Flint and Roses (11 page)

My mother, who should not have attended a dance at all until her mourning period was over, or, if she managed to justify it on the grounds of family commitment and chaperonage, should have been excessively discreet about it, appeared in a black grown of the most stunning extravagance, cut as low as she dared, its flounced skirt encrusted with jet beads, her blonde head crowned by black plumes and swathes of spotted black net, designed, undoubtedly, to supply Cullingford with gossip for many a long day.

‘Aunt Hannah will not approve of that.' Prudence told her as we were about to set off, her light eyes very-much amused, but my mother merely patted the black rose placed strategically and most enticingly at her bosom, and smiled.

‘Ah well, dear. Aunt Hannah finds so very much of which to disapprove that one may suspect she enjoys it. And if I cannot win her favour then there is always Aunt Verity, who is the most elegant of women and who will not have, forgotten the value of a wisp of perfumed chiffon. Yes girls, you may stare, but I remember your Aunt Verity, in the days before she fell into such a trance of love for Uncle Joel, wearing a gown—my goodness, such a gown!—this one of mine would look staid beside it. Yes, a wisp of perfumed chiffon, no more, I do assure you, with gold sandals on her feet and a gold ribbon through her hair. Lord—how everyone stared, and with good reason: for when a woman uncovers her shoulders and paints her toe-nails one may be, sure she intends it to be noticed. And I may have been the only person in the Assembly Rooms that night who understood her reasons; certainly her husband did not, for I well remember how he scowled at her, as black as thunder. Yes, you may find it hard to realize that your aunts—and your mother—have had their share of heart-searchings in their younger days. Ah well, it is long ago now. Everything has been settled on that old score. And I imagine Aunt Hannah may be too preoccupied with your appearance this evening. Prudence, to give much thought to mine. Oh dear, have I said something amiss? If I did not know you to be incapable of such bad manners. I would almost think you were glaring at me.'

‘Naturally not, mamma.' Prudence said, her face sharpening. ‘May I take it that you have heard something concerning me and Jonas Agbrigg? If so, then I must tell you—'

‘Oh no, dear, please tell me nothing. I have every confidence in you, Prudence, and whether you mean to take him or not to take him—well—I am sure you are quite right either way.'

But Prudence, who had grown so brisk and businesslike of late, so very conscious of her rights and so very determined to preserve her new, hitherto undreamed-of liberty, slowly shook her head, detaining my mother with a gesture of authority unthinkable in my father's lifetime.

‘No, mamma, that is hardly enough. You must offer me a little more guidance or show me a little more involvement than that. Am I to understand that Mr. Jonas Agbrigg meets with your approval?'

‘My dear, he is stepson to my own sister, and I can do no more than share her golden opinions. Of course, he has no
money,
but he has the air of a man determined to succeed, I can only tell you that your father believed he
would
succeed—I forget at what—politics, I believe, of which your father was very fond. Power, you know, is very attractive to some men—and, to some women also. And, should you
care
to be the wife of a powerful man, Jonas may be a reasonable choice. Freddy Hobhouse will never be powerful, my dear, and he would spend your money far more recklessly than Jonas. He has nine brothers to settle in life, after all, and four sisters to marry, and your dowry, divided among them, would not seem so splendid. But I am sure you know that, dear, and that whatever you decide will be for the best.'

And telling us not to delay, since the carriage was already at the door, she patted her tulle rose once again and tripped away.

‘You wanted your liberty, Prudence,' I told her, and she smiled, half amused, half angry.

‘So I did. But I believe she could have helped me a little more than that. Clearly Aunt Hannah has let her know that Jonas intends to propose, and she has already given her consent. Well, so much the better, since I don't think he cares for it any more than I do—except that he needs the money—and the sooner it's over and done with the faster he can start angling for you, Faith. Who knows, he may even come after you, Celia.'

‘Well, and if he does. I shall not treat him as you have done.' Celia told her in the high-spirited fashion only the subject of matrimony aroused in her. ‘I know I am the youngest and that you and Faith think me stupid, but you cannot deny you have blown hot and cold with Jonas—and with Freddy Hobhouse too, for that matter. And that is the surest way to lose them both, and end up on the shelf.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes—really. And I will tell you something else. You may not have noticed it, Prudence, but both Freddy Hobhouse and Jonas have been making themselves very pleasant to me—oh yes, I know you are “not at home” when they call, and that Faith is always gadding about somewhere with Caroline, so that I am the only one here to receive them. But that does not explain why they have lingered so long, paying me the most marked attentions. To tell you the truth, Prudence, if they were not both half-way committed to you, I believe I could be Mrs. Hobhouse or Mrs. Agbrigg any time I liked.

