Gerry Wimsey falls in love.
Chapter 1 - Gerry
She was like his Aunt Harriet. That was what first attracted his attention. She was tall for a woman, nearly his own height, like his Aunt Harriet. They could dance cheek to cheek. She danced well, like his Aunt Harriet. He noticed this first, because she was dancing with someone else the first time he saw her. That someone else was younger, but dressed in the same blue as himself. They seemed happy and relaxed together. The laughed and chatted as they danced. This was no first date (or second date or third). It seemed she was someone else's girl. The part of himself that Gerry did not especially like found that the most intriguing thing about her, at first. If she had been sitting out, wallflower-like, he would never have given her a second glance, never have let the second glance lead to a first dance. He would never have discovered the rest.
She danced well. Disclosing a little, asking a little more, making a brief intriguing comment, asking a pertinent question, using exactly the right word. She was innocently displaying a superb education, like a girl who doesn't realise that a strap from her underwear is showing slightly at the neckline of her frock. (It wasn't. He looked.) He had no idea how she had actually danced. He presumed her feet and legs and hips had been doing all the right things. Maybe he really was more like his Uncle Peter than he thought. He would have to be careful. Gerry Wimsey would rather sleep soundly, without being tormented by the demons of moral scruples and responsibility. These, or some other demons, would find him soon enough.
In the meantime, he would ask this intriguing mind, wrapped up in a very pleasant (now he came to give it more thought) body, for another dance. She was, like his Aunt Harriet, a writer and, like his Aunt Harriet, was deprecating about her writing.
"Historical romances? Historical adventures? Given the times we are living in, does anybody need them?" she had asked.
"The romance, very definitely." he replied, tightening his arm around her.
She glanced at him, startled. He could see she was immediately starting to work out what he meant by it. So, had he managed to intrigue her? Good.
"Does your boyfriend mind you dancing with me?"
"My boyfriend? Oh, Roger's just a friend. The more I dance with someone else, the less he has to dance with me and the more he can dance with someone else, which is really what he came here for."
So this Roger was no competition then? By rights, that should have robbed her of half her charm in Gerry's eyes. Gerry found that the waist beneath his hand was still as slim; the serious face so close to his was just as sweet. He was pleased to discover that she was enjoying this dance with him for its own sake and not just to make a boyfriend jealous. Why did the lack of a boyfriend make him feel so triumphant?
He asked her for a third dance. She had been up at Oxford too, but after he had gone down. Perhaps it was just as well. He thought she would not have approved of Lord St. George. Perhaps Lord St. George, idiot that he had been, would not have seen past the modest floral tea-dressed exterior and unfashionably long (but spectacularly beautiful) hair to the quirky, perceptive mind. Like his Aunt Harriet, she had been at Shrewsbury College. Like his Aunt Harriet she had read English Literature. She just graduated.
"I wanted to do something useful straight away, but Mother and Father insisted that I finished my degree."
"So what do you do now?"
"I can't talk about that."
"I hope it isn't dangerous." What had made him say that?
"It isn't." she had said simply. "But…. Thank you."
Perfect grace and perfect manners. His uniform would tell her what he did. She had the tact to say nothing when there was nothing to be said, but the brief extra pressure of her hand made him feel appreciated in a way that no amount of speeches ever had.
Like his Aunt Harriet, she came from the sort of intellectual middle-class background his mother would despise. He thought her childhood had been more comfortable, happier than his aunt's. There had been friends and a sailing dinghy and holidays on the Norfolk Broads and in the Lake District. Unlike his Aunt Harriet she had an air of bubbling optimism, as if she found the universe fundamentally a good place despite current events. He became suddenly fiercely determined that no-one, most especially himself, should shatter that belief. She looked at him again – a calm, measuring look as his arm tightened about her. He had not meant it to. He kissed her cheek once, lightly, in silent apology. She did not seem to mind, but nor did she kiss him in return.
Dorothea (even her name was euphoniously polysyllabic) was not the sort of girl you took outside for a prolonged "breath of fresh air", not at any rate on first acquaintance. Instead, they danced every dance together.
She was so like his Aunt Harriet that he felt it would be unwise to mention his parents and the title that loomed over his future. She might object to the strawberry leaves as strongly as his Aunt Harriet had. Gerry was not minded to wait for five years.
It was safe enough to mention his aunt in Hertfordshire with her children, his other aunt driving an ambulance in London, his charming grandmother and her devotion to her vicious cat.
At the end of the evening, and it was not a very late end, he asked if he might see her home.
"I'm quite safe, you know." he said, seeing her doubtful expression.
"It's not that." she said.
"Look," had said. "I know whatever it is you're doing, you're doing it somewhere not too far away. I won't say anything about you to anyone else." He had not been intending to anyway.
"Thank-you." she said, coming to a decision. "I'll let Roger know he doesn't have to see me to the station."
Gerry, judging by the amount of attention Roger had been paying to a curly haired girl in a pink frock, thought he would be only to glad to have someone else see Dorothea to the station. In this, he might have wronged the boy. Roger had given Gerry a cool, direct stare.
Still maintaining eye contact, Roger had said, "See that you take very great care of her. I have her brother to answer to."
Gerry wondered how it felt to have childhood friends like that.
Thanks to the joys of summer-time and double-summer time, the June night was still not completely dark, but some stars were out. They were easier to see in the blackout. Gerry knew enough stars to point out to a pretty girl. This pretty girl knew a lot more about stars than he did.
He nearly left it too late to say, "Can I see you again? How could I get in touch with you?"
She thought for a moment, took a stump of pencil and a small exercise book which had been stuffed inside her gas-mask case, tore out a leaf and scribbled an address on it.
"Will you be alright?" he asked pointlessly, as she boarded the train.
"Of course. Thank-you for waiting with me. I enjoyed the dances, and meeting you. Goodbye."
And then she was gone and the train was gone. So she thought it was a meaningless gesture, that he wouldn't write, did she? In that case there would be a letter in the post for her before twenty-four hours had passed. He glanced down at the scrap of paper in his hand. Although not identical, the address had a lot of similarities to the one which would, in extremities only, reach his Uncle Peter when he was unreachable by other means. Gerry had not quite escaped the family habit of quotation.
"Curiouser and curiouser."
He said it aloud and then closed his fingers tightly over the precious scrap of paper. Physical resemblances notwithstanding, Gerry knew he was quite different from his Uncle Peter. Gerry was a flippant realist who definitely did not believe in love at first sight. It had been at least the third dance before he realised he had met the only girl he could ever think of marrying.
