by Parks, Adele
‘Who’s here?’ she asked, turning her attention to more important concerns.
‘The usual,’ replied Lydia.
‘So, no one then.’
‘Ava, really! Is that any way to see in the New Year?’
‘You think this year will be different?’
‘Of course.’
‘Better?’
‘Of course.’
Ava couldn’t decide whether to pity Lydia’s incessant optimism or admire it. The women fell silent and for a moment were content to simply watch the other guests. This was the fun part of the evening, when the air oozed anticipation and no one had done or said anything they might regret in the morning.
‘Look, there’s Doreen Harrison,’ whispered Beatrice excitedly. After Ava, Doreen was considered the most beautiful woman in current society.
‘Don’t you mean Lady Doreen Henning?’ corrected Sarah. Sir Oswald Henning’s first wife had died of flu in 1919. Doreen was half Henning’s age; there had been talk, when she was a debutante, that she would marry Henning’s son, but he had fallen in France and so it wasn’t to be. Everyone hoped the young bride would be pregnant by spring.
Doreen had exquisite bone structure, but there was something about that jutting jaw that made Lydia ache for the new bride. She held her chin a little too high, suggesting that it was all too much effort. Lydia shook her head thoughtfully. ‘I always pity second wives; it can’t be easy. The original Lady Henning was so admired.’
‘Still, Doreen’s dresses are beautiful and they all come from Paris,’ pointed out Beatrice.
‘Have you heard? She’s having an affair,’ commented Ava flatly. She was very well aware that she was delivering scandalous news, but she affected nonchalance, implying she could not be shocked or even moved.
‘No!’ chorused the other three satisfyingly.
‘Yes.’
‘With whom?’
‘Her dance tutor.’
‘No!’
‘I promise you.’
‘She’s such an absolute jazzing flapper.’ Beatrice was thrilled yet flustered by saying the strange words out loud. She’d read them only last week, in a censorious newspaper. The daring term – which conjured up images of frivolous, scantily clad, coltish young women who drank, smoked and made love without discretion or purpose – did nothing to alleviate the impression that Beatrice was simply far too naïve to have any relationship with the words. Her attempts to appear worldlier than she was were doomed. Ava smirked superciliously. She was a woman who would have no problem with the term ‘jazzing flapper’; indeed, she had defined it a year ago, and now she thought the whole concept of being irresponsible and undisciplined a terrific bore. This year, or technically next year, she planned on being serious. Terribly serious. Except, that was, when it came to frocks.
‘Good news, don’t you think? Significantly improves the chances of Henning gaining an heir,’ added Ava with a mischievous wink. The other three women looked incredulous; largely their incredulity came from the fact that Ava dared to articulate what everyone else was thinking. ‘Oh, look, there’s Freddie. I must go and say hello.’ She melted back into the throng, leaving the other three girls battling with feelings of regret and relief.
4
‘I THOUGHT WE’D AGREED no gifts! My heart sank when she sashayed in our direction, with her maid laden like a donkey.’
‘Don’t be cross with Ava,’ Sarah urged her sister. ‘She’s trying to be kind. Hers is simply a different world now.’
‘Yes, I know. But we’d agreed. No Christmas gifts were to be exchanged.’
Sarah placed her hand on top of Beatrice’s. The gesture was supposed to be at once a comfort and a warning; she hoped that both sentiments might be conveyed through two sets of evening gloves. She could hardly say, ‘Beatrice, hold your tongue.’
‘How about I go and find us some drinks?’ offered Lydia, sensing an atmosphere but not entirely understanding it. The sisters nodded with stiff gratitude.
