A Dark and Distant Shore (87 page)

Gideon grinned. ‘You think they might divert Uncle Magnus from your father?’

‘Nothing of the sort.’ Her soft eyes gleamed. ‘Although I feel quite giddy when I try to work out a seating plan for the table.’

‘I’m not surprised? Are you having the children as well?’

‘Oh, yes, all except Peregrine James. He’s really too young and it would make the numbers uneven. But I think it would be nice to invite Francis, and of course if he comes all the rest must, too. Twenty-one altogether. Surprising, isn’t it? I’ve never added them up before.’

‘You’ll forgive me for saying that most people wouldn’t think of twenty-one as an
even
number?’

She giggled. ‘I know. The thing is that even without Peregrine James I need an extra lady. That was what I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Oh, yes?’ He surveyed her warily.

‘I can’t think of
anyone
except Mrs Armstrong – you know, Peter Barber’s widowed cousin who lives with them? And while she is a very good sort of person, she is not at all sociable.’

‘Fine!’ he said promptly. ‘You can seat her beside Magnus. They should get on very well.’

‘So I wondered... Isn’t there someone
you
would like me to invite?’

‘Someone?’

‘Well, some – some lady of your acquaintance. Someone who wouldn’t consider it – er – odd to be invited to a Lauriston family party.’

So she
could
see beyond Drew sometimes! Gideon had thought that no one knew anything about Miss Selina Parker. The hair rising slightly on the back of his neck, he tried to imagine Selina let loose at Shona’s party. Selina was vivid, intelligent, and opinionated – with some justification, for she had been one of the first salaried female employees on a national newspaper and considered it the worst of misfortunes that she had narrowly missed beating Eliza Linton into becoming
the
first. It was a subject of which, regrettably, she never tired. But, apart from that, she was excellent company and one of those rare women who, while having no wish to be married, saw no reason to deprive herself of the pleasures of that state; she and Gideon had a very satisfactory arrangement. It was one thing to have an emancipated mistress, however, and quite another to introduce her into the bosom of one’s family. The morality of it didn’t worry Gideon unduly. It was just that Selina saw no need to gloss over their relationship, and while that was all very well in the circles in which they were accustomed to move, it would not be very kindly received by certain of Shona’s guests. Magnus, for example. It would be little short of cruelty to the old boy to expect him to swallow Selina as well as Perry Randall.

‘No,’ he said firmly.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite
sure!’

‘Oh. Well, I suppose it will have to be Mrs Armstrong, then. I hope she has no other engagement. You wouldn’t think it possible that next Thursday is the first evening for six whole weeks when everyone admits to being free!’

Gideon thought the ‘admits to’ was only a turn of speech. Shona had no reason to suspect that her most important guest had simply run out of excuses, even if, for the first week, these had been perfectly valid. Perry, he knew, had been fully occupied in setting his exhibit to rights under the pressure of constant interruption from a stream of visitors. But after that there had been an easier spell until the twenty-sixth of May, when the Monday-to-Thursday admission fee had been reduced to a shilling and more crowds had flowed in at a rate of over fifty thousand a day. Even Theo and Drew had returned to the hired house in Audley Street limp and exhausted, although Theo’s machinery attracted only a small number of well-informed visitors, and Drew’s hardware a large number of husbands and wives who were fortunately more interested in looking than in asking questions. But there didn’t seem to be a man in London, Perry said, who wasn’t curious to know precisely how the Colt revolver worked. ‘Mind you,’ he had added with a laugh, ‘I shouldn’t complain. Sam Colt’s having a much harder time than I am. He’s displaying a hundred
different
designs, which makes for a lot more questions and a deal more time spent answering. I guess I have the best of it.’

Even the less hectic days had still been long and tiring, and the evenings had been committed to a string of receptions, official, semi-official, and unofficial. But it was as if everyone had been playing an unadmitted game of hide and seek. Perry had attended the assembly given by the association of exhibitors, but Vilia, invited in her capacity as a director of Lauristons’, hadn’t been able to persuade Magnus to accompany her and had tactfully not gone alone. Theo and Drew had appeared at the Austrian ambassador’s party, but Perry hadn’t. Vilia had declared herself too tired to go to the French soirée. Perry had been there. When Vilia was at the machinery manufacturers’ ball, Perry was drinking tea with the Barbers. And so it had gone on ever since the beginning of May. It couldn’t be deliberate, but could it really be all coincidence? For no specific reason, Gideon found himself thinking of Sorley, and of Perry Randall’s housekeeper, plump, fortyish, and not unprepossessing, who had been hired with the house in Manchester Square. Sorley, even at fifty-something, still had a way with women. A spy in the camp?

