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

want babies to ruin the good time they were having. He was a good-time person, didn’t want it to ever end. Marrying and settling down with a family, a reduced social life, that that was the last thing on his mind. She too had wanted to enjoy life, have a good time, but hadn’t quite realized what that might entail.

So when would she ever have a baby to hold in her arms and croon over, to replace that one which she had been deprived of? She was twenty-eight – another year, four more years, by then in her thirties, it became ever more dangerous to give birth. Probably not so for women who’d already borne several children, but hers would virtually be her first. She couldn’t let herself wait for so long.

‘I can’t see why we don’t have a simple wedding and get it over with,’ she grumbled, moving back from his effort to kiss her. ‘What does it matter about making a big impression? All I want is for us to be a normal married couple. We’ve waited long enough.’

There was a long silence. Not knowing what else to say, she snapped, ‘Anyway, I’m tired. I need to go to sleep.’

Twisting away from him she reached up and switched off her bedside lamp. He had said nothing, but she could feel he was angry as he in turn clicked off his own lamp.

In the darkness they lay back to back, the first time he had ever not attempted to make love to her. In the darkness she lay miserable, no longer feeling tipsy, wanting only to sleep and forget, yet she was still awake as dawn crept through the curtains. He on the other hand was snoring gently, peacefully, and she hated him.

The following morning her love had recovered itself. She wanted so much to say sorry, yet somehow couldn’t, for all the forgiveness she felt. As for him, breakfast was eaten in silence, he seemingly more engaged in his morning newspaper brought to him by Jessop.

After a couple of attempts at conversation had been blocked by a grunt or two, she had given up, frustration growing by the minute so that when he’d kissed her on leaving to go to his bank, it had not been the usual lingering kiss but a mere peck on the cheek which she, by now simmering with hurt from that silent meal, had coldly offered. That brief questioning look he’d given her as he drew away had stayed with her all day, worrying her, flooding her mind with all sorts of questions of her own.

Even as she laughed and chatted with friends she’d met for coffee, the lunch she’d shared with several others, afternoon tea with some whom she often met at one party or another, the questions persisted. Why should he constantly be evading this business of marriage; did he truly love her, utterly and completely as he said he did; what if he had someone else in tow – questions becoming ever more silly and ridiculous. Or were they? After all he’d gone behind the back of her husband, his own uncle, with her.

Those times he said he had to see a client? Was that client someone with whom he was now involved with behind her back? She thought of those social gatherings, dances, parties, how women looked at him, and he at them. Tall, fair-haired, twinkling blue eyes, he must be aware of how he turned their heads. Nor could she ignore the slow way he would look at them, she once happy to believe it to be just good manners on his part!

By evening she’d shrugged off her suspicions, calling herself a fool for letting her imagination run away with her. Was it his fault if his looks drew other women’s eyes, and what man wouldn’t enjoy the compliment? It was her he loved. It was just this reluctance of his to be married and settle down.

Tonight she would put aside these foolish suspicions. It was Friday. This evening they were having dinner out before going to the theatre, afterwards on to a nightclub with friends. There’d be jazz music and dancing until the early hours. Back home they’d make love as if last night’s quarrel had never happened. She could hardly wait for him to come home. There might even be time to make love before dressing to go out.

She made sure to be seductively dressed as he entered, her insides tingling as she thought of his reaction. He seldom missed a chance to make love – if only he didn’t always pause to take the usual precautions for all it never took him long to prepare.

Hearing his key turn in the lock of the front door, she quickly wound the gramophone, slipped a record on and lowered the arm, the quiet strains of ‘When Day is Done’ filling the sitting room. She waited, hearing Jessop’s voice say, ‘Good evening, sir,’ and his response as Jenny their housemaid took his hat and coat from him to hang on the hall stand.

Moments later he was opening the door of the sitting room, she now standing in the middle of the room, waiting for his eyes to light up at the sight of her. Instead it was as if he hadn’t even noticed her as he went to the cocktail cabinet to pour himself a whisky.

She stood bewildered. ‘Don’t I get a kiss, darling?’

‘Did you want one?’ he said without turning.

Left not knowing how to respond, she brazened out the question with a small laugh. ‘A kiss or a drink, love?’

‘Either.’ His tone was so abrupt that it startled her.

‘A kiss would be nice,’ she said quietly.

At that he turned. There was no smile on his face as he came towards her to peck her on the cheek as he passed.

The movement left her shocked, standing where she was in the centre of the room while he went to the sofa and sat, sipping his whisky, again as if