Justine Elyot (17 page)

‘Really, I have no objections whatsoever, for this is the closest papa will let me come to a ball until Christmas, no doubt.’

‘Oh, Mary. I do feel for you. It is very hard of him. We shall have a marvellous ball when all our guests arrive.’

‘Old relics from papa’s days in the regiment, I suppose. Not a man under fifty to be seen. Apart from one’s brothers.’

‘I suppose you will not want to dance the tango, then?’

Lady Deverell smiled broadly at her stepdaughter.

‘Come, Mary, come and dance one with me. You do it so beautifully. Edie, I don’t suppose you play …?’

‘Actually, I do. A very little.’

She went to the piano, from which Mary had risen, apparently eager to take any chance of a turn around the floor, even with her stepmother.

‘I will take the male part,’ said Lady Deverell, ‘and Mary the female. Watch us, Edie, and then you can try your own hand at it. Or foot, I suppose.’

Edie barely watched the dancers, too absorbed in trying not to stumble over her playing, but when she looked up it was to see two beautiful women, dancing fluidly and seamlessly around each other, burning up the space between them almost as if they were real lovers.

She played several false notes in her hurry to banish the thought from her mind, but she knew that this image would come back to haunt her when she went to bed. If it could find space in her mind that was not occupied by thoughts of Charles, that was.

‘God,’ exclaimed Mary once the music ceased and she laid bent back over the arm of Lady Deverell. ‘You had all society at your feet and you came
here
.’

Lady Deverell stood straight and patted down her skirts, turning away from Mary’s breathless scrutiny.

‘We none of us know what we have while we have it,’ she said. ‘You want what I had. I wanted what you have. Do you think the world will ever allow us both?’

‘The world hates women,’ said Mary. ‘So it’s unlikely. Wouldn’t you say, Edie?’

Edie stood up from the piano, looking between the born Lady and the one who had been made so.

‘That is a gloomy outlook,’ she said. ‘We have the vote now. At least, Lady Deverell does. You and I are too young, of course. But I’m sure that will be remedied very soon. We have all seen how instrumental women were in keeping the country going during the war.’

‘You may have done,’ sniffed Mary. ‘I saw very little of it, being packed off to school in Switzerland for the duration.’

‘I suppose His Lordship thought to protect you.’

‘And yet how cheerily he waved his sons off to the Front.’

‘Come now,’ interrupted Lady Deverell, clapping her hands. ‘We are dancing, not moping in the grumps. Come to me, Edie, and show me how much of what you saw was taken in.’

‘Very little, I fear,’ she said.

She had barely spoken the words when Mary, back at the keyboard, clattered into an intense rhythm and Edie found herself seized in a close hold.

Much fumbling and tripping ensued, only coming to a halt when a male voice spoke over the gasps and giggles and mild swear words.

‘You need someone to show you how it’s
really
done.’

Mary slammed down the piano lid.

‘Oh, go away, Charlie. You always spoil the fun. This is a Ladies’ Excuse Me – no gentlemen required.’

‘Yes, but how is anyone supposed to learn the tango like that? Let me be the man – since I am.’

Charles stepped in from where he had been leaning on the door jamb, a look of sardonic fascination on his face.

‘Oh, I don’t think …’ said Edie, while Lady Deverell simply left the room, calling Edie after her.

She looked back at him, then at Mary, who was making a droll face at her brother, as if fascinated by the sudden
froideur
and wanting an explanation for it. Edie hoped to God he would not provide one, as she scurried away.

What could he tell her anyway? Surely she would not approve of his activities with her stepmother – a stepmother with whom she seemed to be on a reasonably friendly, if jealous, footing.

***

‘He wants to plague me,’ muttered Lady Deverell. ‘He will not succeed. I will have no dealings with him unless strictly unavoidable.’

From around the next corner, the master of the house appeared, so unexpectedly that, for a moment, he and his wife regarded each other with the native bristle of cats encountering each other on some dearly desired territory.

‘Ah, Ruby,’ he said eventually. ‘I have been looking for you. You weren’t at breakfast.’

‘I didn’t sleep well,’ she said. ‘A slight headache, no more.’

‘Splendid. I mean, that you aren’t ill, not that you slept badly, of course, ha ha.’

Edie feared Lady Deverell’s hostility must be obvious to her husband, she made such a scant effort to veil it.

