Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus (56 page)

“Have you read your etiquette book?” she demanded, putting three small cucumber sandwiches into her mouth at once.

“Y-yes,” stammered Tilly.

“Where have you got to?”

“The bit about snubbing. ‘The woman who cannot snub, on occasion, may be pronounced almost incapable of giving good dinners,’” quoted Tilly dutifully.

“Quite right,” said Her Grace. “The world is full of nasty pushing toads who don’t know their places. Keep up the good work. Pity no one’s come to call, but they must know my fairy’s getting a rest before this ball. I’ve only got you to talk to and it’s a bit boring, but nonetheless I’ll have to put up with it.”

Tea was enlivened by the arrival of the duke. He was a very tall, very thin man with a vague apologetic air, and he aspired to dandyism in a timid way. He was wearing a single-breasted sack suit with the latest in peg-top trousers, a high wing collar, and a polka-dot tie. He was carrying a novel in one hand.

“Found this in the library,” he twittered. “Who’s been reading this muck?” He brandished a copy of Elinor Glyn’s
Vicissitudes of Evangeline
which had just been published and damned in the press as “scandalous.”

“I have,” said his lady indifferently, removing a piece of watercress from one of the long hairs on her chin. “Wanted to see what all the fuss was about. There’s nothing in it except that it says that the heroine looks very becoming in bed.”

“What’s up with that?” asked Tilly, forgetting her usual silent role in her surprise.

The duchess looked at her with contempt. “No nice woman wants to look becoming in bed, that’s what!”

“I will not have that word spoken in this house!” declared the duke with surprising vigor.

“What word?”

“Bed!”

“Tcha!” said the wife of his bosom nastily. “What do I say to the upstairs maid if she leaves wrinkles in the sheet, eh what? ‘Mary, you haven’t made the er—er up properly.’ She’ll think I’m talking about the piss-pot.”

The duke subsided, yet looked ready to cry at this final vulgarity. Tilly took pity on him and tried to change the conversation. “What’s the country like at Glenstraith?” she asked. “Good hunting?”

“Don’t know,” said the duke. “Cruel sport. Poor little foxes.”

Tilly felt flushed and crushed. She had never thought of foxes as anything other than vermin. It seemed as if every single one of her ideas was wrong in this strange city.

“The Marquess of Heppleford hunts,” she finally said.

“Heppleford?” said the duke, momentarily diverted. “Sound chap. Something funny about his old man’s will, you know. His father died not long before yours and, of course, he inherited the title, but there wasn’t a will. Now the will’s turned up in one of the books in the library and Heppleford’s gone to see his lawyers today. He’ll be at the Quennell’s ball tonight but—I mean—there shouldn’t be any difficulty. He’ll inherit all right. The old marquess didn’t have any other heirs to speak of. He’s a rich young man in his own right, of course.”

Tilly felt suddenly elated at the thought of seeing the marquess again. Perhaps he might even ask her for a dance….

Poor Tilly had been dubbed the “Beast” by Lady Aileen and her frivolous friends. The Marquess of Heppleford, on the other hand, had long enjoyed the title of “Beauty.” Because of his startling good looks, he enjoyed high popularity with both sexes, the men accounting him no end of a good fellow and the ladies, down to the last crusty dowager, swooning at his approach. He had remained remarkably unspoiled by all this adulation, having a cynical turn of mind combined with a sunny good nature.

At that moment, however, he looked neither beautiful nor good-natured. His perfect features were marred by an angry scowl as he allowed his valet to assist him into a boiled shirt. His father had been very strange indeed before his death. He had frequently preached to his son on the merits of married bliss, aided and abetted by the marquess’s two aunts, who had marriageable daughters. Now the late marquess’s will had descended on his heir like a bombshell. The marquess naturally inherited the title, but he would not see one penny of his father’s considerable personal fortune were he not married one month after the reading of the will.

He had planned to marry eventually in his own good time. Now he was forced into a scrambled courtship. Although he was a wealthy young man in his own right, he would need every penny of his father’s fortune to keep the family home, Chennington, and estates in good and profitable order.

One aunt, Lady Mary Swingleton, had three daughters and the other, Lady Bertha Anderson, had two. All were quite well-favored girls, but the marquess had no intention of marrying one of his second cousins just to oblige. In fact, he was already hellbent on marrying any girl who would drive his scheming aunts into an apoplexy. He thought briefly of the beautiful Lady Aileen. Now, there was a young miss who would take the shine out of any other aspiring marchioness. Well, he would make haste to further his acquaintance with the beautiful Aileen at the ball that very evening.

