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

And she had had a wonderful time; had fallen in love with the place. And as their holiday finally came to an end and they had sailed out of the harbour into the Atlantic, such a feeling of nostalgia overcame her as the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline sank out of sight in a mist behind the rim of the world, she vowed in her heart as she turned away: ‘I shall come back one day.’ Maybe even next year, she prayed. Maybe even for our honeymoon.

He’d at least made a half promise during one of their more frantic moments of love-making that he’d start making wedding plans as soon as they got home. A wedding some time in the autumn, joy filled her breast at the thought. But autumn was passing and still nothing done towards it. She thought it best not to badger him too much and upset things. She’d done too much of that on their return to England, and was told not to be so impatient. But impatience was hard to control sometimes. Christmas almost upon them, she tried not to fret; not to badger him. He was now suggesting spring, ‘a much nicer time for it, darling.’ And she so needed to believe it this time.

New Year’s Eve, half an hour to go to 1925, the great room of the hotel crowded, people hardly able to move, the dance floor a solid mass of gyrating bodies, twisting and writhing to the Charleston, everyone pepped up with excitement, music, booze and what was currently being termed happy dust in readiness for a mad welcoming in of the New Year.

The noise was overpowering, getting ever more so as the big hand of the ornate clock on the wall crept towards the twelve. With less than twenty minutes to go, Anthony had hurried off, sidling his way through the crowd to fetch a special bottle of champagne.

Left sitting at her table, Madeleine glanced at her gold and diamond encrusted wristwatch. Ten minutes gone already. He was taking his time. He would be at the bar fighting to get served. If he didn’t hurry he would be too late for the last stroke of midnight when they would drain their glasses to the bottom in one gulp and half drunk would leap into each other’s arms, lips pressed together, his hand inside her low cut dress, fondling her breasts. Would it matter if anyone saw them? No one would care. They’d be busy with their own fondling.

Coming to a decision, Madeleine got up and began edging her way through the crowd in the direction Tony had taken. Reaching the bar, still crowded, she struggled from one end of it to the other. No sign of him. Where was he? Had he gone round the other way to find her and she had missed him. She fought her way on. They would probably meet at their table in the end. A couple were canoodling in a darkish corner where the blazing fights did not quite reach. The man had the girl in a clinch, hand under her skirt, lips against her bosom, the girl sighing in ecstasy. It didn’t matter if anyone saw them. No one was taking any notice anyway. Madeleine made to hurry past, meaning to avert her eyes as if they weren’t even there.

A second later she stopped sharp, gasped, let out a cry so audible that the man turned his face towards the noise. Moments later Madeleine was pushing through the throng, sobbing, seeing no one as she made for the cloakroom.

Twenty-Six

Madeleine gazed around her drawing room, the morning sun pouring in at the big windows.

She’d had one of those dreams again, of coming upon Anthony with that girl, the dream going further wherein she’d see them actually engrossed in the act; he looking up to find her there and asking her what she thought she was doing watching them. In the dream she’d run off, as they watched her go, arms about each other. She’d wake up, her mind going over what she had dreamed, her heart feeling as heavy as lead. She lay awake, her thoughts not allowing her to sleep again until, seeing the dawn light, she would fall into a deep sleep until awakened by her daily, Mrs Mann. Then she’d have to drag herself out of bed, forced to face another day alone. It had been like this since May, six months ago now, when she had finally walked out on Anthony.

Of course he’d apologized over and over again for that New Year’s Eve business, said he’d consumed so much champagne and hadn’t realized what he was doing. For five months she’d tried to accept his excuses, fighting to make allowances for him, to forgive him, but it was hard to forget and every time any little argument flared between them, she’d find herself bringing it up again and again. It would lead to a full-scale shouting match with him often walking out leaving her in tears.

Sometimes it was she who fled, to walk for hours, hurt and miserable, wondering why she was being so stupid. She would return, resolving to put it behind her, but it was always there, like a tiny lurking demon. Finally that last terrible fight. After seeing him talking to a girl on the other side of the tennis court at a garden party last May, the girl lifting her face to his, giving him a kiss and his lapping it up, or so it seemed to her oversensitive mind from that distance, she’d had enough.

After walking out on him, she’d gone to a friend, stayed the night there but ignored her advice to go back – that she was only hurting herself by forever bringing up one single small incident. The following day she had gone to an estate agent who found an unnecessarily spacious house – a small act