by Anne Bennett
She was nervous about the party, and immensely glad Lois and Chris had been asked too. She was certain she would be amongst people from a different social class, and not at all sure whether she would pass muster.
This was exactly how Emma wanted her to feel. She had arranged the most lavish party. Jeff had grumbled at the expense and even Paul had queried the flamboyance.
‘And why shouldn’t it be a magnificent affair?’ Emma asked teasingly. ‘Not only is my son soon to be an eminent doctor, but he was also only recently snatched from the jaws of death.’
Paul laughed. ‘A little dramatic, Mother,’ he said, giving her a hug. ‘But that’s you, isn’t it? Should have been on the stage.’
‘What a tease you are, Paul,’ Emma said, tapping him playfully on the cheek.
With another smile, Paul went off to find his father, who was the one who would have to pay for his mother’s latest foolishness. And that is all he thought it was: getting one over on the neighbours, rubbing their noses in his success and stressing the fact that the Connollys could afford to celebrate in such a way.
That was only a part of Emma’s plan. The biggest part was to make Carmel feel uncomfortable—so uncomfortable that she would realise, without a shadow of a doubt, that she would never fit into their world. The guest list had been worked out carefully and Emma had adjusted the original seating plan to her advantage.
Unaware of Emma’s deviousness, Carmel worried what she would wear to such an occasion, though clothes were usually not a problem any more because the girls, much of a muchness in size, usually pooled all they had. Lois had a lot more than the others, and more expensive usually, but was always generous at sharing. So Carmel set out that night in a dress borrowed from Lois. It was pure silk of swirled autumn colours, the skirt billowing out from the waist and held out with petticoats that rustled deliciously when she moved. The hem was just below the knee. The court shoes were her own. The dark brown stole, which set the outfit off a treat, was one that Jane had got second-hand at the Rag Market.
Paul’s parents lived in a house Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield. The first Carmel saw of it was two stone lions that sat atop posts supporting wrought-iron gates. That night the gates stood open for arriving guests and the taxi drove down the sweeping gravel drive to pull up with a crunch in front of a house of enormous proportions.
Carmel looked at the three-storeyed dwelling with the beautifully tended flowerbeds either side of the white steps that led to a balustrade that ran around the house front and also to the oaken and studded front door. She felt her insides quiver with nervousness.
‘D’you live in something like this?’ she asked Lois in an awed whisper.
‘Not half as big or impressive,’ Lois said. ‘Uncle Jeff has real money.’
Carmel could feel her fragile shreds of confidence falling away.
Chris, seeing this and feeling very sorry for her, caught her up with his free arm, his other already entwined with Lois. Then arm in arm with both girls he announced, ‘We’ll do this in style, as if this is the sort of thing we are used to doing every day of the week.’
Carmel was grateful to him for lightening the atmosphere. She truly liked Chris and thought he and Lois well suited. Then Chris, with a huge smile of encouragement, fairly swept them along, their shoes crunching on the gravel, taking the steps at a run and ringing the bell with no hesitation.
‘God, Aunt Emma has surely pushed the boat out for this,’ Lois breathed in Carmel’s ear as a man, dressed in a butler’s uniform, opened the door and took their outer clothing, to be put in the cloakroom.
Paul came out to meet them. He took Carmel’s arm and led her into a huge room, which he called the drawing room, that seemed filled with people with drinks in their hands. Carmel was glad there were soft drinks on offer too and she took one of those while she wandered around happily listening to this one and that talking to Paul and addressing the odd word to her.
Then, she was claimed by Emma, who was pleasantly surprised by Carmel’s outfit, though she hadn’t revised her opinion of her lowly breeding. Carmel saw, with a little dismay, that almost as soon as she left Paul’s side he was surrounded by girls. Emma wasn’t surprised, for he had always been a popular boy and he was very handsome—and now, of course, as a qualified doctor, he would be very eligible indeed.
