful woman by contemporary standards of beauty but then she didn’t pay much heed to contemporary standards of any sort. The world she lived for had admired substantial things, large women, heavy furniture, healthy appetites and strong feelings. She had no time for the present with its talk of sex, its girlish men and boyish women, and its reducing diets. She longed to be swept off her feet by a strong man who knew the value of bed, board and babies. She wasn’t going to find him in Dundridge. “Silly little goose doesn’t know what he’s missing,” she said, and climbed into bed.
Outside the silly little goose knew only too well what he was missing. An inflated tyre. He had changed the wheel again and had let down the jack only to find that his spare tyre had been flat after all. He got back into the car and tried to think what to do. Nearby something moved heavily through the grass and a night bird called. Dundridge shut the door. He couldn’t sit there all night. He got out of the car and trudged back up the drive to the house and rang the doorbell.
Upstairs Lady Maud climbed out of bed and turned on the light. So the silly little goose had come back after all. He had caught her unprepared. She grabbed a lipstick and daubed her lips hastily, powdered her face and put a dollop of Chanel behind each ear. Finally she changed out of her pyjamas and slid into a see-through nightdress and went downstairs and opened the door.
“I’m sorry to bother you like this but I’m afraid I’ve had a puncture,” said Dundridge nervously. Lady Maud smiled knowingly.
“A puncture?”
“Yes, two as a matter of fact.”
“Two punctures?”
“Yes. Two,” said Dundridge conscious that there was something rather improbable about having two punctures at the same time.
“You had better come in,” said Lady Maud eagerly. Dundridge hesitated.
“If I could just use the phone to call a garage…”
But Lady Maud wouldn’t hear of it. “Of course you can’t,” she said, “it’s far too late for anyone to come out now.” She took his arm and led him into the house and closed the door.
“I’m terribly sorry to be such a nuisance,” said Dundridge but Lady Maud shushed him.
“What a silly boy you are,” she cooed. “Now come upstairs and we’ll see about a bed.”
“Oh really…” Dundridge began but it was no good. She turned and led the way, a perfumed spinnaker, up the marble staircase. Dundridge followed miserably.
“You can have this room,” she said as they stood on the landing and she switched on the light. “Now you go down to the bathroom and have a wash and I’ll make the bed up.”
“The bathroom?” said Dundridge gazing at her astonished. In the dim light of the hall Lady Maud had been a mere if substantial shape but now he could see the full extent of her abundant charms. Her face was extraordinary too. Lady Maud smiled, a crimson gash with teeth. And the perfume!
“It’s down the corridor on the left.”
Dundridge stumbled down the corridor and tried several doors before he found the bathroom. He went inside and locked the door. When he came out he found the corridor in darkness. He groped his way back to the landing and tried to remember which room she had given him. Finally he found one that was open. It was dark inside. Dundridge felt for the switch but it wasn’t where he had expected.
“Is there anyone there?” he whispered but there was no reply. “This must be the room,” he muttered and closed the door. He edged across the room and felt the end of the bed. A faint light came from the window. Dundridge undressed and noticed that Lady Maud’s perfume still lingered heavily on the air. He went across to the window and opened it and then, moving carefully so as not to stub his toes, he went back and got into bed. As he did so he knew there was something terribly wrong. A blast of Chanel No. 5 issued from the bedclothes overpoweringly. So did Lady Maud. Her arms closed round him and with a husky, “Oh you wicked boy,” her mouth descended on his. The next moment Dundridge was engulfed. Things seemed to fold round him, huge hot terrible things, legs, arms, breasts, lips, noses, thighs, bearing him up, entwining him, and bearing him down again in a frenzy of importunate flesh. He floundered frantically while the waves of Lady Maud’s mistaken response broke over him. Only his mind remained untrammelled, his mind and his inhibitions. As he writhed in her arms his thoughts raced to a number of ghastly conclusions. He had chosen the wrong room; she was in love with him; he was in bed with a nymphomaniac; she was providing her husband with grounds for divorce; she was seducing him. There was no question about the last. She was seducing him. Her hands left him in no doubt about that, particularly her left hand. And Dundridge, accustomed to the wholly abstract stimulus of his composite woman, found the inexperience of a real woman – and Lady Maud was both real and inexperienced – hard to put up with.