‘What did you want?’

‘Ah, yes, thought you might like to take a trip to town. Big do coming up this weekend, what? New frocks might be called for. What do you say?’

‘Oh.’ Lady Deverell brightened somewhat, granting her Lord a coquettish smile. ‘That would be lovely. It seems such an age since I was up in town. We must dine at the Ritz again.’

‘Absolutely. Such fond memories of the place. Well, then. Have your maid pack you an overnight bag and I’ll have Kempe bring the car to the front in an hour or so. Does that suit?’

‘Perfectly. I say, Hugh, might we bring Mary? The poor girl’s positively in the dumps.’

‘After the bally show we had this season …’ Lord Deverell frowned.

‘It’s one night. She’ll be with us. And she needs new gowns too.’

‘Well, I suppose so, if it’s your wish, old thing.’

‘It is. Go and tell her – she’s in the Blue Drawing Room.’

With a smile of ineffable sweetness, Lady Deverell glided on her way, Edie trotting at her heels.

‘Am I to come too?’ she asked.

‘Oh, no, I don’t think so. It’s just for one night and you aren’t exactly expert in matters of toilette yet, are you? I shall have one of the girls at Belgrave Square dress me.’

‘I am trying to learn, my lady.’

‘I know. Don’t take offence, for heaven’s sake. I’m merely stating a fact.’

While Edie packed a valise under her mistress’s direction, she tried not to think too hard about the fact that she would be alone in the house with Charles. No, not alone – that was absurd. The entire staff, plus his brother, would still be resident. If she wished, she could spend the day and night in the housekeeper’s office.

If she wished …

‘Do you miss London, my lady?’ she asked, folding a silk slip.

‘Every bloody day,’ said Lady Deverell, and Edie flinched at the unexpected language. ‘I didn’t expect to. Thought I’d had my fill of it and wouldn’t look back. But it’s in my blood, Edie, in my soul. Oh, I suppose you were hoping you might get a chance to see your father?’

‘No, no, it’s all right, honestly.’

‘Next time I’ll take you with me. In the meantime, practise dressing hair. On the kitchen girls, if need be.’

‘I think I might, my lady.’

‘Good.’

***

Sir Thomas was on the steps with Lord Deverell and Lady Mary, waiting for Kempe to bring the car around. Edie wondered if he had joined the party too, but it seemed he had not. Instead he was anxious to hand his father a list of items he needed from town.

‘Can’t promise all this, my boy,’ said Lord Deverell, eyeing the list from beneath heavy brows.

‘Perhaps Edkins will be able to get them?’

‘I’ll see.’

The crunch of gravel signalled the arrival of the car, and Giles the footman took Lady Deverell’s valise from Edie’s hand and went to stow it in the boot.

By the time the vehicle had disappeared with its pleasure party amongst the enclosing green at the far end of the drive, Edie, Sir Thomas and Giles had been joined by another – Charles.

‘Giles, I, er, need your assistance with something,’ said Sir Thomas hastily, disappearing inside with the handsome footman.

I think I know what, thought Edie, looking after them.

‘We’re rid of them,’ said Charles, speaking over her shoulder.

He was standing too close to her. She tried to step out of his orbit, but he took her elbow.

‘Come for a walk. Soon all the flowers will be dead. Let’s gather rosebuds while we may, eh?’

‘“To the Virgins, to make much of time”,’ murmured Edie, allowing him to draw her down the steps and around the corner of the house.

‘Precisely so,’ he said. ‘Who educated you?’

‘My father.’

‘An educated man and Ruby Redford. Seems an odd match.’

‘Perhaps that’s why they didn’t stay together.’

‘Perhaps. You don’t know? Your father hasn’t told you?’

‘He never speaks of it. I didn’t know she was my mother until … somebody else told me.’

Charles stopped and looked down at her, his face a picture of consternation.

‘Your father knows you’re here, I take it?’

‘No.’

He raised his eyebrows and exhaled a long whistle.

‘You’re a cool customer, Edie Not-Prior. So you’re all alone in this?’

‘Not quite. I have friends with whom I discussed and developed the idea. It was a bad idea. I see it now. I think that, when she comes back, I will tell her who I am and –’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ said Charles, holding her by both elbows now, shaking his head. ‘Don’t be hasty.’

