What was she saying to him? How Selene wished she’d stayed so that she could hear what it was they talked of with such earnestness. Oh, why hadn’t she dragged the stupid boy away, forced him to escort her personally, instead of flouncing off in a fit of pique simply because the girl had forgotten her? Well, she couldn’t go back now. It would be too demeaning.
She was on the point of driving away in a flurry of temper when she saw the trio turn and begin to walk towards her carriage. What was Bertie thinking of? Why didn’t he tell them to go away?
Then one of the girls - Rose, was it? A gnomelike creature with huge eyes and straggly hair - reached up and kissed his cheek, which seemed to delight the stupid boy. Then, turning, she skipped away in a most common manner. Thank goodness! Selene thought. Now if only the dreadful Lily Thorpe would do the same. But she did not. Worse, she hooked her hand in a proprietorial fashion around Bertie’s arm and walked right along beside him, with the kind of rapt interested expression upon her lively face as she gazed up at him that was so often recommended in the
Woman At Home
magazine.
Mama is perfectly correct, Selene told herself, almost tearful with suppressed rage. The creature is common beyond belief. Without doubt a harlot.
Seconds later, to her very real horror, Bertie was actually handing Lily into the gig.
‘You don’t mind squeezing up, do you, Selene? I’ve asked Lily to come to tea.’
Lily couldn’t believe her good fortune. Any other day of the week would have found her with her sleeves rolled up, hands all red and swollen and stinking of fish. Today, because of the excitement over the flight of the
Water Hen,
she had been permitted a half-day holiday. As a result she had met Bertie Clermont-Read.
She knew exactly what she meant to do. The idea had come to her on the instant Rose had left them, and he’d told her how he dreaded the prospect of afternoon tea with Dora Ferguson-Walsh, a dull, plump girl whose charms were located largely in her father’s pocket book.
‘How fortunate to enjoy such treats as cucumber sandwiches and cream sponge,’ Lily had gently chided, though making sure her lips curved into an enticing smile. ‘You wouldn’t find them in our house.’
He grinned at her, his boyish good looks making him far more approachable than the rest of his family. Frizzy, slightly sandy hair framed a smooth, untroubled forehead, rather like a halo about his head - though not for one moment did Lily take him for the angel a fond mama might wish him to be. The glint in his brown eyes told quite the opposite tale.
‘Do you enjoy cream cakes?’
‘Adore them.’ Lily had never tasted such a delicacy in her life.
‘Well, I dare say I should enjoy them too, if Dora were as jolly as you. She is so worthy, always busy with her Good Works. All she ever talks about is the pleasure she finds in serving others, and how a happy marriage is a man’s salvation, if not that of the whole nation.’
‘Poor Dora.’ She slanted a glance up at him through her lashes. ‘She’d make you a good wife, of course. Which I’m sure must be a serious consideration for any young chap.’
Bertie rolled his eyes in good-humoured disbelief. ‘So Mama constantly reminds me. For my part, I’d rather have a pal for a wife. Someone who knows how to enjoy life, and have a good time.’
Lily had put back her head and laughed, aware as she did so how his gaze lingered upon her pink mouth, taking in the white evenness of her teeth, and down over her throat to the rise and fall of her breasts, now satisfyingly full.
‘I say, why don’t you come too?’ he’d said, a slight breathlessness in his voice. ‘We could have ripping fun. And it would show dear Mama that I won’t be bossed about or dragooned into early matrimony.’
‘Does she boss you about?’ Inside, Lily felt a surge of jubilation. The invitation was even more than she had hoped for. She only had to accept and he would take her, one of the faceless poor, right inside his splendid home, to confront the very people who had so heartlessly ruined her life.
‘Of course. Adore the old thing, but once she gets a grip on a chap it’s hard to shake her off.’ He beamed at Lily. ‘Do say you’ll come. What a lark!’
She giggled. ‘Your mother wouldn’t let me through the door. I’d never feature on her list of suitable candidates.’
This of course had the desired effect of appealing to his sense of chivalry, and Bertie puffed up his chest in indignation. ‘Just let her try and stop you! A chap has some rights, despite all this suffrage business which tries to make us seem like worms.’