On the following Thursday, at Shona’s earnest request, Gideon presented himself at Audley Street half an hour before the appointed time. ‘Just think if Drew and Theo should be kept late at the exhibition!’ she had said. ‘I don’t believe I could face it on my own.’

Despite the prospect ahead, he was in the best of humours, having that very afternoon signed a contract to write a book about America. Not the vulgar, incomprehensible America described in the many works that, over the last twenty years, had induced nothing but fascinated horror in the British reading public, but a serious, constructive, and above all friendly assessment of the exciting present and expanding future of a great subcontinent. It gave him immense satisfaction to think that, now, he would be able to put some of his literary predecessors in their place – including that fellow Dickens, whose
American Notes,
besides being exceedingly dull, displayed a misunderstanding of country and people that, in Gideon’s view, was little short of scandalous.

Shona and the children were already in the drawing-room when Gideon entered, Lavinia saying with a fifteen-year-old sigh, ‘Mama, you are beginning to twitter! Pray don’t. It is, after all, only a family party, and I have no doubt that Papa will be here almost at once to give you his support.’

‘Oh, I do hope so. Gideon, how providential that you should have arrived early!’

‘You asked me to.’

‘Did I? Heavens, how clever of me! Lavinia, dearest, do just run down to the housekeeper and make sure everything is all right in the kitchen.’

‘Again
?
’

‘It’s so difficult to know what one should serve at a family party,’ Shona complained distractedly when her daughter had gone. ‘If one provides an interesting menu – well, Grace is bound to accuse me of extravagance! And Uncle Magnus doesn’t like kickshaws. But if one doesn’t, Georgy is sure to start talking about French chefs and that certain
je ne sais quoi
that enables them to elevate even the most trivial dishes into something
extraordinaire.’
It wasn’t a bad imitation. ‘But at least’ – and she tweaked a ringlet into place before the mirror – ‘she will have less excuse here than at the Barbers’. I can’t imagine why the food at philosophers’ tables should always be so plain and wholesome. Was there something in Socrates about it? Heavens, here they are!’ Smoothing down the bodice of her gown and fluffing out its rose-figured skirts, she turned towards the door and waited, rigid as a prisoner in the dock.

It was the Barbers, with the unwanted Mrs Armstrong in their train. Grace was clad in a practical, mud-coloured satin that didn’t tone very well with her ‘archaeological’ scarab necklace, while Mrs Armstrong, a woman in her mid-thirties, was so unobtrusive that she was almost invisible. Petronella, however, made up for them both, though it had clearly been in the teeth of parental opposition. Scarcely had the preliminary greetings been exchanged than she said in ringing tones, ‘I appeal to you, Gideon! Tell mama that the world is changing and that females have as much right as gentlemen to dress as they choose. She considers this gown quite fast, merely because it is colourful.’ It was. ‘But I may tell you that, if it hadn’t been that I have no wish to shock Uncle Magnus, I would have chosen to wear trousers. Have you heard of Mrs Bloomer? I understand some of her disciples are coming here later in the year to spread her gospel. And high time, too. A good dose of Bloomerism is just what British womanhood needs!’

Mercifully, they were spared a discussion of Bloomerism by the arrival of the Savarins and Isa Blair. Grace had said that, though one scarcely noticed dear Isa, the Savarins made the house feel exceedingly full. Gideon could see what she meant. And then his eyes skidded past the overdressed Georgy to the two young people behind, and he whistled under his breath. Gabrielle and Guy. How in the world had the Savarins managed to produce this pair? They were very much alike, tall and willowy, with hair like thick amber silk, glowing dark eyes, and beautiful mouths. Too beautiful in the boy’s case, although the years would probably harden it. Gideon studied him with closer attention than he might have done, because he knew Theo was interested in him – not, Gideon had been relieved to discover, because of his looks, but because of his relationship to Magnus.

‘Ignoring the distaff side of the family,’ Theo had said, ‘and disregarding Edward Blair – which one would be only too delighted to do – Guy is the eldest of Magnus’s blood relatives, and consequently in direct line to inherit Kinveil if anything should happen to Juliana. One cannot, therefore, help being interested.’

