It was as well that the night of the ball was almost on them, and there was little time during the daylight hours to think of anything else.
H
ANNAH HAD BEEN SENT
away to see that Amelia was safely dressed and not prostrate with too much excitement. Louisa and Edgar were alone in their bedroom. Louisa’s face already echoed the wine colour of her low-cut wide-skirted velvet gown. She wore the diamond earrings which Edgar had given her just a few minutes previously.
He had kissed her brow, and murmured, ‘A mere trifle, my love. Just a memento of the coming-out of our daughter.’
It seemed a very short time ago that Edgar had been preaching economy. Louisa didn’t understand business, but she imagined the stock market must have greatly improved, or some other windfall which naturally was her husband’s affair, had come Edgar’s way. Nevertheless, her delight over the unexpected gift was vaguely tinged with uneasiness, she didn’t know why.
‘So that explains Mr Solomon’s visit.’
‘As usual you are right, my dear. Well now,’ Edgar adjusted his waistcoat, and took a glance at his sideview in the mirror, ‘isn’t it time we went down? Let me say you are looking extremely well. If Amelia looks as well, she’ll be safely launched.’
Louisa preened herself, knowing very well that for all her weight, she was still a fine figure. But she was too hot already. Whatever had made her choose velvet? She had thought it a regal material, forgetting its suffocating warmth. She waved her feather fan jerkily. Although the windows were wide open no coolness, only a dark tide of warm air, came in.
‘Edgar! I’m worried about Fanny.’
A little of the satisfaction left Edgar’s face.
‘So am I. Does she show signs at all of changing her mind? Tonight is her last chance.’
‘She doesn’t confide in me,’ said Louisa shortly. ‘I know there’s that problem, too, but what I’m worried about is tonight. She’s in a strange mood. She can spoil Amelia’s ball.’
‘Spoil Amelia’s ball! Come, my dear!’
‘You know how she can be if she sets out to gain attention. Nobody looks at anyone else. Certainly not men. She has only to lift her eyes and give them that bold look.’
‘Bold? Fanny bold?’
‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ Louisa said snappishly. ‘She has never learnt it in this house, but she knows how to use her eyes, in a way our innocent daughter never will. I believe men feel they are drowning, or something equally stupid. Mr Barlow tried to explain it to me, but of course he’s in a state of ridiculous infatuation.’
‘I am quite aware that Fanny has magnificent eyes,’ Edgar said slowly. ‘And also great vivacity when she pleases. Sometimes, I am reminded—No never mind. What makes you think she won’t behave well tonight?’
‘Because she is desperate. She will finally have to marry Mr Barlow, of course, but first she may throw discretion to the winds. And you have insisted in dressing her in a gown that will make every other woman in the room look insipid,’ she added bitterly.
‘I haven’t even seen her gown,’ Edgar said mildly.
‘Oh, well, perhaps that was Amelia’s fault. She insisted the rose-coloured silk was Fanny’s colour, that pastels didn’t suit her.’
‘Then haven’t you taken care that Amelia looks just as well?’
‘Amelia is suitably dressed in white. She looks like a rose. But Fanny will look like—I don’t know—a poppy perhaps. Something too vivid.’
Edgar smiled reassuringly.
‘You’re understandably suffering from nerves, my dear. At least Adam Marsh seems to prefer a rose to a poppy, and that, I can make a guess, is all Amelia wants of this night.’
‘That’s another thing, Edgar. Who is Adam Marsh? We have never satisfactorily discovered. Oh, I know Sir Giles has heard of Matthew Marsh the famous collector. But it has never been proved he really is Adam’s father. We’ve never met any of his family. I grant you he’s a pleasant young man, but how do we know he tells the truth?’
‘That’s a thing we can go into another time,’ said Edgar, with faint exasperation. ‘I believe Adam’s aunt is arriving to live at Heronshall in a week or so. So that will be someone of his family whom you can meet. Our immediate worry, and I’ve emphasised this to you before, is to see that Fanny accepts Hamish Barlow.’
‘Yes,’ said Louisa, following her own thoughts. ‘I think it will be a relief to have her out of the house.’
‘We will miss her, naturally. But we must think of her future. It is vitally important that she should do this. Vitally important.’
‘Edgar!’ Louisa’s vague unexplainable uneasiness had come back. ‘You speak as if she has no alternative.’
‘Neither she has. Now I believe I hear the first carriage. It’s time we went down.’
