Jigsaw E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 292

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

When she leaves her French convent school for London's glittering society, Mona dreams of a passionate love—yet finds herself caught between the demands of duty and the pull of temptation. Her calculating mother seeks a convenient match, her charming brother courts chaos, and two very different men vie for her heart: the noble, reserved Peter Brayton, and the dangerous, magnetic Alec, whose seductive shadow hides the power to ruin. In the bloom of newfound freedom, Mona's journey sweeps her from candlelit ballrooms and Paris salons to the wild, lonely moors of Scotland. Each step forces her to unravel secrets of her own heart—and decide which love is worth risking everything for. This 100-Year Anniversary Edition of Jigsaw celebrates Barbara Cartland's debut masterpiece. First published in 1925 and adored ever since, a timeless novel is perfect for readers discovering the fierce spirit and courage of Barbara Cartland heroines for the first time.

Leseprobe

CHAPTER I

It was early April, one of those fresh spring days when the air itself seems to glitter in the sunshine. The new green of the trees shines almost transparent, as the sea in the early morning or a Scotch burn trickling over rocks and fells. The slight wind was whispering of adventures. Excitements, sensations – all palpitating to be discovered. There was a poignancy in the atmosphere as a catch of the breath before a tremendously thrilling experience. The dramatic expectancy of a slowly rising curtain.

Paris was hurrying and bustling, repainting and reclothing to celebrate the departure of a severe winter, throwing open her doors and windows to the new visitor with his promise of golden days ahead.

Expectantly she looked to her lovers and children for new ideas, recreated ideals, fresh hopes, revived ambitions, and the conception of a young springlike love that would give birth to a thousand intrigues and romances.

The pedestrians hurrying along the uneven streets, the bargees navigating their unwieldy craft down the river, even the imperious Gendarme seemed to feel a gaieté de coeur born with the first glimmerings of a pale sun, appearing as shyly as a young maiden making her début.

In the boulevards the flower-sellers had piled their stalls with yellow-gold daffodils, which grow, the legends tell us, wherever Persephone places her naked feet on her return to Earth from her gloomy subterranean kingdom where we mourn her incarceration during the cold and darkened winter days.

Beyond the jardin of Paris – the Bois, with its verdant trees and sparkling fountains – stands the quaint hillside village of St. Cloud. It slopes down to the swiftly moving river, which journeys, winding picturesquely, past the Convent du Sacré Coeur. Nuns in their dark dresses, have for generations cast sombre shadows on the grey stone building with its high stained-glass windows and carved traceries. It is surrounded by gardens, paved and beflowered, the long, smooth lawns edged with yew hedges, which hide ancient secrets imperturbably in their dark green depths.

But this century, the courtyards have rung with young laughter and light hurrying feet, too impatient with the spontaneity of youth, which expects an adventure round every corner, to wander slowly, to let life drift aimlessly past or wait quietly for a glory to come. The long rooms filled with eager, sylph-like figures flitting noiselessly in and out, singing and shouting with happy joie-de-vivre. The oak stairs, which have known the gentle footfall of a queen, and the stealthy tread of a murderess escaping justice, feel the irresponsible clatter of feet that jump the last three steps. Even the chapel, dim with age, worn by the knees of countless pilgrims, encircled with an atmosphere calm and beautiful from a history of selfless devotion, seems to rejuvenate when filled with restless, immature, young bodies, their high fresh voices chanting ancient creeds and Latin services.

The nuns loved their pupils, girls from thirteen to nineteen years of age, of all nationalities, although English predominated.

“A grave charge, but an inspiring one,” as Monsieur le Curé so often told them. “A direct mission from le bon Dieu.”

Today was the last day of the Easter term, and a hundred girls packed their boxes in a fever of excitement and anticipation – chattering incoherently, planning excursions, meetings, parties, for the future four weeks of holiday, writing down addresses, arranging reunions, issuing invitations – all with the free, joyous carelessness of untrammelled youth, at present untouched by reality, ideals untarnished.

In a deserted classroom a girl stood gazing intently at a dismantled desk, emptied of its personal acquirements. Roughly carved on the open lid were the letters ‘M.V’, artistically filled in with gold paint and red ink.

