Valley of Decision Read Online Free PDF

the triumph, either side of the footlights.
    Word was given that the cast, the orchestral players, the backstage crews were to meet some chosen cognoscenti or affluent backers for a self-congratulatory glass of wine and sandwich in the dining room.
    Sir Edward Brook-Fane, in evening dress with frilled shirt front, his few faded hairs exactly in place, appeared amongst the orchestra.
    â€˜Elizabeth would like to see you,’ he said to David Blackwall.
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜Now.’
    His cello was packed away and locked; his white shirt was open at the throat over a woolly pullover, but he shrugged and followed the baronet up deeply red-carpeted stairs.
    â€˜Is your wife pleased?’ David asked, trailing behind.
    â€˜You could say so.’ Sir Edward’s voice brayed; he was the descendant of squires and generals who bawled over hunting fields and barrack squares, of admirals blasting from the quarter deck. He stooped slightly, even decorously from his six feet five, as he ascended, and his hands and shoes moved prominently. He rapped at a door. A distant voice asked his business. He announced himself.
    In the brilliantly lighted room a grey-haired woman dealt with Dido’s dresses, smoothing them, spreading tissue, returning them to a wicker basket. She left that immediately the men entered the room and attacked a wig with a brush, motioning towards a closed door with her head.
    â€˜David Blackwall, darling,’ Sir Edward howled. The woman pushed past him, still at work on the wig.
    The inner door opened an inch or two.
    â€˜Sit him down, Thora.’ The imperious Dido in prose. ‘Go and make yourself pleasant, darling.’
    â€˜Anything you want?’
    â€˜A quarter of an hour. I’ll be with you.’
    Sir Edward pointed David to a chair, and wrapping the rags of authority about him, nodding at Thora as if giving some significant signal, left them to it. The grey-haired dresser chased about her chores, with speed, deftly, as Blackwall was left to watch her. She said nothing to him, hummed and now and then whispered some caution to herself or the costumes she tidied away.
    The door of the inner room was opened, and the diva appeared, in a man’s silken dressing gown. She seated herself immediately at a mirror and consulted her features, touching eyes or cheekbones with her fingers as if she needed further evidence of her obvious and gigantic beauty.
    â€˜I’m glad you’re here.’
    She did something to her mouth which necessitated the champing of teeth and thus inauspiciously grimacing spoke her sentence. He muttered a reply, but was forced to wait while she made up, however slightly, eyes and face, a process which required the withdrawal of her magnificent head a metre back from the mirror and then, as she leaned forward, returning it to within six inches. The operation, though intense, was silent and occupied five minutes, which seemed interminable.
    â€˜You know why I’ve asked you to come?’ She spoke at last not to him but to the looking glass.
    â€˜I can guess.’
    Elizabeth Falconer suddenly stood, swept off her golden dressing gown, dropping it on to the chair she had left. She was not naked, she wore white bra and panties, but the effect was almost as startling as nudity. Her shoulders, her limbs were munificently large, marvellously shapely, shining. The brassière was a considerable construction, the word ‘outworks’ suggested itself, to control the fullness of her breasts, lifting them, the cleft reduced, no gorge now, no deep valley, but a controlled and shapely division. She stretched her arms to reveal the shaven armpits and her head was perfectly pitched, balanced on the pillared length and strength of her neck. The whole body matched, supported the grandiloquence of features under her short curls. The cheekbones were high, mounts of Venus, her eyes almond-shaped and large with thin brows, the mouth capacious and