Leslie Hartley - The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

Yours once, and in a sense still yours,

Marion’s eyes slid from the letter to the chair beside her where lay mask and domino, ready to put on. She did not feel the irony of their presence; she did not think about them; she was experiencing an immense relief—a relief that always came after reading Harry’s letter. When she thought about it it appalled her; when she read it it seemed much less hostile, flattering almost; a testimonial from a wounded and disappointed but still adoring man. She lay down again, and in a moment was asleep.

Soon after ten o’clock the gentlemen followed the ladies into the long drawing-room; it looked unfamiliar even to Jack Manning, stripped of furniture except for a thin lining of gilt chairs. So far everything had gone off splendidly; dinner, augmented by the presence of half a dozen neighbours, had been a great success; but now everyone, including the host and hostess, was a little uncertain what to do next. The zero hour was approaching; the cotillon was supposed to start at eleven and go on till twelve, when the serious dancing would begin; but guests motoring from a distance might arrive at any time. It would spoil the fun of the thing to let the masked and the unmasked meet before the cotillon started; but how could they be kept apart? To preserve the illusion of secrecy Mrs. Manning had asked them to announce themselves at the head of the staircase, in tones sufficiently discreet to be heard by her alone. Knowing how fallible are human plans, she had left in the cloakroom a small supply of masks for those men who, she knew, would forget to bring them. She thought her arrangements were proof against mischance, but she was by no means sure; and as she looked about the room and saw the members of the dinner-party stealing furtive glances at the clock, or plunging into frantic and short-lived conversations, she began to share their uneasiness.

‘I think,’ she said, after one or two unsuccessful efforts to gain the ear of the company, ‘I think you had all better go and disguise yourselves, before anyone comes and finds you in your natural state.’ The guests tittered nervously at this pleasantry, then with signs of relief upon their faces they began to file out, some by one door, some by the other, according as the direction of their own rooms took them. The long gallery (as it was sometimes magniloquently described) stood empty and expectant.

‘There,’ breathed Mrs. Manning, ‘would you have recognized that parlour bandit as Sir Joseph Dickinson?’

‘No,’ said her husband, ‘I wouldn’t have believed a mask and a domino could make such a difference. Except for a few of the men, I hardly recognized anyone.’

‘You’re like Marion; she told me she often cuts her best friends in the street.’

‘I dare say that’s a gift she’s grateful for.’

‘Jack! You really mustn’t. Didn’t she look lovely to-night! What a pity she has to wear a mask, even for an hour!’

Her husband grunted.

‘I told Colin Chillingworth she was to be here: you know he’s always wanted to see her. He is such a nice old man, so considerate—the manners of the older generation.’

‘Why, because he wants to see Marion?’

‘No, idiot! But he had asked me if he might bring a guest——’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t remember the man’s name, but he has a bilious attack or something, and can’t come, and Colin apologized profusely for not letting us know: his telephone is out of order, he said.’

‘Very civil of him. How many are we then, all told?’

‘Seventy-eight; we should have been seventy-nine.’

‘Anyone else to come?’

‘I’ll just ask Jackson.’

The butler was standing half-way down the stairs. He confirmed Mrs. Manning’s estimate. ‘That’s right, Madam; there were twenty-two at dinner and fifty-six have come in since.’

‘Good staff-work,’ said her husband. ‘Now we must dash off and put on our little masks.’

They were hurrying away when Mrs. Manning called over her shoulder: ‘You’ll see that the fires are kept up, Jackson?’

‘Oh, yes, Madam,’ he replied. ‘It’s very warm in there.’

It was. Marion, coming into the ballroom about eleven o’clock was met by a wave of heat, comforting and sustaining. She moved about among the throng, slightly dazed, it is true, but self-confident and elated. As she expected, she could not put a name to many of the people who kept crossing her restricted line of vision, but she was intensely aware of their eyes—dark, watchful but otherwise expressionless eyes, framed in black. She welcomed their direct regard. On all sides she heard conversation and laughter, especially laughter; little trills and screams of delight at identities disclosed; voices expressing bewilderment and polite despair—‘I’m very stupid, I really cannot imagine who you are,’ gruff rumbling voices, and high falsetto squeaks, obviously disguised. Marion found herself a little impatient of this childishness. When people recognized her, as they often did (her mask was as much a decoration as a concealment) she smiled with her lips but did not try to identify them in return. She felt faintly scornful of the women who were only interesting provided you did not know who they were. She looked forward to the moment when the real business of the evening would begin.

But now the band in the alcove between the two doors had struck up, and a touch on her arm warned her that she was wanted for a figure. Her partner was a raw youth, nice enough in his way, eager, good-natured and jaunty, like a terrier dog. He was not a type she cared for, and she longed to give him the slip.

The opportunity came. Standing on a chair, rather like the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour, she held aloft a lighted candle. Below her seethed a small group of masked males, leaping like salmon, for the first to blow the candle out would have the privilege of dancing with the torch-bearer. Among them was her partner; he jumped higher than the rest, as she feared he would; but each time she saw his Triton-like mouth soaring up she forestalled his agility and moved the candle out of his reach. Her arm began to tire; and the pack, foiled so often, began to relax their efforts. She must do something quickly. Espying her host among the competitors, she shamelessly brought the candle down to the level of his mouth.

‘Nice of you,’ he said, when, having danced a few turns, they were sitting side by side. ‘I was glad of that bit of exercise.’

‘Why, do you feel cold?’

‘A little. Don’t you?’

Marion considered. ‘Perhaps I do.’

‘Funny thing,’ said her host, ‘fires seem to be blazing away all right, and it was too hot ten minutes ago.’

Their eyes travelled inquiringly round the room. ‘Why,’ exclaimed Manning, ‘no wonder we’re cold; there’s a window open.’

As he spoke, a gust of wind blew the heavy curtains inwards, and a drift of snow came after them.

‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said. I’ll soon stop that.’

She heard the sash slam, and in a few moments he was back at her side.

‘Now who on earth can have done it?’ he demanded, still gasping from contact with the cold air. ‘The window was wide open!’

‘Wide enough to let anyone in?’

‘Quite.’

‘How many of us ought there to be?’ asked Marion. ‘I’m sure you don’t know.’

‘I do—there are——’

‘Don’t tell me, let’s count. I’ll race you.’

They were both so absorbed in their calculations that the leaders of the cotillon, coming round armed with favours for the next figure, dropped into their laps a fan and a pocket book and passed on unnoticed.

‘Well, what do you make it?’ they cried almost in unison.

‘Seventy-nine,’ said Marion. ‘And you?’