Mona Vivien was strikingly beautiful, after the type beloved of Botticelli. Delicately perfect features surmounted by soft dark hair which, in some lights, held the blue tints so coveted and affected by the heroines of yellow-backed novels. Her eyes were very dark, and, when she was emotionally stirred, seemed fathomless and changeable as an uncharted sea. Extraordinarily graceful, with a habit of natural pose, her slim figure reminded one of the Venetian beauties of the seventeenth century with their inimitable carriage and mobile movements. When her face was in repose she might almost have stepped down from one of the niches in the chapel, leaving behind her halo and stiff robe. A saint, perhaps, until she laughed, when the illusion vanished as two dimples sprang to life in the oval face, twin twinkles shone in her eyes, while a smile hinted of an Earthly sense of humour.

Yet there was a reserve even in her happiness, as though she never came very close to anything. There was a magical barrier built from an imagination that was vivid enough to inspire belief, an experience that had never touched reality and a religion amalgamated with a fairyland of idealism, which found every stone the footprint of immortality and heard in every stream the music of a thousand celestial voices.

Today Mona was pensive. Sadness grappled in her mind with anticipation, for these were the last hours of her life as a chrysalis. Tomorrow, when the school omnibus lumbered noisily towards Paris, the finished butterfly would enter the world to face sun and shower alike, unprotected. Five years ago, as a small, rather shy child of thirteen, she had been brought to the convent – an alien. Now she was leaving it as one of its children, loving it as a second home – in fact, it was far more real to her than any other, for she had not been to England for many years.

Lady Vivien had arranged for Mona to travel in the holidays with a Governess and her old maid Annette. And they had journeyed through many beautiful countrysides – Provence, Normandy, Brittany, the hillside villages of Italy, the grape-growing vineyards of Spain. And generally, Mona spent a week or so with her grandmother, the Countess of Templedon, who had a villa outside Florence. Adoring her granddaughter, she showed her many treasures of Italy. And so was increased in Mona an already largely developed love of the beautiful and of every branch of art. The Countess also taught ‘the science of dress’ and delighted in helping her grandchild to choose the soft Italian silks and handwoven brocades that became her unusual beauty.

Intelligent and with such an education, Mona was well equipped to enter the world, save that her ideals were bound to suffer. They were too high, too childlike, too pure. She was fostered and nourished in the gentle atmosphere of the convent and the company of those who loved her. Yet in demanding the highest from mankind she would be accorded the utmost of its capability, even though the effort fell pathetically short of the pinnacle of perfection.

Mona shut the desk with a little bang and walked to the window, looking out over the green lawns and playing grounds to where the river ran like a silver thread at the foot of Saint Cloud. She thought of the generations of women who had shut themselves in from the world, seeing only this peacefulness, knowing only the quiet beauty of the works of God. Neither hearing nor feeling the call of the blood, the glory of fame, swift, palpitating happiness, overwhelming love, or the sadness and shame of defeat, agonising bereavement, unrequited and deserted affection.

The scales were evenly balanced, but the world was there to conquer. Why refuse the challenge?

Yet for a moment she shrank from the future. What lay hidden in the years to come? Years like a long white road, winding through many different lands, until it faltered and faded away into the mists of Death – a journey of threescore years and ten, with possibilities that stretched to the tops of high mountains, powerful, magnificent, omnipotent, or sank in degradation to the bogs and swamps that lurk, enticingly green, by the wayside.

The door of the classroom was thrown open and a pretty girl entered in a whirl of haste and noise.

“Mona, darling,” she exclaimed, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

She jumped on to a desk and sat on the top of it, her feet on the seat. Sally Cutts could never occupy a chair like any ordinary person – she was either balanced precariously on the back or using it as a rest from an extraordinary posture on the floor. An American – which her accent proclaimed in spite of the nuns’ gentle efforts to efface it – with corn-coloured hair invariably untidy, a tip-tilted nose between the naughtiest green eyes with dark lashes and a rosebud mouth – she was a very fascinating personality.

Sally was always in trouble of some sort, incorrigibly naughty, although no one could be angry with her for long, for she so obviously enjoyed everything so thoroughly and had more high spirits than could be controlled into decorum.

Her people were very rich and spoilt their only child abominably, but Sally’s was far too sweet a nature to be really altered by their indulgence.