‘They are girls Paul has known for years,’ Emma told Carmel, following her gaze as she watched Paul almost being mauled by some of these rapacious girls, and laughing as if it was all one big joke. ‘They are part of our set, you see.’
Carmel looked at her. She might as well have added, ‘As you will never be,’
Emma went on, ‘Most have known Paul since their nursery years and they are members of the tennis club, or yachting club or sometimes both. Do you play tennis, Carmel, or have you any experience of sailing?’
Carmel’s eyes narrowed for she realised what Emma was doing and could do or say nothing about it without making an almighty fuss. But she wasn’t going to allow her to talk to her in that supercilious way and get away with it.
‘You must know, Mrs Connolly, that I would have little experience of either of those pastimes.’
‘But you see, my dear, I don’t,’ Emma said. ‘In fact, I don’t know the least thing about you and that is quite worrying because we really need to ascertain whether you are the right sort of wife for Paul.’
‘The right sort of wife?’ Carmel echoed.
‘Yes, one that will help him, enhance his career. Believe me, the right wife can make all the difference to a man’s prospects.’
They loved each other. Did that count for nothing? ‘Isn’t it up to Paul who he marries?’ she asked Emma. ‘Paul and I love each other and—;’
‘D’you know, there is a great deal of nonsense spoken of love?’ Emma said disparagingly. ‘Left to myself I would never have married Jeff. I fancied myself in love with a most unsuitable man and really I wasn’t all that keen on Jeff at all. It was my father who advised me to make a play for him. The other man could never have provided for me as Jeff has, and we get on well enough together. I never gave the other man a moment’s thought, for love, you see, fades and it is a very unstable base to build a marriage on that is to last a lifetime.’
Jeff appeared beside Emma before Carmel could think up a reply. ‘Come, my dear, don’t monopolise Carmel all evening. I want her to meet Matthew.’
Carmel had never met Paul’s brother before and he welcomed her with a bow and then, in a voice dripping with charm, commented on her small stature, her luxuriant hair, her absolute beauty so that soon he had her blushing. He kissed her hand with a flourish, but the hand was held a little too tightly, and the kiss went on too long, and when Carmel tried to pull away she couldn’t, or at least not without making a fuss. It made her feel uneasy.
Later she saw him walk across to Paul and, after looking pointedly in her direction, said something to him in French. Paul was annoyed with him and Carmel didn’t need to understand French to know his retort was angry. Matthew was not the slightest bit abashed and had a smirk on his face as he shrugged and moved off.
Carmel longed to ask what Matthew had said, but the party was too crowded to do that without being overheard, and Paul too much in demand to slip away. Anyway, she told herself, Paul had dealt with it. It was likely nothing at all, but she couldn’t help wishing that the party was over and she was back in her room at the hospital where she felt so at ease and could really be herself.
Things got worse when the gong was struck, alerting everyone that the food was ready to be served.
‘We are eating in the supper room,’ Paul said, as he crossed to stand at Carmel’s side.
‘The supper room?’ she repeated, never having heard of such a place. Then, when she glimpsed the room they were to eat in, her mouth dropped open in amazement.
The whole room was lit by three shimmering chandeliers overhead, and by flickering candles in shining silver candlesticks set down the whole lengt
h of the table, which was laid with a pure white cloth. Navy-blue napkins, folded in the shape of flowers, decorated each plate, and Carmel noted they matched the décor and the carpet.
But the napkins didn’t concern Carmel as much as the collection of gleaming cutlery either side of each place or the glittering array of glasses that glinted and sparkled as the light caught them. Carmel thought before she picked anything up she would watch Paul carefully.
As if aware of what she was thinking, Paul gave the arm she had thrust into his a squeeze and whispered, ‘Don’t be nervous. You’ll soon get the hang of it.’
Carmel nodded, though she doubted that. She had hoped that she might have been seated by Lois and Chris, but she was nowhere near them. Paul, as guest of honour, was at the head of the table, his parents and then his brother beside him, which left Carmel around the corner next to an oldish man who introduced himself to her as Colonel Thorndyke.