‘Indeed?'

‘Yes—indeed. You should make your intentions clear Prudence. I believe people are of the opinion that until you are settled it would not be right to look at us. Aunt Hannah has said as much. And, if Faith don't seem to mind, I can't quite like it—seeing Heaven knows how many chances go by just because you are so hard to please.'

‘My word!' Prudence said, once again half angry, half amused. ‘Never fear. Celia. I will take whichever one of them should ask me first and endeavour to be married at the month end, just to oblige you. But it is cousin Caroline they are putting upon offer tonight, you know, so you'll just have to stand in line like the rest of us, Celia Aycliffe, and wait your turn.'

The whole of Tarn Edge was illuminated that night, a jewel-casket in the distance, spilling a diamond brightness over the acre of roses, the drive way fringed with wide-spreading chestnut trees, the sloping lawns; Aunt Verity waiting to receive her guests in a hall that had been transformed into a flower-garden a profusion of pink and white blossoms apparently growing from the marble at her feet, vast hob-house arrangements on every step of the stairs, exotic plants of an intense crimson, a barbaric orange, jungle-flowers and desert-flowers raising their expensive exceedingly rare heads among masses of polished foliage.

Everything was to be done that evening in accordance with Caroline's wishes—the proceedings to be conducted, in fact, in the manner of high London society, whose fringes she had once or twice encountered, and whose inner circle she was determined one day to penetrate—and she had really desired to take her stand at the head of the stairs like some Mayfair duchess, an arrangement which, her mother's ballroom being on the ground floor, would have forced us all to climb up the staircase and then down again, a manoeuvre deemed most unnecessary in Cullingford, where we were still suspicious of London ways.

But, this apart, everything was to be the essence of good taste and high fashion, an obedient procession waiting to shake their host and hostess by the hand and to murmur a word of congratulation to Caroline herself, her smooth shoulders rising, strong-boned, amber-tinted, from a tight bodice of white, embroidered silk-brocade, no demurely shrinking young miss but a hostess full-fledged, a triple strand of birthday pearls wound proudly around her throat, diamond and pearl drops in her ears, each ebony ringlet secured with a knot of silver ribbon and a pearl-headed pin.

It was, of course, too much. The pearls were too fine and too numerous, the diamonds inappropriate in a girl of eighteen. The silk brocade with its cobwebbing of silver thread was certainly extravagant, or so it would seem to Lady Winter ton, whose pearls had been eaten up long ago by the mortgage on her land, whose capable horsewoman's hands bore nothing now but a single antique ring: and to Lady Annabel Flood—the guest of honour, a social triumph for the Barforths—her own jewels and her dowry-having fallen early victim to the extravagance of her father-in-law, that old Regency buck, our manorial lord, who even now could not deny himself the purchase of a thoroughbred horse or an enticing woman.

Yet both these ladies arrived most flatteringly early Lady Winterton—for Lady Annabel's benefit—making a great show of friendship to that tradesman's wife, Aunt Verity; Lady Annabel, who apart from her connection with the Floods was herself an earl's daughter, a person of consequence in her own right greeting my aunt very warmly, forgetting, it seemed, that she had never before condescended to accept anything from the Barforths but an occasional invitation to take tea.

But now—sacrificing themselves in this vulgar company as English gentle women have always sacrificed themselves in the interests of their class and their clan—both these ladies were affability itself, having clearly decided after much heart-searching to hazard their sons in the marriage-stakes: Francis Winterton, placid disinterested biddable; Julian Flood already possessed at twenty-two of his grandfather's rake-hellish quality, which would make him unpredictable and expensive.

And behind them came the Mandelbaums with their musical, dark-eyed Jacob, Mrs. Battershaw with her hopeful Benjamin. Mrs. Hobhouse of ailing Nethercoats Mill with her Freddy and Adolphus and James, her eyes so dazzled by Caroline's diamonds that my twenty thousand pounds, without the porcelain, grew very pale.