Unlike in most things, Mona and Sally had struck up a firm friendship and were inseparable. Mona, although by far the quieter of the two, could be led into any prank under Sally’s directorship. At the same time, she was the only person who could prevent her friend from breaking all rules and on occasions venturing to extremes in her escapades.

“Sally,” Mona interrogated, “are you sorry to be leaving?”

“I am in a way,” answered Sally, “but I’m longing to come out and go to balls and parties and have flirtations and beaux. Pop has taken a wonderful house in London for the Season and we’ll have a marvellous time, Mona.”

“It is different for you, Sally. You see, I haven’t seen my mother for two years and then only for an hour or two at the Ritz, with crowds of people there. She is very beautiful, but I’m rather nervous as to whether we shall get on together.”

“And your father?” asked Sally.

“I never see him. Grand-mère says he is always working so hard. He is in our Parliament, you know, and always looked worried and busy when I was a little girl. He was very good-looking when mother married him but had very little money. Now he has made heaps, although I heard Grand-mère say it was all mother’s cleverness and push, which I don’t quite understand. Anyway, he was made a Knight in the last Honours’ List.”

“But your mother had a title before?” asked a puzzled Sally.

“Yes, in her own right. You see, Grandfather was an Earl, but Father was only plain Mister. Sally, do you think they will like having me at home?”

“Well, I shouldn’t worry too much about that. They will love you soon enough, Mona dear, and I should do what my Momma says and make my own ‘hip-hole in the sand’.”

“Oh, Sally, talk English!” laughed Mona.

“Well, make your own bed and lie on it. If you wait around for everyone else, you will get nowhere! Besides, you will be a great success, Mona. You are awfully pretty. Pop thinks you just cute with that saintly face.”

“Hiding the heart of a devil!” added Mona. “Finish your story, Sally – you know he said that.”

“Well,” said Sally reluctantly, “he did say he thought some men would find you played the devil with their hearts, although he guessed that, unlike me, you’d try not to! I mean to have a wonderful time and then marry a Duke!”

“Oh, Sally!” reproached Mona, “how terribly American! Besides, it isn’t a bit amusing to marry a Duke nowadays – only a lot of publicity, everyone watching you wherever you go and taking photographs. An ordinary man is far more fun.”

“Now that settles it,” cried Sally. “You will marry a Duke because you don’t want to, and I shall become affianced to a plain mister called Smith or Brown!”

Sally’s face was so disconsolate that Mona burst out laughing. Then, picking up some books and papers to be packed, she started to leave the room.

“Come and help me sit on my box, Sally. It will never shut otherwise.”

“Right!” said Sally, scrambling to her feet. “See, Mona, you have dropped something.”

She picked up a photograph that lay face upwards on the floor. It was an enlarged snapshot of a tall young man in flannels, tennis racket in hand, standing grinning in the sun. Extremely good-looking, he appeared charming, yet somehow the poise of the body or the turn of the head gave the impression that he was aware of his looks. It was an indescribable but unpleasant ‘something’ that spoilt a delightful ‘whole’.

Sally regarded the snapshot with interest.

“My, Mona,” she exclaimed, “what a divine young man! Who is he?”

“My brother Charles,” answered Mona. “He sent it to me last holidays and I lost it until today when I turned out my desk, or I would have shown it to you before.”

“When did you last see him?” asked the ever-inquisitive Sally.

“In Florence a year ago. He came over for the day when I was with Grand-mère. He was nice, Sally, but sort of aloof. I’m afraid he had no use for a flapper sister. Anyway, I shall see him again tomorrow and you will meet him soon, so you can judge for yourself. Listen!”

As they paused a bell began to toll.

“Benediction! I had no idea it was so late!”

The two girls ran quickly from the room and down the long cloisters to the chapel, covering their heads with the soft muslin veils provided by the nuns for the purpose. They entered reverently and joined the kneeling figures.

The altar was ablaze with lights, glittering in golden candlesticks. The sacristy lamps shone on the beautiful, coloured statue of the Blessed Virgin which, surrounded by masses of lilies, was thrown startlingly into relief against heavy blue velvet curtains, while the rest of the chapel was almost in darkness. The congregation of nuns and girls knew the service far too well to need books – or light to read them by – so only the chancel glittered with a dark-set brilliance.