Ostensibly, the decision not to exchange gifts had been reached because Beatrice had joked about having no clue as to what to buy Ava – ‘What does one give the gal who has everything?’ – but Sarah knew that the real reason was because nowadays the sisters couldn’t afford the sort of presents that the girls used to regularly heap on one another. Samuel had done his bit, his best under the circumstances, but things were tight. Sarah knew that he’d fixed Beatrice’s annual allowance at £125; that had to cover clothes, laundry bills, travel, sundries and tips to other people’s servants. They were on many counts lucky. When their parents had died, within a year of each other, Samuel had made it quite clear that there was no expectation for Bea to leave the family home. Sarah and the children had returned there after Arthur’s death, but with Samuel so reduced, Seaton Manor always felt as though it belonged more to Cecily than it did to Beatrice or Sarah. Indeed, it did. And one day it would be their nephew’s. What then? Would they still be welcome? It was a question neither Sarah nor Beatrice liked to dwell on. To prolong their welcome as far as possible, the sisters tried to contribute to the household expenses when they could; neither had employed a maid since 1914, and they paid the butcher’s bill at Christmas and Easter. Sarah, as a war widow and mother of two, had been allotted a slightly more generous allowance; this, combined with Arthur’s pension, meant that she had £525 per year to live on.
‘Perhaps we should have realised that she would want to buy gifts,’ Sarah whispered to her sister once Lydia was out of earshot. ‘I bet Lydia has bought some too. Only she’s more tactful than Ava. Hers will be stored somewhere around and only produced to reciprocate. We could have dipped into my savings.’
‘Dipped into your son’s Eton fund to buy frivolities for our indulged friends? I don’t think so.’ In public, Beatrice was usually placid and respectful of the concept of rarely saying what she thought. For her to be quite so unguarded, she must be smarting under the slap of embarrassment and frustration.
‘Beatrice, remember we are rather better off than most.’
Beatrice scowled at her sister. There were few things as annoying as being faced with an irrefutable truth if it contradicted your argument or mood. ‘Maybe, but still.’ The emphasis she placed on the word said it all. Sarah understood. There were only so many hand-embroidered tray cloths one could present without people realising one was strapped. Economising during the war had been seen as patriotic, but now it had returned to being considered simply mean. ‘And it was the way she presented the packages. With such a flourish of grace. Limbs tapering in all directions like ribbons on a maypole. It is so annoying! One always feels so chubby and gauche in her company.’
‘Darling, you’re neither,’ Sarah said soothingly and untruthfully. Beatrice had not been blessed with good looks or good luck. In another decade her wiry hair, thick nose and heavy ankles might have been forgiven; some chap might have focused on her pretty smile or been convinced that her broad hips were promising, but now men could be so picky. Perfection and extreme youth beat promising childbearing hips every time.
‘How is it possible that Ava is two years older than I am?’ groaned Beatrice.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look at her, she oozes youth and vitality.’
‘She does rather. She suits the new fashions.’
Ava did not need compressors to reduce her breasts as Beatrice did. Her narrow hips and barely-there buttocks suggested the boyish athleticism that was all the rage. Beatrice had so many reasons to be jealous.
‘Do you think my hem is perhaps still a little long? Ava was wearing her skirt practically on the knee.’
‘I think yours suits you where it is.’
Beatrice understood her sister’s attempt at tact, and sighed. Ava had slim ankles, shapely calves and neat knees; the sort of legs people wanted to see on display. ‘Yes, Ava really is in a different world.’
‘It is a rather fabulous place to inhabit, don’t you think?’ added Lydia, returning wit
h three carefully balanced coupes of champagne, full to the brim.
Beatrice took a glass and an enormous slug. ‘It’s just hard to think she did so well out of the war when we did so …’ She didn’t bother to finish the sentence. Badly didn’t cover it.
Lydia stared into her drink; she would not contribute anything more to the discussion. Sarah knew that Lydia firmly believed she’d done rather too well out of the war too. She had no brothers to lose, her father was too old to be called up, and Lawrence – well, Lawrence hadn’t seen active service. He’d served, of course, behind a desk. The entire duration of the Great War, behind a desk. Every man aged between eighteen and fifty had been asked to stand up; boys significantly younger had rushed at it. Sarah had lost her husband; Beatrice her young beau. Their brother had lost his legs and an arm. It was so hard not to be bitter. Silently the three women had followed the same thought pattern and had arrived at the same conclusion. They didn’t know how to comfort one another; instead they watched the dancers and tried to recapture the party spirit.