Amelia was by no means prostrate. She was revolving round her room in a waltz, making the candles dip madly, and catching glimpses of herself, a fairytale figure, she thought, in the mirror. Hannah and Lizzie were watching admiringly.
‘Do you think my dress will be admired, Lizzie?’
‘Only them as is blind wouldn’t, Miss Amelia,’ Lizzie said, unable to take her eyes off what she thought was the most beautiful dress in the world. Its low round neck and puffed sleeves showed Amelia’s pretty, plump neck and arms, the crinoline skirt, looped up in front and trimmed with white roses, revealed a crisply flounced underskirt. Amelia’s bead-trimmed reticule hung on her wrist, her fan was made of silk and ivory, her white satin slippers peeped beneath her wide skirts. She looked like a dressed-up ringletted very shining and clean doll.
Then there was a tap on the door and Fanny came in. Lizzie went on thinking loyally that Miss Amelia was the prettiest thing ever, but Hannah was aware at once of the superior elegance of Miss Fanny.
The rose colour was not fashionable, her shoulders were too thin, there were faint hollows at the base of her throat (she seemed to have grown thinner in the last week), but when the heavy dark lashes of those blue eyes, the exact blue of the jewel she wore round her neck, lifted, then who could not be shattered by their brilliance? Certainly not that little man from the East, or any other man, unless his thoughts were entirely on a fortune in the bank, and not on what he might hold tenderly in the curve of his arms. Hannah was an old woman and had not missed any of the aspect of life which came within her province of bedroom and upstairs sitting room. She saw her ladies before and after gaieties, she saw them unrobed or in their finest feathers. She saw their smiles fall off like their gowns, their undisguised weariness, their boredom, their secret hopes, and their unsuccessfully hidden fears. She heard the chatter of women alone, or the whispers of the husbands, the scufflings, the sometimes raised voices, or the muffled sobs. She had learned human nature in the most revealing room of all, the bedroom.
And she knew in that moment that no one could meekly make Miss Fanny take second place, or marry a man whom she detested. She would rather proudly remain alone all her life.
‘Fanny,’ said Amelia, ‘you look very nice, but I do think that dress needed a little decoration. Miss Egham thought so, too. Some beading, or at least some ribbon bows. It’s quite severe, isn’t it? Now me, don’t you admire my roses? And the necklace Papa gave me?’ She fingered the pearls round her neck. ‘He got it from that Mr Solomon. He says I am too young for diamonds, but they’ll come all in good time. He is such an indulgent Papa.’
She was wholly wrapped up in herself, and certainly wasn’t sharing her mother’s fears that Fanny might spoil her evening.
‘You ought to go down,’ said Fanny. ‘It’s time.’
‘Yes, I know. Oh, dear, I’m so excited I could die. What about you, aren’t you coming down?’
‘In a little while, I’m bringing the children. We’ll wait until the dancing begins.’
‘Fanny! Aren’t you going to tell me I’m beautiful.’
‘Really, Amelia! You’re growing impossibly vain. You look very well, certainly.’
Amelia pouted and tossed her head.
‘I don’t look just “very well”. Already one man has told me I’m beautiful, so I don’t imagine it.’
Fanny watched her go down the stairs, her ringlets bobbing, her feet hardly able to resist breaking into a run. Certainly she did look pretty enough tonight, to turn any man’s head—whose head, like Adam Marsh’s, was not already turned. Fanny should have been more generous in her praise. She should have tried, for a moment, to forget her breaking heart.
The first dance was almost over when Fanny, with Nolly in her starched petticoats and Marcus looking pale and fragile in the rich scarlet velvet, came downstairs. The servants were in a huddle at the foot of the stairs, trying to see into the ballroom. They made way for Fanny, and cook said boldly, ‘The foreign gentleman was looking for you, Miss Fanny. Dora will keep the children if you want to dance.’
‘Cousin Fanny!’ whispered Nolly penetratingly. ‘You promised you would stay with us.’
‘And so I will. But do come and look at the lights and the fine dresses.’
Nolly stared into the brilliant room. All the windows were thrown wide open, but the hundreds of candles, swaying like yellow broom flowers, made the room already unbearably warm. The musicians on a raised dais played with verve and energy, and the dancers, the ladies with their great skirts ballooning, passed in small gales of wind. Uncle Edgar was dancing with Aunt Louisa, both of them looking flushed and triumphant, Amelia with, of course, Adam Marsh. Fanny made her eyes slip over those two, and sought for George and Hamish Barlow. Neither appeared to be on the floor. She sighed with resignation and led the children to chairs along the wall. She would have liked to stay in the anonymous darkness of the hall with the servants, but that wouldn’t have been fair to Nolly and Marcus. So let everyone see her sitting here, looking like a governess.