Sister Agnes started to play the organ very quietly as the priest entered. The music seemed to mingle with the incense and drift slowly upwards into the deep darkness of the roof. The girls sang the responses, finishing with the most perfect of all thanksgivings, the Nunc dimittis.

‘My last night,’ thought Mona, and she somehow knew that never again would she worship with such unity of thought, such peacefulness of mind, such singleness of purpose untorn by doubt, unshattered by disillusionment.

With a knowledge of the great world outside would come the ‘joy of living’, the complement and fulfilment of Nature, possibilities at present only half-sensed by an immature imagination. Yet peace and security would be shattered, gone with the protecting hand of the Convent and an outgrown childhood.

Still, beneath all evils loosed at the opening of Pandora’s casket, lay the greatest of all antidotes – Hope, which, ‘springing eternal in the human breast’, will give strength for the subjugation of all difficulties, the defeating of all obstacles. Hope, ever burning, unquenched as the crimson light before the high altar. Mona on her knees with clasped hands, prayed for divine guidance with all the fervour of a rapidly developing temperament that has known no emotion save of religion, the birth of love and passion, pure and unspoiled, opalescent as the first evening star.

The prologue of her life was over – the curtain was rising on the first act.

CHAPTER II

Mona stood bewildered on Victoria Station, lonely in the rushing crowd around her, confused by the scrambling passengers hastening dilatory porters, surprised at their brusquerie, until thankfully she recognised Annette, hot and worried, hurrying towards her.

Annette was French only in name. She had applied for the post of lady’s maid in the days when French servants were becoming the mode, and she firmly believed that her engagement by Lady Vivien was due to a judicious rechristening of herself. For her Godfather and Godmothers had approved of Eliza as a suitable, if uninspiring label for a decent and self-respecting English girl, while the journey to the Isle of Wight was the longest she had made across water. From the moment Mona was born, Annette became her devoted slave and was later given sole charge of the child while Lady Vivien procured the services of a smarter and more ornamental maid. Delighted with this arrangement, Annette fussed and patted Mona through her babyhood and was broken-hearted when schooldays separated them. She lived for the holidays when they travelled together and she could again spoil ‘her baby’ who was growing into a beautiful girl, head and shoulders taller than her old nurse.

That schooldays should be over and Mona a grown-up young woman capable of looking after herself, never entered Annette’s head. To her, the child who had played at her knee could never alter and would always need her care. “The eyes of Argus”, which had guarded Mona from her cradle, would not slacken their vigilance now.

Round-faced, with cheeks like ripened apples and russet-brown hair streaked with grey, she reminded one of a busy little robin. Her look held a welcome that made Mona feel homelike, even in this Babel and hurly-burly.

“Annette dear! I am so glad to see you,” she cried, embracing her. “Will you see about my luggage while I say goodbye?”

She turned back to the gentle-faced nun who had travelled in charge of the twenty-odd girls who were coming to London for their holidays.

“Goodbye, Sister Catherine. I hate saying goodbye to you all. Goodbye, Clare and Molly, don’t forget to write. Sally darling, I’ll ring you up tomorrow morning – Goodbye and bless you all!”

She hurried away to hide the tears in her eyes and found Annette grappling with innumerable boxes. A large car was awaiting them outside the station and, after a little delay, they drove off towards Belgrave Square.

“Dear London,” said Mona, “I remember its funny, dingy smell and dirty blue appearance. Oh, look!” She bent forward and watched a small platoon of Scots Guards marching towards Chelsea Barracks. “Lovely red uniforms again instead of dull khaki – and bearskins! They look just like the tin soldiers Charlie played with in the nursery.”

“Wait till you see the Life Guards again, Miss,” said Annette. “Do you remember how you loved them as a child?”

“With their shiny tin tummies! I adored them. But, Annette, tell me all the news. How is my mother?”

“Her Ladyship is very well,” Annette’s voice was frigid. She had little affection for the beautiful woman who gave more hours to the preservation of her looks than minutes of thought to the welfare of her children.

“Is she glad I’m coming home?”

“Oh, Miss Mona dear,” Annette looked anxiously at the eager young face beside her, “don’t expect too much. The only thing Her Ladyship dislikes is having her plans or orders upset. She likes everything to run on greased wheels.”

“And I shall be, willingly or unwillingly, a disturbing element.”

