The room was furnished in the heavy Victorian style of her grandmother’s social heyday. Thick plush curtains in faded puce kept back the sunlight and the visitors sat on overstuffed chairs upholstered in a similar colour. An occasional table covered with a velvet cloth was loaded with china ornaments and an arrangement of dried flowers under a glass dome, while the mantelpiece bore two large ormolu vases. Above it was an oil painting of the old lady as a young woman of twenty. Amelia Malham Brown was over sixty but she still retained traces of the delicate, fair-haired beauty that had captivated the upstart engineer, William Brown, when she was simply Amelia Malham and he was building a railway line across her father’s land. It was her beauty and his money that had made her the toast of London society and her landowning pedigree that had caused him to add her surname to his own more plebeian Brown. Now a widow of many years, she had to hold court in a rather depleted fashion but Leo was well aware that she was expected to rectify that by making a good marriage.
Her grandmother turned an imperious, heavy-lidded gaze towards Leo as she entered. ‘Leonora, you know today is my At Home day. Where have you been?’
Leo decided that the earlier incident, suitably edited, would provide her with the cover story she needed. Hopefully, it would give the ladies enough to talk about and prevent any further probing. If her grandmother were ever to uncover the fact that she had been attending one of Emmeline Pankhurst’s public meetings she would be summarily dispatched to Bramwell Hall, the family home in Cheshire, where her activities would be even more circumscribed, though there were times when she thought it might even be preferable to London. At least there she could have a horse saddled up and go for a good gallop.
‘I’m sorry, Grandmother,’ she said. ‘I was walking in the park and there was an incident – a horse bolted and for a while there was so much turmoil around the gate that I couldn’t get through.’ She turned to shake hands with her grandmother’s guests.
‘Bolted, you say?’ Lady Stevenage exclaimed. ‘How did that occur?’
‘One of those infernal machines, I expect,’ Amelia put in sharply.
‘They don’t allow motor cars in the park, Grandmother,’ Leo pointed out.
Her grandmother snorted. Motor cars were her favourite bête noir. ‘Out on the road. Near enough to frighten the poor beasts with their noise.’
Leo was saved from further questions by the appearance of Beavis.
‘Lieutenant Malham Brown and Mr Devenish, madam.’
The appearance of her brother aroused in Leo a familiar mixture of emotions. Ralph might have been born to wear uniform. He had gone into the Guards straight from school and had found his perfect setting, and the fact was apparent from the top of his glossy chestnut head to the shining toes of his boots. He looked, Leo thought, like a thoroughbred horse in the peak of condition and it was not lost on her that they were so much alike that people had been known to mistake them for twins, although he was the elder by two years. The sight of him always induced a thrill of admiration and pride, but combined with those was another, bitterer sensation, which she was forced to admit as jealousy. Try as she might to suppress it, she could not help envying his freedom of choice and his luck at finding a destiny that suited him so perfectly, while she was so constrained and limited by circumstance and convention.
Tom Devenish provoked a different set of emotions altogether. He was handsome, independently wealthy and the heir to a baronetcy, which made him in her grandmother’s eyes – and those of many other society matrons – the perfect catch, and Leo knew that most people thought she was mad not to encourage him. He and Ralph had been at school together and had remained close friends, but it was an attraction of opposites. Whereas Ralph was all dash and activity, unable to stay still for more than five minutes together, Tom behaved with a restraint that Leo found disturbing. She sensed that behind the mask of gentlemanly good manners simmered emotions that he was afraid to unleash. He had a good brain, and had read Classics at Oxford, but had left with a disappointing lower second degree when all his tutors had expected a first. Since then, as far as Leo could tell, he had done nothing but hang around the fringes of the Bohemian world in London. His one interest was in art and he had shown her some exquisite sketches and watercolours, but when she had suggested he might exhibit and even sell some he had reacted with horror. ‘I shouldn’t dream of setting myself up against the professionals. And anyway, people don’t want my kind of pictures these days.’ He was charming and courteous but his courting lacked any sense of passion or urgency. Leo knew that if she married him she could look forward to a life of ease and comfort – and the prospect made her want to scream with boredom. It was only occasionally, when he and Ralph were alone together in the billiard room and she heard them laughing, that it struck her that she was hearing the real Tom Devenish.