‘Can’t one?’

‘No, dear boy,’ Theo had replied with a trace of asperity. ‘
You
may not care what happens to Kinveil, but Vilia does, and so do I. Guy is the first in line, followed by Ian Barber, and then by our very own nephews Jermyn and Peregrine James. Just think if the place were to go to Jermyn! Vilia becomes perfectly beatific at the thought of it reverting to a descendant of the Camerons.’

‘Does she, indeed? Well, it seems to me a great waste of energy. Juliana’s a healthy enough child and, besides, she’s a sweet little thing. I sincerely hope nothing
does
happen to her.’

‘So do we all, dear boy. So do we all. But even so, I look forward to seeing how Magnus reacts to Guy. If he dislikes him as much as he dislikes Jermyn – or more – then we should only be left with Ian. And, you know, Guy starts with the appalling disadvantage of being French, and compounds it by being artistic with a capital A. You’ll see what I mean when you meet him. He would be quite intolerable if it weren’t for the fact that he really means it. But Magnus won’t care for him. What a pity the Barber boy is so unequivocally worthy!’

‘Come on, Theo! He’s a perfectly reasonable youngster, and a damned sight more reliable than most. He’ll probably grow out of his stuffiness.’

‘Playing devil’s advocate?’ There had been a malicious twist to Theo’s smile, but he had dropped the subject.

Looking at Guy now, Gideon saw what Theo had meant. The boy was obviously shaping up to be a full-blown romantic of the kind that Magnus, who prided himself on being a man of plain common sense, couldn’t abide. He probably remembered Guy as he had been at the wedding in 1838, an obstreperous infant with a very inadequate command of English. Gabrielle, two or three years his senior, hadn’t looked much more promising. But now... Gideon whistled to himself again and, despite Selina’s teaching, caught himself wondering why she wasn’t married. Mlle Gaby didn’t look like a girl wedded to independence – or to lifelong chastity. He caught her thoughtful gaze, and gave her his best bow and most charming smile. He wondered who was going to have the tantalizing experience of sitting next to her at dinner.

Drew came running downstairs just then, full of apologies. He was always under pressure, always in a rush. Gideon knew that Theo had arrived home at the same time and thought, with amusement, that he was going to have difficulty in reconciling his usual pose of leisureliness with his undoubted desire to be present at Magnus’s first encounter with Perry. And Perry’s with Vilia. Neither Gideon nor Theo had ever seen Perry and Vilia together. Indeed, as far as they knew, the two hadn’t met since their portentous encounter in 1815. As far as they
knew.

Lavinia, returning from yet another embassy to the kitchen, cocked an ear and murmured, ‘A carriage. I think it must be grandfather’s. It doesn’t have the
weighty
sound of Uncle Magnus’s!’ Gideon grinned. He liked Lavinia.

With impeccable timing, Theo, who didn’t like Lavinia, reached the upstairs hall just as the Randalls did. ‘What a pleasure!’ Gideon heard him say. ‘We can have a civilized conversation for once, instead of all these disconnected expressions of goodwill we seem to have been tossing each other in passing over the last few weeks. And Francis, too. How splendid.’

Perry, neatly cornered, winked at Gideon, who had himself been transfixed by Peter Barber. The seconds ticked by, and the minutes, and then the drawing-room clock chimed the quarter –
Home, ho-ome!
–
and then the half
– Home, ho-ome! Sweet, sweet home! –
and then the three-quarters –
Home, ho-ome! Sweet, sweet home! There’s no-oh place like ho-ome
– and Gideon gritted his teeth and hoped something would happen to prevent him having to listen to the whole damned verse. The rest of the company, scattered around the narrow, double drawing-room, was showing an increasing tendency to fidget, and Shona clearly wasn’t hearing a word Mrs Armstrong was saying to her. Dusk was falling, and a servant came in to light the gas wall lamps, extravagant creations of plated bronze supported on voluptuous brackets adorned with winged tritons. Gideon didn’t care for them at all, but they and the opulently carved furniture and richly patterned walls were the main reasons why Shona had hired the house. ‘Drew thinks it
so
important that we should have somewhere up-to-date, because he will be entertaining any number of prospective customers, you know.’ Gideon’s own small house just north of Hyde Park was still lacking, like most others in London, the convenience of gas, but at least when you sat down the chairs didn’t threaten to impale you on an antler, or throttle you with some creeper from an ebonized jungle vine.