They all appeared to know each other-called each other by Christian names or preposterous nicknames, exchanged quick-fire repartee, not perhaps specially witty, but all bearing the hall-mark of their own particular type and language. They were well dressed, stylish, absolutely sure of themselves.
‘It’s no good. I ought never to have come,’ thought Alison desperately. ‘I’m the most utter, utter outsider among them.’
She was back again by the wall, half hidden by the curtain of a long window, burning with the shame of her own inadequacy. She wondered if her aunt would be unbearably amused and triumphant if she slipped away to the solitary safety of her own room. It would be a terrible hauling down of her flag, of course, but that chilly little room which had seemed so lonely before appeared like a haven of refuge now.
Alison glanced across the room. Aunt Lydia was leaning back in her chair, sipping a drink and smiling up at a tall man beside her. The odd thing was that he wasn’t smiling at all in return, although Aunt Lydia ’s manner verged on ingratiating.
With an interest that was a slight check to her own personal misery, Alison watched him until he turned a little so that she could see him almost full face.
He was older than most of the men there-thirty at least, dark, powerful, and unusually good-looking.
‘Not specially good-tempered,’ thought Alison, who was, without knowing it, quite a shrewd judge of people. ‘Certainly not a "drawing-room man". I wonder why Aunt Lydia ’s making such a fuss of him?’
But perhaps Aunt Lydia was not exactly making a fuss of him, because just then he flushed slightly at something she said, and looked up with an arrogant little lift of his eyebrows, and Alison saw how startlingly light his grey eyes were against the dark skin of his face.
She hadn’t taken ‘First Prize in English Literature’ for nothing, and she thought suddenly, with an odd little feeling of amusement, ‘He has what the Victorian novelists used to call "a flashing eye"!’
But just then someone turned on the radio, someone appeared and whisked away the rugs from the polished floor, and the animated groups began to break up into equally animated couples.
With an instinctive bid for safety, Alison slipped right behind the curtain into the deep embrasure of the window. She didn’t know which would be more awful-to stand about as a perpetually smiling wallflower while everyone else danced, or to be forced to try out what was, after all, only schoolgirl dancing among these incredibly finished young people.
It was cold here by the window, and she shivered in the despised frock. She was conscious of weariness too, after the strain of the last few hours, and there was nowhere to sit down. She stood first on one weary foot and then on the other.
‘A good opportunity for her to get to know the young set,’ Uncle Theodore had said. And ‘just the age to enjoy parties.’ She felt her mouth quiver perilously as she thought of the fiasco it had all been, and clamped her little white teeth down hard on her lower lip. She wouldn’t cry-she wouldn’t.
Through the curtain the sounds of the music came to her and snatches of conversation: then something much more connected as Rosalie and someone else stopped beside the curtain.
‘She seems to have disappeared now,’ Rosalie said.
‘She means me,’ thought Alison, with a nasty prickle down her spine.
‘Does it matter?’ That was the dark-eyed, rather feverish-looking youth who had been paying Rosalie so much attention during the evening.
‘No. Except that I rather wanted to plant Bobbie Ventnor on her. He’s quite tight already, and I’d like to see her cope with him. It would be funny to have him trying out some of his really fruity stories, with her all blushing and shocked in her little white nightie.’
‘I hate her! Oh, I do hate her!’ thought Alison passionately, clenching her hands.
‘Yes-where did she get that funny little thing she’s wearing?’ Rosalie’s companion sounded bored and faintly disgusted.
‘I don’t know. I imagine she made it herself.’ And they both laughed as they moved off again.
‘I must get away,’ Alison thought wildly. ‘I don’t care what Aunt Lydia thinks-I don’t care what anyone thinks. I hate them all. I must get away.’
She peeped round the curtain. It wasn’t so far to the door and the way was fairly clear.
Two seconds… three seconds… and she had slipped through the crowd and gained the comparative quiet of the hall. Her foot was actually on the bottom stair when she heard two girls come laughing along the upper landing. Panic seized her, and she fled across the hall. Wrenching open the nearest door, she slipped inside the room and closed the door behind her.
The room was in darkness except for the firelight which flickered upon rows and rows of books. This must be the library. She would be safe here. None of those cruel, careless people would find anything to interest them in a library.
She groped forward past the dark shapes of chairs and tables, the sobs rising thickly in her throat. Kneeling down on the rug, she spread out her cold hands to the warmth. The tears began to come, and little quivering sounds of grief broke the heavy stillness of the room.
She wasn’t defiant or even hopeful any more. She was lonely and heartsick and humiliated.
‘What is the matter?’
Alison started violently at the sound of the deep, quiet voice. She dashed her tears away with the back of her hand and stared round. A man was sitting quite near her, leaning back in a deep armchair and watching her-the man who had been talking to Aunt Lydia.
He looked neither amused nor specially concerned. He was merely waiting for her reply.
Alison stared down at the rug in silence. But some sort of answer had to be made, so at last she said rather sulkily, ‘It’s-it’s my dress.’
‘Your dress?’ He looked slightly surprised. ‘What’s wrong with your dress? It seems to me like any other dress.’
‘Well, no one else seems to think so. They think it’s like a-a nightdress.’ Alison’s voice quivered again.
‘Suppose you stand up and let me see it properly?’ he said, apparently giving the matter all his grave attention.
Alison stood up, and he stood up too, towering above her in the firelight.
‘It’s longer than the current fashion, of course,’ he said, considering her. ‘But I don’t know that it is any the less attractive for that. After all, "the correct thing" is always merely a matter of period. In fact’-for the first time a slight smile touched his mouth-’you look rather like a little early Victorian heroine.’
‘Do I?’ A slow, pleased smiled lifted the corners of Alison’s mouth. Then she laughed suddenly. ‘Why, how funny! And I thought-’ She stopped abruptly and coloured.
‘What did you think?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ Alison looked a little confused.
‘Please tell me.’
‘I thought just now-in the other room-that you were rather like a Victorian hero.’
‘I? Good God, do I suggest mutton-chop whiskers and valentines?’
‘Oh, no!’ Alison’s laugh was shocked. ‘Only you have- you have what they used to call "a flashing eye".’
‘Indeed!’ He looked extremely astonished and not specially pleased. ‘And pray when did you see me flashing my eyes?’
‘Please don’t be cross.’ Alison touched his arm rather pleadingly, which also seemed to astonish him greatly. ‘It was just that I thought my aunt said something which angered you.’
‘Your aunt?’
‘Yes. Mrs. Leadburn. I’m Alison Earlston, her niece.’
‘Then why haven’t I seen you before?’ he asked abruptly. Alison was surprised to find how pleased she was at the implication that he came to the house often.