The first small cloud had appeared on the serenity of Mona’s sky, no larger than a man’s hand, yet it dimmed a little of the brightness.

But before she had time for further conversation, the car drew up at 134 Belgrave Square and the door was opened by Miles, the old butler, who had been with the Viviens for nearly half a century. In absent-minded moments he still called Sir Bernard Vivien “Master Bernie”, as though he were still the escapading schoolboy who frequently smoked a forbidden cigarette in the privacy of the pantry. He was beaming with joy now at Mona’s return, welcoming her with exclamations of surprise.

“How you’ve grown, Miss Mona! We’re all very pleased to see you home, I’m sure. Her Ladyship is in the drawing room and would you please go straight up?”

Mona ran up the broad staircase. Nothing seemed changed or altered. There was the big picture of the racehorse she had always loved, the snarling head of a tiger that had terrified her as a child, the quaint ivory carvings in a glass case she had always longed to play with. All were in their accustomed places. Only the stairs themselves were narrower than the remembrance, the windows not so lofty. Their curtains, which had made wonderful hiding-places and been tents of golden cloth concealing Oriental princesses, or the wind-puffed sails of pirate ships, were now but faded brocade, falling in stiff unwieldy folds.

The drawing room door was open, the long room filled with people talking, laughing and eating. Soft lights, artistic hangings and massed flowers made the atmosphere hazy so that it was hard to discover a particular individual. For the moment Mona hesitated on the threshold – then, perceiving her mother, advanced gracefully across the shining parquet floor.

Lady Vivien broke off an animated conversation with an overdressed young-old man. He raised a beribboned monocle with which to observe the intruder.

“Mona, dear child!” Constance Vivien kissed her daughter effusively. “Did you have a good crossing? I hope the car met you. I loathe travelling.” She raised tragic eyes to her companion. “It is so unnerving. One’s nerves are literally unstrung after a day in the train, what with the worry of getting off and packing.”

“You, dear lady, should never worry, but make it a privilege for those who delight to wait on you,” he responded in a caressing tone.

Rather bewildered, Mona murmured an unheard reply. She had never heard the criticism of a spiteful contemporary of her mother, which, at the time of its remarking, had delighted social London, that “Constance Vivien’s conversation was like a Store’s catalogue, irrelevant and absurdly inconsistent, passing lightly from subject to subject, leaving her hearer bored and uninterested in them all”.

Mona took a cup of lukewarm tea from a side table and sat down unnoticed in a corner.

Old women disguised with paint and soft veils were chattering gaily and skittishly with ornately dressed youths. Old men conversed with languid girls who listened to their tedious conversation with apparent good-humour. Allowing for her age, Lady Vivien was by far the best-looking woman present – tall, with a splendid, if mature figure, straight features and a wonderful complexion, she entirely eclipsed her neighbours.

Twenty-five years before Constance Percival had been the toast of London. Coronets and strawberry leaves had lain in profusion at her feet, but she had scorned them all, flitting from triumph to triumph, conquering old and young impartially. Quite suddenly she had met Bernard Vivien and fallen desperately in love with his looks and fascinating manner. It had been his boast that no woman could resist him and, as Constance was no exception, within a month or so they were married, with plenty of leisure in which to repent their haste.

Lady Vivien had very little affection in her nature. Infatuations for good-looking men were hardly in that category, though becoming more numerous in her middle age than in her callous, triumphant youth. The fierce passion for her husband was long since dead and she had quickly extinguished the lingering flames of his. The only person to whom she was really attached was her son Charles. “He is such a Percival,” she would proudly explain, which apparently meant inordinate good looks, combined with an enormous appreciation of his own intelligence and worth. Charles always gave the impression of an almost childlike surprise that he was allowed to walk the pavements with the common crowd. Surely his Creator had originally intended a red-carpeted route for his shapely feet encased by Lobb. In all his twenty-four years, Charles, in Lady Vivien’s opinion, had done no wrong. Of course, there had been little escapades – rows at Eton, sent down from Cambridge, an indiscreet chorus-girl affair, “The dear boy was sowing his wild oats,” and Charles was really so clever that one day he would surprise everybody.