As usual, there were more women than men at the party, and anyway the men’s black evening suits rendered them almost invisible among the women’s shiny, pretty frocks. Girls partnered one another, glad of the exercise and not prepared to start the new year with their backs to the wall. Lydia fought the urge to go and circulate. She couldn’t leave Sarah and Beatrice standing without company. If she did move on, there was little chance they’d be singled out to be spoken to. As a wife she elevated their cluster; alone, the other two women would be surplus.
Lydia spotted Lawrence across the room at the very moment his eyes searched her out. He was quite tall and extremely distinguished-looking, eminently proper. His hair was thinning, but she didn’t mind that. His sort did tend to go bald prematurely. Perhaps it was the fault of the wigs they’d worn in the Regency period, she joked to herself, refusing to acknowledge that the real reason she liked him balding was that he appeared older than he was. Too old to have been called up, perhaps. Not a draft-dodger. Not that he was. It was just that … Her thoughts were spiky and disloyal; they flashed like fireworks in the sky, startling. Smoke lingered. Thoughts lingered. Thoughts could not be controlled but, thank God, speech and actions could. No one knew her secret thoughts because she was careful not to articulate them.
She shot him a glance and he understood what she needed in an instant. It was rare for a man to have such a finely tuned sense of social nicety, but Lydia adored his perfect manners and was extremely grateful for his endless resource when it came to small talk. He approached the ladies, kissed their hands, asked after their health and their journey to the party. He told them they looked ravishing and then asked Sarah whether she’d like to dance with him. The widow always got the first offer. She rarely accepted, but Lawrence considered it his duty to remember Arthur every time he attended a dance.
‘No, you should dance with your wife,’ Sarah replied gently, but firmly. Lawrence was a sound dancer. He would not land heavily on her feet, as so many men did, but Sarah didn’t like dancing. She never had, much. Obviously, she’d had to dance when it was her season, but she’d been so relieved when she fell in love with Arthur and Arthur fell in love with her, and she’d known she’d no longer be obliged to dance with every man who asked.
‘Beatrice, you won’t turn me down, will you?’
Beatrice knew she ought to. Like her sister, she should redirect the polite and generous man back towards his wife, her friend, but unlike her sister, Beatrice absolutely loved to dance, was quite mad for it, and really couldn’t bear losing an opportunity to be in the arms of a man, if only for the briefest of moments.
‘Go ahead,’ Lydia smiled. ‘Sarah and I are going to hunt out the champagne fountain and get refills.’
Beatrice and Lawrence were almost instantly swallowed by the dancing crowd. Lydia linked her arm through Sarah’s and they started to walk out of the ballroom, into the room where the cocktails were being served.
‘That was nice of you,’ commented Sarah.
‘Not at all. I can dance with Lawrence whenever I want to. If we danced every dance together we’d have nothing to talk about over breakfast.’ Lydia reached for two fresh glasses of champagne from a passing servant. ‘Did you have a lovely Christmas with the children?’
‘Absolutely. My two, Samuel’s three, plus the cousins on Cecily’s side. I lost count of how many there were running feral. I think Beatrice had a wonderful time. She was certainly kept very busy. It was chaos.’
‘How is Samuel?’
‘Oh, you know my brother. Sammy never complains. Doesn’t say much at all.’
‘Quite.’ Nobody did. It wasn’t done. Still, such a cruelty: both legs and an arm. It was the arm that seemed most brutal; it meant crutches were out of the question. Sarah had heard it said, in such cases, that it was a comfort that the man had married and fathered before he’d gone to war, and she supposed it was, but she’d never been able to bring herself to utter those words to Cecily. Nothing seemed much of a comfort to Cecily.
‘How about you? How was your Christmas?’ she asked with genuine curiosity.
‘Lovely.’ Lydia hesitated, then added, ‘A little quiet.’ Sarah read between the lines and surmised it had been ghastly.
‘Did you stay in Hampshire, at Dartford Hall?’