Ralph greeted his grandmother and the other ladies, then turned to Leo. ‘How are you, sis?’ he asked, kissing her cheek. ‘Behaving yourself, I hope.’
Leo felt a sudden urge to kick him hard in the shins, as she would have done when they were growing up together. Really, Ralph could be insufferably pompous sometimes! Aloud she said demurely, ‘As well as you, I expect.’
‘I’m sure Leonora always behaves with the utmost propriety,’ Tom said, taking her hand.
Little do you know
, she felt like muttering.
‘Lieutenant Malham Brown,’ Lady Stevenage interrupted, ‘you are a military man. What do you think? Is there going to be a war with Germany?’
Ralph turned to her and drew up a chair and Leo’s desire to kick him grew stronger. Anybody would think he was a general, or at least privy to the highest military secrets, from the way he behaved! ‘I’m afraid, Lady Stevenage, that it begins to look as though we may have to teach the Kaiser a lesson. But don’t disturb yourself unduly. It will be a short, sharp affair and as long as we have the Royal Navy you need have no fear of an invasion.’
‘What about these rumours of trouble in the Balkans. Should we be concerned about that?’
‘Just a little local difficulty. Nothing that will affect us.’
‘I think you are wrong there,’ Leonora said. ‘If fighting starts there it could spread right across Europe.’
They all looked at her as if the chair she sat on had suddenly found a voice. Ralph raised his eyebrows. ‘And why should that be? If the Bulgars and the Serbs are foolish enough to take on the might of the Ottoman Empire, I don’t see why we should allow ourselves to become embroiled.’
‘Because they are small countries that have lived under Turkish domination for centuries and they deserve our support.’ Leo ignored her grandmother’s disapproving looks. ‘And because Austria-Hungary won’t stand by and do nothing.’
‘Leonora!’ Her grandmother’s voice cut across Ralph’s response. ‘These are military matters and best left to those who understand them. Lady Stevenage, can I offer you another cup of tea?’
Leonora lapsed into silence, glaring at Ralph, but then she caught Tom’s eye and thought she saw the flicker of a smile.
Leonora woke the next morning with a sense of pleasurable anticipation and for a few moments she could not remember why. Then it came to her. She was meeting Victoria Langford for tea that afternoon. For some reason she could not explain their brief encounter the previous day had sparked a sense of new possibilities. If nothing more, the meeting offered a respite from the boredom of her normal routine. It meant telling her grandmother another white lie, of course. She would want to know all about Victoria, who her family were and so on, before she would countenance any kind of relationship. But it was not a problem. Grandmother was used to the idea that Leo always escaped for a walk in the afternoon and had come to accept it as preferable to the caged tiger that she became if confined to the house.
As she stepped down from the hansom cab outside the colonnaded façade of the Grosvenor Hotel in Park Lane she was aware of a commotion ahead of her. A yellow motor car was forcing its way through the throng of horse-drawn vehicles, in the face of angry shouts and skittering hooves. It drew up outside the hotel and there were gasps from the onlookers as the driver stepped out and was seen to be a woman. It took Leo a moment to realize that it was Victoria.
Her new friend saw her and crossed the pavement to take her hand. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. I was afraid you might have changed your mind.’
‘Oh no, no!’ Leo replied breathlessly, adding before she could stop herself, ‘You can drive!’
‘Obviously,’ Victoria said with a laugh. ‘Shall we go in?’
It was apparent from the doorman’s manner that Victoria was a regular and valued guest and a pageboy was dispatched to keep an eye on the car, which was now surrounded by a small crowd of curious passers-by. When they were settled in a deep sofa in the Park Room, with its long windows overlooking the park, and Victoria had ordered tea, Leonora said, ‘How did you learn to drive?’
‘My father taught me, years ago. He was passionate about motor cars. Making them and driving them. He could see that they were the future. One day, he used to say, there will be more cars than horses on the streets of London.’
