Paula Marshall - Jack Compton's Luck

Aunt Sue, who had privately decided that Henry would be just the thing for Lacey, even if he were a few years younger than she, was somewhat put out by this curt dismissal of him and even more by Anna’s unwanted praise of Jack, but she could not say so.

‘Mind you,’ continued Anna, ‘it’s some time since a Duke, or his heir, married an American heiress. Are you acquainted with Miss Cornelia Vanderbilt? I understand that she is going to marry the heir to the Amherst barony shortly. I hear that a fortune is to be spent on the day of the wedding. Pity they’ve not got better things to do with their dollars—if you’ll forgive me for saying so.’

Aunt Sue didn’t want to forgive her but, knowing that Mrs Harley was a powerful member of high society despite having no title before her name except a mere Honourable, which was a nothing of a thing since it was never used in public, had to grin and bear her freely offered opinions in silence.

Fortunately for her peace of mind and her hopes of her niece making a grand marriage, Lacey’s next partner arrived early in order to claim her for the waltz. He had the good fortune to be none other than Peregrine, Viscount Harcourt, the heir to a Marquess who had managed to hold on to his money and estates despite the depredations of the recent war.

That Lacey, as she later told her aunt, found him a dull stick after Jack, was not to the point. Aunt Sue was determined to press her case and prove that in the marriage stakes Miss Lacey Chancellor, whose mother had been one of New York’s Hoyts, was an even better bet than Cornelia Vanderbilt!

That being so, it was a pity that Mrs Harley continued to support Jack’s claim to be Lacey’s suitor all the time that Peregrine and Lacey were dancing a sedate waltz. The only thing which gave her any relief from her worries was that Jack did not return to trouble them. He had, according to Peregrine—who was also distantly related to him—left early, saying that he had to make a final visit to the solicitors early the next morning and had asked Perry to present his regards to his aunt, Miss Hoyt and to Lacey, and his pleasure that he would be seeing them again so soon.

‘Off to Wembley tomorrow afternoon, I gather, with Richard Chancellor’s party,’ he finished. ‘I shall be taking the motor along, too, and will have the pleasure of meeting you all there.’

After that, Lacey’s evening was a dull one. She wondered a little why Jack had not come to say farewell to them in person, but decided that he probably had his reasons. She was not wrong. Jack could see quite plainly that he was something of a red rag to a bull where Aunt Sue was concerned and that it would be better not to inflict himself on her overmuch—particularly since, against all the odds, he was going to spend the whole of the next afternoon with her and Lacey.

Early the following morning Jack was speculating about what, from his limited wardrobe, he ought to wear for the expedition to Wembley when the lodging housemaid came to tell him that he was wanted on the telephone.

It was Will. After a few short enquiries as to what Jack was up to, Will said, ‘I was under the impression that you would be coming home yesterday. Have your plans altered?’

‘Well, that was my original intention, but something came up.’

The something, of course, was Lacey, but Jack felt that he could scarcely ramble on about that on the telephone and, besides, Will might not think it a sufficiently good explanation for his having postponed his return. ‘Is there any particular reason why you want me back?’ he added, because he thought Will sounded harassed.

‘Actually, yes. I could do with you here as soon as possible. I don’t wish to discuss the matter over the phone, but if you could manage to return tomorrow I should be exceedingly grateful.’

‘Oh, I can easily arrange that. I have a final visit to the lawyers this morning. This afternoon I am making up one of Richard Chancellor’s party on a visit to the Wembley Exhibition.’

‘Now, I do envy you that, and Robbie will, too. I feel a cur for asking you to cut your London visit short since you seem to be seeing life a little, but needs must. Give my best regards to Richard. I haven’t seen him since before the war. I hear that he’s done well for himself.’

There was something wistful in Will’s voice. Unlike George, all his hopes for the future had been dashed by the War.

‘I’ll try to find Robbie a souvenir. Give him my love.’

He put the phone back on the wall, wondering what it was that had made Will, who rarely used the telephone, ring him. Well, he would find out soon enough tomorrow. Today, though, was to be devoted to the law and to Wembley.

Fortunately for Jack, and the others, the weather was good that afternoon and the company was better—even Aunt Sue was being civil to him. She had, rather sensibly, decided that to oppose Jack’s interest in Lacey so decisively was merely encouraging her headstrong niece to go on seeing him. If she said nothing, this squib of an affair might burn itself out.

Richard, whose party it nominally was, apologised for not accompanying them—something important had come up, he said, and his cousin George would take over as host.

The British Empire Exhibition was the official name for the jamboree they were attending—George Chancellor’s description of it. ‘It’s the twentieth century’s version of the Great Exhibition of 1851,’ he explained cheerfully to his hearers.

There were, among other exciting things, an Ashanti village, a collection of animals from South Africa, native dancing and something else, not perhaps strictly part of the Empire, but allied to its glory: a replica of Tutankhamen’s tomb, which included a superb gold life-size figure of the boy Pharaoh himself.

Jack and Lacey stood before it in wonderment. Lacey said, ‘It makes me feel humble to think that all those years ago human beings could create something so beautiful. What have we to show which is equally fine?’

‘A motor car,’ suggested Jack, not quite seriously, ‘or an aeroplane? The Pharaohs weren’t up to them.’ But he knew what she meant, and they both appreciated the awe which Howard Carter must have felt when he rolled back the linen shroud which had covered the effigy and, after three thousand years, revealed to himself, and ultimately to the world, one of the glories of the long-dead past.

George Chancellor, and the others of the party, also stood, awed, before the golden and blue marvel. Finally, when they moved away, he murmured, ‘I know the emphasis of this exhibition is really on trade, and as a civil service flunkey I ought to appreciate that, but, to me, this beats everything.’

His hearers nodded. If, for Jack, the emphasis of their expedition was on Lacey, as well as the wonders of the Exhibition itself—for who knew when he might meet her again?—to see Tutankhamen’s effigy was an experience also never to be forgotten. After that the Palace of Industry and even the Burmese pagodas, beautiful though they were, took second place.

Somehow, in the crowds, Lacey and Jack managed to escape from the others, avoiding Aunt Sue’s vigilant eye, and seat themselves not far from where the Battle of Zeebrugge was being re-enacted.

‘I now know what the sentimental novelists mean when they have their hero and heroine say, “Alone at last”,’ remarked Lacey.

‘I second that with some enthusiasm,’ Jack replied, ‘if being lost among such a crowd could be called being alone.’

‘You know what I mean,’ Lacey told him a little severely. ‘I like George and the others, but I feel so confined when I am always one of a large party.’

‘Of course, and I feel the same.’

Jack was busily admiring Lacey’s perfect profile and wishing that he dare kiss her on the cheek. Supposing, however, Aunt Sue popped up from nowhere—whatever would she say? For the first time he envied the anonymous young people who fervently embraced one another while lying on the grass in London’s many parks. Here he was, imprisoned by convention, unable to offer his newly found beloved a chaste kiss while sitting upright!