‘No, we went to the in-laws at Clarendale. My parents joined us there.’
‘You ought to get a shorter table for the dining room when you move into the earl’s place,’ suggested Sarah. ‘I know the one they have now. It must be ridiculous for family affairs. Six adults around a table designed for twenty. I imagine it’s difficult to be festive, impossible to pull a cracker.’
Lydia giggled and squeezed her friend’s arm. Sarah had correctly imagined the sober scene: grandparents-in-waiting looking at their offspring, wondering when there would finally be news.
‘You’re terrible to talk about my father-in-law’s demise in that way, but you’re right. Next year I must invite friends for lunch, or at least tea.’
‘Believe me, I’m not in any way looking forward to the old earl’s death, but it will be convenient when you are in West Sussex too. Clarendale is just a twenty-minute ride from ours; we’ll be neighbours!’ smiled Sarah.
‘Maybe next year there will be a child to coo over,’ added Lydia, elaborating on the imagined pleasures.
‘Wouldn’t that be lovely?’
‘Yes.’ Lydia bit her lip and Sarah watched some of her beauty leak out and puddle at her feet. ‘I’m seeing another doctor on Thursday.’
‘Are you? Who?’
‘Doctor Folstad. In Harley Street. Came here from Norway. Has a fabulous record.’ Lydia didn’t look at her friend as she said this, because there was such a terrible feeling of déjà vu around the conversation that she couldn’t face it head on. There had been countless doctors with fabulous records.
‘Wonderful.’ Sarah rallied.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘He might have the answers.’
‘I’m very hopeful.’
‘Good show.’
‘Would you come with me?’ Lydia now allowed herself a swift glance at her friend’s face. ‘You could stay in Eaton Square with us, or if you didn’t want to be away from the children, I could have a car sent for you. Or I’ll buy a train ticket if you prefer.’
‘Certainly I’ll come.’
‘Thank you, Sarah. Thank you very much.’
‘Chin up.’
‘Absolutely.’ Relieved that she’d made the request and secured some support, Lydia beamed and threw back her champagne. She put the empty glass on a side table and reached for a fresh one. Lydia was honest with herself. She was not one of those women who hankered to hold an infant; she did not coo into prams or sniff babies to drink up their scent. Any child of hers would naturally spend many hours in the nursery and be significantly more intimate with his or her nanny than with any other soul on earth, at least in the early years. If it was
a boy, he would go away to school at eight. She did not see a child as an extension of herself, or her property, or even her right. Her desire for a baby wasn’t raw and instinctual, but more to do with an insidious, illogical but essentially real worry that without one she was nothing. She was useless. Pointless. What was the point of a woman like her if it was not to bring an heir to the nursery? None at all. She loved and respected her husband in the appropriate way. He was a decent, well-mannered, intelligent man, but he had never set her on fire. She had never expected him to. It was a good match. It had turned out to be a glittering one in terms of prestige and wealth, titles, all that, but it was an appalling one if she did not produce a baby. A failure. What would they do? What would they talk about as they aged, if there weren’t children and grandchildren? She did not want to be remembered as the woman who brought a three-hundred-year dynasty to a grinding halt.
5
LYDIA AND LAWRENCE stayed at the ball until one in the morning, a better show than Sarah and Beatrice, who had both left just after eleven, but pathetic in comparison to Ava, who would still be partying when the kitchen maids started to light the fires for the New Year’s Day breakfast of bacon and eggs.
‘Is Ava quite all right?’ Lawrence asked. He stood by as the butler held his wife’s mink wide, waiting for her to shrug her way into its softness.
‘She’s fabulous.’ They headed to their car and sat still while another two manservants placed large tartan blankets over their legs. The temperature had dropped below zero and the drive home would take an hour. Lydia was beginning to wish she’d agreed to stay for the weekend after all. She had been tempted, because it was so convenient, only she wasn’t keen on party aftermaths. The morning after always seemed so horribly real in comparison to the glamour of the night before; the men smelt and the women regretted. Everyone had a headache. It wasn’t pretty.
