i
From that evening Patricia had no lack of companionship. She had fallen into a whole group of new friends and new Christian names. There was no end to the Dorises, the Bills, the Owens, the Hildas, and the Normans whom she met at every dance and every party. She sat on floors and talked with assurance; she danced with a score of men. During the daytime she did more dress-making than bread-work. In the evenings, carried away by the sense of new experience and new power, she added a veneer of alluring sophistication to her nature. Never had the face of life been so quickly altered.
At first it seemed to Patricia that these young men and women whom she now so constantly met belonged to a different species from herself. She had been brought up in a suburban atmosphere in which anything not perfectly respectable was done in secret. It had been a disagreeable atmosphere to her, because she was both impetuous and innocent, a combination of characteristics which always raises trouble for the owner. Regarding herself as a free spirit, she had received rebuffs from those more strict; and her candour had given rise to wrong impressions about herself in her own mind as well as in the minds of others. She had supposed that Patricia alone was in a state of rebellion against suburban laws. She had even exaggerated her own importance as a rebel. Now she found that these laws did not apply; and that in fact defiance of them was unnecessary. The young people of her fresh pleasure did not defy: they had forgotten. She became aware of a whole new code. A free spirit she still felt herself; but one in a world of free spirits. Along with the exaggerated sense of her own personality common to clever girls of our day she had also the good sense to realise the improvement in her own circumstances. Patricia rejoiced. She delighted in the feeling of wide acquaintance, of new liberty. It pleased her to meet cordial young people who were no cleverer and no more concerned with strait-laced morals than herself and whom she did not despise. She began at last to feel at home. They were young, free-and-easy, less mentally ingenious than she was, admiring, unaffected. It was as though she belonged to the same family as themselves, but was of a naturally brighter plumage. Her vanity was sensibly fortified.
And through all this new experimenting with her own strength there ran for Patricia something more precious still. The added significance which had been given to her days was due only in small part to this increased circle. The friends she made were a background; they filled in the picture; but no more. Every day was coloured and moulded for Patricia by happiness, the happiness of young half-love. It warmed her heart through the gloomy winter days; made her laugh, sparkle, sigh, with a new tenderness; and gave fresh life to all her perceptions and understandings. Occasionally she even glimpsed her own happiness, when the excitement of it was past and she sat more thoughtfully alone. And then the precariousness of it, the sense of insecurity, of withheld culmination, gave to the vision a fresh colour and zest of danger.
That one evening with Harry, which had begun so splendidly and ended in such dissonance, was but the beginning. The mixed crowd of people had resolved itself into two separate portions—the theatrical and the non-theatrical; and even the theatrical portion proved shortly to be a welcoming band. Bella Verreker was appearing in musical comedy, and she did not again encroach. Only the less aggressive girls continued to join the parties; and Patricia found that several of these, and some of the young men, were so far without regular paying engagements. They appeared in private or semi-private shows, for experience and reputation; and she had the first consciousness of forming a part of her generation. All were lively people to know slightly, and the non-theatricals, some of whom were Civil Servants and others of moderately independent means or of various artistic or semi-artistic occupations, were immense talkers and eager, but not expert, dancers. Beside them all, Harry was as distinguished in his way as was Patricia in hers. They were both welcomed, even sought.
Patricia felt herself alive at last. Letters came for her in the mornings and at night. Harry called for her. She herself gave a little party in her small rooms at the top of the house. It was fun to have seven or eight guests sitting with difficulty in the crowded space, and talking to their hearts' content. But more than that she enjoyed going to yet larger parties in more capacious studios, where the floor was sometimes cleared for impromptu dancing, where there was dressing-up, and where the games made them all laugh and talk nonsense together. She loved to swing into one of the brasseries of West End restaurants, to meet other talkative youngsters, to smoke cigarettes and sip little strange drinks. It made her feel very bold and modern and authoritative. And most of all did she enjoy the evenings which she and Harry spent together, dining at Paggolino's or some smaller Italian restaurant, and going together to a theatre or to Topping's or the Queensford or even to more popular halls where the bands were good and the floors better.
"If only," breathed Patricia. "If only one could never grow up! Always, always this beautiful...."