Feeling better now that he had decided on at least some vague plan of action, he slowly descended the staircase of his town house in St. James’s Square to find his friend Toby Bassett waiting for him in the library.

Toby was often compared to the poet Byron, having a dark and brooding sort of beauty. Like his friend the marquess, he was tall. He had a luxuriant mop of black curls and dark liquid eyes that were often half-hidden by heavy lids. The marquess was well aware that his friend’s brooding air of mystery was because Toby was almost always slightly inebriated, being not quite drunk, not quite sober. But the ladies were not so aware, and wove fantastic fantasies to account for Toby’s strange, slumbering gaze.

“How did the reading of the will go?” asked Toby indolently from the depths of a Thonet rocking chair.

The marquess briefly outlined the terms.

A look of unholy amusement enlivened Toby’s brooding good looks. “Famous,” he said. “Nice to see you embroiled in some human difficulties for once, Philip. Had it too easy all your life. Drifted through your exams as a boy, drifted into wealth, drifted into the title…”

“It doesn’t disturb me now,” said the marquess lightly. “I shall drift into marriage just as easily. And who is going to refuse my title or fortune? I was pretty angry at first, and I’d still like to get back at those old tabbies of aunts of mine. I know they made Father put that ridiculous clause in his will.”

Toby abruptly lost interest, two minutes being his normal attention span. “Who’s the Beast?” he asked. “Glenstraith’s girl keeps telling funny stories about her Beast.”

“I don’t know,” said the marquess. “Probably someone she met at one of those society parties. You know, the latest thing. A mad artist or a tattooed boxer or something like that.”

“Probably,” echoed Toby, adjusting his tie in the looking glass and pulling down his white piqué waistcoat. “Shall we go?”

Tilly turned around in front of the long glass in her bedroom and considered that she looked as well as could be expected. The duchess had insisted on furnishing her with a new ball gown. It seemed very grand to Tilly, who did not know that the duchess had bought it at the Indigent Gentlewoman’s Annual Sale for a very small sum indeed, and only then because she was on the committee and felt obliged to buy
something
. Unlike Lady Aileen, who enjoyed the services of a French lady’s maid, Tilly had to rely on her own resources. So there was no one around to tell her that the dress was quite unsuitable for a plump redheaded virgin. The dress was made of coral velvet with a blue chiffon fichu that was tied with a black velvet bow at the back. The coral velvet, which clashed quite dreadfully with her red hair, was elaborately embroidered with pink roses and ended in a thick hem of fox fur.

Having decided that her gown, at least, was elegant, Tilly plumped herself down at the dressing table and studied her healthy, tanned complexion in dismay. Since she had been given one of the guest bedrooms, there was an ample supply of unguents and lotions in front of her. “May as well do it properly,” muttered Tilly to herself and unscrewed a pot of white enamel that was the foundation base used by every lady from Queen Alexandria down. With a liberal hand, she began to apply it to her face until a white mask stared back at her. Much encouraged, she opened up the onyx powder bowl and liberally applied pearl powder—made from bismuth oxychloride—to her face with a large swansdown puff. Then she tried to blend rouge into her cheeks so that she would have the perfect fashionable doll’s face. She had put her hair up over pads so that it seemed at least a foot high. Tilly decided to frizzle her hair at the front with the curling tongs to complete her appearance.

She set the tongs on their little spirit heater and then spat on them to make sure they were hot enough. She raised the tongs to her hair.

“Mademoiselle!” came a sharp cry from the doorway.

Tilly swung around with the curling tongs in her hand to see Aileen’s pert French maid, Francine, standing with her hands raised in horror.

“What’s the matter?” asked Tilly. “Is anything up with Lady Aileen?”

“No, it is
you
, mademoiselle,” said Francine. “The maquillage is so bad for you. All that white. It is bad cosmetic.”

Tilly looked at her in surprise and then picked up the jar of enamel. “Seems all right,” she said. “It’s called Blanc d’Argent. Very pretty.”

“But these creams have a base of lead, mademoiselle,” said Francine earnestly. “The lead, it eats away at the skin. Even your Jersey Lily, Lillie Langtry, she now have the dreadful skin from such stuff, so. And you must not frizz the hair. You have a natural curl. You have—”

“Francine!” said Lady Aileen, tripping into the room. “You must not stand here gossipping and neglecting your duties.”