Constance Vivien had no use for women and even her own daughter was no exception. For five years she had successfully disposed of this unwanted member of the household, but now, unfortunately, the girl had to come out. Luckily, ran her thoughts, Mona wasn’t bad-looking although, taking after her father, she lacked the striking appearance of the Percivals and the capacity of remaining permanently in the limelight. But still, someone rich was sure to take a fancy to the child and marry her, and the world would look on Constance as such a successful mother – yet another triumph on her list of accomplishments.

Lady Vivien cast a quick glance round her drawing room. There was no one present at the moment who could be of any particular advantage to Mona. She called her daughter.

“Mona darling, I think you ought to go and rest before dinner. We are going to a dance tonight at – let me see, Moyra Blankney’s – quite informal, but I’m having a dinner party for it. Do you know Lady Blankney?” she asked, turning to her neighbour. “Such a dear woman, but a sadly inefficient hostess. So…” Here followed a number of faults and failings interwoven with insincere and gushingly affectionate adjectives.

Mona felt herself dismissed and went upstairs. Annette was unpacking in her bedroom, a charming room with a small boudoir opening out of it. Artistically furnished, it held all Mona’s childish possessions jealously preserved by Annette. Andrew Lang’s Fairy Tales, The Princess and The Goblins, the Peter Rabbit books, and a tattered Hans Andersen were all in the bookcase while, sitting in a corner, his beady eyes still protruding, although his coat was somewhat dilapidated, was a Teddy Bear, large, brown and furry. Mona picked him up.

“I suppose I’m too old to play with you now,” she said, but she kissed affectionately his hard buttony black nose before she put him down again. Then suddenly she felt the excitement of the new life into which she had plunged sweep over her. There were marvellous enjoyments to be experienced, there were worlds to discover, there was London to explore. She had grown up!

It was so odd. One was a child, living from day to day, eating, playing, sleeping without anxiety or trouble, carefree and careless – and then, almost in a moment, with no perceptible change in one’s feelings, the years had gone and one was grown up with responsibility and worries looming ahead.

Still, there was surely compensation in the thought that the capability of emotion could swing as a pendulum in either direction, deep sorrow, great joy, grave seriousness, exhilarating happiness.

The sitting room door opened, disturbing Mona’s thoughts, and Charles entered. Faultlessly dressed and well-groomed, smiling his attractive and disarming smile, he was almost as irresistible as his mother believed him.

“Hello, Mona!” He kissed his sister carelessly. “By Jove, you’ve grown, and into a beauty too. Ma will have to look to her laurels and that won’t please the old girl!”

“Charlie, how can you say such things?” remonstrated Mona but laughing in spite of herself.

They exchanged commonplaces with the usual stiffness of relatives who have grown up apart and have no mutual subject of conversation.

“Look here, Mona,” said Charles after a slight pause, “are you going to this dance affair tonight?”

Mona nodded.

“Good! Well, listen. Will you do something for me? Give this note to Milly Kingston, Lady Millicent Kingston. Anyone will tell you who she is – tall dark girl, pretty, but a bit of a flyer! If she says anything, let her think I’m in bed with flu. I’ve said so in the note, and as I swore nothing short of death would keep me from this dance and her charms, pile on the agony.”

“But Charles…” expostulated a bewildered Mona.

But Charles was leaving the room.

“A pressing engagement at the Vaudeville Theatre, my dear – stage-door!” he added as he disappeared.

Mystified, Mona gazed at the envelope in her hand, addressed in a dashing handwriting that to a more experienced judge would have told so easily the character of the scribe – the unfinished, careless formation of letters, the sweep of the pen that showed no finesse, no delicacy of perception, and, withal, the slight backward slant.

But before Mona had time to consider Charles’s extraordinary behaviour, a footman entered with a message from Sir Bernard asking her to go down to his study if she wasn’t too busy. Delighted, she ran downstairs and through the hall where, at the end of a long passage, was her father’s private sitting room, a sanctuary from the rest of the house, violation of his peace being an unforgivable sin. Dark leather armchairs, a profusion of books and a large untidy desk dominated the room. It was a thoroughly masculine domain, untouched by femininity.

Her father was alone and standing in front of the fire as she entered. Still unusually good-looking, the cheery bonhomie of his face had given way to a fretful expression of anxiety and overwork. He had also taken to brandy in frequent doses to keep his brain clear in the evenings and the reactions were beginning to tell on his nerves and constitution.