The food was brought in by young girls dressed in black dresses and white pinafores, while waiters hovered with bottles of wine. If Carmel had hoped that Paul might have been there to reassure and help her, she was to be disappointed, for Emma, on the other side of him, seemed to have important things to say to him most of the time and all Carmel saw was Paul’s back.
As the bowls of soup were served, she watched what Colonel Thorndyke did and copied him. He didn’t seem to have anything to say to her and she couldn’t think of any topic that might interest him and so they ate in an uncomfortable silence.
Obviously, the colonel must have thought this too, for when they began the fish course, he had suddenly leaned towards her and said, ‘Do you shoot at all?’
It was the very last thing Carmel would expect anyone to say as the opener to conversation with anyone, and she looked at him in stupefaction and repeated, ‘Shoot?’
‘Yes,’ the colonel affirmed. ‘Shoot. Birds, don’t you know? Pheasant, partridge, that kind of thing.’
‘No, I’m afraid I don’t do anything like that.’
‘I bet then you ride to hounds?’
Feeling more uncomfortable than ever, Carmel said, ‘No, I don’t ride at all, actually.’
The man was nonplussed for a moment and then said, ‘There might be the chance for a spot of bridge later. You do play bridge, I suppose?’
Carmel’s face was as red as a beetroot. In the whole room she doubted she could have sat near anybody who would more completely confirm Emma’s words that Paul was out of Carmel’s social class, and therefore out of reach, than this old colonel. ‘No, I’m afraid not,’ she said.
‘Hmph,’ the colonel grunted, and for a while there was silence. Then he suddenly leaned towards her again and said, ‘see that you are not married and that from your accent you are from the Emerald Isle—what industry is your father in?’
For a second, Carmel could feel hysteria rising in her and she had the urge to say to this old duffer that her father was in the industry of being in an almost constant state of drunkenness, with a nice spot of brutality thrown in now and again. Oh, what consternation there would be if she did. She would scupper all chances of ever being on even passable terms with Paul’s mother. As for Paul himself, he might say that he wanted to marry Carmel, not her family, but he would probably not wish her father’s excesses broadcast in such a way.
And so she turned to the colonel and said, ‘I am afraid I am here under false pretences and was only invited because I am a room-mate of Paul’s cousin Lois.’ She pointed down the table to her friend and went on to explain, ‘We are probationary nurses together at the General Hospital.’
‘Oh,’ the colonel said in surprise and then muttered, ‘Noble profession, noble profession.’
Noble he might regard it, but after that he couldn’t think of anything else to say, and silence lapsed between them again as the waitresses began to serve the main course.
Carmel was astounded at the amount of food she had eaten already, and from the card by her place name she saw that after the huge main course there was dessert, followed by cheese and biscuits, and then coffee and liqueurs, whatever they were.
The talk around the table had become more animated as people ate their fill and drank the wine copiously. Carmel watched the waiters constantly refilling the glasses. She had refused wine from the first, not sure about it at all, and availed herself instead of the iced water from large glass carafes left for people to help themselves. She noticed many ladies’ faces were flushed. The talk got louder and more garrulous and sometimes the voices were slightly slurred.
She felt quite lonely and exposed on that table. Everyone but her seemed to be having a good time—if you went by the raucous laughter, anyway—and everyone seemed to have something to say to someone interested enough to listen to it.
Occasionally, Paul would turn to her. ‘All right?’ he would ask, and what could she do but plaster a smile on her face and say, ‘Fine!’
She felt uncomfortable as she watched the amount of wasted food returning to the kitchens a little later and thought that it was hard to believe that more than half the country was in the grip of deprivation, some of its citizens near starving. She wondered if the people around the table were even aware of this, or if they knew full well and averted their thoughts away from such unpleasantness.