‘You speak of him in the past tense.’
‘Yes. He was killed three years ago – an accident on the racetrack.’
‘How tragic!’
Victoria paused, her head slightly tilted. ‘I don’t know. He died doing the thing he loved. He would have preferred that to a feeble old age.’
‘And it hasn’t put you off motor cars?’
‘Good heavens, no! I love driving. It’s the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve raced myself, once or twice.’
‘You’ve driven in motor races!’
‘I was third in the Ladies Bracelet Handicap at Brooklands last year.’
‘How thrilling!’
The waiter brought tea in silver pots, with a plate of delicate sandwiches and a cake-stand full of exquisite pastries. Victoria poured.
‘What about you?’ she asked, handing Leonora a cup. ‘What does your father do?’
‘Strangely enough, he is dead, too. But he was a scholar and a great traveller. Archaeology was his great passion.’
‘How fascinating! And your mother – does she share that passion?’
‘I don’t remember her. She died soon after I was born.’
‘I’m sorry, but it is a strange coincidence. My mother died when I was twelve, so we’re both orphans. I felt as soon as we met that we had something in common. Are you an only child?’
‘No, I have an older brother, Ralph. What about you?’
‘Oh, I’m the only one. My mother used to say one of me was quite enough for her to cope with. It must have made things very difficult for your father, being left with two small children. Who brought you up?’
‘He did. He kept us with him until Ralph was twelve. Then he was sent back to school in England, but I stayed with Father until I was fifteen.’
‘So you must have seen some marvellous places.’
‘Yes, it’s true. One of my earliest memories is of playing in the dirt while my father unearthed treasures from the ruins of Troy.’
‘What a wonderful experience. I do envy you. You must miss it now – and him.’
‘Oh, I do! I do!’ Leo said, shaking her head sadly.
‘So who do you live with now?’
‘My grandmother. She has the difficult task of turning me into a lady and finding me a suitable husband.’
‘Any prospects?’
‘Only one – and I have no intention of marrying him.’
‘Good for you!’
‘And you? You’re not married.’
‘No fear! I’m very fortunate. My father left me well provided for so I have the freedom to do as I please. I’ve no desire to give all that up to become part of some man’s goods and chattels.’
‘You are lucky,’ Leo agreed. ‘My father left me money but it’s in trust and I can’t touch it till I’m twenty-one. So for the present I’m completely dependent on Grandmother.’
‘No woman should be dependent on a man or a relative for subsistence,’ Victoria pronounced.
‘You sound like a suffragette.’
‘Well, I sympathize with their objectives. But I don’t agree with their methods.’
‘But how else are we ever going to convince the men in government that they have to listen to us?’
‘By proving that women can be as rational and clear-headed as any man. That we’re capable of organizing and working together. And above all, that we are as brave and as patriotic as men. That’s why I joined the FANY.’
‘The what?’ Leonora queried, wide-eyed.
‘It stands for First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.’
‘Is that who you were with yesterday?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What do you do, exactly?’
Victoria put down her cup. ‘Imagine a battlefield in the aftermath of a battle. The ground is strewn with bodies. Some are dead but many are just wounded, but unable to make their own way back to the lines. Some may bleed to death unless there is someone to staunch their wounds. Now imagine a corps of mounted nurses who gallop onto the battlefield to care for them. How does that picture strike you?’
Leo laughed. ‘It sounds terribly romantic but I don’t know if it’s practical. Is that what the FANY do?’
‘It’s what our founder intended. He was wounded at the battle of Omdurman and saw the need for something of the sort, so when he left the army he set about recruiting young women with a spirit of adventure and that’s how the FANY was born. But you’re right. It is just a romantic idea. If there ever is another war, and it looks all too likely, it won’t be fought on horses but with motor cars and aeroplanes.’
‘So the FANY won’t be any use?’
‘On the contrary. People trained in first aid will still be needed to bring the wounded from the field of battle to the casualty stations, whether on horseback or in motor vehicles. That will be our opportunity to show that we are worthy of taking an equal part in society with the men.’