Thank Heaven Fasting Read Free Page B

that this was the right thing to say.
    â€œYes, they’re good, aren’t they?”
    Mr. Pelham, at this point in the conversation, was obliged to get up and open the door for Frederica, who had received her mother’s instructions and was going downstairs to the telephone.
    Monica, glancing swiftly round, caught the gleam of approval in her mother’s tiny smile.
    She had succeeded in sustaining her conversation with Mr. Pelham without any of those pauses that might have indicated that he was finding her something less than interesting. Monica fixed her eyes upon him, as he closed the door behind Frederica, and tried to look as though taking it for granted that the break in their duologue had been a temporary one merely.
    But there was an empty chair next to Lady Marlowe’s corner of the sofa … he might go and take that. Monica redoubled her alertness of her gaze. Almost, she had her lips parted, as if just about to speak.
    Mr. Pelham closed the door carefully, turned round, hesitated for the fraction of a second, and then returned to his place next to Monica.
    She was careful not to glance away from him, but she could feel her mother’s imperceptible sigh of relief.
    Monica knew that her mother was pleased with her, and she was pleased with herself.
    It looked as though she might be going to turn out attractive to men.

Chapter II
    On Thursday afternoon, before the ball, Monica was told by her mother to go upstairs and lie down.
    â€œOtherwise you won’t look fresh for to-night, darling. And the hairdresser’s coming at seven o’clock. He can do me first, and then you.”
    â€œI shan’t sleep,” protested Monica.
    â€œNever mind. You’ll be resting. Now let me see——”
    Mrs. Ingram consulted a list. She had been entirely absorbed in lists during the past three weeks.
    â€œLet me see … cards for the dinner-table, yes, that’s done … speak to Mrs. Horben about the salted almonds … telephone to the Stores—now what was that for, I wonder—send round to Gunter’s about the ice-pudding—Monica, what are you hanging about for? I told you to go and lie down.”
    â€œCan’t I help you, mother?”
    â€œYou can help me best by doing what you’re told,
directly
you’re told,” said Mrs. Ingram firmly.
    Monica went upstairs.
    She did wish that her mother would not talk to her as though she were still a child. Once, she had ventured to say so, in a moment of intimacy, and Mrs. Ingram had kissed her and answered gently: “To me, you can never be anything but my baby, even if you live to be a hundred.”
    To the irrational tenderness of such a declaration, no dutiful and affectionate daughter could make any reply.
    Monica’s bedroom was on the fourth floor, a flight of stairs higher than that of anybody else—except, of course, the servants, who didn’t count. They were at the very top of the house, next door to the boxroom. Indeed, Monicahad a dim idea that the kitchen-maid actually did sleep in the box-room, but dressed and undressed with one of the other maids, in another room. Her window looked out on to the Square, and she gazed down for a moment at the striped awning already lowered over the balcony. It hid from her any view of the street, but she knew that another awning was in process of being put up, at the front door, and that strange men in dirty white aprons were hurrying up and down the steps, carrying in cardboard boxes and pots of azaleas and smilax.
    Really, the ball might almost have been taking place at Mrs. Ingram’s own house. But it was only a dinner-party before the ball.
    Monica slowly drew the green blind half-way down between the rose-pink silk curtains, filling the room with a soft, summery gloom.
    The pink silk eiderdown quilt had already been turned back over the brass rail at the foot of the bed, and the crisp, smooth linen sheet folded a little away