But then, who was she anyway to judge Paul’s parents and their way of life? Paul did have a social conscience. He had shown that in many ways, not least in the fact that he was working in a voluntary hospital, instead of slipping comfortably into the seat in industry his father would vacate for him, as his brother intended doing. She told herself to relax. Paul had insisted that he was marrying her and not her family. Couldn’t she afford him the same courtesy? No one could help the family they were born into. It wasn’t as if anyone had a choice in the matter.
By the time all the courses were over and Carmel was sipping delicately at the small cup of slightly bitter coffee and even more gingerly at the liqueur the waiter had insisted she try, which she found surprisingly pleasant, she was feeling almost uncomfortably full.
Then the waiters were there again, this time filling long tall glasses with something frothy and bubbly.
‘Champers,’ the colonel said, licking his lips in anticipation. ‘Can’t beat a bit of bubbly.’
Champagne! Carmel would have covered her glass again, but Emma wouldn’t let her. ‘We are here for Paul tonight,’ she said stiffly as the waiter hovered above her, bottle poised, ‘and you have drunk nothing but water.
Surely you can manage to drink one glass of champagne to toast his health?’
What could she say to that? She removed her hand and the waiter, with a wink in her direction, filled her glass almost to the brim.
Then Jeff was on his feet. The speech went on and on. They drank numerous toasts to Paul and his many achievements and accomplishments, to his full recovery from the dastardly attack and his success in his examinations, and then they toasted his future. Carmel thought champagne, with its frothiness and the way the bubbles went up her nose, just the nicest thing she had ever tasted and when the waiter filled her glass again she didn’t object.
‘Shall we rise, ladies?’ Paul’s mother said suddenly, as Carmel was draining her second glass of champagne. All the woman in the room obediently stood.
Now what was up? Carmel tugged on Paul’s jacket urgently and when he turned she saw from his slack mouth and his slightly vacant eyes that he had drunk more than was usual for him and that was before he spoke and she heard the slight slur in his voice.
‘It’s tradition,’ he told Carmel quietly. ‘The women leave the men to have brandy, cigars and a manly chat for a little while. I will be along shortly.’
Full of trepidation, Carmel arrived after the others, trying and failing to manoeuvre herself nearer to Lois. When she reached the drawing room, Carmel was forced to sit down next to a buxom woman she hadn’t spoken to before, who almost glowered at her.
Lois watched Carmel with concern, for she knew
now what her aunt was about and she guessed some of the ladies could give Carmel a hard time too if they had a mind to, especially if they’d had a lot to drink.
Barely had they sat, before Emma said, ‘We have a mystery person in our midst,’ pointing to Carmel. ‘Name of Carmel Duffy here. She’s from Ireland. That much we know, but she doesn’t seem to like talking of her background at all.’
Carmel’s gasp was audible to those near to her, which brought their speculative eyes upon her. In fact, Lois saw many of the women’s eyes light up. It was obvious that Emma resented or in some way disliked Carmel and so she was fair game to harass or annoy.
And harass her they did, throwing one question after another at her. She parried many of them—after all, she had had lots of practice—but they ridiculed many of her replies. Lois saw how agitated Carmel was becoming at the constant barrage of questions and in the end Carmel was almost forced to say that her father’s ill health made him unfit for work.
‘Why did you not tell us this earlier, my dear?’ Emma said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘It is nothing to be ashamed of, but when you are so secretive, it makes people think perhaps you have something to hide.’
‘That’s right,’ said Melissa in her drawling and slightly supercilious voice. ‘Makes one suspicious, you see? Are you sure there isn’t some other skeleton lurking in the cupboard that you would like to tell us about?’
Carmel looked at Melissa’s malice-ridden eyes and felt like one of the foxes some of these women hunted. Suddenly she seemed to be a source of amusement, and almost all the woman seemed to be laughing at her as an object of scorn and derision.
Lois, watching the scenario with worried eyes, didn’t know what she could do to help retrieve the situation, especially when she saw the woman beside Carmel touch her knee and urge, ‘Do tell what it is you are hiding, my dear. I love a good gossip.’