‘It’s not your business.’

‘It is my business. I don’t want you thrown out of here. I want to keep you here.’

‘Why? After everything I’ve said?’

‘Because you’re a maddening little witch and I can’t stop thinking about you. Come on. Somewhere we can’t be overlooked. By the lake, perhaps.’

But Edie thought that the combination of Charles and sun and water was not to be trusted, after the way it had affected her in Maidenhead. She chose instead a little summerhouse in one of the less tended parts of the garden, overlooked today by the men in green baize aprons with their wheelbarrows.

‘So, then,’ said Charles, lighting a cigarette as soon as they were seated on moth-eaten cushions softening an old stone bench. ‘Let’s get this straight. You’re Ruby Redford’s daughter. Your father never told you about her. You found out yourself and came up with this hare-brained scheme to work for her. Didn’t you think of writing her a letter?’

‘Of course I did. I was afraid she would never reply. And, in her position, one doesn’t know who might happen upon her correspondence. I didn’t want to be responsible for jeopardising her marriage.’

‘Don’t you feel bitterness, resentment, hatred? Or do you reserve such feelings solely for me?’

‘Hush.’ She flushed deeply, wishing she could make up her mind whether to hate this man or … not. ‘It is hard to explain how I feel. I do feel cheated of something most people have – a mother’s love. I do feel disappointed in her and angry with her for abandoning me. But if, after all’s said and done, I still have a chance of having a mother – that is what means the most to me. That is the course I feel I must pursue. You do not understand.’

She saw Charles, his face impassive, eyes narrowed, expel a column of cigarette smoke.

‘No, I think I do,’ he said. ‘We all want what we feel we missed. If I could go back and have my youth again … but it would mean changing history. World history.’

‘The war?’

He nodded and took another drag of his cigarette.

‘But we aren’t talking about me. What if she rejects your advance, Edie? What if she breaks your heart?’

‘My heart is strong enough.’

‘Is it? Are you as tough as you like to think?’

‘I have thought about this. I am prepared to lose. I have a life to which I can return – a good life, where I am loved and valued.’

‘Then you are luckier than most.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘All the same, you might need a friend.’

He put out his cigarette on the floor.

‘A friend, yes.’

‘Don’t hate me, Edie,’ he said quietly, holding out a hand to her. ‘Let me be your friend.’

‘If I have a friend, I need to trust them.’

‘Didn’t you see what I did for you this morning? I severed my tie with your mother. I did that for you.’

‘You said you would tell your father.’

‘I won’t say anything. Not unless you want me to.’

‘You have conditions.’

‘No conditions.’

‘What, none?’

‘You are important to me. I care about you. I’m not making deals with you any more. I’m not trying to trap you or get you into my clutches.’

Edie looked away, out into the gardens where hollyhocks and lupins waved cheerfully in the breeze, a little foreteller of the coming autumn.

Could he possibly mean what he was saying? Or was it all part of his game? A new tactic – Mr Nice. Mr I-might-possibly-want-to-have-an-affair-with-you. He could have tried this tack with a dozen maidservants.

Something deep within her made her want to believe him so much that she couldn’t bear to question him aloud.

‘If you mean it,’ she whispered.

‘I mean it.’

‘What I said last night – about hating you. I didn’t mean that.’ She folded her hands in her lap, tense as a tiny animal in the shadow of a predator, expectant of its spring.

‘I know.’

‘Oh, you don’t know.’ She turned to him, indignant. ‘You always pretend you do, but you don’t.’

‘If you really hated me, you wouldn’t have …’ He smiled broadly.

She caught a breath and looked away, shame crimsoning the very tips of her ears. No, he was right about that. Damn him.

‘I want to hate you,’ she faltered. ‘But I can never quite muster it. I’m sure, if I got to know you better, I could do it.’

‘Well, there you are, then. Get to know me better and you can hate me properly. Or …’

‘I won’t fall in love with you.’

‘That’s all right then.’

He was closer to her now, close enough for their faces to meet and touch. He turned his head and spoke softly into her ear.

‘Prove it. Let me try to make you fall in love with me and see how long you resist. There is nobody here to see us. We have the house and garden at our disposal for a full twenty-four hours.’

‘There is your brother. And Mrs Munn. And all the servants.’