“I was just telling mademoiselle that the maquillage, it is wrong for her.”

“Nonsense,” said Aileen. “Let me look at you, Tilly. Why, I never saw you look so grand. You’re magnificent. Leave her alone, Francine, and run along, do. Honestly, Tilly,” she went on as the maid reluctantly left the room. “You look grand!”

Tilly was surprised and gratified to see actual tears of emotion in Aileen’s eyes. She did not know that Aileen was trying to suffocate a delighted burst of giggles. The Beast had surpassed herself. She was too, too utterly marvelous. Just like a clown!

“You look marvelous yourself, Aileen,” said Tilly warmly. Aileen did indeed look like an ethereal vision. Her dress was of delicate layers of chiffon in sweet-pea colors and she carried an enormous ostrich-feather fan with diamond-studded sticks.

Despite the unexpected warmth of the evening outside, Tilly was happy and excited when she climbed into the Glenstraith’s victoria, which was to convey them to the ball at the Quennell’s mansion in Kensington. The victoria lurched dangerously like a ship on a stormy sea as Lady Glenstraith heaved her great hairy bulk into the carriage. Then they were off.

The London Season had begun. From house after house the music of the eternal waltz sounded out into the pale-blue evening—“After the ball is over, after the dance is done…”—as they trotted past other carriages with their ladies wearing high headdresses and their gentlemen in white waistcoats. Soon they were joining the other traffic under the yellow lights of Marble Arch.

Lady Glenstraith was leaning forward to say something to her husband, so Tilly took the opportunity to whisper, “Aileen. I’m so looking forward to this ball. Please… oh, please don’t make fun of me!”

Aileen’s beautiful eyes opened wide. “Make fun of you, my dear Beast? I
never
do. But you must call me ‘Lady Aileen’ when we are in company, you know.”

“And you must call me ‘Tilly,’” pleaded Tilly, still in that urgent whisper, “and not Beast.”

“Oh,
that!
” was all Aileen would say, shrugging a pretty shoulder.

Tilly sat back in the carriage and bit her lip. She had a sudden aching longing for the freedom of her days at Jeebles. Her evening gown already felt unseasonably warm and her skin itched under its layers upon layers of undergarments.

She miserably reflected that her duties as companion to Lady Aileen were indeed light compared to the lot of other paid companions. She did not need to read books or magazines to her mistress, nor had she a dog to walk. But in some cruel way her presence was always expected, as if Aileen were in need of a perpetual clown. It was an age in which society delighted in jokes, usually at some poor person’s expense.

Minor poets, boxers, jockeys, wrestlers, and mediums all found themselves raised to the glittering levels of court circles in order to be prodded and stared at and laughed at, and then just as suddenly, to be dropped back into oblivion.

And poor Tilly blundered about this society like some great immature moth perpetually burning its wings against the glittering flames of the wit of the top ten thousand.

The heavy scent of lime from the trees in the Kensington gardens reminded Tilly of the green oasis that had been Jeebles.

The carriage lurched to a stop outside a great square white mansion. The blinds were drawn and shadows waltzed across them, dipping and swaying.

As Tilly mounted the red carpeted stairs to the ballroom, she began to feel her first twinge of unease, her first inkling that all was not well with her appearance.

The Quennell’s debutante daughter, who was waiting at the top of the stairs to receive the guests with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Quennell, was attired in the same soft pastels as Aileen. One look into the ballroom after she had made her curtsy was enough to confirm Tilly’s worst fears. All the young girls of her own age were attired in pink or white or a soft mixture of pale pastel colors. Their faces were free of paint and most had only used
papier poudre
to take the shine from their noses.

Despite long windows opening onto a terrace at the opposite end, the ballroom was uncomfortably warm and Tilly stared down miserably at the fox fur edging her gown and knew, with a sinking feeling, that she had done it again. She was wearing the wrong gown and looked like a freak. Without any prompting she took her place with the chaperons against the wall and miserably hung her head. Someone once said that there is no emotional growth without pain, and in that first painful hour against the wall, watching the glittering, chattering dancers, a little of the gauche, overgrown schoolgirl that was Tilly began to disappear. It was with a young woman’s eyes that she glanced across the room in time to see the entrance of the Marquess of Heppleford.