the table beside her. Realising from the startled yelp beneath her that she had sat on top of the new kitten, she extracted the tiny animal from underneath the cushion, relieved when it shook itself out and headed unruffled for the door. Smoothing out the folded pages of blue stationery, she began to read. Wallis wished to ask Evangeline a favour. Mentioning the dinner party at which she had chatted with the “charming Lady Joan Blunt,” Wallis expressed her sadness in discovering so late in the day that Mrs. Nettlefold had passed away. Wallis had heard that Lady Joan was encouraging her goddaughter to take a trip across the ocean and expressed the hope that a word from Wallis, her “oldest friend,” might help to convince Vangey to come.
“I would love to show you how life is so different over here,” Wallis had cajoled. “It might amuse you to know that this democrat has been taking dancing and curtseying lessons, though my curtsey is more of a mop than a floor sweeper!”
Given that her aunt Bessie was now too elderly to cross the Atlantic more than once a year, Wallis was missing the company of someone to talk to about the way they did things back home. She was not sure if Evangeline was acquainted with a fellow compatriot, Thelma Furness, with whom Wallis had previously spent a good deal of time. Sadly Wallis saw little of her these days, and if Evangeline could keep this one confidence to herself for now, the truth was that Wallis was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed by the British. Sometimes she did not know which nationality she belonged to. She loved the British dignity and their wide outlook but she preferred the American sense of humour and its peculiar brand of pep. Sometimes, despite the social swirl around her, Wallis felt a little out of things. Even the friendship of one or two special individuals (other than that of her dear husband, of course) did not wholly eradicate her sense of homesickness. She wanted to discuss all this and much more with Evangeline in person.
“Do come! Oh do!” she had written, underlining the words three times for emphasis. “We might even find you that elusive beau over here! He is bound to be waiting for you somewhere.”
A longing for her school days engulfed Evangeline. That long-gone sense of innocence and trust reminded her of the feeling she now had when about to put on a new dress, or when given a box of chocolates sealed up in its wrapper. Everything was lovely in the anticipation. There must have been a time, she though wistfully, when disappointment was an undiscovered emotion. The warmth and wit of her old school friend suddenly seemed deliciously tempting. The misunderstanding in the Baltimore bedroom with the “Chinese wand” was behind them and need never again be mentioned. Putting the letter back in the envelope, Evangeline made her mind up to go to England at once.
As the SS Thalassa switchbacked its way through the Atlantic waves in one of the worst crossings in memory, most of the passengers clutched their queasy stomachs in the privacy of their luxury staterooms. The outside temperatures dipped so low that the bottom of the empty swimming pool had cracked in the freezing winter weather. Evangeline counted her blessings that she was making this journey during the winter months so that one of her secret shames would remain undiscovered. Evangeline had a profound fear of water and had never learned to swim. Deck tennis and table tennis were also impossible activities in the heaving ship, but movies and bridge filled the hours between meals most satisfactorily. Evangeline found herself unaffected by the rocking motion of the waves, as long as she kept herself away from the terrifying sight of the rolling, cresting seascape. As a result she was often one of just a handful of diners in the restaurant and, lavished with the constant attention of dozens of under-occupied waiters, she felt the glee of a hippopotamus that had just landed on a thick and oozy mud bank.
With Wiggle in canine paradise, devouring as many sausages and biscuits as his small jaws could manage, Evangeline wished the voyage would take double the time. There had been cocktails and cigars, caviar and canapés, and she had enjoyed herself, the many invitations to dance with the perspiring assistant captain notwithstanding. Evangeline was not a gifted dancer despite the hours of lessons that she had undertaken