The House at Mermaid's Cove(63)

We were greeted by a man who introduced himself as Major General Leonard Gerow. He was a great bear of a man, quite terrifying until he smiled. He seated us on either side of him at the top table.

There were no other women sitting with us. I glanced around the room, spotting Edith, Rita, and Marjorie at the other end. They were in a huddle, their heads almost touching. Whether they’d expected Jack to be there, I didn’t know. They looked as if they were weighing up the talent. There were dozens of other women doing the same, but the men outnumbered them. There would be no shortage of partners to choose from.

“Would you care to dance, ma’am?”

The invitation took me by surprise. It came from the general himself.

“Oh . . . I . . .” I glanced at Jack, who smiled at my reticence.

“Go on, Alice,” he said. “Enjoy yourself!”

There were a few other couples taking to the floor. General Gerow took my arm, guiding me to the center of the room. I tried not to flinch as he slid one hand around my back. I wondered if he could tell how nervous I was. The thought of getting the steps wrong—of treading on his foot or bumping against him—made my mouth go dry.

Luckily the dance turned out to be a waltz, something I’d learned as a girl. As we glided past the tables, he asked me where I came from, and told me his ancestors on his mother’s side had come from County Mayo.

“I love your accent,” he said. “I hope to visit Ireland one day, when all this is over.”

He was very polite—and his hands never moved an inch in the wrong direction, the way I remembered boys in Dublin doing. When the waltz ended, he took me back to our table. I caught one or two of the American soldiers glancing at me, possibly contemplating asking me to dance. I guessed that on the arm of their commanding officer, I was out-of-bounds.

There were two new people at our table when we took our seats. General Gerow introduced them as the bishop of Truro and his niece, Clarissa. When the bishop greeted me, I went hot with embarrassment. I could only imagine what he would say if he knew he was shaking hands with an ex-nun who had flouted church rules and was now masquerading as a relative of Viscount Trewella. To my shame, he beamed at me and said what a pleasure it was to have a cousin of Jack’s visiting the county.

His niece looked a few years younger than me and was very beautiful. She had long chestnut hair, which she wore loose, with two jeweled pins holding it back just above her temples. She’d been seated next to Jack, and as soon as the introductions were over, they were chatting away to each other. It looked like an intense conversation. Her eyes glittered as the light from the mirror ball caught them. And then she said something that made him laugh. Sitting between the general and the bishop, I couldn’t hear what it was that he found so amusing. I was trying to carry on a conversation with the men on either side of me while straining to eavesdrop. And all the while I was aware of a dull ache below my ribs, which turned into a stab of jealousy when Jack and Clarissa got up and left the table together.

The tempo of the music had changed to a much livelier rhythm. People were pairing off, almost tripping over the chairs in their hurry to get onto the dance floor. I lost sight of Jack. When he reemerged, I saw that he was holding Clarissa so close that their heads were almost touching. Her dress had a low, scooped back. His hand was touching bare flesh. Her hips swayed from side to side as they moved in time to the beat of the music.

As I watched them it dawned on me that Jack must have known that this girl would be coming, that he had brought me along as an act of charity, knowing that there would be other men for me to dance with while he homed in on the bishop’s glamorous niece.

Suddenly the room felt suffocating. I mumbled an excuse about needing some air and wormed my way out, squeezing past the scrum of bodies on the dance floor. But before I reached the door the music came to an abrupt stop. A man’s voice boomed from the stage:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the next dance is a number that comes all the way from the United States of America. In honor of the Second Battalion of the Fifth Maryland Regiment of the Twenty-Ninth Infantry Division, please take your partners for . . . the jitterbug!”

“Say, ma’am, would you like to dance?”

My way out of the room was blocked by a tall, slim American serviceman who looked like an overgrown child. His blond hair was shaved above his ears, and what remained stood up like a brush on top of his head. The pale wisps of the beginnings of a mustache clung to his upper lip. Before I could make any sort of reply, he grabbed me and pulled me into the crowd on the dance floor. His hand was clammy, like a damp washcloth wrapped around mine.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Edith spinning across the floor as another soldier flung her away from him in a move unlike any I had ever seen. The next thing I knew, my partner put both hands around my waist and hoisted me off the ground before thrusting me down between his legs. I emerged, breathless and indignant. But before I could draw breath, he began stepping out a fast, swaying rhythm that ended with me being thrown and spun like a yo-yo. The skirt of my dress flew so high I was afraid people would see my underwear. But as I patted it down, I saw that everyone around me was beaming—not at me, but out of sheer pleasure.

I began to relax a little, not fighting what my partner did, but trying to mimic his steps and follow whatever energetic moves he wanted to deliver. Just as I’d started to grasp the dance, the music came to an end. My American gave me a little bow and asked if he could get me something to drink.