He was very fond of his daughter when he remembered her existence and was really glad to see her now. It was the only genuine welcome Mona had received from her family and she hugged him with enthusiasm. They seemed to have lots to tell each other once started, and they sat by the fire chattering gaily, oblivious of time. Strangely alike, yet Sir Bernard was so unmistakably masculine with the virile good looks admired by men as well as women, while Mona with her delicate fragile beauty was almost ethereal.

“And how is the constituency?” she asked him.

“Fairly peaceful,” he answered gravely, “but the country is in a disgraceful state, and society will do nothing. They are living on the edge of a volcano. Every ounce of weight added to our defence staves off the threatened culmination, which would bring everyone to their knees and peaceful civilisation falling about their ears. But society refuses to realise the danger. Cocktails and scandal are of greater importance than a national calamity.”

Thinking of the women she had seen upstairs and their degenerate companions, Mona understood her father’s bitterness. The hopeless position of a prophet who could not make the people listen, a soothsayer whom no one consulted.

Suddenly the clock struck eight and Mona rose with a little cry.

“And dinner is at half-past! I must fly! Au revoir, mon frère.” She dropped a fairy-like kiss on his forehead and sped away.

“Annette, Annette,” she called as she entered her bedroom. “Quick, quick! My bath, and I’m going to a dance. Isn’t everything lovely!”

As Annette complied, Mona stopped for a moment to look out over the square in the blue twilight. Her face was grave and thoughtful.

‘Sally was right! I must make my own life as I want it.’

CHAPTER III

How can one describe the first impression of social life? That butterfly existence, flourishing in the golden sunshine of the world’s approval, yet withering in the moment of icy ostracism.

Mona only realised fragments of her first weeks spent in the whirl of gaiety and engagements. Her début seemed to unite her to a wheel of hectic sensation – a fairy cinematograph reeled round so quickly as to be unintelligible, untranslatable into words or sane expression.

People hardly mattered – they came and went unnoticed. Youth, unsophisticated, seeks first the material, the pleasures of the inanimate, the eternal Punch and Judy shows that repeat and repeat again in ever-widening circles. Then, when threadbare costumes cease to dazzle, disillusioned, youth turns to the lasting pleasures and sorrows accorded by fellow creatures.

Gradually, tentatively at first, Mona began to find her feet. The little insincerities ceased to wound, the palpable falsehoods ceased to astonish. She was not disgusted or shocked, for, with insight that was born of great sympathy and a faith that found beauty everywhere, she visualised the Pan-like spirit peeping from the dust, creating multi-coloured patterns, erratic but attractive.

Her first dance, her first kiss, little triumphs, tiny sorrows, passed as wind-blown clouds, leaving no mark in a clear sky. Completely unawakened, she was conscious of a force within herself, a power that would have to be dealt with some day, at present dormant, yet oppressing as the stillness of heat before the breaking of a thunderstorm.

London fascinated Mona, even as much as the pantomime of gaieties enthralled. The city with its roar of busy traffic like the engine-room of a vast factory, working unceasingly to create the wherewithal to purchase sweetmeats for the delight of the decorative creatures who inhabited the showrooms of Park Lane, Curzon Street or Berkeley Square, the glass cases where the products of toil are displayed.

Bond Street, with its enticing shops, at which female devotees for ever worshipped. Clothes, clothes, clothes! They fill in a woman’s life like cotton-wool, packing her in, enveloping her until they deaden and suffocate every other desire. She forgets to raise her eyes above her neighbour’s hat and misses the dancing sunbeams or an iridescent rainbow. She crushes a fragrant violet as she thinks of her new shoes – she misses the joy of motherhood in the preservation of her figure.

Yet a corner of Mayfair is not London. The spirit of her lies in the beauty of the Thames. Misty blue in the morning, and purple with glittering jewels at night. Or her heart throbs as a pale dawn lights the housetops and towers peeping over Admiralty Arch into the broad stretches of the Mall.

In May the fashionable world returned, reopened their houses, and settled down to that three months of doubtful pleasure known as ‘The Season’. To them it was but a repetition of a vaudeville show, but to Mona it was a panorama of harlequin delights.

Her fresh beauty, childlike enjoyment and shyly developing wit, made her an instant success, and Lady Vivien was warmly congratulated on her beautiful daughter – a fact that did not please her insatiable vanity for her own charms.