Ultimate Prizes Read Online Free

thought a modern young woman like you would be interested in Victorian literature.”
    “It was the only thing our stupid governess knew about.”
    “You never went to school?”
    “No, and if I had I’m sure I’d have run away and begun my outrageous society life much earlier—with the result that I’d now be worn out. In fact if I’d been the heroine of a Victorian novel—”
    “Oh, you’d have died of consumption by now, no doubt about that,” I said, making her laugh, and we began to talk of all the literary heroines who had paid the price demanded by society for the flouting of convention.
    The conversation glided on, just like the river, glinting, glittering, gleaming, a hypnotic pattern coalescing into a unity beneath the white bright slice of the moon. Time glided on too, the time which should have been spent in the drawing-room, and every few minutes I told myself we should return to the house. Yet I never moved. The fairy-tale in which I was travelling had become more clearly defined; I now realised I was enacting the role of a male Cinderella and that when the clock began to strike twelve I would be compelled to flee from my princess, but meanwhile I preferred not to think of those inevitable midnight chimes. I thought instead how amazing it was that I, entombed in my sedate cathedral city, should be enjoying a scintillating dialogue with a society girl, and beyond my amazement lurked the absurd satisfaction that I, Norman Neville Aysgarth, the son of a Yorkshire draper, should be conversing in a palace garden with a millionaire’s daughter who had danced with the former Prince of Wales. I always tried hard not to slide into the repellent snobbery of the social climber, and of course I knew a good clergyman should be quite above such embarrassingly worldly thoughts, but the night was very beautiful and Miss Tallent was very amusing and I was, after all, only human.
    The metaphorical midnight arrived so suddenly that I jumped. Far away by the house Charlotte Ottershaw called: “Dido! What have you done with Neville?” and I saw my fairytale draw to a close.
    “I’ve ravished him!” yelled Miss Tallent, and added crossly to me: “What a bore! Now we’ll have to return to the drawing-room.”
    “And I must be getting home.” In my imagination I heard Cinderella’s clock relentlessly chiming the hour.
    “Must you? Already? But why?”
    The moment had come. I had reached the point in the fairytale when Cinderella had been reclothed in her rags after her unforgettable night at the ball. “Miss Tallent,” I said, “I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier, but I’m hardly at liberty nowadays to keep late hours with charming young ladies. I have a wife waiting for me at my vicarage. We’ve been married sixteen years and have five children.”
    For one brief moment she stared at me in silence. Then heaving a sigh of relief she exclaimed: “Thank God! Now I shall never have to worry about you pouncing on me, shall I? After all, what could possibly be safer than a married clergyman with five children?”
    “What indeed?” I said, smiling at her, and that was the moment when I realised what a prize she was, so clever, so stimulating, so attractive, so rich, so celebrated and—most alluring of all—so utterly beyond my reach. The familiar powerful excitement gripped me; I was always deeply stirred by the sight of a great prize waiting to be won. Then I pulled myself together. This prize at least could never find its way into my collection. There was no other rational conclusion to be drawn. In my politest voice I said: “It’s been a great pleasure to meet you, Miss Tallent. I doubt if our paths will cross again, but I shall certainly pray that you find the happiness you deserve.”
    “Don’t be silly!” She was aghast. “Isn’t it patently obvious that our paths are already divinely interwoven? As soon as you told me at the dinner-table that I was heroic I knew God had sent you to my