I knew what was in her mind, of course. She was planning dinner parties to which she was going to invite eligible young men. I found this a trifle embarrassing. I did not want to be put up for auction, I told her.
“What nonsense!” she replied. “You want to see a bit of life, that’s all.”
She was delighted when Edward suggested we should go to London.
He wrote: “Richard Dorrington would like you and Violetta, and Sir Robert, if he could come, of course, to spend a week with them in London. You will want to see our house. It is a little topsy-turvy at the moment because we haven’t properly settled in. You could stay with us, though, for a time. Mary Grace is going to write to you.”
“I suppose they feel they ought to ask us because Richard stayed here,” I said.
“It is a nice, friendly gesture,” replied my mother. “I’d like to go. I am not sure about your father.”
My brother Robert had gone back to school. It was a constant complaint of his that, because of school, he had to miss so many interesting things which the rest of the family could do.
“You’ll emerge from it in time,” I told him. “It has happened to all of us.”
I was rather pleased by the prospect of going to London; and it turned out to be interesting to visit the Dorrington family.
Mrs. Dorrington was charming, and she and my mother got along very well. I liked Mary Grace. She was slightly younger than Richard—a rather quiet, shy girl whose main occupation seemed to be to look after her mother.
The house was large, well staffed, and comfortable. It faced a quiet garden square and was characteristic of many in the area.
Edward’s newly acquired house was not very far away—in a row of houses in a tree-lined street. He and Gretchen seemed very happy and contented with each other, though at times I saw shadows in Gretchen’s eyes and guessed the reason. She would be thinking of her family in Germany. As far as I could gather, the situation had not changed there.
Richard Dorrington was very eager that we should enjoy our visit. He had arranged trips to the theater, and we usually had supper afterwards in a small restaurant near Leicester Square which was frequented by theatrical people. It was exciting after life in the country.
Richard and Edward were working during the day and my mother and I were able to make full use of the shopping facilities. Our purchases were frequently for the coming baby. Mary Grace was very interested and sometimes accompanied us.
She and I went to an exhibition of miniatures in one of the museums and I realized at once that she was quite knowledgeable about the subject. Her shyness dropped from her and she became enthusiastic and eloquent.
I was pleased to see her interest and listened intently; she went on talking more than she ever had before and revealed to me that she herself painted.
“Only a little,” she added, “and not very well. But…it is quite absorbing.”
I said I should like to see some of her work, and she shrank visibly.
“Oh, it’s no good,” she said.
“I’d like to see it all the same. Please show me.”
She went on: “There are some people one sees and knows immediately that one wants to paint them. There is something about them.”
“You mean they are beautiful.”
“Well, not necessarily conventionally beautiful. But there is something…I should like to paint you.”
I was astonished and, I admit, flattered.
I laughed and said: “My twin sister Dorabella would make a very good picture. We are alike in a way but she is different. She is vital and very attractive. I wish you could see her. You’d want to paint her. She is going to have a baby quite soon. Perhaps after it is born you could paint her. I am sure she would be a better subject than I.”
Mary Grace said she liked to feel that special urge to paint before she did so. So far no one had sat for her. She saw a face she liked, sketched it from memory, and then worked on it. She made life-size sketches and then got down to the intricate work.
“All right then,” I said. “You can do some rough sketches of me.”
“Oh, will you let me? Don’t tell anyone.”
“It is our secret.”
The next day I went to her room, and she made the sketches, but she would not show them to me. She did, however, show me some of the work she had done. There were several miniatures in watercolors. I thought they were charming and told her so. She was flushed with pleasure. I had rarely seen her look so pleased.
My mother said: “I am so glad you get on well with Mary Grace. She seems to like your company very much.”
“She is a nice girl,” I said, “but she is too self-effacing.”
“Not like her brother. What she needs is someone to bring her out of herself.”
That evening we went to the opera. It was wonderful to be in Covent Garden. The opera was La Traviata. Richard had known that it would be performed that evening and he had gone to great trouble to procure the tickets. From the moment the curtain went up on a scene of Fragonard-like elegance and Violetta was greeting her guests, it was pure enchantment.
We had a supper afterwards in a restaurant near the Opera House and we were quite hilarious, and much play was made of my name, which was the same as the heroine’s.
“There,” said Edward, “the resemblance ends.”
My mother said: “People laughed at me when I gave her the name, but I don’t regret it one little bit. I think it is beautiful…and don’t you think it suits her?”
They all agreed that it did.
“And,” I said, “Dorabella had the greater burden to bear.”
“Dorabella,” said Richard. “That’s beautiful, too. What a pity she is not with us here tonight.”
“I shall give her a detailed account of the evening when we meet,” I said.
It was late when we arrived home. It had been a wonderful evening. I was thinking about Dorabella, who would have loved to share in it—and I found myself wondering afresh how she would fit into life in Cornwall.
Next morning my mother said to me: “Wasn’t it a wonderful evening? I think Richard is delightful.”
“Yes,” I said. “He is very thoughtful.”
“It was so good of him to plan the opera. He said it was Traviata that made him determined to go…your being Violetta, of course.”
“The similarity ends with the name, as Edward pointed out.”
“I should hope so,” said my mother. “I should hate to think of you leading that sort of life and fading away before your time.”
I laughed and she said: “Do you know what is coming up soon? I’d almost forgotten it with all this excitement about the baby. Your birthday.”
“Of course…next month. I haven’t got Dorabella’s present yet.”
“Nor I. What would you like?”
“I’ll have to think.”
“We’ll get it while we are in London. We’ll go and look tomorrow. But think about it.”
“I will.”
There was a dinner party that night. The Dorringtons had invited a lawyer and his wife with their newly married daughter and her husband.
The conversation at dinner was mainly about the situation in Europe. The elderly lawyer said he did not like the way things were going.
“The alliance between the Italian and German dictators is an unholy one, I reckon,” he said.
“We should not have stood by while Italy took Abyssinia,” said Richard.
“What could we have done?” asked Edward. “Did we want to go to war?”
“If all the states of Europe with America had stood together against it and imposed sanctions, Mussolini could not have gone on.”
“Too late now,” said the lawyer.
I glanced at Gretchen. She was looking uneasy, as she always did when the politics of Europe were discussed. I wished they would change the subject.