‘Cousin Fanny! Cousin Amelia’s dress is only white. It isn’t nearly as beautiful as yours.’ Nolly leaned smugly against her.
‘There’s Mr Marsh,’ cried Marcus, pointing.
‘He’s looking at us,’ said Nolly. ‘Mr Marsh! Stop dancing and come and talk to us.’
‘Nolly! What behaviour! People don’t stop in the middle of a dance to talk to children.’
‘Mr Marsh would to us.’
‘Yes, Mr Marsh likes us.’
‘Be quiet, both of you, and listen to the music.’
But their unobtrusive entrance had not gone unnoticed. They were not to be left in peace. Fanny had just noticed Lady Arabella sitting in her chair at the other end of the ballroom, and was pondering joining her, when Hamish Barlow stood over her, giving his exaggerated bow.
‘Miss Fanny! I have been looking for you. May I have the pleasure of the next dance?’
‘Cousin Fanny—’
Fanny shushed Nolly silent.
‘Thank you, Mr Barlow, but I have promised the children to sit with them for a little. This is a great event for them.’
‘I appreciate your kind heart, Miss Fanny, but surely their nursemaid—’
At that moment the music stopped, and the dancers began returning to their seats. Fanny was aware of Uncle Edgar, pompous and benign.
‘By George, it’s a warm night. This tells on an old fogey like me. Well, Barlow, are you persuading Fanny to dance. I promise myself one with her a little later if she will bear with me.’
‘Uncle Edgar, the children have never seen an English ball. I’ve promised to stay with them.’
‘And not dance! God bless my soul, what nonsense! Where’s that girl, Dora.’ He snapped his fingers. A servant came hurrying. ‘Tell Dora to come and take charge of these children. Your zeal, my dear Fanny, does you credit, but it’s quite unnecessary.’
Nolly aimed her little pointed boot at Uncle Edgar’s shin and administered a sharp kick.
‘I hate you!’ she said under her breath.
Uncle Edgar burst into a roar of laughter. It was loud enough to make many heads turn. The little group was the centre of attention.
‘So! You would bite the hand that feeds you, little girl? And you looking like an angel in that pretty white dress. Just like a woman, eh, Mr Barlow? You pamper and cosset them, and what happens? Something displeases them and they let you know it. By George, I love the dear creatures. Whims, pouts, tempers, and all.’
Marcus’s lip was trembling. Nolly prepared to outstare her uncle, her eyes glittering, but Dora had come and Uncle Edgar gave a sign of satisfaction, and moved away to his guests. The little incident was brushed-off as completely trivial, yet for all she had meant it otherwise, Nolly had played into Uncle Edgar’s hands. Once more he was able, in his jovial benevolent way, to show the assembled company his generous heart.
‘Do you dislike dancing with me so much?’
She was so thankful that he wore gloves. At least those freckles which gave her such a feeling of revulsion would not touch her. But his curved pale mouth beneath the sandy moustache, his narrowed eyes, his sharp alert face, were too close to her. She couldn’t escape his gaze while she danced with him.
‘I love to dance,’ she murmured non-committally.
‘And you do it beautifully. Those little feet are like birds flying. What’s wrong now? Don’t you like my choice of words?’
‘I would prefer you not to compliment me.’
He gave a short unamused laugh.
‘Really, Miss Fanny! For a woman not to care for compliments! I’ve scarcely seen you lately. I think you’ve been avoiding me.’
Fanny seemed to be intent on the dance. She looked beyond him to see who Amelia was dancing with. The Talbot boy. Then who was Adam with? She failed to see him.
‘Miss Fanny! I asked if you had been avoiding me?’
‘I have been busy.’
‘Oh, yes, I know about that. But I hoped also you were taking time to reflect on my proposition. Your uncle promised me that you were.’
‘Really!’ Fanny’s eyes flashed angrily. ‘It is wrong for one person to guarantee another’s thoughts. At least that is something one has in private.’
‘And these so private thoughts—have they been a little kind towards me?’
It was too late for mere politeness, too late to cover a rebuff in carefully chosen words. This man would understand only finality.
‘Mr Barlow, I gave you my answer on the lake. I am not the kind of person to change her mind.’