A Fall from Grace, Maggie Ford [best english novels to read txt] 📗

forever, she left brooding on what would come later. How many years could it continue like this? Thoughts of the future frightened and depressed her.

There was of course a lot that helped take her mind off such dreary thoughts: the grand Christmas party she’d given, money no object, everyone in high spirits, enjoying to the full the pleasures the peace had brought. The New Year’s Eve Party had been another grand event; a prelude to what by next year would be a new decade utterly different from the previous one, lots of jollity, making up for the years of stalemate, all cares flung to the wind. Yes, there was still the struggling poor, but if you had money, life was sweet.

There were parties still to be arranged: Valentine’s Day, April Fool’s Day with a great fancy dress party planned, Easter with a big garden party, weather permitting, otherwise it would have to be held inside, not quite the same. Then there was the London season, visiting the country and other people’s parties: swimming parties, tennis parties, the list went on and on. Yet always in the background was Anthony. She lived only to see him. All the rest could go hang if only she and he were together, permanently.

Maybe one day. Please God let it be soon. She wished James no ill but if only there was a way, any way, out.

Sixteen

Why was it that in the midst of overwhelming happiness the Devil always seemed to raise his ugly head to spoil it all? It was wicked and selfish to be thinking such things at a time like this but that was how it seemed to her.

She and Anthony had been so happy. It was the end of April. They’d been meeting once a week with only one break, when he’d gone up to the Midlands; some business to do with his bank, he’d said. She’d missed him dreadfully and he must have felt the same for their reunion had been passionate to the point of exhaustion.

‘Promise me you’ll never go away again,’ she’d begged as she lay in his arms. ‘Promise me you’ll send someone else in your stead.’

‘I promise,’ he’d said.

But life has a way of tearing down the strongest promise. A week later, the day before they would meet, he phoned while James was away at his office, telling her his mother had gone down with the Spanish ’flu.

‘It struck almost overnight,’ he said. His voice, thin and distant over the wires, was shaky, tinged with panic, his words practically faffing over themselves.

‘She didn’t seem too bad yesterday morning, just said she felt a bit achy but by the evening she’d developed a raging headache and she became feverish. During the night I had to send for the doctor, she was tossing and turning so much, almost in delirium. I can’t see you tomorrow, darling. I can’t leave her, I have to be with her, it’s happened so fast and I’m worried.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked when finally she got a word in.

‘Not really. Just tell Uncle James she’s gone down with it. He’d want to know. I’m just praying it doesn’t get worse. So many are…’

His voice trailed off but she’d already finished the words for him in her mind: so many are dying…

‘Your doctor is there with her,’ she said instead. ‘She will be fine, darling. He’s a good man. But I’ll telephone James right now and we’ll be there as quick as we can, and…’ But he’d already rung off, her last words addressed to empty air as slowly she replaced the receiver, seeing in her mind his distraught face hovering before her.

She and James had dropped everything to be at Mabel’s side, shocked by how she looked; scarcely heeding them she lay there, face flushed, eyes when she chanced to open them, heavy with pain, all the while her head moving slowly from side to side as if to alleviate the misery she was in.

They sat around her bed feeling utterly useless, murmuring words of encouragement that seemed to go unheard. Occasionally she came to herself enough to look at them and mutter, ‘I’m sorry… I’m being such a nuisance to everyone…’

‘No, you’re not,’ James told her each time.

‘I don’t know… I don’t… mean to be…’ she would gasp. Then on being told she was not at all a nuisance, she would lapse back into semi-consciousness to sigh and moan and twist her head from side to side.

The doctor was there constantly, a nurse too, who would shoo them out of the bedroom in order to attend the patient. Sadly they would go home after hours spent just gazing down at her when allowed, the next day to return to the same procedure.

All the while, Madeleine found herself looking time and time again at Anthony, feeling helpless at the despair and fear in his eyes when her gaze caught his. It made her cringe with sadness to see the way he’d shake his head in defeat, almost imperceptibly.

During one of their daily visits, unable to stand it any longer she excused herself and hurried away downstairs seeking the silence of the library to regain command of a sudden onslaught of emotion.

To her relief Anthony had followed her. Now he stood by the door, his body taut.

‘It doesn’t look good, does it?’ he questioned from where he stood. ‘I don’t really know what to do.’

Impulsively she came towards him, needing to comfort. ‘Darling…’ But as she made to kiss him, he drew away.

‘No… not at the moment!’ he exclaimed and turning went out of the room, leaving her standing alone.

It was so abrupt a reaction that it shocked her, leaving her in despair as she stared at the closed door. It was over – their time together, their affair. His mother was dying, he was already grieving, and she had been foolish enough to think he’d respond to her kiss, take her in his arms; maybe go further in their