Yes, the house was in splendid nick and the signs of great prosperity were everywhere. Jack wondered exactly where all the money came from to pay for such splendour. He only knew that Sir Louis was something in the City. He wondered how one got there and why it had always been supposed that the younger Compton sons always went into the Army, or the Church or became land agents on someone else’s land.
Not that everyone in the City was wealthy—just look at poor Rupert. On second thoughts, Jack decided that he had rather not. He had come here to find Lacey, to dance the Charleston with her again and to tease her as though the past ten years had never happened.
Dancing had already started. Lady Leominster had not yet arrived, but the Marchioness of Londonderry and her two pretty daughters were already seated in one corner of the ballroom, surrounded by a large crowd of hangers-on. Not that he could aspire to the hands of either girl since the Londonderrys were at the very top of the tree in society.
Lacey had arrived, however, and was sitting beside a potted palm with the old dragon on her right and a bevy of eager young men before her. Neither Rupert nor Darcey were among them and the rest were as anonymous to Jack as the nameless courtiers on stage there to make up the numbers in one of Shakespeare’s plays.
He decided to wait a moment before approaching Lacey. The crowd gradually thinned, which gave him a chance to speak to her. By the sound of it they had been proposing themselves for the dances neatly laid out in Lacey’s programme.
Jack bowed to Lacey and Aunt Sue. He could not help noticing that her aunt stared balefully at him, but, armoured in the knowledge of his previously made arrangement to dance the Charleston with her niece, he took little notice of that.
‘Here I am, ready for another lesson in modern dance,’ he said with a smile. ‘I hope that you’ve left room for me on your programme.’
Lacey’s smile, as well as her answer, was so cool that Jack was a little shocked. She displayed little of the happy rapport which they had shared at the Leominsters’ do. Instead, her answer was a regretful, hardly apologetic one.
‘Oh, yes. The Charleston. I did promise to dance it with you, didn’t I? Oh, dear, it’s very remiss of me, but I quite forgot and my programme is already filled. I’m sorry to have been so stupid. Another time, perhaps?’
This last sentence came out after such a fashion that it gave the impression that another time would be long in coming.
Jack’s smile froze on his face. He scarcely knew what to say. He had delayed leaving London only in order to attend the Lynchs’ dance. He had spent all his spare time dreaming about seeing Lacey again, but she was making it very obvious that the moment he had left her on that happy night at the Leominsters’ she had immediately forgotten about him. For her he was simply a chance-met nobody who had entertained her for a little time before she passed on to the next anonymous man who took her brief fancy.
He mentally shook himself, but not before the disappointment which he felt so keenly was plainly written on his face. He could not stop himself from saying quietly, ‘I thought that we had had an understanding…’
Lacey was surprised to find not only how much it had hurt her to let Jack down so brusquely, but also that she felt ashamed that she had done so—and had told a lie in the doing, albeit only a white one. Bad behaviour was bad behaviour, however many excuses one made to one’s self for indulging in it.
Perhaps, after all, her aunt had not been telling her the whole truth about the conversation she had overheard. Young men often talked extravagantly when on their own and one ought not to hang them for it. Besides, she also knew that Aunt Sue was very keen for her to marry a Duke which would mean that she would go one better than that other great heiress, Cornelia Vanderbilt, who was engaged to the heir to a Barony, that of the Amhersts.
Before Jack could walk away, she said in her best impulsive manner, ‘Please allow me to try to make up to you for being so careless about what was, after all, a promise. It won’t be like dancing the Charleston with you tonight, but Richard is making up a party to visit the Wembley Exhibition tomorrow afternoon. Why not squire me there? I’m told that it’s one of the sights of the century.’
Jack’s face brightened immediately. ‘If that is what you want, then I shall be happy to oblige you. By the by, I’m told that the Ashanti warriors do a war dance there, but I can’t promise to partner you in that.’
‘No, indeed, it might be too much. You may call for me tomorrow at Richard’s place in Park Lane at one thirty and join the party. My cousin George will also be going. Now let me introduce you to George’s sister, Pamela—she’s another splendid performer on the ballroom floor. I can’t have you left without a partner because of my carelessness.’
Jack was so delighted by the prospect of a whole afternoon with Lacey that he promptly agreed, although his first impulse on being let down had been to flee the Lynchs’ ball altogether. He allowed her to lead him through the crowd to where the other Chancellors were sitting and make the promised introduction.
Aunt Sue was very reproving when Lacey returned after seeing Jack settled with them and talking cheerfully to George and his family.
‘I thought that, having virtually cut Mr Jack Compton, you would have had more sense than to revive his hopes by asking him to be your escort to the Wembley Exhibition. I am sure that Lord Wellsbourne would have been happy to accompany you there. He is rich enough not to be marrying you for your money and he has been showing a great deal of interest in you lately.’
‘Dear Aunt,’ said Lacey gently. ‘You would not have me behave shamefully to Jack Compton. I promised to dance with him tonight and it was wrong of me to fill my programme before he came, even though you had told me of what you had overheard. Besides, squiring me to Wembley means that we shall be together, with many others, in a public place. I gather that he is returning to Sussex almost immediately so that our paths won’t be crossing much in future.’
Oh, dear, and now she was telling another whopper! Her aunt was not aware, but she was, that when they went to Ashdown they would be mingling with the county society of which Jack was a part. Not only that, but she was determined to discover more about the connection between the Comptons and the Chancellors.
Aunt Sue heaved a great sigh. ‘If you are not going to take any heed of my advice, then I wonder why you felt the need for my companionship, my dear. Reflect that I know more about the world in which we are now moving than you do. These people have a veneer of polish which we in the States do not possess. One has only to read Henry James and Edith Wharton to know how true this is—and always has been. Sophisticated charm may have its theoretical limits when set against the straightforwardness which is so much a part of American life, but it does flatter to deceive and cheat us when we come to Europe as many young men and women have found to their cost.’
Lacey was sorely tempted to point out that these two novelists had actually shown how often supposedly straightforward American heroes and heroines had taken on the sophisticates of Europe and had beaten them at their own game, but she thought that it would not be tactful to inform her of that!
Fortunately, the band began to play and her first partner arrived to whirl her into the quickstep. From then on Lacey was too busy enjoying herself with a sequence of young men whose names featured prominently in Burke’s Peerage, that large volume beloved of Aunt Sue, to worry about her strictures over Jack Compton.
She saw Jack at intervals. He seemed to be enjoying himself with the Chancellors’ set, and danced the Charleston with young Pamela without showing the same athletic vigour which he had done when dancing it with her at the Leominsters’.
No time for regrets, though, until young Henry Laxton, the Duke of Beddington’s heir, came to claim her for the Charleston when the evening was three parts over. He