Lily laughed, partly to show she would never treat a man thus, but also because she knew little about suffrage in any case. Besides which, he really was quite amusing. Lily decided she might even come to like him, and for an instant suffered a twinge of conscience over the plan rapidly forming in her head even as she smiled and cast teasing glances to enrapture him. She could change her mind, even now. Did she have the courage to sit in Margot Clermont-Read’s parlour at Barwick House and tell her exactly what she thought of her? Did she want to remember the loss of her beloved?
Lily and Dick should have been married by now, living happily together as man and wife, he the best carpenter in the district and she a dressmaker, well on the way to making their fortune. Lily’s heart swelled with remembered pain. Making an extra effort, she put the memories aside, brightened her smile and politely accepted Bertie’s invitation.
If Lily sensed the freezing reception emanating from Selene, she made no comment upon it.
Bertie told Lily that tea was always taken in the little parlour. But as the maid showed them in, ‘little’ was not the word which sprang immediately to mind. Hung with dark landscape paintings, each one the size of a small door, on its pale blue walls, the entire room seemed filled with sofas, chairs and assorted tables, not to mention people. Even Lily in her ignorance could recognise the carpet as oriental, and so thick she dared hardly walk upon it.
‘You could fit the whole of our li’le cottage in here,’ she whispered in Bertie’s ear, making him laugh. She struggled to curb a sudden desire to tidy her hair, smooth her skirts then turn tail and run.
Selene swept past, chin high, and headed straight for two inoffensive-looking young men who were balancing cups, saucers and plates as they perched on spindly chairs. At sight of her, they almost overturned the chairs in their haste to be the chosen one, each vying to pour her a cup of tea and fetch an almond slice. Lily felt a bubble of laughter surge recklessly within her as Selene sank upon a chair with several tortured sighs and a hand pressed dramatically to her brow. The young woman clearly enjoyed melodrama.
‘Bertie darling, you’re late. Come here and kiss me at once, you naughty boy.’ A woman of statuesque proportions seated in a crimson brocade chair by the marble fireplace lifted her hand in regal fashion. Her round face and
rather sandy, fashionably frizzed hair marked her as Bertie’s mother, even if he hadn’t surprised Lily by doing exactly as he was bid. ‘Sorry, old thing. Went to see the
Water Hen.
Gripping stuff.’
Margot was not, for once, listening to her son’s excuses. Her small dark eyes had fastened upon Lily, lips already thinning with disapproval that such a dishevelled creature should be allowed to enter her drawing room uninvited. ‘And who do we have here?’
‘This is Lily Thorpe. She was given an unexpected half-day holiday because of the
Water Hen
and adores cream cakes, so I invited her for tea, as a treat.’
The silence which followed this artless introduction was awesome. Anyone with less stamina or reason to stay put than Lily might very well have chosen this moment to offer their excuses and depart. She stepped forward, tilting her chin, and smiled at Margot.
‘Surely you remember me, Mrs Clermont-Read? We have met once before. Though why should you remember? I’m sure it seemed of no consequence to you at the time.’
Had anyone dared to gasp, they would certainly have done so at such audacity. Selene fanned herself furiously. Margot silently seethed. Bertie, oblivious to the freezing atmosphere, pushed forward a chair.
‘Make yourself comfortable, Lily, and I’ll fetch you the biggest cream cake I can find. Milk or lemon in your tea?’
If she had derived any pleasure from this encounter, her enjoyment was soon about to fade. Margot, after all, was in her own drawing room. This was her home, these were her friends, and she was certainly not going to be put down by some young upstart from The Cobbles.
She made no attempt to introduce the girl to her other guests: Mrs and Miss Ferguson-Walsh, Felicia Morton-Cryer and her devoted mama, and the two young Heddington boys. Instead, she turned slightly in her chair so that Lily was not in view, was in fact slightly behind her, excluded from the ensuing conversation.
This ranged from the Royal Family, especially dear Mary of Teck, to the latest exploits of Lord Lonsdale, known as the Yellow Earl. Then moved on to the likelihood of war.