‘Good evening.' Caroline said to everyone, ‘how do you do?', her smile never wavering, its degree of brightness identical for Mandelbaums and Wintertons alike, extending to Lady Annabel Flood, whose ancestors had arrived with William the Conqueror, no more and no less warmth than to Mrs. Hobhouse, who had no ancestors worth speaking of at all.

‘Good evening,' to each Hobhouse boy in turn, with nothing in her career-hostess's manner to indicate she had ever met them before, much less boxed the ears of all three, soundly and more than once, in childhood.

‘Good evening,' too to Julian Flood, who was indeed almost a stranger, glimpsed only occasionally in church or as he drove his grandfather's curricle at breakneck, arrogant speed through what he still considered to be his grandfather's town, her very refusal to single him out telling me that she was really very flattered—very excited—indeed.

‘Good evening,' she said to me, too intent on her own appearance to notice mine. ‘I shall pass my partners on to you, Faith, and if they have anything to say about me you can let me know.'

The orchestra, brought over from Manchester at the recommendation of the Mandelbaums was already playing in preparation for the dance, installed on a raised platform at the end of the long, white and gold ballroom where not too many years ago Caroline and I had run races, our skirts clutched high around our knees. Refreshments, of course were instantly on hand and would be served throughout the evening, claret and champagne and a tantalizing—possibly unnecessary—variety of cakes being set out in the small dining-room, accompanied by sorbets and ices, an endless flow of tea and coffee, to refresh the dancers and sustain the chaperones until supper-time.

But my mother, unlike the Ladies Winterton and Flood, who had evidently forgotten to eat their dinner, would take nothing but a glass of wine, satisfying her own appetite, I suspected, on the shocked, even hostile stares of Cullingford's matrons, and the stares of quite another order drawn from the widower, Mr. Oldroyd of Fieldhead and a series of other—in my eyes quite elderly—gentlemen as she passed them by.

‘By God, can that be Elinor Barforth?' I heard Mr Hobhouse demand of his comfortable wife forgetting she had been Mrs. Aycliffe these twenty years. And his astonishment could not surprise me, for, although she had always been a pretty woman, Cullingford had grown accustomed to see her following demurely in my father's shadow, a tender dove eating passively from his hand, with no hint of the flaunting, diamond sparkle she was exhibiting tonight. And if that sparkle was indecent in a woman just six months a widow, few could deny its allure.

‘We will not go into the ballroom until the dancing begins,' she told us ‘for although no one may dance with, me—poor little widow-woman that I am—I have no mind to sit among the wallflowers. We will wander around a little first and see what we can see, never mind the crowd. And if you are feeling faint already, Celia, then Caroline's nanny will be pleased to take care of you, for I am sure I cannot I have your sisters to chaperone, after all, and I must not fails in my duty. So run along upstairs, dear, if you feel you must.'

But even Celia, clearly disliking my mother's boldness, believing as she did that no lady should ever put herself forward, should shrink from attention rather than set out to attract it, would not be confined to the nursery on such a night and soon swallowed her complaints.

‘Good evening,' my mother said to all and sundry in quite a different tone from Caroline, her twinkling, dimpling smile, her nodding plumage, her artfully exposed bosom telling anyone who cared to look: ‘Yes, here I am. Elinor Aycliffe whom you thought to see crushed and helpless without her husband. Yes, here I am, bubbling to the surface of myself, and loving it—oh yes, loving it.'

And watching her, understanding each gesture, each nuance of her face from the part of myself which was, indeed, like her. I came near to loving her too.

The ball was opened by Caroline, my Uncle Joel taking her a turn or two around the floor, his eyes very well satisfied but straying from time to time to Aunt Verity, who danced first with Sir Charles Winterton, as the senior representative of the landed gentry, and then with Mr. Mandelbaum, reputedly the most prosperous of our merchants. Uncle Joel, abandoning Caroline to the multitude of her admirers, then danced with Lady Annabel Flood; and while these formalities were being observed my heart quickened, as surely the heart of every other girl must have quickened, sitting on those long rows of gilt-legged, velvet-covered chairs, as even Prudence's heart must have skipped a beat at the possibility before us all of disaster, or success.