Margot declared her complete opposition to the very idea. ‘I cannot abide this alarmist view that our sitting rooms are about to be invaded by Russians or Germans. The country wastes near half our taxes on arming us to the teeth, yet who would dare start a war on England’s fair lawns?’
‘I believe they’d hope to fight it elsewhere, Mama. It might be quite a lark. We’d soon see them off.’
‘War is not a football match, Bertie,’ she snapped. Then more sweetly to her guests, ‘As my dear Edward often says, there is nothing to be gained by scaring peaceable folk in their beds. He is perfectly certain, and I agree, that there will be no war.’ She sipped delicately at her China tea, satisfied that no one, not even the British Government, would dare to disagree. An unhappy silence fell as everyone considered the consequences if she were wrong.
‘But I suppose we must be prepared,’ Edith Ferguson-Walsh ventured. ‘What if Armageddon should truly come?’
Lily thought the poor woman might faint clean away, so venomous was her hostess’s answering glare. ‘What do you know of the matter, Edith?’
‘Why nothing, nothing at all,’ the poor lady hastily demurred, wishing she’d never opened her mouth, but being the kind of nervous individual who must always fill a vacuum with words, however ill conceived.
‘Are you saying that I, as a fond mama, should prepare to send my only son to the trenches?’
‘Indeed no, Margot.’
‘But you claim to be an expert on military matters. Is that the way of it?’
Lily thought the hapless woman might burst into tears.
‘Dear me, no. Taking care of my darling Clive, and making sure Dora’s future is settled, takes up all of my time. I’m sure I wouldn’t dream…’ she wavered, fading into breathless silence, and shot a meaningful glance in Bertie’s direction. ‘Indeed. Marriage, dear Margot, is as you know my whole world.’
‘An admirable sentiment,’ Felicia’s mama fervently remarked,
silently urging her own daughter to move closer to Bertie, who was unfortunately too busy gossiping with one of the Heddington twins to notice.
‘Of course,’ Margot put in, ‘no one should embark upon such a serious venture unless they have the funds to do so. To my mind marriage should be the sole prerogative of the better classes who know best how to conduct themselves.’
Try as she might, Lily could not let this pass. ‘Are you saying that the poor should be made to live without the blessing of marriage?’
Margot addressed her reply to the plaster frieze above her mantelpiece. ‘I believe it better for all concerned if the poor remain single.’
‘To provide an army of servants for the upper classes, I suppose?’
‘The dearth of good servants is a severe problem, it is true. Too many, I am forced to say, do not appreciate how fortunate they are to be taken into a good Christian home.’
‘Meaning we - the poor - have no feelings?’ Lily felt herself grow hot with agitation, even more so when Selene gave a chirrup of laughter.
‘For all you’ve suffered a grievous loss, Lily Thorpe, it hasn’t taken you long to begin enjoying life again, now has it?’
Lily stared at her. ‘It’s taken two years,’ she protested. A lifetime wouldn’t be long enough. But she didn’t say as much. She had her pride.
‘What has taken two years?’ Bertie asked, puzzled. ‘What on earth are you all talking about?’
‘Do be quiet, Bertie. You weren’t there.’
‘Oh, you mean the accident? That’s ancient history.’
‘Certainly the less said about it, the better,’ was Margot’s tart reply, and she concentrated on pouring fresh tea, handing out delicacies from the many-tiered cake stand.
Lily had
never seen so much food in all her life. Cucumber sandwiches, as expected. Thinly sliced bread and butter with tiny dishes of strawberry jam. Scones and almond fingers, and various pastries filled with cream, which disappeared in one bite and simply melted in the mouth.
‘What do you think of our cream cakes, Miss Thorpe, since Bertie avows you an expert on the subject?’
To her very great annoyance, Lily felt her cheeks fire up, tried to swallow a piece of flaky pastry which caught in her throat, and began to cough.
‘Dear me. Pray use your napkin, Miss Thorpe, if you are about to spit and splutter. We never use a spittoon in this house.’